February 27, 2021
Today’s customers interact with businesses like never before. Whether they’re on online or using a mobile app, customers have come to expect services that are always available, with real-time updates based on changing dynamics and intelligent interactions. If you deliver anything less, you run the risk of losing customers to competitors, who are more than willing to cater to these expectations. Applications are the new face of how businesses interact, engage, win and maintain their customers.So, how can businesses better understand what their customers really want?Businesses of all kinds are using data analytics to better understand demand, predict expectations and tailor products and services to meet the ever changing demands of customers. By using large quantities of data and tapping into external data sources, organizations can uncover hidden patterns and insights that reveal new and even disruptive business models. If applications are the new face of business, data analytics are the insights that can reveal new opportunities for better engaging with customers through intelligent data-driven applications.Pairing data analytics with cloud native app development offers the potential to take the customer experience and your business to new levels. Cloud native apps are built on the concept of a continuous delivery of micro-services, allowing updates to be made quickly and often, for constant refinement of the customer experience. It’s the winning combination that high performing businesses in industries of all kinds are embracing to provide enhanced customer experiences – something made clear by our recently released Digital Transformation Index.There’s virtually an app for anything – mobile banking, insurance, airline flights, train services, navigation, music and even wine just to name a few. For example, mobile banking apps allow customers to snap a picture of a check and deposit into their account eliminating the need to drive to the bank- perfect for the busy schedules of todays’ consumers. Insurance apps allow policy holders to get quotes, view and report claims in minutes – making the whole process faster and easier than ever before. Another app allows consumers to take a picture of a wine label and rate the wine. It rolls up the ratings from all users to score the wines and generates recommendations for other wines with similar characteristics. Another app that’s very helpful when driving is an interactive traffic and navigation app that tracks your route and allows drivers to share accident, road hazards and speed traps in near real-time to better navigate increasingly congested roads and highways.These apps and literally thousands like them – are at the forefront of the evolution of workloads that are driving the future of data analytics. Whether your business has been around for years or relatively new, together cloud-native apps and analytical insights can help you reach customers like never before and build brand loyalty for continued growth.As customers use these apps, more data is generated about how they use them and their buying patterns. Even greater value can be derived when this data is applied back into the analytics process to enrich intelligent applications and provide even greater insights. This virtuous cycle where organizations are gathering the right data, feeding it into analytical models in context and taking action on those insights, provides the ideal process for gaining a competitive advantage and transforming your organization into a digital driven business. The faster organizations can move through this cycle enhances their ability to identify and monetize new business opportunities for attracting new and maintaining existing customers like never before.Dell EMC feels so strongly about this combination of analytics and apps that we’ve recently announced Analytic Insights Module. It’s been engineered to combine self-service data analytics with cloud-native application development into a single cloud platform. Learn more about Analytic Insights Module and how it can help your business.
NEW YORK (AP) — Tom Brokaw has one urgent piece of advice for television journalists as he retires. He says get away from coastal power centers like New York, Washington and Los Angeles and go to the middle of the country. And he suggests they don’t just visit, but live there. He says a preoccupation with the coasts has kept journalists in the dark about stories as they brew and cited the Capitol insurrection as one example. Brokaw says he’s impressed with a young generation of reporters. He’s more pessimistic about how long it will take journalists to recover from being attacked by former President Donald Trump. Brokaw was with NBC News for 55 years.
WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Poles have taken to the streets of Warsaw, Gdansk and others cities for a third night of protests after a near-total abortion ban took effect. The new ruling leaves Poland with one of the most restrictive laws in Europe. The constitutional court ruled in October to ban abortions in cases of fetal disorders, even severe and fatal ones, and the ruling finally became law on Wednesday. That triggered a new eruption of the mass protests that began three months ago and have since become the largest protest movement in Poland in the three decades since communism fell.
ND8, a student group fighting poverty in the Third World, hoped to lure students away from the dining halls Wednesday and over to Eddy Street to support a fundraising event held at Five Guys. Ten percent of proceeds from sales between 5 p.m. and 10 p.m. benefitted Second Chance, a Toledo, Ohio based organization supporting the victims of domestic sex trafficking. Sophomore Erin Hattler, ND8 co-president, said the organization aims to combat trafficking through advocacy. “Second Chance is a social service program that provides comprehensive services to victims of domestic sex trafficking and prostitution, specializing in women and children,” Hattler said. “It focuses on raising community awareness, and trying to end exploitation through advocacy, securing resources for treatment and training for first responders.” Sophomore John Gibbons, co-president of ND8, said the group chose Second Chance because it directly addresses the challenges that trap victims in the cycle of trafficking. “Often, victims of sex trafficking are likely to go back into sex trafficking because they don’t know what else to do, and there aren’t enough resources devoted to helping them,” Gibbons said. “Second Chance provides a place where they can get away from everything, eventually brining them back to society and something of a normal life.” Bill Purcell, associate director for Catholic Social Tradition and Practice at the Center for Social Concerns, came to eat at Five Guys to support ND8’s efforts. “Our whole family came to support the work against human trafficking, which often gets hidden in today’s society,” Purcell said. “This was a great way to benefit the local community’s economy, to get something to eat and to help the universal problem of human trafficking.” Freshman Erin O’Brien confessed to having dual motives for eating dinner at Five Guys. “It’s for a good cause and a good excuse to go get great food off campus,” she said. Hesburgh Library librarian Elizabeth Van Jacob brought her daughter Jemma to Five Guys in support of the event. Jemma, a student at John Adams High School, said she was glad to see the issue being addressed. “While studying through home schooling a few years ago, I read about this issue,” Jemma Van Jacob said. “It’s good to act locally to tackle this issue.” Elizabeth Van Jacob said the gravity of the problem demands attention. “I can’t believe that this issue is still going on and that it’s going on in the United States,” Elizabeth said. “This affects a lot of adolescent girls and boys, and we are completely opposed to this sort of violence.”
With lights lining the dining halls, Christmas music blasting out of windows and wreaths dotting the doors of buildings campus-wide, the only thing keeping Notre Dame from being a winter wonderland is the conspicuous lack of snow, though students are still decking the halls. McGlinn and O’Neill Halls put up large wreaths the week before Thanksgiving break. According to McGlinn rector Sister Mary Lynch, the wreath is a beloved tradition. “Our shamrock wreath was made by one of the McGlinn residents a few years ago,” Lynch said. “She made it with wire, and we had the maintenance shop back it with metal and hang it up each year since.” The wreaths, shaped like the McGlinn shamrock and the O’Neill “O,” are not necessarily Christmas themed, but Lynch finds them seasonally significant nonetheless. “We thought about keeping them up all year, but then it would lose its wintertime effect,” she said. Not content to have decorations exclusively outdoors, freshmen roommates Maggie Lawrence and Rachel Miceli of McGlinn Hall decorated their room on the first day back from Thanksgiving break. “We have Christmas lights up, gingerbread men across the window and paper chains in Christmas-inspired colors zigzagging across the ceiling,” Lawrence said. “Our entire section decorated, so there are giant paper snowflakes and ornaments dangling in the hallways,” Miceli said. “There are bells on the doorknob and giant red bows on the door too.” According to the maintenance office, trees have been set up in Bond Hall, O’Shaughnessy Hall, the Jordan Hall of Science, the Hesburgh Center, the Basilica, the Eck Visitor’s Center, the Main Building and the Stepan Hall of Chemistry. The individual departments purchase the ornaments and decorations, and maintenance teams have been working to set up the arrangements according to the departments’ instructions. Employees decorated the dining halls, and many hall council members oversaw the decorations for their respective dorms. Notable decorations beyond the wreaths on McGlinn and O’Neill Halls include the “Have a Phoxy Christmas” banner outside Pangborn Hall and the cutouts of Santa and Mrs. Claus in the lobby of Walsh Hall. Other campus traditions include Carroll Christmas, an annual Christmas party put on by the men of Carroll Hall, complete with a tree-lighting, a Glee Club performance and refreshments. Another major event is the Dillon Hall Light Show on South Quad, which begins with a performance Sunday at 7 p.m., another show at 9 p.m. and continued performances throughout the week. According to senior Thomas Catanach, one of the organizers, about 6,000 LED lights are used to create the show. “Basically, we have a bunch of strands of Christmas lights suspended from the building and divided into different sectors,” Catanach said. “The sectors are choreographed to Christmas songs, and it’s all coordinated by computer.” Although impending finals can add great stress to the last few weeks of the semester, many students said they refuse to let them put a damper on their holiday joy. “We make up for the sadness and stress that finals bring by decorating and celebrating Christmas,” Miceli said.
Music, community, fellowship and faith are four words that immediately come to the minds of Voices of Faith gospel choir members when asked why they enjoy spending time together. “We’re more than just a choir. It really is a community,” junior Nicole Campion said. “Yes, we practice singing, but it is also a time of faith and fellowship.” Director Eugene Staples, a senior and four-year member of Voices of Faith, invoked the group’s motto when discussing its communal and spiritual atmosphere, his favorite aspect of the choir. “We are a student-run, faith-based choir,” Staples said. “Singing is my favorite part, but it’s definitely not more important than the fellowship and community. I really enjoy the group’s union of singing with doing something good for our Christian faith.” Senior Amanda Meza echoed Staples’ remarks when asked about her favorite part of participating in the choir. “The fellowship you develop would have to be my favorite part. It’s more than just singing,” Meza said. “We grow together in our faith, and this is something I really cherish and wouldn’t change.” Voices of Faith, a choir marked by cultural, religious and ethnic diversity, provides a home for those searching for alternative ways to grow in their spirituality outside of an exclusively Catholic context. “We provide a home for those who feel alienated,” Staples said. “I come from a Baptist church, and I still feel alienated by some of the Catholic structures. Voices of Faith really is a home away from home for those who don’t understand the Catholic traditions.” Meza, also a member of the Baptist Church, wanted to continue singing and focusing on her spirituality as she had at home. She said she quickly discovered Voices of Faith during her freshman year. “I’m not Catholic, but I wanted to sing Christian music,” she said. “I went to the concerts my freshman year, and they were extremely moving with their incorporation of Bible passages and prayers. I was looking for the Christian identity at the core of the Catholic identity. I was looking for something like home, and I found it with Voices of Faith.” While the music initially grabbed Campion’s attention, she said the community’s diversity is one of the most rewarding parts of participating in the group. “I really like having the opportunity to be friends with such a diverse group of individuals, especially considering Notre Dame’s relative lack of diversity,” Campion said. “I sometimes get bored with the mainstream culture, so the diversity at Voices of Faith almost represents a different culture to me.” While diversity has always characterized Voices of Faith, Staples, Campion and Meza all remarked on how this year’s group has brought religious, ethnic and cultural diversity to another level. “This is our most diverse year ever,” Staples said. “We are so much bigger and so much better. I guess we’ve done great marketing through our performances.” Campion said the group’s constant clapping and cheering during performances often surprises people, but ultimately leads to an enjoyable experience. “Energy is one of the hallmarks of our music,” Campion said. Voices of Faith will host its winter concert this Saturday at 7:30 p.m. in Washington Hall. Student tickets are $5.
Editor’s Note: This story is the first installment in a two-part series on Jenkins’ voice in these ongoing conversations in the Notre Dame community. This series is also the first of three similar “From the Office of the President” series on the Notre Dame presidency to appear in coming weeks. God. Country. Notre Dame. For students here, those three words are a mantra, a proud refrain. For University President Fr. John Jenkins, those three words are his entire life. “As president of Notre Dame, I live in three worlds,” Jenkins said. “One is the world of higher education, one is the world of Catholicism and religion and the other is the world of our nation, the United States of America.” The upcoming year will be an especially poignant cross of those three worlds for Jenkins, who began his presidency in 2005. The University, as one of the premier Catholic colleges in the nation, is challenging the contraception mandate in the Affordable Care Act as an overstep of the government’s rights against religious organizations. The beginning of the school year will be followed within months by a presidential election, as well as state and local elections around the nation. 2013 will see the implementation of a new strategic plan for the University, and administrators and students continue to discuss the ways in which the school will – and will not -address sexual orientation in its policies and ideals. In an interview with The Observer to begin the 2012-13 school year, Jenkins addressed these issues and others in depth. As the leader in many conversations that will define this upcoming year, his words were soft-spoken but sincere. “Any issue that’s controversial in the Catholic world or in the university world becomes more prominent at Notre Dame,” Jenkins said. “I believe that if we don’t have controversies at a university, [we’re] failing. Universities are about vigorous discussion of important issues.” One issue under heated debate among students and administrators in the past year has been the issue of sexual orientation at Notre Dame. Following public requests from students and faculty asking the University to improve inclusion of its lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning (LGBTQ) community, the school announced last spring it would not add sexual orientation to its non-discrimination clause. “At Notre Dame, we do not discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation,” Jenkins said. “That’s a fundamental thing, but that’s not the only thing. The Spirit of Inclusion, which was approved by the Board of Fellows, higher than me, the highest level of the University, says that not only don’t we discriminate, but we want to be a place, an environment, where people feel – of same-sex orientation, anything else – feel respected, supported, fully involved in this community.” The clause primarily addresses discrimination against prospective students and employees in areas such as admissions, employment, scholarships and athletics. The current clause states the University “does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national or ethnic origin, sex, disability, veteran status or age.” What the University includes in the non-discrimination clause are “all and only” those categories required by federal law, Jenkins said. Other schools that include sexual orientation in a similar policy usually do so because they are required by state or local ordinance. “If Notre Dame voluntarily took this on, our fear is that it would be seen as a broader and stronger commitment with regard to same-sex orientation that may undermine our ability to live in accordance with the Catholic teaching because we distinguish between orientation and action,” Jenkins said. As a prominent Catholic university, Notre Dame could also become the target of high-publicity lawsuits related to the clause, Jenkins said. “I don’t believe that step [of including sexual orientation in the non-discrimination clause] would achieve the goal of creating an environment of welcome, of support,” Jenkins said. “I fear that it would tend to be divisive. So I am absolutely committed to try to create that environment, but I think there are other ways to do that.” Jenkins said the community has made progress in past years by embracing the Spirit of Inclusion, which states Notre Dame welcomes its LGBTQ community and seeks to create an environment in which “none are strangers and all may flourish.” The University has also established the Core Council for Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Students, a group of administrators and students that advises the Vice President for Student Affairs on LGBTQ needs. “The non-discrimination clause, I know that’s an issue that people are quite concerned about,” Jenkins said. “But I don’t believe that will achieve the end that is most important.” Instead, Jenkins also emphasized the University’s discriminatory harassment policy, which is designed to protect current students and employees from discrimination and harassment for any reason. “In our academic articles for faculty for promotion and tenure, there’s a clause in there about the unacceptability of bias that includes same-sex orientation or any other quality where people feel they’ve received bias,” he said. “And just I want to say as president, we don’t tolerate discrimination. If people feel they are discriminated against, use the hotline. Go to the appropriate authority. Let us know, and we’ll address it.” Developing a welcoming culture on campus needs to go beyond the administrative level, Jenkins said. “I think so much of this is about climate, and it’s not what I’m, what the president, is doing in his office,” Jenkins said. “It’s about what all of us are doing on campus. I think that’s extremely important, and that’s something we work on with hall staff, that’s something we work on with our Student Affairs personnel. … We just have to keep working on it.” The Office of Student Affairs and its newly-appointed Vice President Erin Hoffman Harding are currently reviewing a proposal to create an official gay-straight alliance (GSA) at Notre Dame. AllianceND, currently campus’s unofficial GSA, applied for official club status in February. “Are there better structures to achieve our ends?” Jenkins said. “I think it’s time for a fresh look.” Tomorrow: Jenkins on the University’s lawsuit against the Department of Health and Human Services, the upcoming presidential election and more.
The Notre Dame Alumni Association launched a new website, FaithND, to extend the University’s spiritual resources beyond campus in an effort to fill a void for religious guidance online. Spirituality program director Angie Appleby Purcell said the site is available to people of all faith traditions interested in exploring Catholicism, even if they are not affiliated with the University. “As a Catholic university steeped in rich tradition, with wonderful resources of faculty, staff, students and alumni trying to live the University’s mission in terms of how to be a people of faith, a Catholic community into the world, we want to be able to provide good quality resources and enrichment for the spiritual and faith journey that we all are on,” Purcell said. FaithND offers a variety of informative services, such as video reflections on liturgical seasons and scripture passages, online courses and opportunities to ask questions about the Catholic faith, Purcell said. One of the best ways to stay engaged with one’s faith is to sign up for the daily email newsletter that includes the day’s Gospel reading, a written reflection on it, a short prayer and a profile of a saint, she said. “[Every morning] I grab my iPhone on the side of my bed, and I read the reflection and the prayer and the saint of the day, and many people start their day with that first step,” Purcell said. More than 9,000 people have signed up for the daily email subscription thus far, Purcell said. Another important feature of the website is the ability to submit prayer requests at the Grotto, a service that existed even before FaithND but is now streamlined. The Alumni Association received more than 24,000 of these requests last year, Purcell said, and they still manage to light a candle for every one. “The Grotto is a significant part of the spiritual imagination of people who are formed here,” she said “They can’t be there in that sacred space, but they certainly can allow us who are here on campus to pray on their behalf.” While most of these services fall under the sphere of prayer, the FaithND website includes three other sections: “Live,” “Serve” and “Explore.” The “Live” section provides monthly themes for reflection on how to live a life of faith, Purcell said. “This month, because we’re very mindful of November being All Saints [Day] and remembering holy people in our lives, we’re focusing on the call to holiness, not from the standpoint of ‘I have to be a Mother Teresa,’ but, ‘In my daily life, how am I called and how can I make decisions based on how to be a better, more holy person?’” she said. The “Serve” section focuses on ways to give back to the community of faith, Purcell said. “[It] talks about how through our faith we are called to service through Catholic Social Tradition, what does that look like, how are we at Notre Dame forming leaders for the Church?” she said. The “Explore” section addresses the intellectual aspects of faith, Purcell said, and it strives to answer the questions, “How do we explore the Catholic intellectual side of what we offer on campus, and how can that inform us as we move forward in life?” Purcell said FaithND was developed after months of research on the spiritual desires of the Notre Dame community, especially those of young alumni. “This came about ultimately from our constituency, our larger Notre Dame family, internally and externally, as to where Notre Dame could help them in continuing to grow in faith,” she said. “It was really a mandate from our constituency and our Notre Dame family.” Those interested in exploring the resources available though FaithND can visit faith.nd.edu Contact Tori Roeck at vroeck@nd.edu
Vaccines are arguably one of the most important lines of defense against the spread of influenza, a common seasonal virus that can have uncommonly nasty effects in elderly individuals with compromised immune systems. Contrary to conventional wisdom, however, a recent study by assistant professor of biological science Benjamin Ridenhour found that in a comprehensive analysis of people ages 65 and over, the influenza vaccine was only about 20 percent effective, underscoring the need for better flu vaccines. Previous studies by researchers in the field focused on different age groups for determining the effectiveness of the influenza vaccine, and extrapolation led to an overstatement of the usefulness of the annual influenza vaccines in the elderly population, Ridenhour said. Individuals from this age group account for most of the roughly 25,000 people who die each year from influenza in the United States alone, Ridenhour said. “Normally the influenza vaccine – going with what the party line is – is about 60 percent effective, which is not great but definitely better than nothing,” Ridenhour said. “One of the big issues there is that this 60 percent number has come from studies of people that are between the ages of 20 and 65, and less than five. “So there are two age groups that we haven’t done a lot of studies on: one of those age groups is the elderly, 65 and over, and the other is the intermediate five to 18 year-old age group. There’s more concern for the elderly group because these are the people that die from flu.” Ridenhour’s novel findings hinged on access to a comprehensive, centralized database of health records from Ontario, Canada that also recorded all vaccinations received by individuals, he said, unlike the largely undocumented vaccination process in the United States. “It turned out that going to Ontario was great because we had data as far back as 1993, so we had approximately 15 years of data that we looked at,” he said. “It encompassed all the elderly individuals in Ontario, so that’s a really nice facet of the study – you don’t have to worry about selecting a special sub-population, we got everybody.” Ridenhour said the low level of flu vaccine success in the elderly population that emerged from the data demonstrates how urgently improvement in the vaccine is needed. Part of his current research efforts focuses on strategies for developing a vaccine that would protect against the actual strain of influenza confronted by population, instead of an across-the-board estimated strain. “There are ways that you can predict the future and improve vaccine effectiveness,” he said. “Part of it has to do with where you pick your vaccine strains from because of the way flu circulates around the globe. If you pick your vaccine strains from different places they represent different snapshots in time, so if you pick from the right places you can predict what it will be the next time. “Doing that, you can actually come up with some of these strategies where you can produce two to three alternative vaccines that have multiple strains in them and you can produce higher vaccine effectiveness in the population as a whole by doing that.” Aside from researching development strategies for an improved vaccine, Ridenhour’s next step will be to investigate the environmental factors that play a key role in the spread of influenza, he said. “Right now our focus is going to stay in Canada, and we’re going to try and take the data we have and look at other factors that might be causing illness,” he said. “The effects of the environment are much less studied. It’s hard at the basic level to figure out how effective a vaccine is. Adding in other complicated factors, such as environmental ones, makes it even more difficult. But we have this great data set that we can actually do this with.” In the meantime, the best way to improve the effectiveness of the influenza vaccine is to improve coverage and have more people vaccinated, Ridenhour said. Typically only 30 to 40 percent of Americans go out and get vaccinated each year, which allows the flu to circulate more freely in the population. “Despite low effectiveness numbers, everybody should definitely go out and get vaccinated,” Ridenhour said.
An Africana Studies department bulletin board displaying quotes by political commentator Ann Coulter was defaced with red paint over Easter weekend.University spokesman Dennis Brown said Notre Dame Security Police (NDSP) was investigating the incident as an act of vandalism.The bulletin board, which remains outside the office on the third floor of O’Shaughnessey Hall, contains several of Coulter’s comments on issues such as race, gender and religion, displayed under the heading “Freedom of Speech, Freedom to Hate: There is a difference.” Gayle Wilson, the administrative assistant and office coordinator for the Africana Studies department, said an unknown person painted messages responding to specific pieces of the board and painting messages such as “What exactly is PC?” and “Don’t be bullied by the ‘Happy Police.’” Wilson said the board, which two student office employees made, was put up the day before Coulter’s April 10 talk. She said the defacement occurred by the time a coworker walked by the display April 21. Wilson learned of the vandalism the following day and called NDSP. In a statement to The Observer, Rev. Hugh Page, chair of the Africana Studies department, said he was “deeply saddened” by the incident. “Such action is clearly inconsistent with the values we espouse as a community of faith and learning,” he said. “I want to congratulate the students and staff whose creative energies are reflected in the board, which seeks to raise awareness. … Their work is resonant with a long and honored tradition of social engagement among Africana artists.” Emily McConville | The Observer The Africana Studies bulletin board, which was vandalized over Easter weekend, will remain on display until the end of the year.Africana Studies Club president Alex Rice said she was disappointed with the perpetrator’s unwillingness to participate in reasoned dialogue about the issues the bulletin board raised. “I wasn’t angry, I would say. I was more disappointed than anything because the Africana Studies department really prides itself on trying to start dialogue,” Rice said. “What happened — an obvious act of vandalism — it wasn’t trying to start dialogue or hear the other side. “It was really, we don’t agree with you; we’re going to say so in a very disrespectful manner.” Alex Coccia, student body president emeritus and Africana Studies major, said the discipline is “an inherently socially and politically active experience.”“Given this reality within Africana Studies, it is unfortunate that the display was vandalized,” he said. “We have to be willing to see the world as it was, because our current environment is a product of that world. We cannot ignore these facts when we engage in discussions about rhetoric and how it utilizes historically volatile connotations.“Speaking more loudly than other voices, the verbal equivalent of painting over the Africana Studies display, does nothing to further constructive dialogue,” Coccia said. “There is nothing wrong with engaging in a heated debate, in fact, heated debates are more powerful than cold, calculated analytics, because they evoke the passions of a community. … But even in disagreement, we cannot disparage or disrespect.” Rice said the incident was a topic at this month’s Finally Friday, a monthly discussion series hosted by the Africana Studies Club.She said the group, which included students and faculty, discussed ways to improve the quality of dialogue about race and speech on campus and increase the amount of discussions with people on multiple sides of an issue. She said the consensus among the attendees was that the board should remain on display until the end of the year. Tags: Africana Studies, Ann Coulter, Free speech, vandalism
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