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Tahoe Basin Wildfire Evacuation Simulations Spotlight Infrastructure Limitations, Public Safety Dangers

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INCLINE VILLAGE, Nev., Aug. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — Today, a first-ever independent Tahoe Basin Wildfire Evacuation Analysis, combining artificial intelligence (AI) and real-life Sierra Nevada wildfire experience, reveals Tahoe workers, residents, and visitors to California and Nevada’s iconic Lake Tahoe could face hours-long, potentially life-threatening slow evacuations.

The release of the Placer and Washoe Tahoe North Shore analyses are part of a larger, first-of-its-kind publicly transparent basin-wide evacuation analysis. Commissioned by TahoeCleanAir.org, the models provide hypothetical “no-notice” versus “planned event” evacuation simulations. The models incorporate operational expertise from veteran firefighters and emergency management experts involved in some of the West’s most catastrophic wildfires, including the Camp Fire in and around Paradise, California. 

Fire experts use the term “no-notice” for an emerging incident that poses a sudden and immediate threat to human life but may still involve evacuation orders. Historically, no-notice evacuations have overwhelmed emergency responder resources and defied the rapid implementation of emergency operation plans.

Based on first-hand knowledge of decades of extreme fire behavior and with AI technology, experts from PyroAnalysis and Ladris conducted over 400 Tahoe wide evacuation simulations to help provide accurate highway and feeder road capacity limitations.

Further, AI evacuation modeling software estimated potential evacuation times based on a variety of road closures that create choke points. These bottlenecks could reasonably be expected during a fast-moving wildfire evacuation in peak summer tourist season, which coincides with peak wildfire season.

Three other geographical Tahoe study areas will soon be available. Those are Douglas Tahoe, El Dorado South Shore Tahoe and West Shore Tahoe.

The Placer Tahoe and Washoe Tahoe simulations assume no notice fire events from different directions with realistic road closures. The analysis also discusses key items that could further lengthen evacuation times.

Until now, no such publicly transparent, in-depth analysis of Lake Tahoe’s limited infrastructure has been provided in connection with Tahoe land use planning and project approvals by any of the five Tahoe facing counties or the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency (TRPA). Yet TRPA recently approved land use code changes to allow increased building height, density and coverage and continue to approve visitor attractions that will materially change the Tahoe environment, increase the total number of people in the basin, and elevate safety threats.

Placer County last adopted increased town center density land use amendments to its 2016 Tahoe Basin Area Plan Environmental Impact Report (EIR) on October 31, 2023. Placer used a controversial brief environmental addendum approval process rather than providing a more focused in-depth subsequent EIR.

The AI generated Placer evacuation simulations reveal a nine to fourteen-plus hour evacuation time depending on road closure conditions. This is in stark contrast to the 2016 Placer County, Environmental Impact Statement, which estimated evacuation time for the study area at 3.7 hours. Washoe Tahoe AI generated simulations include potential closures of SR28 at Stateline and Sand Harbor resulting in eight and nine hour wait times. The heavily visited now international destination East Shore Trail and Sand Harbor State Park, get thousands of visitors by personal vehicle, bus, bicycle, and by foot.

Evacuation of the Tahoe basin is of paramount importance. Annual visitation to the Tahoe basin (207,000 acres) now exceeds that of America’s most popular National Park, the Great Smoky Mountains, which spans 522,419 acres. One report indicates Tahoe gets as many as 60-million-person trips annually. Many visitors are unaware that Tahoe spans two states, five counties and multiple communities. They simply think they’re ‘in Tahoe.’

“The public and land use planners deserve to be aware of potential evacuation outcomes. The carrying capacity in the Tahoe Basin is already beyond strained,” said Doug Flaherty, TahoeCleanAir.org, a former southern California Fire Combat Battalion Chief. “This analysis underscores the need for Tahoe policy makers to provide better, more transparent public safety planning. Officials need to take a reality-based approach to land use planning decisions to help avoid issues experienced in other major wildfires.”

Flaherty added: “While this independent analysis is aimed at raising government land use planning agency and public awareness of potential evacuation limitations in Tahoe, it is not intended to take the place of, or be utilized in connection with, official government evacuation planning or emergency event decision-making. At a minimum however, Tahoe communities and visitors should expect nothing less than what’s laid out in Best Practices for Wildfire Evacuation published by the California State Attorney General.” Learn more here.

The additional Tahoe area evacuation analyses containing respective evacuation simulations will be available in September 2024.

Simulation illustrations and added analysis is available at TahoeCleanAir.org.

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/tahoe-basin-wildfire-evacuation-simulations-spotlight-infrastructure-limitations-public-safety-dangers-302232490.html

SOURCE TahoeCleanAir.Org

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OceanBase Receives Honorable Mention for the Second Consecutive Year in the 2024 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ Report

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SINGAPORE, Dec. 26, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — OceanBase has once again been named as Honorable Mention in the 2024 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Cloud Database Management Systems (Cloud DBMS), marking the second consecutive year it has received this recognition.

OceanBase offers scalable distributed database for data-intensive transactional and real-time operational analytics workloads, with ultra-fast performance and high compatibility across major global cloud infrastructures, including Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, Alibaba Cloud and Tencent Cloud. Operating across more than 30 regions in Asia, Europe, and America, OceanBase has already served over 2,000 customers, such as SAIC Volkswagen, DiDi Global, vivo, Pop Mart, Haidilao, Kwai, Trip.com, GCash, DANA, and PalmPay.

Over the past year, OceanBase has made significant strides in the Southeast Asian market. In December 2024, Starpay, a leading financial technology company in the Philippines, announced a partnership with OceanBase to leverage its cutting-edge distributed database solutions.

OceanBase hosted the inaugural OceanBase INFINITY tech conference in Jakarta, Indonesia in June 2024. During the event, the company announced strategic partnerships with leading local resellers to better serve customers in the Indonesian market.

According to Gartner’s latest DBMS market data in the Magic Quadrant, “the overall database management system market grew by 13.4% in 2023, reaching $103.2 billion“, up from $91 billion in 2022. The DBMS segment remains one of the fastest-growing areas within the software market, alongside analytic platforms, networking software, and supply chain management software.

In May 2024, OceanBase was also recognized as an Asia/Pacific Customers’ Choice and also named a Strong Performer in the 2024 Gartner® Peer Insights™ Voice of the Customer for Cloud DBMS report.

Gartner, Magic Quadrant for Cloud Database Management Systems, 18 December 2024

Gartner, Voice of the Customer for Cloud Database Management Systems, 24 May 2024

Gartner Peer Insights content consists of the opinions of individual end users based on their own experiences, and should not be construed as statements of fact, nor do they represent the views of Gartner or its affiliates. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in this content nor makes any warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this content, about its accuracy or completeness, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

GARTNER, MGAGIC QUADRANT and PEER INSIGHTS are registered trademarks of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and is used herein with permission. All rights reserved.

About OceanBase

OceanBase is a distributed database launched in 2010. It provides strong data consistency, high availability, high performance, cost efficiency, elastic scalability, and compatibility with mainstream relational databases. It handles transactional, analytical, and AI workloads through a unified data engine, enabling mission-critical applications and real-time analytics.

To learn more, please visit: https://www.oceanbase.com/

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/apac/news-releases/oceanbase-receives-honorable-mention-for-the-second-consecutive-year-in-the-2024-gartner-magic-quadrant-report-302339146.html

SOURCE OceanBase

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Matwings Technology Raised Series A Funding of Tens of Millions USD to Redefine Protein Design

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‘Beyond Structure, Predicting Function’

SHANGHAI, Dec. 25, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — Recently, Shanghai Matwings Technology Co., Ltd. (‘Matwings’), a global leader in AI-driven protein design, announced the successful completion of Series A funding rounds, raising tens of millions of USD, led by Qiming Venture Partners.

Matwings is pioneering a new frontier in protein engineering with its proprietary AI-based general protein design platform, AccelProtein™, which directly predicts protein functionality beyond the structural data. By predicting functionality, AccelProtein™ offers a new approach for acquiring high-functioning proteins.

AccelProtein™ is built on the Pro-PRIME model, a breakthrough developed by a collaborative team led by Professor Liang Hong at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. After years of research focused on data collection, curation, and optimization, the team developed the Pro-series – an AI framework for protein design. Their work, titled “A General Temperature-Guided Language Model to Design Proteins of Enhanced Stability and Activity” was recently published in Science Advances.

A featured case of AccelProtein™’s impact is the design of a specialized Glycosyltransferase enzyme, which is used in the production of EPS-G7, a core material for pancreatitis screening. Within just 4 months, Matwings increased the enzyme’s total glycosylation activity by 7 times, enhanced product specificity from 60% to 98%, and reduced hydrolytic activity by 33%. These improvements cut down the cost of EPS-G7 by 90%.

In another application, Matwings successfully engineered a super alkali-resistant affinity ligand (a nanobody) for affinity chromatography, improving alkali resistance by 3 folds, binding capacity over 100%, and heat stability by 8℃. This innovation saved millions of USD in CMC costs for a Matwings client. Additionally, scale-up production to 5000L has been successfully completed. Such advancement enables low-cost affinity chromatography purification a viable option for a wide range of biologics, bringing more cost-effective solutions for drug production.

Since 2021, Matwings has successfully delivered over 30 protein-engineering and enzyme-mining projects either proprietary (e.g., Enterokinase, Carboxypeptidase B, KEX2 Protease, Maltogenic Amylase, Subtilisin, Protein A, PETase, T7 RNA Polymerase, and phi29 DNA Polymerase) and co-developed with our stakeholders. These projects span across various applications, including drug innovation, in vitro diagnostics, nutrition and healthcare, food and beverage, and green energy.

About Matwings

Matwings, founded in 2021 by an elite team from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, is one of the earliest companies to focus on AI protein models.

Matwings is dedicated to moving beyond directed evolution methods to design and engineer functionally optimized proteins by leveraging a proprietary, pre-trained, AI-based general protein design platform with 780 million curated full-length protein sequence data, including nearly 500 million private data.

This cutting-edge technology platform, AccelProtein™, enables us to engineer proteins and uncover or de novo design novel proteins with significantly improved properties, including stability, activity, affinity, yield, etc.

To date, Matwings has successfully engineered more than 30 proteins either proprietary or co-developed with its stakeholders, and more than 40 ongoing projects across various applications in pharmaceutical industries and synthetic biology industries, e.g.  key enzymes and proteins for CMC, innovative Biologics, synthetic biology and more.

Matwings is actively seeking global partnerships to jointly develop and commercialize new products.

Contact Information:
Email: info@matwings.com
Website: https://www.matwings.com/en/ 
Tel: +86 158 2106 5410
Paper Link: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adr2641 

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/matwings-technology-raised-series-a-funding-of-tens-of-millions-usd-to-redefine-protein-design-302339150.html

SOURCE Matwings Technology

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Agoda Highlights Tokyo as Top Global New Year’s Eve Destination

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SINGAPORE, Dec. 26, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — Digital travel platform Agoda has announced Tokyo as the most popular destination for New Year’s Eve, based on accommodation searches. This marks a shift from last year when Taipei held the top spot. Following Tokyo, the list includes Bangkok, Taipei, Pattaya, and Osaka, showcasing a diverse range of preferences among travelers.

The data highlights a perpetual interest in Tokyo, a city known for its unique blend of tradition and modernity. Travelers are drawn to its vibrant celebrations, cultural experiences, and iconic landmarks. Bangkok and Taipei, too, continue to be favored destinations, offering rich cultural festivities and lively atmospheres. Pattaya and Osaka also make the list, appealing to those seeking beachside celebrations and culinary delights, respectively.

Agoda’s data reveals Tokyo’s prominence not only on a worldwide scale but also within Japan. Domestic accommodation searches have increased by 23%, with Tokyo leading as the preferred destination, followed by Osaka, Kyoto, Yokohama, and Okinawa Main Island. For Japanese traveling abroad, the destinations primarily considered are Taipei, Seoul, Bangkok, Pattaya, and Hong Kong.

Hiroto Ooka, Associate Vice President North Asia at Agoda said: “Tokyo’s rise to the top of Agoda’s New Year’s Eve destination list is a testament to the city’s global appeal. Whether you’re celebrating New Year’s Eve in Tokyo, Osaka, or anywhere else in the world, Agoda is ready to help you find the perfect spot to ring in the New Year.”

As travelers prepare for their New Year’s Eve plans, Agoda offers a comprehensive selection of over 4.5 million holiday properties, more than 130,000 flight routes, and over 300,000 activities, all available for seamless booking. Download the Agoda app for the latest deals or visit agoda.com/deals.

 

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/apac/news-releases/agoda-highlights-tokyo-as-top-global-new-years-eve-destination-302338856.html

SOURCE Agoda

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