Alan W. Dowd is a Senior Fellow with the American Security Council Foundation, where he writes on the full range of topics relating to national defense, foreign policy and international security. Dowd’s commentaries and essays have appeared in Policy Review, Parameters, Military Officer, The American Legion Magazine, The Journal of Diplomacy and International Relations, The Claremont Review of Books, World Politics Review, The Wall Street Journal Europe, The Jerusalem Post, The Financial Times Deutschland, The Washington Times, The Baltimore Sun, The Washington Examiner, The Detroit News, The Sacramento Bee, The Vancouver Sun, The National Post, The Landing Zone, Current, The World & I, The American Enterprise, Fraser Forum, American Outlook, The American and the online editions of Weekly Standard, National Review and American Interest. Beyond his work in opinion journalism, Dowd has served as an adjunct professor and university lecturer; congressional aide; and administrator, researcher and writer at leading think tanks, including the Hudson Institute, Sagamore Institute and Fraser Institute. An award-winning writer, Dowd has been interviewed by Fox News Channel, Cox News Service, The Washington Times, The National Post, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and numerous radio programs across North America. In addition, his work has been quoted by and/or reprinted in The Guardian, CBS News, BBC News and the Council on Foreign Relations. Dowd holds degrees from Butler University and Indiana University. Follow him at twitter.com/alanwdowd.

ASCF News

Scott Tilley is a Senior Fellow at the American Security Council Foundation, where he writes the “Technical Power” column, focusing on the societal and national security implications of advanced technology in cybersecurity, space, and foreign relations.

He is an emeritus professor at the Florida Institute of Technology. Previously, he was with the University of California, Riverside, Carnegie Mellon University’s Software Engineering Institute, and IBM. His research and teaching were in the areas of computer science, software & systems engineering, educational technology, the design of communication, and business information systems.

He is president and founder of the Center for Technology & Society, president and co-founder of Big Data Florida, past president of INCOSE Space Coast, and a Space Coast Writers’ Guild Fellow.

He has authored over 150 academic papers and has published 28 books (technical and non-technical), most recently Systems Analysis & Design (Cengage, 2020), SPACE (Anthology Alliance, 2019), and Technical Justice (CTS Press, 2019). He wrote the “Technology Today” column for FLORIDA TODAY from 2010 to 2018.

He is a popular public speaker, having delivered numerous keynote presentations and “Tech Talks” for a general audience. Recent examples include the role of big data in the space program, a four-part series on machine learning, and a four-part series on fake news.

He holds a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Victoria (1995).

Contact him at stilley@cts.today.

Over 300 People Hospitalized With Mysterious Illness In India, One Dead

Wednesday, December 9, 2020

Categories: ASCF News National Preparedness

Comments: 0

At least 345 people in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh have been hospitalized with an unidentified illness that includes a range of symptoms like seizures, nausea, loss of consciousness and has led to at least one fatality — potentially creating another public health challenge as the region continues to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic.

The outbreak of the illness has centered around the town of Eluru, with the sole fatality being a 45-year-old man, who died on Sunday.

The cause of the illness has yet to be established but local authorities said that all patients, currently 345, have tested negative for Covid-19, ruling it out as a possible cause, the Hindustan Times reported.

YS Jaganmohan Reddy, the state’s chief minister, visited the patients on Monday while the regional opposition party has accused him and his government of mishandling the situation while suggesting that the illness may have been caused by contaminated water supply.

The government, however, has claimed that water samples from the affected areas showed no signs of contamination and no viral infections were detected among the patients.

CHIEF CRITIC

Calling the situation in Eluru just “the tip of an iceberg,” former Andhra Pradesh chief minister and current opposition leader N Chandrababu Naidu accused the government of negligence, tweeting: “Can there be a more unfortunate & bigger failure than this? The Eluru water contamination incident calls for a declaration of Health Emergency in Andhra Pradesh.”

BIG NUMBER

871,972: That’s the total number of cases of Covid-19 the state of Andhra Pradesh has recorded so far making it the third worst-hit state in India. The state has recorded 7,033 deaths from the disease. India has the second-highest number of Covid-19 infections after the U.S., with 9.6 million cases as of Monday, according to Johns Hopkins University data.

KEY BACKGROUND

Earlier this year, 11 people died in Andhra Pradesh after a chemical gas from a factory run by LG Polymers leaked near the city of Visakhapatnam. Thousands of people had reported being sick after the incident and hundreds had been admitted to hospitals, with some needing to go on ventilators. The incident had forced the state to divert resources like ambulances, away from Covid-19 cases to help treat those affected by the leak.

Photo: Patients and their bystanders are seen at the district government hospital in Eluru, India.ASSOCIATED PRESS

Link: https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2020/12/07/over-300-people-hospitalized-with-mysterious-illness-in-india-one-dead/?sh=29276bc84f2f

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