Twitter was blocked in Nigeria from 5 June 2021 to 13 January 2022. The government imposed a ban on the social network after it deleted tweets made by, and temporarily suspended, the Nigerian president Muhammadu Buhari, warning the southeastern people of Nigeria, predominantly Igbo people, of a potential repeat of the 1967 Nigerian Civil War due to the ongoing insurgency in Southeastern Nigeria. The Nigerian government claimed that the deletion of the president's tweets factored into their decision, but it was ultimately based on "a litany of problems with the social media platform in Nigeria, where misinformation and fake news spread through it have had real world violent consequences", citing the persistent use of the platform for activities that are capable of undermining Nigeria's corporate existence. In January 2022, Nigeria lifted its blocking of Twitter after the platform agreed to establish a legal entity within the country sometime in the first quarter of 2022. == Background == On 1 June 2021, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari posted a tweet threatening a crackdown on regional separatists "in the language they understand". The next day, Twitter deleted the tweet, claiming it was in violation of Twitter rules, but gave no further details. Nigeria's Information Minister Lai Mohammed said that Twitter's actions were part of an unfair double standard, as Twitter had not banned incitement tweets from other groups. During the Nigerian Civil War a majority of deaths resulted from the blockade of Biafra which caused the deaths of millions of civilians from starvation, a fact that was not alluded to in the tweet. The Nigerian government has long held concerns over the use of Twitter in the country. The ongoing local End SARS protest began on Twitter and got amplified in 2020 when it had 48 million tweets in ten days. Buhari's government floated the idea of social media regulation on different occasions prior to banning Twitter. Attempts to pass an anti-social media bill in the past have failed majorly due to massive outcry on Twitter. Days before the ban, the country's minister of information called Twitter's activities in Nigeria suspicious, citing its influence on the End SARS protests. == Aftermath == Three days after Twitter was suspended, it was reported that the move had cost the country over 6 billion naira and would also contribute to the worsening unemployment in the country. ExpressVPN reported an over 200 percent increase in web traffic and searches for VPN spiked across the country. In response, Nigeria's Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation Abubakar Malami at first openly threatened to prosecute citizens who bypass the ban using a VPN but then denied saying so after a screenshot of a Twitter deactivation notification he shared on Facebook showed a VPN logo. Nigeria's cultural minister Lai Mohammed stated the ban would be lifted once Twitter submitted to locally licensing, registration and conditions. "It will be licensed by the broadcasting commission, and must agree not to allow its platform to be used by those who are promoting activities that are inimical to the corporate existence of Nigeria." In late June 2021, Twitter announced it would enter talks with the Nigerian government over the platform's suspension. The talks began in July 2021. On 15 September 2021, Mohammed said the Nigerian government will lift the ban on Twitter in a "few days." The Minister said Twitter gave a progress report of their talks with them, adding that it has been productive and quite respectful. On 1 October 2021, President Muhammadu Buhari in his Independence Day broadcast said Twitter must meet the Nigerian government's five conditions before the suspension of the social media platform will be lifted. The conditions are: Respect for national security and cohesion; registration, physical presence and representation in Nigeria; fair taxation; dispute resolution; local content. == Reactions == The ban was condemned by Amnesty International, the British, Canadian and Swedish diplomatic missions to Nigeria, as well as the United States and the European Union in a joint statement. Two domestic organizations, the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) and the Nigerian Bar Association, indicated intent to challenge the ban in court. Twitter itself called the ban "deeply concerning". Former U.S. President Donald Trump, who was permanently suspended from Twitter following the United States Capitol attack in January, praised the ban, stating "Congratulations to the country of Nigeria, who just banned Twitter because they banned their President", and also called on other countries to ban Twitter and Facebook due to "not allowing free and open speech." == Lifting of the ban == On 12 January 2022, the Nigerian Government lifted the ban after Twitter agreed to pay an "applicable tax" and establish "a legal entity in Nigeria during the first quarter of 2022".
TipTop Technologies
TipTop Technologies is a real-time web and social search engine with a platform for semantic analysis of natural language. Tip-Top Search provides results capturing individual and group sentiment, opinions, and experiences there from the content of various sorts such as real-time messages from Twitter or consumer product reviews on Amazon.com. TipTop Technologies and ITC Infotech collaborated to create a search interface suitable for both enterprise and consumer applications. Tip-Top's products are part of the "emerging Web 3.0 applications which use semantic technologies to augment the underlying Web system's functionalities." Their main product is 360, an AI tool that incorporates multiple AI applications under one wing. Jonathan AlBright professor at Elon University, found videos generated by TipTop Technologies software on YouTube in his research into artificial intelligence, described it as AI-generated "fake news". Through semantic analysis of large data sets, TipTop gleaned behavioral insights from Tweets around events like Halloween, Thanksgiving, Holiday Gifting, the Super Bowl, and the Oscar Nominees for the Academy Awards coverage. Sentiment analysis, concept trend tracking, and real-time market research are other applications included in the TipTop Search product. TipTop's insight engine solves the problem of real-time data noise, and its ability to "sort the 'good tweets' from the 'bad tweets' when it comes to a product, service, or a region..." In addition, products like TipTop Shopping with customizable search widgets bring together consumer reviews, social search, and sentiment analysis enabling product comparisons across attributes like the overall value and aiding purchasing decisions through user-driven product tips and pits. TipTop Finance adds another complexity to real-time search results by incorporating corporate sentiment, company stock tickers, and social media into TipTop's existing social search platform. Additional success applying semantic technologies has been with polling, "if you compare these Gallup results with TipTop, a sentiment engine based on Twitter, the results are not way off. It does surprise you but it tells me that sentiment analysis in case of public opinion about a burning social issue or a famous personality is relatively easier." With the increasing amount of unstructured, opinion-oriented, and user-generated content available on the Web, TipTop's technology aims to make sense of all this data, and deliver it in a useful way for consumer and enterprise users alike. TipTop Technologies is a privately held company with its headquarters in the San Francisco Bay Area, and team members are located globally.
Event condition action
Event condition action (ECA) is a short-cut for referring to the structure of active rules in event-driven architecture and active database systems. Such a rule traditionally consisted of three parts: The event part specifies the signal that triggers the invocation of the rule The condition part is a logical test that, if satisfied or evaluates to true, causes the action to be carried out The action part consists of updates or invocations on the local data This structure was used by the early research in active databases which started to use the term ECA. Current state of the art ECA rule engines use many variations on rule structure. Also other features not considered by the early research is introduced, such as strategies for event selection into the event part. In a memory-based rule engine, the condition could be some tests on local data and actions could be updates to object attributes. In a database system, the condition could simply be a query to the database, with the result set (if not null) being passed to the action part for changes to the database. In either case, actions could also be calls to external programs or remote procedures. Note that for database usage, updates to the database are regarded as internal events. As a consequence, the execution of the action part of an active rule can match the event part of the same or another active rule, thus triggering it. The equivalent in a memory-based rule engine would be to invoke an external method that caused an external event to trigger another ECA rule. ECA rules can also be used in rule engines that use variants of the Rete algorithm for rule processing. == ECA rule engines == Rulecore Concurrent Rules Apart Database Detect Invocation Rules ConceptBase ECArules
CityEngine
ArcGIS CityEngine is a commercial 3D modeling program. Developed by Esri R&D Center Zurich (formerly Procedural Inc.), it specializes in the generation of 3D urban environments to support the creation of detailed large-scale 3D city models. Unlike traditional 3D modeling methodology, which uses computer-aided design (CAD) tools and techniques, CityEngine takes a procedural modeling approach which shapes generation via a rules-based system. Due to its integration with the wider ArcGIS platform, CityEngine can also be used with geographic information system (GIS) datasets. CityEngine can be used for urban planning and architecture, graphics visualization, game development, entertainment, and archeology. CityEngine can be used to visualize the building information modeling (BIM) data of buildings in a larger urban context, making for more realistic construction projects. == History and releases == === Software history === ArcGIS CityEngine, originally named Esri CityEngine, was developed at Swiss technology university ETH Zurich by Pascal Mueller, the co-founder and CEO of Procedural Inc. While researching for his PhD at the ETH Computer Vision Lab, Mueller invented a number of techniques for procedural modeling of 3D architecture that make up the foundation of CityEngine. CityEngine publically debuted at the 2001 SIGGRAPH conference; since then, additional research papers have been published that have contributed to CityEngine and its features. The first commercial version of CityEngine was released in 2008. In 2007, Procedural Inc. was founded and separated from ETH Zurich, the top-ranking technology university in Switzerland. In the summer of 2011, Procedural Inc. was acquired by Esri Inc., becoming Esri R&D Center Zurich. Esri CityEngine was renamed to ArcGIS CityEngine in June 2020 to offically make it a part of the ArcGIS software suite. === Releases === === Licensing and pricing === ArcGIS CityEngine is included in the Professional and Professional Plus tiers of ArcGIS Online. Pricing may vary by region and distributors. In the US, the professional tier costs US$2,200 per year; in the UK, it is £4,200 per year (excluding VAT). CityEngine can be purchased elsewhere via a local Esri partner. . Once purchased, users can download and obtain license details from the MyEsri portal. == Features == CGA (computer generated architecture) parametric modeling rules to control mass, geometry assets, proportions, or texturing of buildings or streets on a citywide scale Select a target location and import geo-referenced satellite imagery and 3D terrain of the location to more quickly build accurate urban environments through OpenStreetMap integration Interactively control specific street or building parameters, such as height or age Import/export geo-spatial/vector data with industry-standard formats such as Esri Shapefile, File Geodatabase, and OpenStreetMap, as well as file formats for WebGL, KMZ, Collada, Autodesk FBX, Autodesk Maya, 3DS, Wavefront OBJ, RenderMan RIB, Alembic, e-on software's Vue, Universal Scene Description USD, Khronos Group GLTF, Unreal Engine, and Unreal Datasmith Script and generate rules-based reports to show socioeconomic figures (e.g., Gross Floor Area (GFA) and Floor Area Ratio (FAR)) to analyze their urban design proposals. VR viewing of modeled environments with Samsung Gear VR Use a variety of materials through the Esri materials library == Procedural modeling == ArcGIS CityEngine uses a procedural modeling approach to automatically generate models through a predefined rule set. The rules are defined through a CGA shape grammar system, enabling the creation of complex parametric models. Users can change or add the shape grammar as needed. Urban environments can be modeled within CityEngine by starting with creating a street network (either from the street drawing tool or with data imported from map data). Then, lots may be subdivided as many times as specified, resulting in a map of multiple lots and streets. CityEngine can then be instructed to start generating the buildings using defined procedural modeling rules. At this point, the city model can be re-designed and adjusted by changing the parameters or the shape grammar. === Geodesign === Though CityEngine is not an analytical tool like GIS, discussions about geodesign often mention the use of ArcGIS CityEngine. As it can be used to enhance 3D shape generation in ArcGIS, ArcGIS CityEngine is a critical product to improve the applicability of geodesign by using geospatial information to design or analyze a city. == Applications == === Urban design and planning === Garsdale Design used ArcGIS CityEngine in the creation of city master plans in Iraq before 2013, both to model existing historic areas and also model future plans. Larger companies like Foster+Partners and HOK Architects have also used CityEngine in their urban planning projects. === Urban and environmental studies === Because its primary feature is building informative city models, some urban researchers use CityEngine to compare land-use planning schemes, for example in very dense global cities such as Hong Kong and Seoul. Environmental scientists can also utilize the instant 3D model generation in CityEngine, which can make for more convenient informative research than modeling a city by creating each building individually. === Game development === CityEngine can be used as a tool in the creation of video games that require detailed 3D environments to assign interactive scripts. === Movie industry === Zootopia (also known outside of the US as Zootopolis), which won the 2016 Academy Award for Best Animated Feature Film, used CityEngine to model the city in its movie. multi-scaling city, the designers used CityEngine due to its rule-based system. CityEngine was also used to create Big Hero 6's San-Fransokyo. === Military === Due to its integration with the Esri product suite and its ability to process geospatial data to create 3D scenes/maps, CityEngine can be used within military/defense organizations. == List of movies and TV shows using CityEngine == Studios and companies rarely state what software they use in their pipelines. When CityEngine is mentioned as a tool in production, it's often in a small reference in a larger article. Movies only claimed to use CityEngine by a single Esri employee Presented at FMX 2025 workshop == Ports == ArcGIS CityEngine is built on top of Eclipse IDE, and has therefore able to be used on Windows and Linux operating systems. Support for macOS was stopped in March 2021. == Plugins and extensions == ArcGIS CityEngine currently works with a number of third party 3D modeling, rendering, and analytical software products via its SDK and API; these currently are: ArcGIS CityEngine for ArcGIS Urban: ArcGIS Urban Suite Puma: ArcGIS CityEngine for Rhinoceros 3D Palladio: ArcGIS CityEngine for Houdini Serlio: ArcGIS CityEngine for Maya PyPRT: ArcGIS CityEngine for Python ArcGIS CityEngine provides a Python scripting interface built on Jython (current version 2.7.0) which allows users to create their own tools and functionality. == Publications ==
Resilience week
Resilience week is an annual symposium established to enable cross-disciplinary and role based discussions to advance strategies and research that engenders resilience in critical infrastructure systems and communities. Damaging storms, cyber attack and the interconnection of critical infrastructure systems can lead to cascading events that not only affect local but also across regions. However, many of these interdependencies are not easily recognized and obscure and complicate the mitigation of risk. The purpose of the symposia series is hence to facilitate best practice in managing critical infrastructure risks, by bringing together businesses, government and researchers. == Background == Originally organized in 2008 as a focus on the new research area of resilient control systems, including the disciplinary areas of control system, cyber-security, cognitive psychology and any number of critical infrastructure domains. Resilience has long been recognized as an area that requires not only the contributions of multiple disciplines or multidisciplinary participation, but interdisciplinary interaction where there is a common language and familiarity of the contributors to what other disciplines (and roles) contribute. The resulting interactions developed by Resilience Week and associated activities are intended to culture this sharing environment as a safe zone for inclusion; more importantly, an environment that lends to developing the new science and practice. As the attributes of resilience are complex, the contributions and topics for the event have included both the disciplinary and the project considerations, in keynotes, panels and research presentations. Keynotes have included senior leadership in the Department of Energy, Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, the National Science Foundation, and other agencies in addition to National Academy and professional organization fellows and senior industry leaders. Project panels and research presentations include emergent topics in resilience to climate change, cyber attack, damaging storms and the energy assurance. Topics Areas of focus have included: Control Systems Cyber Systems Cognitive Systems Communications Systems Communities and Infrastructure Project Focus Areas have included: Dependencies and Interdependencies Cyber Resilience for Operating Technology Commercializing Research and Development Building Critical Infrastructure Resilience through Distributed Energy Resources Energy Equity and Community Resilience Proceedings are developed for each year of the event, documenting the diversity of the research and engagements within these topical areas. == Impacts for the future == Since its inception, the Resilience Week community has evolved from one that primarily included only university researchers to one that includes many government laboratories, universities and private industries in the US and internationally. This type of collaboration forms a feedback loop that informs the research with the current needs and hones best practices. The future of the event is to further advance discussions that advance investment, recognize priorities and expedite technologies and tools to proactively address our energy future, in light of the natural and manmade challenges, and rationalizing the complex relationships that exist in critical infrastructure.
Computer Graphics International
Computer Graphics International (CGI) is one of the oldest annual international conferences on computer graphics. It is organized by the Computer Graphics Society (CGS). Researchers across the whole world are invited to share their experiences and novel achievements in various fields - like computer graphics and human-computer interaction. Former conferences have been held recently in Hong Kong (China), Geneva (Switzerland), Shanghai (China), Geneva (virtually), Calgary (Canada), Bintan (Indonesia) and Yokohama (Japan). == Awards == Starting in the year of 2013, CGI has given yearly a Best Paper Award and a Career Achievement Award. == Venues ==
International Road Traffic and Accident Database
The International Road Traffic and Accident Database (IRTAD) is an initiative dedicated to compiling and analyzing global road crash data. It is managed by the International Transport Forum (ITF) under the auspices of its permanent working group, which specializes in road safety, commonly referred to as the IRTAD Group. The primary objective of IRTAD is to provide a robust empirical basis for international comparisons in the field of road safety and to offer data to support the formulation of effective road safety policies. == Data availability == A portion of the data gathered by IRTAD is accessible for free through the OECD statistics website, however the remaining data requires a subscription for access. == History == The IRTAD database was originally started in 1988 by Germany's Federal Institution for Roads (BASt) in response to demands for international comparative data. It was later taken over and expanded by the International Transport Forum and has grown to be an important resource for comparing road safety metrics between countries worldwide, although mostly in the developed world. Every year, the ITF publishes comparative and country-by-country road safety data gathered for the IRTAD database and analysed by the IRTAD Group in the ITF Road Safety Annual Report, informally known as "IRTAD Report". Over the years, the IRTAD acronym has come to stand not only for the database, but also for the Traffic Safety Data and Analysis Group (usually referred to as IRTAD Group). The IRTAD Group is the International Transport Forum's permanent working group on road safety. It consists of a group of international road safety experts drawn from national road administrations, road safety research institutes, International organizations, automobile associations, insurance companies, car manufacturers and other road safety stakeholders. The IRTAD Group is a major forum for international road safety collaboration and exchange of best practices. Its focus is on improving road safety data as a basis for targeting interventions that are effective in reducing the number of road deaths and serious traffic injuries. The work of IRTAD, among that of others, has spawned the creation of road safety observatories for different world regions: the Ibero-American Road Safety Observatory Archived 2020-06-28 at the Wayback Machine (OISEVI), the African Road Safety Observatory Archived 2020-06-10 at the Wayback Machine, and the South-East Asian Road Safety Observatory. The ITF supports OISEVI through the Spanish-language IRTAD-LAC database and is actively involved in the implementation of the African and South East-Asian observatories. The genesis of the road safety observatory movement dates back to 2008, when the ITF, via IRTAD, began to facilitate twinning between countries striving to improve their road safety record and countries with high road safety performance. The initial twinning was between Jamaica and the United Kingdom. This work was supported by the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) and the FIA Foundation. The twinning between Argentina and Spain in 2011 led to the creation of OISEVI. To this day, the ITF supports OISEVI through the Spanish-language IRTAD-LAC database. In 2006, the ITF set up Safer City Streets, a global traffic safety network for cities that replicates the successful IRTAD approach for urban road safety.