WEDNESDAY 15 FEBRUARY 2017 COMMUNITYCOMM | 06 FOOD | 09 BOLLYWOOD | 1111 Jose George’s Shrimp cooked in Can’t slap a ‘m‘musical evening’ romesco with wilted person in real tomorrow spinach life: Pannu Email: [email protected] Every time you consult Facebook, Google or Twitter you are exposed to choices that algorithms calculate for us, and we are also sometimes influenced by them P | 4-5 ALGORITHMS RUN THE WORLD 03 WEDNESDAY 15 FEBRUARY 2017 CAMPUS Raise kids to be smart consumers dopting the right kind children and expect them to act of style -- a mixture of maturely and follow family rules, restriction and auton- while also allowing a certain degree omy -- in of autonomy. decision-making may On the other hand, authoritar- Ahelp kids become smarter consum- ian parents are restrictive and not ers when they turn adults, a study likely to exhibit much warmth in has found. their communication, said Les Carl- According to researchers from son, Professor at the University of the University of Nebraska - Lin- Nebraska - Lincoln. coln in the US, there are four basic “They are more likely to tell a styles for controlling children-- child what to do and not explain authoritative, authoritarian, why,” Carlson added. neglecting and indulgent -- that are While neglecting teachers offer linked to a variety of consumer little guidance for their children’s socialisation processes. development and limited monitor- Authoritative caring is more ing of activities. Indulgent parents likely to tell children what they are lenient, compliant and give chil- want them to do while also explain- dren adult rights without expecting ing why, which can be described as them to take on responsibilities. interacting with the world around regarding children, the research- “restrictive” and “warm” The findings, based on a meta- them. ers said. Children of these parents communication. analysis of 73 studies, revealed that ‘Authoritatives’ also seem to be seem to perform better than chil- Here parents or teachers tend children of authoritative parents most effective in consumer social- dren of indulgent or neglecting to relate quite effectively with their had the best outcomes when isation activities and tendencies parents. Academic stress spurs ADHD in children re you making your From time spent studying to spent on homework increase to demands of the environment, the toddler an over- enrolment rates in pre-primary more than two hours a week, researchers noted. achiever? Beware! programmes, everything had when a decade earlier their peers As academic activities have According to a new increased, and not surprisingly, in were studying less than an hour. increased, time for playing and study, the increasing the past 40 years also saw ADHD “When we researched educa- leisure has decreased, resulting Aacademic stress on younger chil- diagnoses double, the study tional and public policy literature in some children being seen as dren is likely to be the reason revealed. The results showed that for studies that documented time outliers and ultimately being diag- behind the high prevalence of from 1981 to 1997, time spent children spent on academic activ- nosed with ADHD. “We feel that attention-deficit disorder. teaching three to five-year-olds ities, we were alarmed to find how the academic demands being put Researchers from the Univer- letters and numbers increased 30 substantially education had on young children are negatively sity of Miami in the US percent. Also, the percentage of changed since the ‘70s,” said Jef- affecting a portion of them,” Bro- hypothesized that increased aca- young children enrolled in full- frey P. Brosco, professor at the sco added. “For example, demic standards since the 1970s day programmes increased from University of Miami. beginning kindergarten a year have contributed to the rise in 17 percent in 1970 to 58 percent While ADHD is a neurobio- early doubles the chance that a diagnosis of attention-deficit in the mid-2000s. Further, six to logical condition, it is influenced child will need medications for hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). eight-year-olds in 1997 saw time by age-dependent behaviours and behavioural issues,” he said. 04 COVER STORY WEDNESDAY 15 FEBRUARY 2017 Algorithms: The managers of our digital lives AFP The brains of computer pro- contributed to double-digit drops Satellite tracking and surveillance grammes are algorithms, and are in burglaries, robberies and vehi- would not have reached the point lgorithms are a crucial thus a central cog in the internet cle theft in several US states and is they are at today without sophisti- cog in the mechanics of machine. also used in Kent, southern England. cated algorithms. our digital world, but also a nosy minder of Where are algorithms found? our personal lives and “We are literally surrounded by Aa subtle, even insidious influence algorithms,” says Olivier Ertzsc- on our behaviour. heid, a French professor of They have also come to sym- information technology and bolise the risks of a computerised communication. world conditioned by commercial “Every time you consult Face- factors. book, Google or Twitter you are exposed to choices” that algo- A gift from a scientist rithms calculate for us, and we are Long before they were associ- also sometimes influenced by them, ated with Google searches, he said. Facebook pages and Amazon sug- They reign in the finance sec- gestions, algorithms were the tor, one example being high brainchild of a Persian scientist. frequency trading programmes, The term is a combination of which can execute trades in milli- mediaeval Latin and the name of a seconds driven by algorithms that ninth century mathematician and analyze a range of market and eco- astronomer, Al Khwarizmi, consid- nomic factors. Their speed and ered the father of algebra. rule-based nature means they can A bit like a kitchen recipe, an make markets volatile and have algorithm is a series of instructions triggered so-called flash crashes that allows you to obtain a desired in the foreign exchange and stock result, according to sociologist markets. Dominique Cardon, who wrote Police forces increasingly use “What Algorithms Dream Of”. algorithms to predict where and Initially known mainly to math- when crimes are most likely to be ematicians, the term spread as committed. Predpol, a software computers developed. programme, claims to have 05 WEDNESDAY 15 FEBRUARY 2017 COVER STORY How Google began In the 1990s, PageRank (PR) was created in Stanford, California by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google’s co-founders. PR made it possible to class web pages by order of popularity. It became the heart of the Google research engine, which responds to key words within a fraction of a second. In addition to PR, Google uses “a dozen algorithms... to deal with spam, detect copyright infrac- tions” and handle other crucial tasks, Ertzscheid explains. Facebook and the ‘filter bubble’ Facebook uses sophisticated algorithms to offer its more than 1.8 billion users worldwide personal- ised content, in particular on its News Feed service which compiles messages from “friends”, and shares articles selected according to each users social media information filtered by algorithms perspective on the world. other social media. Facebook’s contacts. based on one’s friends, tastes and algorithms were not designed to One risk posed by such a sys- previous digital searches and Algorithms and the truth distinguish true from false -- a feat tem is that of “The Filter Bubble” choices, someone surfing the inter- Another risk was exposed dur- that is difficult even for artificial according to Eli Pariser, who devel- net can be plunged unwittingly into ing the last US presidential election intelligence -- but the popularity of oped the concept in a book of the a “cognitive bubble” that just rein- -- the prevalence of so-called fake information. same name. Being surrounded by forces their convictions and news or hoaxes on Facebook and Facebook chief Mark Zucker- berg has sought to deflect criticism that it had been used to fuel the spread of misinformation that may have impacted the presidential race, but the company responded to growing criticism by saying new tools would be provided so users could call attention to controver- sial content. Thinking for us? - Cardon says four main “fami- lies” of web algorithms exist. One calculates the popularity of web pages, another assesses their authority within the digital com- munity, and a third evaluates the notoriety of social network users. The fourth attempts to predict the future. This last one is “problematic” for the sociologist, because it tries to anticipate our future behaviour based on clues we have left on the internet in the past. It shows up on Amazon for example as book recommendations based on past purchases. “We build the calculators, but in return they build us” too, Cardon concluded. 06 COMMUNITY WEDNESDAY 15 FEBRUARY 2017 Jose George’s musical evening tomorrow easoned Qatar-based singer Jose George and flute specialists. “Dr K J Yesudas has been will be hosting a two-hour musical extrav- my singing inspiration all through my life. It Saganza featuring a unique selection of has been my long cherished dream to host a melodies from the repertoire of legendary play- programme in tribute of this legendary singer. back singer Dr K J Yesudas. I would like to thank each and everyone, espe- Titled ‘Indomie Gandhrava Geethangal’, the cially this program’s sponsors, for helping me event will be held tomorrow at ICC Ashoka Hall to realise this dream,” said Jose George, a sing- from 6.30pm onwards. Entry to the event is ing veteran in the GCC region. free for all music lovers and enthusiasts. A Over the years, Jose has been blessed to group of 8 singers led by Jose George will share the stage with major musical personal- enlighten the audience with a string of Yesu- ities like Sreekumaran Thampi, Sarath Chandra and presently Qatar.