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HOUSTON , Dec. 5, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Applus+, a global leader in the Inspection, Testing and Certification sector, is pleased to announce a strategic partnership with Abyss Solutions (Abyss), a cutting-edge provider of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine-learning solutions for inspection and maintenance. This collaboration marks a significant milestone in advancing Non-Destructive Testing (NDT) capabilities through the integration of AI-driven technologies. By bringing together the extensive experience of Applus+ in NDT with Abyss' innovative AI algorithms and software platforms, this collaboration aims to revolutionize asset inspection processes, enabling faster, more accurate, and data-driven decision-making. "We are excited to partner with Abyss Solutions to unlock the full potential of artificial intelligence within inspection and testing," said Adam Alessandrino , Executive Vice President of the Pacific region at Applus+. "By integrating AI-driven technologies into our inspection processes, we are well positioned to deliver unparalleled value to our clients by enhancing efficiency, reliability, and safety." Through this partnership, Applus+ and Abyss will focus on developing AI-powered inspection solutions that enable predictive maintenance, asset optimization, and risk mitigation for clients across various industries, including oil and gas, mining, manufacturing, and infrastructure across the Pacific and South-East Asia "We are thrilled to collaborate with Applus+, a global leader in Inspection, Testing, and Certification services," said Gary Hill , Regional Director at Abyss Solutions. "By leading a disruption in the inspection industry, Applus+ is addressing challenges once considered unsolvable due to workforce shortages. We are excited to partner with them on this transformative journey." About Applus+: Applus+ is one of the world's leading and most innovative companies in the Testing, Inspection and Certification (TIC) sector, offering a broad portfolio of services and solutions for customers across various industries. Its solutions ensure that assets and products meet quality, health & safety and environmental standards and regulations, while also enhancing performance. Headquartered in Spain , the company operates in more than 70 countries and employs over 26,000 people. The Applus+ Group drives profitable revenue growth through sustainable services and digitalisation at all levels. About Abyss Solutions: Abyss is pioneering the future of inspection at scale, providing products and solutions that enables autonomous robots to capture and analyze data at an unprecedented level. Its industry-leading technology is pushing the boundaries of the possible, going beyond the status quo to deliver billions of dollars in risk reduction for some of the world's biggest companies. We've curated the brightest minds in autonomy who strive to help protect the world's most valuable assets and resources, delivering the insights needed to inform preventative maintenance programs, exceed health and safety targets, and significantly reduce CO2. SOURCE Abyss Solutions PTY LTDChinese President Xi Jinping will preside over a day of celebrations in Macau and inaugurate the city's new leader on Friday to mark 25 years since the former colony was returned to China. Macau is regarded by China as a shining example of its "One Country, Two Systems" model, and Xi praised the city as a "pearl in the nation's palm" at the start of his three-day visit. The Chinese casino hub has grown from a Portuguese trading outpost to the world's casino capital by gaming revenue and a popular destination for Chinese tourists. When Macau reverted to Chinese rule on December 20, 1999, Beijing promised that the city's "capitalist system and way of life shall remain unchanged for 50 years". Arriving in the city on Wednesday, Xi lauded Macau's "world-recognised success" in implementing the "One Country, Two Systems" framework and said the city had a bright future. "Macau is a pearl in the nation's palm, and I have always kept in my thoughts its development and the welfare of all its people," Xi said. The Chinese president added that he would use his trip for "extensive and in-depth exchanges with our friends from all places, and discuss plans for Macau's development". Friday's festivities will be centred around the inauguration of Sam Hou-fai, the former president of Macau's apex court, as the city's fourth post-handover leader, replacing Ho Iat-seng. Security was tight around the city on Thursday, with roadblocks set up around an event venue and authorities increasing checks on inbound visitors. Following the end of 442 years of Portuguese rule, Macau's fortunes have risen in lockstep with China's economic growth. It is the only place in China where casino gambling is permitted and has long surpassed Las Vegas as the world's top casino hub, fuelled by two decades of Chinese visitor spending. Macau, which has a resident population of 687,000, saw just over 29 million visitor arrivals in the first 10 months of the year. Its GDP has soared from $6.4 billion in 1999 to more than $47 billion last year, and its population is the richest in China on a per capita basis. Under orders from Beijing to diversify the economy, Macau leaders have proposed fields such as financial services, technology and Chinese medicine as new economic drivers. But as of November, gaming-related taxes still made up 81 percent of government revenue and experts say Macau is years away from weaning itself off casino wealth. Xi on Thursday visited the Macau University of Science and Technology and was "briefed on the development of two state-level key laboratories" that involved Chinese medicine and planetary science, according to state news agency Xinhua. He also visited the Guangdong-Macao In-Depth Cooperation Zone on Hengqin Island, speaking to residents and people there in charge of planning, construction, management and services, Xinhua reported. Hengqin Island, a landmass adjacent to Macau and three times its size, was partly leased by Beijing to Macau to boost its land supply for non-gaming development. hol/oho/sco
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Chandigarh: The Punjab govt has allocated Rs 92 crore from the 2024-25 budget under the Post Matric Scholarship for SC Students scheme, to settle the outstanding dues for govt institutions. Sharing details, the minister of social justice, empowerment and minorities, Dr Baljit Kaur , said the Punjab govt had released Rs 366 crore during the 2023-24 fiscal year to clear dues under the Post Matric Scholarship for SC Students scheme for the years 2017-18 to 2019-20. Now, an additional Rs 92 crore has been released to settle the outstanding dues for govt institutions. TNN We also published the following articles recently Gujarat govt disburses Rs 28 cr in scholarships to science students The Gujarat government has disbursed Rs 28 crore to over 2.5 lakh students under the Namo Saraswati Vigyan Sadhana Yojana. This scheme, announced in the current budget, provides Rs 25,000 over two years to students pursuing science education after 10th grade. Bangladesh halves power imports from Adani after outstanding dues: Report Bangladesh has halved its electricity imports from Adani Power, citing lower winter demand and a payment dispute of roughly $650 million, although Adani claims the amount is closer to $900 million. This move follows Adani's initial reduction in supply due to late payments, exacerbating Bangladesh's financial strain. BJP govt renamed 21 schemes of previous govt, CM tells House Odisha Chief Minister Mohan Majhi revealed in the state assembly that the BJP government has renamed 21 schemes initiated by the previous BJD administration. Seven new initiatives have also been introduced. Notable changes include the "Kalia scheme" becoming "PM-KISAN" and the "Biju Swasthya Kalyan Yojana" transitioning to "Gopabandhu Jana Arogya Yojana. Stay updated with the latest news on Times of India . Don't miss daily games like Crossword , Sudoku , and Mini Crossword .CHETICAMP, Nova Scotia — In the middle of the 18th century, Great Britain undertook a deportation program in the New World with many of the elements of President-elect Donald Trump’s plan to expel hundreds of thousands of immigrants, perhaps even more than a million, from the United States. It did not go well. This episode is lost in the memory of most North Americans, but is vivid today, some 270 years later, in the lives and cultures of descendants of the French colonists who lived, generally peaceably, among Indigenous peoples for a century and a quarter. It was a mass deportation known variously as the Acadian Expulsion or the Great Upheaval, and it remains a blot on British history — and, perhaps, an object lesson for the new administration as it is contemplating an even more massive expulsion. “What Trump wants to do in terms of moving people has a real parallel,” said Donald Savoie, Universite de Moncton scholar with Acadian roots. “It was extremely painful, and Acadians have not forgotten that experience.” Here in the land of what Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, in “Evangeline,” called “the murmuring pines and the hemlocks, bearded with moss,” are the successors to the Acadians ruthlessly expelled from Nova Scotia between 1755 and 1763 and deported to the American Colonies, Great Britain and France. In all, about two-thirds of the Acadians were expelled in a brutal effort that provides the backdrop of Longfellow’s epic poem about lost land and lost love. Some of the Acadians and their descendants later returned here, to the fishing village of Cheticamp on Cape Breton Island, where Acadian culture is nurtured and Acadian recipes are renewed and revered. Everywhere flies the flag of Acadia, a yellow star (the stella maris, or “star of the sea,” signifying the Virgin Mary) affixed to the familiar blue-white-red rectangles of the French flag. Just as the Acadian lovers Evangeline Bellefontaine and Gabriel Lajeunesse were separated during the Great Upheaval in the Longfellow poem, so too were hundreds of Acadians in an expulsion that began when Col. John Winslow summoned males over the age of 10 to the Grand-Pre Church, where he read a decree ordering “That your Land & Tennements, Cattle of all Kinds and Livestocks of all Sorts are forfeited to the Crown with all other your effects Savings your money and Household Goods, and you yourselves to be removed from this Province.” The appointment of Tom Homan, who has promised “a historic deportation operation” as the Trump administration’s border czar, and the strong role that Stephen Miller, the administration’s leading anti-immigrant figure, will play as Trump’s deputy chief of staff make it clear that the new president intends to set in motion what he has called “the largest deportation in the history of our country.” There are, however, obstacles to a mass deportation of those in the country illegally that could affect as many as 11 million people — about a quarter of the immigrants in the United States now. One is the backload of cases in the nation’s immigration courts; the Supreme Court has ruled that migrants facing deportation have the right of due process. The American Immigration Council, sometimes criticized for being an advocacy group for immigrants, puts the cost of such an operation above $315 billion for arrests, detention, processing and eventual removal. The group argues such an operation would reduce GDP by 4.2 percent to 6.8 percent and would lead to a reduction of more than $47 billion in federal tax revenue and $29 billion in state and local tax revenue. More than half the country wants drastic changes at the border. A year ago, 41 percent of Americans wanted immigration decreased, according to the Gallup Poll. The figure now: 55 percent. The poll found that 42 percent consider immigration a crisis. Only four years ago, the public was split between those wanting to admit fewer immigrants and those favoring more. The number of foreign-born people in the United States reached a record 47.8 million last year, about 14.3 percent of the population, according to the Pew Research Center, just below the record figure (14.8 percent) set in 1890. Miller has spoken of creating staging grounds that would include runways for military aircraft near the Texas border. Trump confirmed the other day that he would use military personnel for deportations and has talked of using local police in the effort. No plans have been made in Mexico for the reception of those sent back across the border, no shelters have been created, and no means of feeding or employing the migrants are available — challenges that face Claudia Sheinbaum, Mexico’s president for less than eight weeks. “This will be a great burden on President Sheinbaum, who will need time to put a plan in place, and it will be highly disruptive to U.S.-Mexico relations,” said Patrice Franko, a Colby College expert on Latin America. “This is going to be a complex process that merits great discussion, a lot of interagency work, and negotiations in how to do this in a way that does not spill over into other areas, including the drug war.” The Acadian precedent offers no comfort, only disruptions in the short term and anxieties in the long term. Professor Savoie, the leading Canadian expert on government operations, remembers the 1955 bicentenary commemorations of the Acadian expulsion. “The celebration was that we were still alive and kicking,” he said. “To this day, Acadians have never let go. They have demanded an apology. It’s still a part of who we are. I think people and entire generations will be marked forever by the Trump expulsions. The United States will make enemies for generations.” The big difference between the 1755 expulsions and the ones that Trump is planning is the media technology of the time. The Trump expulsions will be visible globally in a way that was inconceivable when the Acadians were deported after refusing to swear oaths to the British crown without assurances that they would be free to practice their religion and could remain neutral in case of war with France. “This Acadian precedent to the Trump plan didn’t work out very well,” Savoie said. “It did not work out for us, as it is still a bone in our throat. We Acadians have never turned the page. And it didn’t work out for the British crown, because centuries later it is still a stain on their history.” David M. Shribman is the former executive editor of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
