#thenewscompany : A total of 180 new dengue patients were admitted to different hospitals across the country during the past 24 hours (till 8am today).

“As many as 134 dengue patients were hospitalized in Dhaka city and 46 patients were admitted to hospital outside Dhaka during the past 24 hours” a press release of the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) said.

“A total of 19 people died from dengue disease between January 1 and August 25. The first death from dengue was reported on June 21, this year,” the daily statement of the DGHS said. With the new cases, the total number of dengue patients this year rose to 5,117 while some 4,526 patients were released from the hospitals.

Dengue fever is a mosquito-borne illness that occurs in tropical and subtropical areas of the world. Outbreak of the disease is usually seasonal, peaking during and after rainy seasons.

The World Health Organization (WHO) classifies dengue as one of the top 10 threats to public health.

#thenewscompany : Lorenzo Guerini, the Italian Minister of Defence, hadannounced it last October, just after having signed the relevant Decree. Today, the much-awaited order has been eventually formalized:Piaggio Aerospace, the Italian aircraft manufacturer currently attending EBACE in Geneva (Switzerland), will provide the Italian Armed Forces with six new P.180 Avanti EVOs, which will add to the nine sold in October 2019 and currently under production.

“Today’s contract further improves the Company’s portfolio, just when the deadline for potential investors to submit the binding offers to purchase Piaggio Aerospace’s business assetsis approaching”, said Piaggio Aerospace’s Extraordinary Commissioner Vincenzo Nicastro. “Meanwhilewe are working actively on the private customers’ market,too, in order to consolidate their interest in our aircraft”.
The agreement- signed by the Directorate of Aeronautical Armaments and Airworthiness andMr Nicastro- is worth approximately 55 million euro and requires the Company to produce and deliver the six aircraftwithin the next two years. The new Avanti Evo’s will be provided with those technical upgradesthat had already been outlined in the previous contract and that are now in their very last stage of development or have already been fine-tuned by the Italian company’s engineers.

The purchase of these new Avanti Evo’spartially replaces the retrofitting of the eighteenP.180s currently in use by the Italian Carabinieri, Army, Navy and Air Force. This agreement brings Piaggio Aerospace’s Avanti Evo order portfolio to 17 units, while the total backlog amounts approximately to 446 euros million as of December 31, 2021.

Piaggio Aerospace designs, develops, manufactures and maintains aircraft, aircraft engines and structural components. Its history of innovation and progress started in 1884 in Genoa, Italy. A continuous commitment to research and development, combined with innovative design and style, leads the development of Piaggio Aerospace, one of the main players for executive turboprops, Unmanned Aerial Systems and Special Mission aircraft in the global market. The company operates from its aerospace center of excellence in Villanova d’Albenga, Italy, while its Customer Service Department is based in Genoa. In December 2018, the company entered the Extraordinary Administration procedure with the appointment of Vincenzo Nicastro as Extraordinary Commissioner. The same applied later to its subsidiary Piaggio Aviation.

#thenewscompany : With just over a week to go until it opens its doors once again, NAB Show said it is ready to welcome international visitors to Las Vegas once again. The event is expecting to welcome attendees from 154 countries and exhibiting companies from 38 nations.

Attendees from outside the United States make up nearly one-quarter of all pre-registered 2022 NAB Show attendees, which NAB said closely mirrors the 2019 NAB Show percentage.

“At a time when content can travel around the world in a blink of an eye, there is nothing like NAB Show to help the content community discover the tools, trainings and insights that will unleash the next global phenomenon,” said Chris Brown, NAB executive vice president and managing director of global connections and events. “We are excited to welcome back our friends and partners from all across the globe as our industry gets back to doing business in-person.”

Speaking to TVBEurope in our April/May issue, NAB CEO and president Curtis LeGeyt said the event’s organisers had been “pleasantly surprised by the level of interest from international registrants” and that interest keeps growing.

“It’s a clear demonstration that people are ready to get back to doing business face-to-face and there’s no replicating NAB Show when it comes to achieving that,” he added.

#thenewscompany : Bangalore International Airport Limited (BIAL) — operator of Kempegowda International Airport, Bengaluru (BLR Airport) today announced winners of the ‘BIAL Genie Hackathon’ in collaboration with Microsoft. Over 11,500 teams comprising developers and data scientists from across India participated in this challenge to design innovative solutions using Microsoft Azure services. The hackathon sought to unearth new innovations and solutions that will improve the end-to-end passenger experience at BLR Airport.

Team Reboot Rebels emerged the grand winners of the hackathon with their innovative application ‘Fly Ezy’ winning INR 1.5 lacs as cash reward. The 4-member Robot Revels team suggested potential solutions to support the passenger journey from commuting to the airport, internal navigation at the airport, facilitating access to shopping offers as well as alerts for passenger flights to enhance the overall passenger experience.

Other key highlights of Team Reboot Rebels included features like Internal Navigation which can be integrated into the airport map and shows dynamic movement on the map with real-time insights for passengers using the app. The application was designed to give passengers an easy, efficient, secure, and memorable travel experience. Another useful feature was a Blockchain wallet which allows passengers to be rewarded with coins in their wallet which can later be redeemed to get discount coupons at stores in and around the airport.

Team Code Blooded were declared the runner up with their AI based solution called “AIR DASH” which included various usage of Azure services for AR based easy navigation through Azure Maps, a Personalized Marketplace developed through Azure Machine Learning Studio including smooth onboarding for ecosystem partners. They won a cash reward of INR 1 lakh.

The BIAL Genie Hackathon took place between October 2021 to February 2022 to drive technology-led innovation through the development of an app using Azure. Out of 107 shortlisted ideas, 29 prototypes were submitted with a final shortlist of 7 for the finale. The shortlisted teams were provided Azure credits, technical resources, and mentoring sessions by Microsoft subject matter experts (SMEs).

Commenting on this, George Fanthome, Chief Information Officer, BIAL, said, “I would like to thank all participants of the hackathon for the overwhelming response and congratulate the winning teams. This brought together some of the brightest minds in the tech space and has enabled them to create solutions that would have an impact in enhancing customer experience at BLR Airport, by leveraging the next generation of digital technologies. We look forward to seeing the transformative ideas develop into practical actions that will help us realise the vision of a digitalised and smart airport.”

Shivir Chordia, Azure Business Group Lead, Microsoft India, said, “As a cloud service company, Microsoft has always been supporting developers all over the world to create solutions which help businesses and organizations transform. We received some very interesting and transformative ideas for the BIAL Genie Hackathon, and I would like to congratulate the winning teams and all the hackathon participants for their efforts.”

#thenewscompany : All preparations to accord a mass reception to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina have been completed as she will return home tomorrow wrapping up her a three-week visit to the United States and the United Kingdom.

Awami League (AL) and its associate bodies are organizing the mass reception on behalf of the countrymen on Saturday.

The people will greet the Prime Minister standing on both sides of the road from the airport to Ganobhaban.

AL General Secretary and Road Transport and Bridges Minister Obaidul Quader, in a statement today, urged all, including party leaders and activists, to remain present on the road sides on time to make the reception a success.

Different media of Britain termed Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina as a ‘Mother of Humanity’ for her humanitarian role on the Rohingya issue.

The daily Khaleej Times, the most popular newspaper of United Arab Emirates, also termed the Prime Minister as a ‘New Star’ of the East.

Besides, her (Sheikh Hasina) five-point demand at the 72nd United Nations General Assembly on the Rohingya crisis stirred the world community.

AL Joint General Secretary Mahbub-ul Alam Hanif said, “All preparations have been completed to accord the mass reception to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina for raising the five-point demand in the world body and mustering the support of global leaders, and to keep her role memorable.”

She held our head high in the United Nations, he added.

A VVIP flight of Biman Bangladesh Airlines carrying the Prime Minister and her entourage members is scheduled to depart from Heathrow International Airport in London at 6.20 pm local time (Bangladesh time 11.20 pm) today.

#thenewscompany : Georgia-based Helicopter Express called upon Volga-Dnepr Airlines’ expertise in fast response transportation services for an urgent delivery of helicopters to fight the outbreak of wildfires that are plaguing the Chilean countryside.

Helicopter Express, contractors to the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) and the Department of Interior (DOI), are highly-respected experts in fire-fighting operations and provide services such as aerial water delivery, prescribed burning, rappelling operations, and personnel delivery. For this mission, they were contracted by the Chilean government.

With safety and speed the highest priorities, one of Volga-Dnepr’s An-124-100 freighters touched down at Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport less than three hours after the helicopters arrived at the airport for 11-hour flight to Santiago. The unique cargo carrying capabilities of the An-124-100 meant it was able to transport all three Bell 205 helicopters, a K-MAX 1200 helicopter and a flatbed truck and trailer onboard a single flight.

The timeliness of the operation was also supported by Volga-Dnepr’s 26 years’ experience of carrying helicopters for customers all over the world. The knowledge the airline has accumulated over this period, combined with the loading characteristics of the An-124-100, means the airline is able to safely transport most helicopters without them requiring dismantling, other than removing the rotor blades. This means helicopters can commence operations almost immediately on arrival at their destination.

The total weight of the payload onboard the An-124-100, which took up the entire floor of the cargo hold, was 25 tonnes. Peter Baldauf, Key Account Manager, Aerospace at Volga-Dnepr, Houston, Texas, said: “This was a case of two companies that are experts in their fields of operations joining forces to provide a fast solution to help the Chilean government tackle the wildfires in central and southern Chile. Although we regularly carry helicopters, including in the past to fight wildfires, this was the first time we have had the pleasure of working with the team at Helicopter Express so it provided us with an opportunity to demonstrate our capabilities. We expect to be working together again in the future in support of their full range of heavy lifting, disaster relief and helicopter charter services.”

The fifth-generation jet is designed to save money through a modular design allowing variants for the US Air Force (F-35A), Marine Corps (B version) and the Navy (the aircraft capable ‘C’ alternative. F-35 program officials state the jet’s progress through the System Development and Demonstration (SDD) phase is progressing to plan and operation testing issues are being fixed rapidly but Gilmore’s report makes it clear this may not be the case.

“The Services have designated 276 deficiencies in combat performance as ‘critical to correct’ in Block 3F [the F-35’s software], but less than half of the critical deficiencies were addressed with attempted corrections. Deficiencies continue to be discovered at a rate of about 20 per month,” the report added. “Flight sciences testing continues to be a source of significant discovery, another indication that the program is not nearing completion of development and readiness for IOT&E.”

Among the issues, the report cited that the “excessive vertical oscillations during catapult launches make the F-35C operationally unsuitable for carrier operations.” Unsolved structural problems were cited, such as the connection between the vertical tail and the airframe which is wearing out quickly. Earlier tests of the pilot ejection system showed a potential for serious neck injury or death for pilots who weighed less than 136 lb (62kg). Despite introduction of the lightweight helmet (Gen III Lite HMDS), the restriction remains, but if the suggested fixes are incorporated, the “Air Force may open F-35 pilot training to lighter-weight pilots (those weighing less than 136 lb) as early as December 2017,” the report says.

Maintenance issues were also cited, such as the number of panels that may have to be removed and safely stored while working on the F-35. Another issue is that “maintainers must physically connect Portable Maintenance Aid (PMA) laptops to the aircraft in order to conduct most maintenance activities.” However, software issues mean the PMA may connect in seconds or minutes causing “maintainers to disconnect a PMA they incorrectly believe is failing to connect, which prevents that PMA from connecting to an aircraft until an Automatic Logistics Information System (ALIS) administrator resets it, which can be a lengthy process.”

Among the many recommendations, Gilmore’s report says, “the Department should carefully consider whether committing to a ‘block buy’ is prudent given the state of maturity of the program, as well as whether the block buy is consistent with a ‘fly before you buy’ approach to defense acquisition and the requirements [as required by law].”
The full F-35 report from the Office of the Director, Operational Test & Evaluation, can be found here.