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Tuesday, August 6, 2019

Outrage as The Gambia frees ex-regime's hitmen

Three assassins who swore "blind loyalty" to ex-ruler Yahya Jammeh are released after confessing.

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The Apple Card Is Now Available. Here Are the Details

A select group of iPhone users are getting early access to Apple's digital credit card. Everyone else will get it later in August.

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Senegal's Pape Souare joins French side Troyes

Senegal defender Pape Souare signs for French side Troyes on a one-year deal from English club Crystal Palace.

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Monday, August 5, 2019

Climate change: Hungry nations add the least to global CO2

Impoverished African countries are the most food-insecure, stemming from climate change, says a charity.

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Automating artificial intelligence for medical decision-making

MIT computer scientists are hoping to accelerate the use of artificial intelligence to improve medical decision-making, by automating a key step that’s usually done by hand — and that’s becoming more laborious as certain datasets grow ever-larger.

The field of predictive analytics holds increasing promise for helping clinicians diagnose and treat patients. Machine-learning models can be trained to find patterns in patient data to aid in sepsis care, design safer chemotherapy regimens, and predict a patient’s risk of having breast cancer or dying in the ICU, to name just a few examples.

Typically, training datasets consist of many sick and healthy subjects, but with relatively little data for each subject. Experts must then find just those aspects — or “features” — in the datasets that will be important for making predictions.

This “feature engineering” can be a laborious and expensive process. But it’s becoming even more challenging with the rise of wearable sensors, because researchers can more easily monitor patients’ biometrics over long periods, tracking sleeping patterns, gait, and voice activity, for example. After only a week’s worth of monitoring, experts could have several billion data samples for each subject.  

In a paper being presented at the Machine Learning for Healthcare conference this week, MIT researchers demonstrate a model that automatically learns features predictive of vocal cord disorders. The features come from a dataset of about 100 subjects, each with about a week’s worth of voice-monitoring data and several billion samples — in other words, a small number of subjects and a large amount of data per subject. The dataset contain signals captured from a little accelerometer sensor mounted on subjects’ necks.

In experiments, the model used features automatically extracted from these data to classify, with high accuracy, patients with and without vocal cord nodules. These are lesions that develop in the larynx, often because of patterns of voice misuse such as belting out songs or yelling. Importantly, the model accomplished this task without a large set of hand-labeled data.

“It’s becoming increasing easy to collect long time-series datasets. But you have physicians that need to apply their knowledge to labeling the dataset,” says lead author Jose Javier Gonzalez Ortiz, a PhD student in the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL). “We want to remove that manual part for the experts and offload all feature engineering to a machine-learning model.”

The model can be adapted to learn patterns of any disease or condition. But the ability to detect the daily voice-usage patterns associated with vocal cord nodules is an important step in developing improved methods to prevent, diagnose, and treat the disorder, the researchers say. That could include designing new ways to identify and alert people to potentially damaging vocal behaviors.

Joining Gonzalez Ortiz on the paper is John Guttag, the Dugald C. Jackson Professor of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering and head of CSAIL’s Data Driven Inference Group; Robert Hillman, Jarrad Van Stan, and Daryush Mehta, all of Massachusetts General Hospital’s Center for Laryngeal Surgery and Voice Rehabilitation; and Marzyeh Ghassemi, an assistant professor of computer science and medicine at the University of Toronto.

Forced feature-learning

For years, the MIT researchers have worked with the Center for Laryngeal Surgery and Voice Rehabilitation to develop and analyze data from a sensor to track subject voice usage during all waking hours. The sensor is an accelerometer with a node that sticks to the neck and is connected to a smartphone. As the person talks, the smartphone gathers data from the displacements in the accelerometer.

In their work, the researchers collected a week’s worth of this data — called “time-series” data — from 104 subjects, half of whom were diagnosed with vocal cord nodules. For each patient, there was also a matching control, meaning a healthy subject of similar age, sex, occupation, and other factors.

Traditionally, experts would need to manually identify features that may be useful for a model to detect various diseases or conditions. That helps prevent a common machine-learning problem in health care: overfitting. That’s when, in training, a model “memorizes” subject data instead of learning just the clinically relevant features. In testing, those models often fail to discern similar patterns in previously unseen subjects.

“Instead of learning features that are clinically significant, a model sees patterns and says, ‘This is Sarah, and I know Sarah is healthy, and this is Peter, who has a vocal cord nodule.’ So, it’s just memorizing patterns of subjects. Then, when it sees data from Andrew, which has a new vocal usage pattern, it can’t figure out if those patterns match a classification,” Gonzalez Ortiz says.

The main challenge, then, was preventing overfitting while automating manual feature engineering. To that end, the researchers forced the model to learn features without subject information. For their task, that meant capturing all moments when subjects speak and the intensity of their voices.

As their model crawls through a subject’s data, it’s programmed to locate voicing segments, which comprise only roughly 10 percent of the data. For each of these voicing windows, the model computes a spectrogram, a visual representation of the spectrum of frequencies varying over time, which is often used for speech processing tasks. The spectrograms are then stored as large matrices of thousands of values.

But those matrices are huge and difficult to process. So, an autoencoder — a neural network optimized to generate efficient data encodings from large amounts of data — first compresses the spectrogram into an encoding of 30 values. It then decompresses that encoding into a separate spectrogram.  

Basically, the model must ensure that the decompressed spectrogram closely resembles the original spectrogram input. In doing so, it’s forced to learn the compressed representation of every spectrogram segment input over each subject’s entire time-series data. The compressed representations are the features that help train machine-learning models to make predictions.  

Mapping normal and abnormal features

In training, the model learns to map those features to “patients” or “controls.” Patients will have more voicing patterns than will controls. In testing on previously unseen subjects, the model similarly condenses all spectrogram segments into a reduced set of features. Then, it’s majority rules: If the subject has mostly abnormal voicing segments, they’re classified as patients; if they have mostly normal ones, they’re classified as controls.

In experiments, the model performed as accurately as state-of-the-art models that require manual feature engineering. Importantly, the researchers’ model performed accurately in both training and testing, indicating it’s learning clinically relevant patterns from the data, not subject-specific information.

Next, the researchers want to monitor how various treatments — such as surgery and vocal therapy — impact vocal behavior. If patients’ behaviors move form abnormal to normal over time, they’re most likely improving. They also hope to use a similar technique on electrocardiogram data, which is used to track muscular functions of the heart. 



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WATCH | Black Travel Diary: Is this the best fried fish spot in the Caribbean?

When it comes to eating good, we all know that some of the best food doesn’t come in fancy five-star buildings.

On the lush island of Antigua, one of the two islands that make up the Caribbean nation of Antigua & Barbuda, there’s a tiny roadside restaurant with a reputation for food so delicious, there are long lines every time they open.

Cavells Cook Shop in the capital city of St.John’s is known for having some of the best local cuisine on the island. The family-owned establishment has been on the island for about 19 years. The food is made with love, nearly every dish blessed by the owner herself, and it keeps locals and tourists alike coming back. 

In this episode of Grio Goes To: Antigua,” theGrio’s Deputy Editor Natasha S. Alford visits Cavell’s to see if the food lives up to the hype! 

You’ll get an up-close look at the Antigua’s best fried snapper, rice & black beans, fritters, mac cheese and even a very special sweet potato that looks like nothing you’ve ever seen before…

Watch the full episode above to find out the final verdict on Cavell’s, and subscribe to our YouTube channel for more Black Travel Guides to the hottest destinations.

The post WATCH | Black Travel Diary: Is this the best fried fish spot in the Caribbean? appeared first on theGrio.



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WATCH | Black Travel Diary: Why you should visit the island of Antigua

In the heart of the Caribbean, Black travelers will find a travel oasis like none other. Antigua, one of the two islands which make up the country of Antigua & Barbuda, is a vacation destination with laid back vibes, 365 gorgeous beaches, historic landmarks and one of the top sailing centers in this region of the world.

In our first episode theGrio’s Deputy Editor, Natasha S. Alford, heads to Antigua, to see first-hand what makes the island so special. The episode features the beautiful Blue Waters Resort in the capital city of St. John’s. Blue Waters Resort has held the title of world travel award winner for Antigua’s leading hotel for five consecutive years and it’s easy to see why. 

With 17 acres of lush gardens, the resort has multiple villas, each complete with a kitchen, living room, dining room, a large private bathroom for every bedroom. To top it off, the villas have balconies overlooking an incredible view of the ocean water. Everything that you need is right within your villa. The resort’s staff provide exceptional service and complimentary drinks to its guests, and they’ll pick you up from your villa for transportation between buildings and the lobby. 

“When you travel to places to be a tourist, often there’s a feeling of overcrowdedness or feeling like it’s really commercial,” Alford shares. 

“But in Antigua, there are beaches where hotels are not allowed to build and you just sort of see the natural beauty of the landscape. I think that is what’s so special There’s a uniqueness and calmness and positivity that has been preserved in Antigua.”

Watch the full video episode of “Grio Goes to Antigua” above, and subscribe to theGrio’s YouTube channel for more top Black Travel Diary content.

The post WATCH | Black Travel Diary: Why you should visit the island of Antigua appeared first on theGrio.



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Chicago Obama library highly anticipated, but gentrification and displacement fears begin to surface

The upcoming Barack Obama legacy library has several residents of a Chicago district concerned that the four-building, 19-acre “working center for citizenship” will lead to the displacement of thousands of low-income Black families.

The project is being built in Jackson Park on the city’s South Side and will reportedly include a 235-foot-high museum tower, a two-story event space, an athletic center, a recording studio, a winter garden and a sledding hill — and cost an estimated $500 million, according to The New York Times.

READ MORE: Judge rules lawsuit intended on blocking Obama Presidential Library can move forward

“Because our area has become attractive to developers now, they’ll count us out,” said 52-year-old social services worker Tara Madison, who lives in the area with her two children and two grandchildren. Madison, the daughter of civil rights activists, is not alone in her fear of gentrification and the racial disparities that often come with it.

The former president has teased that the center will serve as a hub for the youth and will attract new businesses, but there is concern that a resurgence will push out longtime residents, ABC News reports.

“The best things that have happened to me in my life, happened in this community. Although we had a formal bidding process to determine where the presidential library was going to be, the fact of the matter was it had to be right here on the South Side of Chicago,” Obama told a crowd in 2016.

The Windy City reportedly ranks third after New York and Los Angeles for cities with the most neighborhoods that have gentrified. Neighborhood activists conducted a study that estimated up to 4,500 families will be at risk of displacement by development around the Barack Obama center.

READ MORE: DC’s go-go sound becomes anti-gentrification battle cry

Activist Jeannette Taylor has reportedly gained sponsorship for an ordinance calling for protections in a two-mile radius around the Obama library. The ordinance also wants 30% of the area’s housing to be designated as affordable, and any buildings up for sale should first be offered to the current tenants.

“It is morally wrong to get investment in a community that’s long overdue investment and then to displace the very people who have been dealing with disinvestment,” Taylor said. “It is a conversation that should have been had way before this, way before the library.”

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Want to Know the Real Future of AR/VR? Ask Their Devs

A new survey of 900 active devs provides some surprising clarity into the technology's constraints.

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'Hobbs & Shaw' Ruled the Box Office Last Weekend

The Rock's muscles brought in more than $60 million domestically. Plus: *Spider-Verse* duo signs with Universal, *Batwoman* is the future, and *Dune* gets delayed.

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Seven people shot and wounded at west side Chicago park

On Sunday, amid twin mass shootings in Ohio and Texas, seven people were also shot on the west side of Chicago, police said.

A group of people was fired on in Douglas Park in the 2900 block of West Roosevelt Road in the city. The shooter reportedly opened fire at 1:20 a.m. in a drive-by from a black Camaro, Fox 23 reports.

Confederate group sues Georgia city to fly divisive flag at parade

According to reports Mount Sinai Hospital took in several victims, including a 21-year-old man who is in critical condition after getting shot in the groin area, a 25-year-old woman was hit in the arm and leg and was stabilized, and also a 22-year-old woman.

A 23-year-old man and another victim, 21, were both shot and took themselves to Mount Sinai, police said.

Two other victims, a 20-year-old man who was hit on his side and a woman, 19, who was shot in her leg, were taken to Stroger Hospital, police said.

The nation is reeling and trying to absorb the harsh reality of two mass shootings that occurred over the weekend, leaving at least 29 dead and increased demand for action.

The crime in El Paso is now being treated as an act of domestic terrorism and hate crime charges will reportedly be filed because authorities believe the killing took place because of its proximity to the border.

Six of the nine victims in Dayton, Ohio shooting were Black

On Sunday, 24-year-old Connor Betts was killed by police in a hail of gunfire after taking aim at innocent bystanders and killing his sister on East Fifth Street in Dayton’s Oregon District around 1 a.m. Sunday,  Cincinnati.com reports.

It has been reported that six of the victims shot on Sunday were Black and three were white.

Donald Trump spoke out on Monday to condemn ‘racism, bigotry and white supremacy in response to Texas and Ohio mass shootings.

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Coza's Biodun Fatoyinbo: Nigeria outrage as rape accused pastor returns

Biodun Fatoyinbo stepped aside in July after a celebrity photographer accused him of assaulting her.

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Donald Trump condemns ‘racism, bigotry and white supremacy’ in response to Texas and Ohio mass shootings

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Monday condemned weekend shootings in Texas and Ohio as “barbaric” attacks and crimes “against all humanity” as he called for bipartisan cooperation to strengthen the nation’s gun laws.

Trump said he wants legislation providing “strong background checks” for gun users, but he provided scant details and has reneged on previous promises after mass shootings.

“We vow to act with urgent resolve,” Trump said Monday.

READ MORE: Six of the nine victims in Dayton, Ohio shooting were Black

Trump spoke Monday from the White House about shootings that left 29 dead and dozens wounded. He suggested early on Twitter that a background check bill could be paired with his long-sought effort to toughen the nation’s immigration system.

But he didn’t say how or why he was connecting the issues. Both shooting suspects were U.S. citizens, and federal officials are investigating anti-immigrant bias as a potential motive for the El Paso, Texas, massacre.

“In one voice, our nation must condemn racism, bigotry and white supremacy,” Trump said, adding that he had directed the FBI to examine steps to identify and address domestic terrorism. “These sinister ideologies must be defeated. Hate has no place in America,” he said.

READ MORE: Democrats promise congressional action on gun control

Trump has frequently sought to tie his immigration priorities — a border wall and transforming the legal immigration system to one that prioritizes merit over familial ties — to legislation around which he perceives momentum to be building.

Over the weekend, Trump tried to assure Americans he was dealing with the problem and defended his administration in light of criticism following the latest in a string of mass shootings.

“We have done much more than most administrations,” he said, without elaboration. “We have done actually a lot. But perhaps more has to be done.”

Congress has proven unable to pass substantial gun violence legislation this session, despite the frequency of mass shootings, in large part because of resistance from Republicans, particularly in the GOP-controlled Senate. That political dynamic seems difficult to change.

And Trump himself has reneged on previous pledges to strengthen gun laws.

READ MORE: Gunman in Italy goes on shooting rampage targeting black people

After other mass shootings he called for strengthening the federal background check system, and in 2018 he signed legislation to increase federal agency data sharing into the system. But he has resisted Democratic calls to toughen other gun control laws.

In February, the House approved bipartisan legislation to require federal background checks for all gun sales and transfers and approved legislation to allow a review period of up to 10 days for background checks on firearms purchases. The White House threatened a presidential veto if those measures passed Congress.

At a February meeting with survivors and family members of the 2018 Parkland, Florida, school shooting in which 17 people died, Trump promised to be “very strong on background checks.”

Trump claimed he would stand up to the gun lobby and finally get results in quelling gun violence. But he later retreated, expressing support for modest changes to the federal background check system and for arming teachers.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer tweeted that if Trump is serious about strengthening background checks, he should demand Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell “put the bipartisan, House-passed universal background checks bill up for a vote.”

In the El Paso attack, investigators are focusing on whether it was a hate crime after the emergence of a racist, anti-immigrant screed that was posted online shortly beforehand. Detectives sought to determine if it was written by the man who was arrested. The border city has figured prominently in the immigration debate and is home to 680,000 people, most of them Latino.

“In one voice, our nation must condemn racism, bigotry and white supremacy.”

On Twitter Monday, Trump seemed to deflect from scrutiny over the manifesto, which had language mirroring some of his own. As Democrats have called on Trump to tone down his rhetoric, Trump blamed the news media for the nation’s woes.

“Fake News has contributed greatly to the anger and rage that has built up over many years,” he claimed

As Trump weighs trips to the affected communities — the Federal Aviation Administration advised pilots of a presidential visit Wednesday to El Paso and Dayton, Ohio — local lawmakers signaled opposition to his presence.

Rep. Veronica Escobar, a Democrat who represents El Paso, said Trump is “not welcome” to visit the city.

In recent weeks, the president has issued racist tweets about four women of color who serve in Congress, and in rallies has spoken of an “invasion” at the southern border. His reelection strategy has placed racial animus at the forefront in an effort that his aides say is designed to activate his base of conservative voters, an approach not seen by an American president in the modern era.

Trump also has been widely criticized for offering a false equivalency when discussing racial violence, notably when he said there were “very fine people, on both sides,” after a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, that resulted in the death of an anti-racism demonstrator.

On gun control, a majority of Americans have consistently said they support stronger laws, but proposals have stalled repeatedly in Congress, a marked contrast to some countries that have acted swiftly after a mass shooting.

In March, a poll conducted by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found a majority of Americans favor stricter gun laws. The survey was conducted both before and after a mass shooting at two mosques in New Zealand. It found that 67 percent of Americans support making US gun laws stricter, while 22 percent say they should be left as they are and 10 percent think they should be made less strict.

READ MORE: Here’s why the NRA uses black faces in their anti-gun control campaigns– and why it’s suspect.

Less than a week after the mosque shootings, New Zealand moved to ban “military-style” semi-automatic weapons and high-capacity magazines; similarly, after a mass shooting in 1996, Australia enacted sweeping gun bans within two weeks.

The poll suggested many Americans would support similar measures, but there’s a wide gulf between Democrats and Republicans on banning specific types of guns. Overall, 6 in 10 Americans support a ban on AR-15 rifles and similar semiautomatic weapons. Roughly 8 in 10 Democrats, but just about 4 in 10 Republicans, support that policy.

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Lauren London announces a tower is being erected outside Marathon Clothing store for Nipsey Hussle

Neil deGrasse Tyson accused of downplaying down mass shootings issues apology

People were left wondering over the weekend if star astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson has his head in the clouds after his latest comments about the recent back-to-back mass shootings were deemed insensitive.

John Legend and Rihanna call out Donald Trump over El Paso and Dayton mass shootings

Tyson noted that while the killings in Dayton, Ohio and El Paso, Texas has people up-in-arms, data points to more people are killed by the flu or medical errors adding, “often our emotions respond more to spectacle than to data.”
DeGrasse comments outraged people on social media, especially after 29 people were gunned down in the mass shootings and families are still grappling with the gruesome reality of what occurred, Yahoo reports.


“The difference is people are currently working on decreasing those other death toles, Neil. Jesus you’re awful,” said one commenter.

“As you may or may not have noticed, part of the upset around this isn’t about the number of deaths, but rather the failure of government to adequately respond to a public health issue,” said another critic.


“Imagine tweeting this and thinking it adds anything to intelligent discourse,” said another.

“Why would you ever tweet this?” asked another.

The popular scientist and host of ‘Cosmos’ who recently got himself out of a controversial bind after allegations of sexual misconduct by two women, issued an apology early on Monday.

Six of the nine victims in Dayton, Ohio shooting were Black

“My intent was to offer objectively true information that might help shape conversations and reactions to preventable ways we die,” he said.

“What I learned from the range of reactions is that for many people, some information –-my Tweet in particular — can be true but unhelpful, especially at a time when many people are either still in shock, or trying to heal – or both.

“I apologize for not knowing in advance what effect my Tweet could have on you. I am therefore thankful for the candor and depth of critical reactions shared in my Twitter feed.

“As an educator, I personally value knowing with precision and accuracy what reaction anything that I say (or write) will instill in my audience, and I got this one wrong.”

 

The post Neil deGrasse Tyson accused of downplaying down mass shootings issues apology appeared first on theGrio.



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Huawei’s Latest Earnings Mask Its Trouble Outside China

Huawei last week touted a 23% increase in first-half revenue, despite US sanctions. But smartphone sales fell outside its home country.

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Samsung Galaxy Watch Active2: Price, Specs, Release Date

The new wearable from Samsung adds even more health-tracking features to better compete with the fitness-forward Apple Watch.

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ABC’s ‘The Rookie’ star quits show claiming she was sexually harassed and discriminated against

Neil deGrasse Tyson Writes Apology after His Tweet Following Mass Shootings

Famed astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, took to Facebook to issue an apology after tweeting in response to last weekend’s almost back-to-back mass shootings in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio.

The scientist’s original tweet compared the number of deaths in the shootings to other fatal events such as deaths from the flu and suicides:

The tweet received a tsunami of backlash. Some called his statement “soulless” and “heartless.” Others said that Tyson was “tone deaf” and engaging in “false equivalency.”

Early Monday morning, Tyson posted the following statement on his Facebook page:

Yesterday, a Tweet I posted in reaction to the horrific mass shootings in America over the previous 48 hours, killing 34 people, spawned mixed and highly critical responses.
If you missed it, I offered a short list of largely preventable causes of death, along with their average two-day death toll in the United States. They significantly exceeded the death toll from the two days of mass shootings, including the number of people (40) who on average die from handgun homicides every two days.
I then noted that we tend to react emotionally to spectacular incidences of death, with the implication that more common causes of death trigger milder responses within us.
My intent was to offer objectively true information that might help shape conversations and reactions to preventable ways we die. Where I miscalculated was that I genuinely believed the Tweet would be helpful to anyone trying to save lives in America. What I learned from the range of reactions is that for many people, some information –-my Tweet in particular — can be true but unhelpful, especially at a time when many people are either still in shock, or trying to heal – or both.
So if you are one of those people, I apologize for not knowing in advance what effect my Tweet could have on you. I am therefore thankful for the candor and depth of critical reactions shared in my Twitter feed. As an educator, I personally value knowing with precision and accuracy what reaction anything that I say (or write) will instill in my audience, and I got this one wrong.
Respectfully Submitted
Neil deGrasse Tyson

On Saturday, 21-year-old Patrick Crusius, fatally shot 20 people and injured 26 at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas. Crusius has since been identified as an extreme right-wing white nationalist with a vendetta against immigrants.

Approximately 13 hours after that mass shooting, Dayton, Ohio suffered its own active shooting incident. Connor Betts, a 24-year-old white male, killed nine people and injured 27 outside of a popular bar in Dayton.

 

 

 



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Cashless Stores Alienate Customers in the Name of Efficiency

Opinion: Brands that do away with printed currency are unintentionally self-selecting their users.

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