Afraid you won’t have enough to retire comfortably? You’re not alone, and a debt-fueled lifestyle is often a big part of the problem. As the 2014 EBRI Retirement Confidence Survey notes: Fifty-eight percent of workers and 44 percent of retirees report having a problem with their level of debt. Furthermore, 24 percent of workers and 17 percent of retirees indicate that their current level of debt is higher than it was five years ago. Cost of living and day-to-day expenses head the list of reasons why workers do not save (or save more) for retirement, with 53 percent of workers citing this factor. Retiring rich means you can maintain a comfortable lifestyle without constantly worrying about money. The plan for getting there isn’t complicated: save more; spend less; invest well. That doesn’t mean it’s not difficult. This might sound like a no-brainer, but it’s downright impossible to save more unless you spend less—and for some folks that means a lot less. Sad to say, many baby boomers were never taught to live below their means. Quite the contrary; the credit card culture that blossomed as boomers moved into adulthood encouraged them to spend, spend, and spend some more. If you don’t have the cash, just charge it! This is no way to get rich. Most boomers knew they should save early on, but many kept putting it off until later. Unfortunately, those who let “later” run up against their 60th birthday are screwed.The Not So Mysterious First Step Anyone who doesn’t want to be screwed should begin the first step toward saving today: get out of debt. It might take three months, three years, or a decade (hopefully that means you’re 30). Whatever your time frame, this demands a change in attitude and lifestyle. For people used to using debt for instant gratification, it can be a challenge on par with quitting smoking or hiking Mt. Everest. But remember, some people do quit smoking, and others do, in fact, hike Mt. Everest.Turning Awareness into Action People are generally aware that they need to up their savings if they want to retire comfortably. The EBRI report states that “20 percent say they need to save between 20 and 29 percent of their income and another 22 percent indicate they need to save 30 percent or more.” If you run the projections and realize you don’t have enough money saved, you have three options: Work longer, get out of debt, and accumulate as much as you can. Radically adjust your lifestyle. Say you’re already retired and lived a $100,000-lifestyle during your working years. If you haven’t accumulated a large enough nest egg to generate that kind of income, adjust your lifestyle now before you find yourself in your 80s or 90s, depending on Social Security or family. Resign yourself to working the rest of your life in order to survive. Option 3 is no laughing matter—and for many folks it will be reality. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that workforce participation for people age 75 and over will rise to 10.5% by 2022, up from 7.6% in 2012. For the 65-74 age group, it projects that the rate will jump to 31.9%, up from 26.8% in 2012 and 20.4% in 2002. If you’re still healthy and sharp at age 80 and want to work, great! It’s one thing to be an octogenarian who still oversees the family business a few days a week, but working the Home Depot checkout line at age 80 because you have bills to pay is a whole other matter. Sadly, I suspect the latter is becoming more and more common.Retirement Is a New Phenomenon As a life phase, retirement is still in its infancy. Unless you hail from a particularly well-to-do family, your parents or grandparents were among the first generation able to retire and spend their golden years as they pleased. These folks lived through the Great Depression, or their parents did, and they understood how to stretch a dollar and save. Baby boomers, on the other hand, faced huge social pressures to buy the biggest McMansion they could afford and trade in their two or three cars regularly. They also raised children when attending college had become the norm—something essential to staying in the middle class—but when the cost of college had also shot up. Many boomer parents have taken on student debt for their children that they can ill afford. While the intention behind education debt differs from that of a car loan for a Lexus, both have to be repaid the same way: with money. All this put boomers at a huge disadvantage in the race to retirement.How Much Money Is Enough? The Center for Retirement Research has concluded that the savings rate over one’s working life (beginning at age 20) should be 11% for low-income earners; 15% for middle-income earners; and 16% or above for high-income earners. The reason for the reduced recommendations is that Social Security provides lower-income earners with a larger percentage of their earnings. If, however, one waits until age 50-59 to start saving, it recommends increasing the savings rate to 35% for lower-income, 29% for middle-income, and 30% for higher-income earners. There are clear signs that people are simply not doing this. Most 401(k)s, for example, are woefully underfunded. A 2013 Fidelity survey on 401(k) programs indicated that the average 50-59-year-old has a 401(k) balance of $255,000. That might sound like a lot of money, but the truth is, over the 40 or so nonworking years you may have after retirement, $255,000 won’t stretch all that far. You’re not the “average 50-59-year-old,” though. No one is. So we’ve developed a Retirement Income Calculator which you can download and use to make your own personalized income projections. Knowing where you stand will either put your mind at ease or remind you that now is the time to make a new plan. And keep in mind that no matter your age or the size of your nest egg, our Bulletproof Portfolio can help you maximize what you do have. You can learn more about our Bulletproof recommendations and access all of our special reports by signing up for a no-risk trial subscription to Money Forever today.On the Lighter Side Monday was the Marine Corps’ birthday. Semper Fi to all. Jo and I are in Indiana this week, visiting the grandchildren. Brock and Braidyn are now both in school, and I love helping with homework. Seems like yesterday I had them on my shoulder burping them after a bottle. Where the heck did the time go? Our daughter told us to bring our heavy coats. The cold has been a good reminder of why we moved to warmer weather. If I was meant to be out in the cold, I would have more fur. A reminder to follow us on Twitter @millersmoney, and finally… Some basic truths about coffee: Until next week… read more

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own. Keep up with the latest trends and news in the cannabis industry with our free articles and videos, plus subscribe to the digital edition of Green Entrepreneur magazine. Cannabis 3 min read Easy Search. Quality Finds. Your partner and digital portal for the cannabis community. Image credit: Drew Angerer | Getty Images –shares dispensaries.com Actress and New York gubernatorial candidate Cynthia Nixon has pushed the issues of racial inequality and legal marijuana into the public debate. She isn’t the first, but she’s making her case in the media capital of the country, which means it’s getting wider attention than usual.Nixon argues that states should prioritize giving legal marijuana dispensary licenses to those who have been convicted of marijuana charges. That number is disproportionately black, even though studies show white and black people use marijuana at about the same percentage rate.“It’s a form of reparations,” Nixon said.Related: You Would Have Thought This Liberal Senator Already Supported Legal Marijuana, but Now She Actually DoesRacial Statistics on Marijuana ArrestsNo matter what people might think about Nixon’s idea, there’s no arguing with the facts about marijuana arrests. One of the main reasons many have championed legal marijuana is to put an end to the racial disparity in arrests. New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, for example, has been particularly adamant on this issue, writing “We can no longer accept policies that disproportionately target communities of color.”According to an analysis by the American Civil Liberties Union, marijuana arrests count for half of all drug arrests in the country. Between 2001 and 2010, there were 8.2 million arrests involving marijuana, with 88 percent for simple possession. The study also found a “significant racial bias” in those arrests — blacks are 3.73 times more likely than whites to get arrested for marijuana. A new study found that in New York in 2017, blacks and Hispanics accounted for 86 percent of arrests for marijuana possession in the fifth degree. Just 9 percent were white.A call for change has come from both sides of the political aisle. The liberal think tank The Center for American Progress recently called for decriminalizing marijuana at the federal level. A survey last year found that, for the first time, a majority of Republicans favor legalization.Related: Hemp Is the Multibillion-Dollar Cannabis Opportunity Few Have Heard AboutNixon Is Not AloneNew York does not have legal recreational marijuana, although medical marijuana is legal. However, Nixon recently attended a cannabis parade in New York City where she called for legalization. She said at the event that marijuana “has effectively been legal for white people for a really long time” and that it’s time to make it official for everyone.In addition to Murphy’s efforts in New Jersey, both Massachusetts and Oakland, Calif., have taken steps to ensure that those affected by the federal War on Drugs get priority when it comes to awarding dispensary licenses. Recreational marijuana is legal in both states.Oakland has especially been at the forefront of this movement. In 2016, the city expanded its medical marijuana licensing program to allow more people of color to open dispensaries.A much-quoted argument for legalization comes from Michelle Alexander, a professor of law at Ohio State University who wrote an opinion piece for the New York Times in 2013. In that piece, she argues that the potential harm of marijuana “pales in comparison with the harm suffered by the millions who have been arrested, jailed and branded criminals simply because they were caught with the drug.”Follow dispensaries.com on Instagram to stay up to date on the latest cannabis news. Guest Writer Download Our Free Android App Free Green Entrepreneur App Add to Queue May 10, 2018 Social justice advocates don’t want the allure of profits and new tax revenues to eclipse the damage done by decades of enforcement in communities of color. Racial Injustice and the Legal Marijuana Industry Next Article read more

Attend this free webinar and learn how you can maximize efficiency while getting the most critical things done right. Add to Queue Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own. –shares November 20, 2013 Brian Patrick Eha Bitcoin is everywhere these days. In China, which now accounts for 50 percent of the daily global trade in bitcoins, its price has skyrocketed. In the U.S., it was the subject Tuesday of the second of two U.S. Senate hearings. Silicon Valley is betting millions on it, and Ben Bernanke, the top central banker in the U.S., said this week that unregulated virtual currencies “may hold long-term promise.”Not long ago, most people were dismissing Bitcoin as merely a passing fad or a hobby for crypto-geeks, if they knew about it at all. Its quixotic nature was taken as a given, as was its ultimate fate: failure to change the status quo, followed by irrelevance. It wasn’t until Bitcoin’s exchange value topped $200 in April 2013 that most mainstream media outlets first took notice.But just because there’s more information about Bitcoin out there now doesn’t mean you should believe everything you read. Read on to get answers to three major misconceptions about Bitcoin, the world’s most popular digital currency.1. Bitcoin is nothing but digital cash for criminals.Bitcoin first came to public attention in 2011 as the coin of the realm for Silk Road, an online black market for illegal drugs, fake IDs and other illicit goods and services. In early October, the Federal Bureau of Investigation shut down Silk Road and apprehended its alleged creator, Ross William Ulbricht, in San Francisco. The price of Bitcoin dropped sharply but quickly recovered, and has since attained heights that would have been unfathomable only weeks ago. And yet, even since that bust, the media has lost no opportunity to tie Bitcoin to Silk Road in report after report.Related: SecondMarket Establishes New Bitcoin Trust for Accredited InvestorsMeanwhile, however, there is a growing ecosystem of legitimate Bitcoin companies — many with investment funding — and businesses accepting Bitcoin as legal tender. Plug and Play Tech Center, an early investor in PayPal, is starting an accelerator program exclusively for Bitcoin-related startups. Between April and June 2013, investors gave a total of $12 million to Bitcoin startups, according to research firm CB Insights. If anything, the pace of funding seems to be accelerating. Lightspeed Venture Partners, working with its Chinese counterpart, just invested $5 million in BTC China, the world’s largest Bitcoin exchange.Even members of the federal government are pulling back from characterizations of Bitcoin as exclusively the preserve of criminals. “Exploitation by malicious actors is a problem faced by all types of financial services, and is not unique to virtual currency systems,” Mythili Raman, the acting assistant attorney general of the Justice Department’s criminal division, said Monday in testimony for the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs hearing on virtual currencies.2. Bitcoin transactions are anonymous and untraceable.From its inception, Bitcoin has been associated with privacy, even anonymity, because you don’t have to provide a Social Security number, bank account or other identifying details in order to transact in Bitcoin. But that doesn’t mean your use of Bitcoin is a big secret. In fact, every Bitcoin transaction ever is recorded publicly on something called the blockchain. This public log prevents fraudulent activity such as people spending the same bitcoins twice.And while it’s difficult to trace these public transactions back to the real identities of users, it is not impossible. Researchers from the University of California, San Diego and George Mason University recently created a map of the Bitcoin economy that could be used by law enforcement to track the flow of bitcoins from criminal sources to legitimate companies such as Bitstamp and other exchange services. In the U.S., exchanges are required to obtain identifying personal information from their users, so a subpoena could reveal a criminal’s real identity.Related: Bitcoin Startups Get Their Own Silicon Valley AcceleratorThe fact that exchanges require users to verify their identities also makes it difficult to cash out one’s ill-gotten gains without getting caught. As Bitcoin developer Jeff Garzik has said, “Attempting major illicit transactions with Bitcoin, given existing statistical analysis techniques deployed in the field by law enforcement, is pretty damned dumb.”3. Mt. Gox is the go-to place for the value of Bitcoin.For a long time, Tokyo-based exchange Mt. Gox was the top Bitcoin trading platform in the world. This fact has led many casual observers and reporters to cite its price as the price of Bitcoin during various swings in the market. There is just one problem with that practice: for months now, the Mt. Gox price has been artificially inflated.Why the inflation? It has to do with recent difficulties in withdrawing U.S. funds from Mt. Gox. Because users have found themselves unable to pull their dollars out of the exchange, they are forced to buy bitcoins with those dollars and then transfer the coins elsewhere. Those trades have driven the price on Mt. Gox beyond the price found on Bitstamp, Coinbase and most other exchanges. One way to verify this discrepancy is to visit Bitcoin Average and click the button that says “ignore MTGox for USD/EUR/GBP.”BTC China, which now processes more than one-third of the world’s daily Bitcoin transactions, and is open only to Chinese customers, is also overheated. It is somewhat misleading to quote the global price of Bitcoin by simply converting the price in yuan on BTC China to U.S. dollars, because that value is elevated beyond what is achievable on exchanges that transact in dollars.Related: Bitcoin Hits New All-Time High Ahead of Hearings 5 min read Register Now » Next Article 3 Big Misconceptions About Bitcoin Finance Free Webinar | Sept 5: Tips and Tools for Making Progress Toward Important Goals read more

Reviewed by Alina Shrourou, B.Sc. (Editor)Dec 12 2018For many, starting the day off with caffeine from a cup of coffee is a must. In neonatal intensive care units, or NICUs, premature babies born under 29 weeks are given a daily dose of caffeine to ensure the best possible start to life. A new study by University of Calgary researchers shows the earlier the dose of caffeine can be given, the better.”Caffeine is the most commonly used drug in the NICU after antibiotics,” says Dr. Abhay Lodha, MD, associate professor in the departments of Paediatrics and Community Health Sciences at the Cumming School of Medicine and staff neonatologist with Alberta Health Services (AHS). “It’s important that we understand the long-term effects of caffeine as a treatment and ensure these babies are not only surviving, but have quality of life down the road.”Born prematurely at 27 weeks at the Foothills Medical Centre, Kyle and Avril Strachan’s baby, Anna, was given caffeine to help her breathe and boost lung function.”The doctors told us, with premature babies, their brain hasn’t developed quite enough to let them do all the things their bodies should be doing on its own, like breathing,” says mom Avril. “In the first few weeks, when Anna was feeding, she would slow down or even forget to breathe. This would cause her heart to slow and for her to not get enough oxygen.”To help her breathe more easily, Anna needed a continuous positive airway pressure, or CPAP, machine to deliver constant airflow to her lungs.A 2014 study by Lodha showed starting caffeine therapy within two days after birth shortened the amount of time babies needed to use ventilators. It also reduced the risk of bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD), a form of chronic lung disease caused by damage to the lungs from use of a ventilator. What was not known was how that dose of caffeine affected brain development.Lodha collaborated with researchers from the Universities of British Columbia, Montreal, Toronto and Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto to analyze data from 26 NICUs across Canada. They found early caffeine treatment has no long-term negative effects on neurodevelopment, and is actually associated with better cognitive scores, and reduced odds of cerebral palsy and hearing impairment. The findings are published in Pediatrics.Related StoriesWeb-based caffeine optimization tool designs effective strategies to maximize alertnessEnergy drinks may increase blood pressure and risk of electrical disturbances in heartCancer incidence among children and young adults with congenital heart diseaseThe team examined data from follow-up assessments conducted at age 18 to 24 months. During these follow-ups, children were assessed for their cognitive, language and motor development using the Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development, a standardized scoring system to assess developmental functioning in infants and toddlers.”We look at how children are constructing their understanding, such as solving simple problems or figuring out three-dimensional objects and toys,” says Dr. Dianne Creighton, PhD, research assistant professor in the Department of Paediatrics and retired psychologist with AHS. “We also assess how the little ones are able to understand simple words, or recognize the name of a picture, as well as their motor skills like climbing, crawling, balance and co-ordination.”Lodha says it’s believed that caffeine may increase the growth of dendrites, the small branches of a neuron that receive signals from other neurons. “Caffeine may also improve better lung stretch and expansion, cardiac output and blood pressure in premature infants, which improves oxygen supply throughout the body and brain, reducing the duration of mechanical ventilation and the risk of chronic lung disease and injury on the developing brain.”Now two years old, Anna has completed multiple follow-up assessments and is participating in dance classes, gymnastics lessons and swimming like a fish, says her mom Avril.”She’s very mechanical. She likes to build things, take it apart and figure out how it works,” she says. “It’s wonderful to know that the caffeine treatment has no adverse effects and that if researchers are getting positive findings, it should continue to be the standard of care for premature babies. In that case, I think parents would have no hesitation in having caffeine as part of their child’s treatment.”Source: https://ucalgary.ca/utoday/issue/2018-12-12/new-study-shows-premature-babies-developing-brains-benefit-caffeine-therapy read more

Reviewed by James Ives, M.Psych. (Editor)Feb 12 2019Rare mutations in the NTHL1 gene, previously associated with colorectal cancer, also cause breast cancer and other types of cancer. Researchers from Radboud university medical center, Leiden University Medical Center and the Princess Máxima Center in the Netherlands report this new multi-tumor syndrome, in collaboration with international colleagues, in Cancer Cell. Nicoline Hoogerbrugge, professor of Hereditary Cancer at Radboud university medical center: “We presumed to know all multi-tumor syndromes, but we have taken yet another step in identifying cancer genes.”Previously, Hoogerbrugge and colleagues showed that mutations in the NTHL1 gene lead to intestinal polyps that may develop into colorectal cancer. However, they observed that patients with mutations in this gene often have other types of cancer as well. In their publication, the researchers describe 17 families in which members of a single generation had mutations in the NTHL1 gene. Half of these patients developed various types of cancer during their lives, with breast cancer being particularly common.Mutations in the NTHL1 gene are very rare. A mutation in the NTHL1 gene only leads to cancer when the mutation is inherited from both parents. The researchers estimate that this is the case in about 1 in 115,000 people. The syndrome is difficult to detect because it only leads to cancer in a single generation of a family. Hoogerbrugge: “Currently, we already test patients with many intestinal polyps for mutations in the NTHL1 gene, but now we know that we should do this for more patients. Over the long term we want to screen for mutations in the NTHL1 gene in patients diagnosed with multiple cancers, as well as in patients that have brothers or sisters with multiple cancers.”Improved characterization of patients with mutations in the NTHL1 gene may lead to better assessment of their lifetime risk to develop certain types of cancer. “It is important for patients to be aware of their risk for breast cancer and also for me as a physician, so I can make recommendations,” says Maartje Nielsen, clinical geneticist at the Leiden University Medical Center. She recommends that patients with mutations in the NTHL1 gene should be screened for various types of cancer, including colorectal cancer and breast cancer.Mutation patternRelated StoriesHow cell-free DNA can be targeted to prevent spread of tumorsNanoparticles used to deliver CRISPR gene editing tools into the cellTrends in colonoscopy rates not aligned with increase in early onset colorectal cancerThe researchers used a new method to determine that NTHL1 mutations also cause breast cancer and other types of cancer. This method is based on the fact that mutations in the NTHL1 gene cause a specific pattern of mutations in the DNA of the tumor. Because this pattern only occurs in tumors of patients with an NTHL1 mutation, and not in tumors from other patients, the researchers were able to link this pattern to the disrupted NTHL1 gene. In the future, this method can be used to detect new genetic causes of cancer. Roland Kuiper, molecular geneticist at the Princess Máxima Center: “More than 30 such mutation patterns are already described, which are not only specific for NTHL1 defects. If all the tumors in a patient with multiple types of cancer have the same mutation pattern, this is a strong indication that there is a genetic cause. This means that all these tumors developed in the same way.” Richarda de Voer, molecular biologist at Radboud university medical center, adds: “It has become increasingly difficult to find new cancer genes. By searching for mutation patterns in patients, we are able to take the next step in determining the genetic cause in more cancer patients.”NTHL1NTHL1 is involved in DNA repair. It recognizes a specific form of DNA damage. If a mutation occurs in the NTHL1 gene, there is no NTHL1 protein. Consequently, this specific form of DNA damage is not recognized and not repaired, leading to an accumulation of mutations, which causes cancer. Due to mutations in the NTHL1 gene, errors in the DNA where a ‘C’ is replaced by a ‘T’, are not corrected. These errors occur at specific locations in the DNA, resulting in a recognizable mutation pattern. Source:https://www.radboudumc.nl/en/ read more

Reviewed by Alina Shrourou, B.Sc. (Editor)Apr 9 2019Employees who force themselves to smile and be happy in front of customers — or who try to hide feelings of annoyance — may be at risk for heavier drinking after work, according to researchers.A team of researchers at Penn State and the University at Buffalo studied the drinking habits of people who routinely work with the public, for example people in food service who work with customers, nurses who work with patients or teachers who work with students.They found a link between those who regularly faked or amplified positive emotions, like smiling, or suppressed negative emotions — resisting the urge to roll one’s eyes, for example — and heavier drinking after work.Alicia Grandey, professor of psychology at Penn State, said the results suggest that employers may want to reconsider “service with a smile” policies.”Faking and suppressing emotions with customers was related to drinking beyond the stress of the job or feeling negatively,” Grandey said. “It wasn’t just feeling badly that makes them reach for a drink. Instead, the more they have to control negative emotions at work, the less they are able to control their alcohol intake after work.”While previous research has shown a connection between service workers and problems with drinking, Grandey said the reasons why were not known. She hypothesized that by faking or suppressing emotions in front of customers, employees may be using a lot of self-control. Later, those employees may not have a lot of self-control left to regulate how much alcohol they drink.”Smiling as part of your job sounds like a really positive thing, but doing it all day can be draining,” Grandey said. “In these jobs, there’s also often money tied to showing positive emotions and holding back negative feelings. Money gives you a motivation to override your natural tendencies, but doing it all day can be wearing.”For the study, the researchers used data from phone interviews with 1,592 U.S. workers. The data came from a larger survey funded by the National Institutes of Health, called the National Survey of Work Stress and Health, which included almost 3,000 participants who were representative of the U.S. working population.Data included information about how often the participants faked or suppressed emotions, also called “surface acting,” as well as how often and how much the participants drank after work. The researchers also measured how impulsive the participants are and how much autonomy they feel they have at work.Related StoriesTransobturator sling surgery shows promise for stress urinary incontinencePeople use executive control processes to ignore cues that signal something rewardingQuitting drinking may improve health-related quality of life for womenThe researchers found that overall, employees who interacted with the public drank more after work than those who did not. Additionally, surface acting was also linked with drinking after work, and that connection was stronger or weaker depending on the person’s trait-like self-control and the job’s extent of self-control.”The relationship between surface acting and drinking after work was stronger for people who are impulsive or who lack personal control over behavior at work,” Grandey said. “If you’re impulsive or constantly told how to do your job, it may be harder to rein in your emotions all day, and when you get home, you don’t have that self-control to stop after one drink.”In particular, the researchers found a stronger association between surface acting and drinking when employees who are highly impulsive also worked in jobs where employees have one-time service encounters with customers, like a call center or coffee shop, rather than relationships, like health care or education.Grandey said people in these jobs tend to be younger and in entry-level positions, and may lack the self-control tendencies and the financial and social rewards that can buffer the costs of surface acting.According to Grandey, the results — recently published in the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology — suggest that surface acting is less likely to create problems when the work is personally rewarding to the employee.”Nurses, for example, may amplify or fake their emotions for clear reasons,” Grandey said. “They’re trying to comfort a patient or build a strong relationship. But someone who is faking emotions for a customer they may never see again, that may not be as rewarding, and may ultimately be more draining or demanding.”Grandey added that employers may be able to use these insights to create healthier workplace environments.”Employers may want to consider allowing employees to have a little more autonomy at work, like they have some kind of choice on the job,” Grandey said. “And when the emotional effort is clearly linked to financial or relational rewards, the effects aren’t so bad.”Source: https://www.psu.edu/ read more

Provided by CORDIS Secret messages for Alexa and Co Credit: Burben, Shutterstock One of the greatest hurdles to introducing higher levels of automation in air traffic management (ATM) is the intensive use of voice radio communication to convey air traffic control (ATC) instructions to pilots. Automatic speech recognition, which converts human speech into texts, can provide a solution to significantly reduce ATCOs workloads and increase ATM efficiency. The Horizon 2020 funded MALORCA project aimed to reduce the development and maintenance costs of assistant-based speech recognition (ABSR) by using machine learning instead of manual software programming.This initiative was funded within the framework of the SESAR Joint Undertaking, a public-private partnership set up to modernise Europe’s ATM system. Adaptation to local conditionsModern ATC systems must be safe and efficient while being up-to-date. They therefore require significant input from ATCOs, which is currently captured through keyboard and mouse devices. Modern technologies like Air-Ground data link, which in some instances can replace voice communication, will require even more inputs from ATCOs.The immense workload of the ATCO can be reduced by ABSR. “Fortunately, automatic speech recognition has reached a level of reliability that is sufficient for implementation into an ATM system,” says project coordinator Hartmut Helmke. “However, we need to reduce the transfer costs of speech recognition systems from one approach area to an other one”.Currently, several speech recognition modules require a manual adaptation to local needs caused by acoustic and language variabilities such as regional accents, phraseology deviations and local constraints. MALORCA proposed a general, cheap and effective solution to automate this re-learning, adaptation and customisation process. This involves automatically learning local speech recognition and ATCO models from radar and speech data recordings. MALORCA developed new machine learning tools to automatically learn ATCO behaviour and adapt speech recognition models from data recorded by the Air Navigations Service Providers. Machine learning employs statistical techniques that enable computer systems to ‘learn’ and improve their performance on specific tasks over time by exploiting this data, without being explicitly programmed. This will replace much of the manual effort previously required and reduce costs as machine learning of ABSR models makes adaptation to different airports and maintenance cheaper and faster.The first stepProject partners used the output of a so-called ‘Arrival Manager’ for Prague and Vienna airports to automatically split the untranscribed training data into positive and negative chunks through specific confidence metrics. This metric was then used in the developed machine learning algorithms to reinforce learning from adaptation data.In the context of ABSR the Arrival Manager supports the prediction of the ATC commands that are relevant to the current situation. The predicted commands are compared with the output of the speech recogniser. If a command is not predicted it is assumed that speech recognition system has output a wrong command.The project thus provides the aviation industry with a practical approach for developing and deploying a state-of-the art speech recognition system and integrating it into today’s voice communication systems for air navigation service providers. The use of machine learning for speech recognition is only the first test case for its wider application in ATM. Its application in ATM can also help to reduce the adaptation and maintenance of other ATM tools. The adaptation for example of a generic Arrival Manager to specific airports could be the next step. Explore further The popularity of air transport continues to grow, placing an even greater workload on air traffic controllers (ATCOs). Their predicament can be improved through an automatic speech recognition system closely integrated with an arrival manager developed by EU and SESAR funded researchers. This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only. Citation: Speech recognition technology for air traffic controllers (2018, September 25) retrieved 17 July 2019 from https://phys.org/news/2018-09-speech-recognition-technology-air-traffic.html read more