Latest news with #ELSA
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Sport
- Yahoo
World's top two clash for French Open crown as Sabalenka faces Gauff
Coco Gauff came back from a set down to win her first Grand Slam title in the 2023 US Open final against Aryna Sabalenka (ELSA) World number one Aryna Sabalenka targets a French Open title that would "mean the world" in a tantalising final against second-ranked Coco Gauff at Roland Garros on Saturday. It will be the first time the world's top two players have met in a women's Grand Slam final since Caroline Wozniacki defeated Simona Halep to win the 2018 Australian Open. Advertisement Sabalenka and Gauff faced off in the 2023 US Open final, when the Belarusian led by a set before imploding as the then-teenager Gauff claimed her maiden major title. Their head-to-head record is locked at 5-5, although Sabalenka came out on top in their last meeting in the Madrid Open final last month. The top seed will be playing in her first Slam final not on hard courts. "In the past I don't know how many years, we've been able to develop my game so much, so I feel really comfortable on this surface and actually enjoy playing on clay," she said after ending Iga Swiatek's bid for a fourth successive Roland Garros triumph in the semi-finals. Advertisement "If I'll be able to get this trophy, it's just going to mean the world for us. "I'm ready to go in that final and to fight, fight for every point and give everything I have to give to get the win." Sabalenka snapped Swiatek's 26-match winning run at the French Open with a devastating deciding set that she took 6-0 in just 22 minutes. But the 27-year-old knows it will not be easy against Gauff, who has always been comfortable on clay and has reached at least the quarter-finals in five successive appearances in the tournament. "It was a big match (against Swiatek), and it felt like a final, but I know that the job is not done yet, and I have to go out there on Saturday, and I have to fight and I have to bring my best tennis," added three-time major champion Sabalenka. Advertisement "I have to work for that title, especially if it's going to be Coco." - Gauff hoping to stay 'calm' - Gauff is hoping to become only the third player to win two women's Grand Slam titles before the age of 22 since Maria Sharapova added the 2006 US Open to her famous 2004 Wimbledon win. The others are Swiatek and former world number one Naomi Osaka. It will be the 21-year-old's second Roland Garros final after she was left in tears following a heavy defeat by Swiatek in 2022. "Obviously here I have a lot more confidence just from playing a Grand Slam final before and doing well in one," said Gauff. Advertisement "I think going into Saturday I'll just give it my best shot and try to be as calm and relaxed as possible." Sabalenka will be playing in her seventh WTA final of the year, the most by any player at this stage of a season since Serena Williams -- who beat Sharapova to win the title in Paris -- in 2013. Gauff says Sabalenka's power has helped her build a commanding lead at the top of the world rankings. "I think obviously her ball striking, she can come up with some big shots and big winners pretty much at all areas of the court, so I think her ball striking and also her mentality, she's a fighter as well, she's going to stay in the match regardless of the scoreline." Advertisement Gauff is in her first Slam final since beating Sabalenka in New York two years ago, having suffered two semi-final losses since, including to Swiatek at Roland Garros 12 months ago. "It feels kinda fast, to be honest. US Open doesn't feel like too long ago," she said. jc/nf
Forbes
5 days ago
- Business
- Forbes
FDA's New AI Tool Cuts Review Time From 3 Days To 6 Minutes
AI at the FDA getty The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced this week that it deployed a generative AI tool called ELSA (Evidence-based Learning System Assistant), across its organization. After a low-profile pilot that delivered measurable gains, the system is now in use by staff across the agency, several weeks ahead of its original schedule. Dr. Marty Makary, the FDA's commissioner, shared a major outcome. A review task that once took two or three days now takes six minutes. 'Today, we met our goal ahead of schedule and under budget,' said Makary. 'What took one scientific reviewer two to three days [before] The FDA has thousands of reviewers, analysts, and inspectors who deal with massive volumes of unstructured data such as clinical trial documents, safety reports, inspection records. Automating any meaningful portion of that stack creates outsized returns. ELSA helps FDA teams speed up several essential tasks. Staff are already using it to summarize adverse event data for safety assessments, compare drug labels, generate basic code for nonclinical database setup, and identify priority sites for inspections, among other tasks. This last item, using data to rank where inspectors should go, could have a real-world impact on how the FDA oversees the drug and food supply chain and impacts on how the FDA delivers its services. Importantly, however, the tool isn't making autonomous decisions without a human in the loop. The system prepares information so that experts can decide faster. It cuts through the routine, not the judgment. One of the biggest questions about AI systems in the public sector revolves around the use of data and third party AI systems. Makary addressed this directly by saying that 'All information stays within the agency. The AI models are not being trained on data submitted by the industry.' That's a sharp contrast to the AI approaches being taken in the private sector, where many large language models have faced criticism over training on proprietary or user-submitted content. In the enterprise world, this has created mounting demand for "air-gapped" AI solutions that keep data locked inside the company. That makes the FDA's model different from many corporate tools, which often rely on open or external data sources. The agency isn't building a public-facing product. It's building a controlled internal system, one that helps it do its job better. Federal departments have been slow to move past AI experimentation. The Department of Veterans Affairs has started testing predictive tools to manage appointments. The SEC has explored market surveillance AI for years. But few have pushed into full and widespread production. The federal government has thousands of employees processing huge volumes of information, most of it unstructured sitting in documents, files, and even paper. That means AI is being focused most on operational and process-oriented activities. It's shaping up to be a key piece of how agencies process data, make recommendations, and act. Makary put it simply that ELSA is just the beginning for AI adoption within the FDA. 'Today's rollout of ELSA will be the first of many initiatives to come,' he said. 'This is how we'll better serve the American people.'
Yahoo
15-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Germany and UK to develop long-range strike weapon
Germany and the United Kingdom plan to jointly develop a long-range strike weapon and are inviting allies to participate in the project, German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said on Thursday. Work has begun on developing the "deep precision strike" capability, Pistorius said at a meeting with his British counterpart John Healey in Berlin. "Specifically, this means that we have started developing weapon systems with a range of more than 2,000 kilometres," Pistorius said. "The current threat clearly shows that we must close all capability gaps as quickly as possible," he added. The two countries also agreed to strengthen cooperation on anti-submarine capabilities. The meeting focused on the implementation of the Trinity House Agreement, a bilateral agreement on defence cooperation. With their plans for a long-range strike weapon, Germany and the UK are taking a leading role in the European Long-Range Strike Approach (ELSA) project. Several other countries signed a declaration of intent to this effect at the NATO summit in Washington last year. The aim is to be able to destroy military installations or important infrastructure deep in an enemy's hinterland.
Yahoo
05-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Europe's long-range strike project nears choice of lead contractors
PARIS — The six European countries cooperating on a conventional long-range, ground-launched strike capability may announce the lead companies for the project in June, according to one of the co-authors on a French parliamentary report on the state of artillery. The European Long-range Strike Approach (ELSA) coalition has identified 13 development pillars, and in June is expected to define who is responsible for what, said Jean-Louis Thiériot, a French deputy who sits on the National Assembly's defense committee, in a hearing here last week. The lead on each segment will be determined based on a 'best athlete' approach, Thiériot said. France will play a 'major role' through rocket builder Ariane Group for the ballistics segment, according to the lawmaker, who struck an optimistic tone about progress on ELSA. 'What is very interesting about this project is that it is indeed a coalition of volunteers and sovereign states, and it has been achieved without getting bogged down in the bureaucratic red tape that can often be encountered in more bureaucratic forms of cooperation,' Thiériot said. 'We are really at the beginning, but something is working,' he added. France, Germany, Poland and Italy signed a letter of intent on the long-range strike initiative at a NATO summit in Washington in July 2024, with Sweden and the U.K. joining in October. European NATO members have a capability gap in long-ranged strike compared with Russia, which operates several ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges of between 500 kilometers and 2,500 kilometers, and capable of hitting targets across Europe, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies France's current lack of a land-based, deep-strike capability creates a risk of nuclear deterrence being circumvented, with a gap between the lower threshold of nuclear deterrence and the maximum of what the conventional forces can do, according to the parliamentary report. ELSA could address that gap, with a capability separate from France's plans to replace its rocket artillery. Thiériot said there is political will to move forward on ELSA, combined with 'manufacturers who will not get involved in cumbersome mechanisms such as the European Defence Fund, where you have to find the necessary number of partners, which means that you end up taking the SME that makes bolts to make ailerons.' 'There is a real desire for efficiency,' the deputy said. 'It's something that can work, both in the French interest and in the European interest, so it really seems like a good model to me. We'll talk about it again in a year.' Ariane Group, MBDA, Safran and Thales all either didn't immediately respond to requests for comment, or had no immediate comment. MBDA has proposed its Land Cruise Missile, a land-based version of the company's Missile de Croisière Naval, as a short-term solution for ELSA. Ballistic and cruise-missile technologies each have comparative advantages, and ideally both technologies would be developed for strike capability in the range of 1,500 to 2,000 kilometers, the report said. Ballistic tech primarily focuses on fixed targets, while cruise missiles allow for precision strikes on fixed or mobile targets. The ground-based, long-range strike capability would be a useful complement to existing air and sea-launched cruise missiles, according to the report. Diversifying delivery systems would significantly increase options available to political decision makers and provide an additional offensive vector for possible escalation management. 'The commitment of all joint strike assets at great depth would make it possible to combine trajectories and saturate the enemy's defenses at specific points, forcing them into dilemmas,' the French artillery report said. The deep strike capabilities of the French Navy and Air Force face constraints due to air defenses and access denial. A land-based system could offer greater flexibility, including for opportunistic targeting, according to the report. Feedback from hearings and visits to Ukraine suggests interception of ground-based ballistic missiles by air defenses remains very low, 'significantly lower' than for cruise missiles, according to Thiériot. If one technology were to be chosen due to budgetary constraints, developing ground-based ballistic technology for land-based long-range strike is more important, the report stated. 'I would add that the ideal solution would be to do both,' Thiériot said. France's work on nuclear deterrence and ballistic strike capability means it has companies such as Ariane Group able to 'quickly master these capabilities,' Thiériot said. Meanwhile, French defense manufacturer Turgis Gaillard on Wednesday announced a truck-mounted long-range strike system dubbed Foudre, able to fire both French and allied munitions, with the company saying it will present the system at the Paris Air Show in June. France's Directorate General for Armament is already working with a consortium of Safran and MBDA and another of Ariane Group and Thales to develop a tactical strike capability in the 150-kilometer range to replace the French Army's remaining fleet of decades-old rocket launchers. Turgis Gaillard has presented its system as complementary to what is being developed with the DGA, as the launcher would be able to fire the munitions developed by the two consortiums, according to Matthieu Bloch, a member of parliament and co-author of the artillery report. Bloch said fire control and missiles for the launcher are critical and require a sovereign solution, whereas chassis and launch pods are non-critical elements.
