Latest news with #GRM
Associated Press
20-05-2025
- Business
- Associated Press
Maren Thurow starts as new Head Global Communications at Grünenthal
Maren Thurow has today assumed the role of Vice President and Head Global Communications at Grünenthal. She succeeds Florian Dieckmann, who has played a key role in evolving the company's Communications department since 2021. In her new position, Maren will oversee Grünenthal's communications operations across all markets and lead the team based at the company's headquarters in Aachen. She will report directly to CEO Gabriel Baertschi. This appointment comes at a pivotal moment in Grünenthal's transformation, following the company's outstanding financial performance in 2024. Since 2017, Grünenthal's profitability, measured by adjusted EBITDA, has more than tripled, driven by strategic acquisitions and partnerships such as the acquisition of the US company Valinor Pharma and the product Movantik™ in July 2024. Additionally, Grünenthal continues to advance its key R&D programs, including progressing the Glucocorticoid Receptor Modulator (GRM) and Nociceptin (NOP) Receptor Agonist programs to the next development stages, along with ongoing progress in its Nav compounds. The company is also focusing on accelerating growth in Qutenza™ and its Established Brands, while ensuring a smooth integration of Valinor Pharma and pursuing further strategic acquisitions. Maren joined Grünenthal in 2021 as Head of Global Commercial Communication and was subsequently the Planning Director for the company's commercial organization. Prior to joining Grünenthal Maren was a Director at FleishmanHillard, one of the world's leading global PR firms. About Grünenthal Grünenthal is a global leader in pain management and related diseases. As a science-based, fully integrated pharmaceutical company, we have a long track record of bringing innovative treatments and state-of-the-art technologies to patients worldwide. Our purpose is to change lives for the better – and innovation is our passion. We focus all our activities and efforts on working towards our vision of a World Free of Pain. Grünenthal is headquartered in Aachen, Germany, and has affiliates in 28 countries across Europe, Latin America, and the U.S. Our products are available in approx. 100 countries. In 2024, Grünenthal employed around 4,300 people and achieved revenues of €1.8 billion. More information: Follow us on: LinkedIn:Grunenthal Group Instagram:grunenthal Click here for ourGrünenthal Report 2024/2025
News18
01-05-2025
- News18
Heroic Chinese Photographer Pins Down Thief In Barcelona, Recovers Stolen Camera
Last Updated: The photographer was not physically harmed and was also able to retrieve his camera and other photographic equipment. A Chinese photographer has gone viral for his heroic act to save his equipment. The incident reportedly unfolded at the Avenida de la Catedral in Barcelona's Ciutat Vella district, Spain, earlier this week. The photographer was filming a newlywed Asian couple in the streets of the historic landmark. When they were busy with the shoot, three strangers suddenly turned up and tried to steal the professional camera. The assailants managed to snatch the device, but the photographer reacted promptly. He caught one of the thieves and pinned him to the ground while the other two quickly fled off the scene. Witnesses immediately called the Catalan Police to inform them of the robbery. By the time officers of the Regional Motorcycle Group (GRM) arrived at the spot, the culprit had almost been choked by the photographer. The detainee was identified as a 27-year-old man of North African origin, who had nine criminal records, reported. The police have already started an investigation to locate the other two suspects who had disappeared. The photographer was not physically harmed. He was also able to retrieve his camera and other photographic equipment. A clip of his brave actions was dropped on X (formerly Twitter) by a Chinese journalist, and it impressed many social media buffs. The video showed the thief, visibly shocked, struggling to breathe while lying on the footpath. After the police arrested him, the bystanders burst into applause, appreciating the photographer for his resilience. A Chinese photographer's camera was stolen in Spain. The thief picked the wrong guy… He was choked until the police arrived. The citizens burst into applause.I used to be nervous about being stolen when I studied in France. After backing home, no worries. China is very safe. — Li Zexin (@XH_Lee23) April 30, 2025 An X user quipped that the thief appeared to be 'relieved after the police took him away". 'Bro was so happy to see the police for a split second," added another. A humorous comment read, 'Plot twist: He said 'call the cops,' but forgot he was the consequence. One user felt the photographer might be 'specialised in jiu-jitsu". 'The hand could be steadier on the bicep, but the rear-naked choke worked out," suggested an individual. 'Lesson learned: don't mess with the wrong person!" wrote a user. 'I remember when a Russian tourist broke the arm of a thief who tried to pickpocket him, and a Spanish court forced the tourist to pay 7000 euros to the thief because he lost his ability to work," shared a person. The video has garnered over 7 million views on the X platform. First Published:
South China Morning Post
05-04-2025
- Business
- South China Morning Post
DeepSeek unveils new AI reasoning method as anticipation for its next-gen model rises
Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) start-up DeepSeek has introduced a novel approach to improving the reasoning capabilities of large language models (LLMs), as the public awaits the release of the company's next-generation model. Advertisement In collaboration with researchers from Tsinghua University, DeepSeek developed a technique that combines methods referred to as generative reward modelling (GRM) and self-principled critique tuning, according to a paper published on Friday. The dual approach aims to enable LLMs to deliver better and faster results to general queries. The resulting DeepSeek-GRM models outperformed existing methods, having 'achieved competitive performance' with strong public reward models, the researchers wrote. Reward modelling is a process that guides an LLM towards human preferences. DeepSeek intended to make the GRM models open source, according to the researchers, but they did not give a timeline. The academic paper, published on the online scientific paper repository arXiv, comes amid speculation about the start-up's next move following the global attention garnered by the firm's V3 foundation model and R1 reasoning model. Advertisement Reuters reported last month that DeepSeek-R2, the successor to R1, could be released as soon as this month, as the company rushes to capitalise on its rising profile. The release of DeepSeek-R1 rocked the global tech community with its cost-efficient performance that rivalled leading models. DeepSeek has remained tight-lipped about the rumoured R2 release. It has not commented on the matter through official public channels, but a customer service account denied the report in a group chat with business clients, Chinese media outlets reported last month.
Yahoo
05-04-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
This $1,500 Homebuilt Volkswagen Beetle Hot Rod Says You Don't Have To Be Rich To Go Fast
In the current automotive marketplace speed is a very expensive commodity. The average 0-to-60 time of the vehicle lineup available to new car consumers in 2025 is lower than ever, and even hyper-efficient economy cars seem to be capable of running the quarter-mile in 15 seconds or so. The problem with new cars is that they're hilariously expensive. If you want to go fast but don't have any money, you have to have a reserve of scrappiness, skill, and ingenuity. It seems that Derek Penner, the builder of this turbocharged Miata-powered tube-frame Beetle, has all of those in spades, because he just won Grassroots Motorsports' $2,000 Challenge with it. Penner was inspired to build this monster over a decade ago when he saw a Miata-based Exocet skeleton car and was impressed by the car's light weight and capability. "Now, I don't like the way those look–like sharks jumping out of the water to me–but I knew I wanted the weight and the trackability of those cars," he explained to GRM. "I also really like rat rods–I love patina–and nobody was doing a fat-tired car on all four corners back then. So, I wanted to mix those two ideas. I wanted to make a rat rod that could turn instead of just going straight." Derek started with a wrecked Miata, his own, which donated the suspension and steering. The Beetle shell came up for sale locally to Derek and he bought it for just $100. Between cheap parts, fabrication, and scrounging, Derek had a running and driving car for just a few hundred dollars. The real expense of this car came when he wanted to go faster and a friend offered his turbo Miata engine, including everything to make it run, for just $800. Read more: Everrati's Electric Porsche 911 RSR Has Me Driving Into The Future With Open Arms If you aren't familiar with the Grassroots Motorsports $2,000 Challenge Presented By Tire Rack and Powered By AutoBidMaster, you're missing out. With an all-in build budget of just $2,000 hot rodders from around the country travel to Florida every year to prove they have what it takes to win. There are three separate challenges to the, er, Challenge. Quarter-mile drag, autocross, and concours points determine your finishing final order. By winning the Autocross with this ultra-lightweight Beetle and fat Hoosier slicks, coming second in the quarter mile bit with a 13.3-second run, and placing second in the concours (largely for the ingenuity of the incredible matching center-pivot trailer and the gorgeous hand-assembled mahogany trim), this little home-built machine won while running over $500 under budget! Events like this prove that car enthusiasm doesn't have to be exclusively for or by multi-millionaires. If you take the time to learn a few fabrication and welding skills and scrape the Craigslist barrel for some cheap stuff, you can have a car that wins trophies and races well. Don't say you can't afford it, get out there and bust your ass for the scene. You'll have fun doing it. Want more like this? Join the Jalopnik newsletter to get the latest auto news sent straight to your inbox... Read the original article on Jalopnik.
The Guardian
07-02-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Rebuilding shattered Gaza may require a new Marshall plan
In the week that Donald Trump called for what has been described as an 'ethnic cleansing' of Palestinians from Gaza to rebuild it as a US 'riviera' – an idea as unworkable as it is unhinged – the issues of how, if and when Gaza will be reconstructed have returned to the fore. The reality is that, for all the promises to rehabilitate the coastal strip after previous conflicts, reconstruction – when it has happened – has at best been very partial and always subordinated to Israel's demands. One of the most striking cases in point was the aftermath of the Gaza war in 2014, when a complex system was put in place to monitor the distribution of materials for rebuilding in the strip. After Israel's objection that Hamas would redirect concrete, steel and other resources to tunnel building, a UN oversight process known as the Gaza Reconstruction Mechanism was put in place. Vetted projects and contractors would present themselves at monitored warehouses. Papers and IDs checked, they could take away what they had been allocated. Hugely overcomplicated, under-resourced and ultimately set up for failure, the GRM never functioned properly. Instead it allowed a hidden market to quickly emerge, sometimes at the very doors of the secure warehouses where deals would be done for bags of cement. All of which explains some of the enormous complexities facing the rebuilding of Gaza. It is not simply a physical problem, huge though that undertaking is. It is a political problem as well. The experience of past reconstruction in Gaza, and Israel's veto on the process, as academics have noted, has been used as a vehicle for sustaining domination and ultimately conflict. A ban on building materials entering the Gaza Strip has been a feature of Israel's blockade since it was put in place in 2007. Hundreds of items, from drilling equipment and epoxy to concrete moulds, asphalt and wiring, have been designated as dual-use items. This time the task, and Palestinian needs, will be almost immeasurably larger. In the first instance there is the question of rubble. According to an estimate from UN-Habitat and the UN Environment Programme, there were 50m tons of rubble and debris in Gaza in December, 17 times more than all the debris generated by other hostilities in the territory since 2008. The rubble, if collected in one place, would cover five square kilometres. UNEP estimates that disposing of it will take up to 20 years and cost $909m (£730m). After previous conflicts, Palestinians in Gaza relied heavily on recycling concrete rubble, processing it in sites in open areas, a bone of contention because Israel has said Hamas has taken advantage of recycled concrete for military purposes. How long reconstruction may take is another issue. While some experts have suggested several decades, the reality is that it entirely depends on political conditions. After the second world war, German cities – with the benefit of the Marshall plan – were reconstructed in about a decade, although some rebuilding continued until the 1990s. With a quarter of all structures in Gaza destroyed or severely damaged – including schools and hospitals – and 66% of buildings sustaining at least some damage, the first issue will be to survey what is salvageable and identify the potentially 1 million people in need of long-term shelter and support. Setting aside Trump's calls to permanently displace Palestinians from Gaza, one risk in reconstruction – experienced in London's East End after the blitz – is the social damage that can be done in moving communities with close social networks. One successful UN innovation in Jordan's refugee camps during the Syrian civil war was the deployment of mobile shelters, which residents were allowed to reposition to preserve communities and social structures. In many ways, however, housing may not be the most serious issue. Gaza's water and sanitation system – on the brink of failure even before the onset of the war – has collapsed. It is estimated that up to 70% of water, sanitation and hygiene facilities in north Gaza have sustained damage. In Gaza City, damage to those same facilities exceeds 90% including to the desalination plants in a coastal strip where residents rely on electric pumps to supply roof tanks and where the power system is also badly damaged. Beyond the physical infrastructure there is other, less obvious, damage. More than half of Gaza's critical agricultural land has been degraded by conflict and 95% of cattle have been slaughtered along with nearly half the sheep. That suggests something like a Marshall plan will be required, although almost certainly without the involvement of the Trump administration, which has indicated that it will not pay and has wound up USAid, its development agency. All of which raises multiple questions including how, with Hamas still a presence in Gaza, a mechanism can be found to allow large-scale rebuilding while holding off Israel and the Trump White House. Only that will bring the nightmare of Palestinians in Gaza to an end.
