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Shares of the big-data software company Alteryx Inc. went into a tailspin in extended trading today after the company issued a grim forecast for the current quarter that came in well below estimates.

Adding to its woeful third-quarter guidance, the company also said it will miss full-year forecasts. Investors reacted badly, and the stock fell more than 22%.

The company had just delivered decent results for the second quarter. It reported a loss before certain costs such as stock compensation of 37 cents per share, well above Wall Streets estimate of a 67-cent-per-share loss. Revenue climbed 4% from a year earlier, to $188 million, ahead of the analysts call for $182.1 million.Nonetheless, Alteryx posted a net loss of $120 million overall, rising from a loss of $107 million one year earlier.

For the third quarter, Alteryx said it expects revenue of between $208 million and $212 million, down 2% to 4% from the year prior and well below Wall Streets consensus estimate of $233 million. The full-year forecast doesnt look any better either, with Alteryx targeting a range of $930 million to $940 million, far below Wall Streets forecast of $984 million in annual sales.

Alteryx is a provider of tools for performing extract, transform and load, otherwise known as ETL. Its software is used by enterprises to prepare massive volumes of data for analysis. The Alteryx Cloud platform provides functionality around data cleansing, data mining and geospatial analytics, and offers baked-in connectivity to business intelligence tools such as Experian and Tableau.

Although Alteryxs software can be useful, its apparent that not every enterprise deems it to be essential. As a result, Alteryx has struggled to increase its sales amid the patchy economic environment that has seen many enterprises reduce their software spending budgets. Three months ago, Alteryx acknowledged this reality, and said it would undergo a workforce reduction plan that would shed about 300 jobs from its employee base of about 2,900.

Customers are demonstrating a strong commitment to Alteryx as they face an increasingly dynamic macro environment, as evidenced by robust and consistent gross retention and renewal rates in Q2, said Chief Executive Mark Anderson (pictured).

Analyst Holger Mueller of Constellation Research Inc. said Alteryxs problem is it cannot find the growth it needs to justify its operating costs. Growth was lackluster but the costs increased, and the result is not pretty to see, Mueller explained. So the question is where does Alteryx go next? Either the management finds a way to ignite growth, or the cost base has to be adjusted. The next quarter will tell us more.

Although its struggling to improve sales, the company has continued to innovate. During the quarter, it unveiled a new artificial intelligence engine for the Alteryx Analytics Cloud Platform, aiming to improve productivity for users.

Alteryx AiDIN was announced at its annual user conference Inspire 2023, bringing a number of generative AI capabilities to Alteryxs flagship platform, including an automatic insights feature called Magic Document and a Workflow Summary tool for data preparation tasks.

As we look to the second half of 2023, we are reinforcing our commitment to improving profitability, while also sustaining a high pace of platform innovation with Alteryx AiDIN, our generative AI and machine learning technologies, as well as cloud-connected technologies, Anderson said.

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Shares of big-data company Alteryx hammered on soft guidance - SiliconANGLE News

A team of George Mason University scientists has received a federal grant of more than $13 million to work with the Department of the Navy to study and better understand increased solar activity that could potentially cause an internet apocalypse disrupting all electronic communications on Earth, including satellite communications.

Research from the grant, which will total $13.6 million in expenditures over five years, will be done in collaboration with the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), and will include state-of-the-art data mining, analysis, and scientific modeling, among other endeavors, led by Mason faculty, students and staff. Under the terms of the contract, Mason provides scientific support for a broad range of astronomy-related activities that are of interest to the U.S. Navy and the nation at large.

The main focus is on solar activity and the way it can impact systems on Earth, said principal investigator Peter A. Becker, a professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy within the College of Science. This is especially important to the Navyand more broadly the Department of Defensebecause high-energy outbursts from the sun can have a strong negative impact on earthly radio and internet communications. And they can also have a detrimental effect on navigation systems and energy grids on Earth.

The focus on violent solar activity is the most significant research activity for U.S. citizens as eruptions from the suns surface can have devastating consequences 93 million miles away on Earth. This violent activity includes bursts of radiation, high-speed electrons, protons and other highly energetic particles that are launched into space and can disrupt technologies such as the internet that we have come to depend on. Much of this activity can reach Earth in less than a day.

Violent solar storms are expected to become more frequent and more severe over the next 10 years, and they possess the potential to severely interfere with radio transmitters, navigation and GPS, satellite operations and communications, and the electric power grid. Being able to more effectively warn of their occurrences will help better protect the public and our infrastructure.

The internet was simply not designed to handle this level of communication interference, and, consequently, is considered a very soft type of infrastructure, Becker said. Hence, the period from 2024 to 2028 is a time when the entire internet could conceivably be knocked out for a period of weeks to months in the event of a really extreme solar flare.

Such a scenario could create an unprecedented disaster for modern society, potentially triggering a worldwide recession, Becker warned, because of the worlds heavy dependence on the internet for information, communications and global commerce.

Becker and his team, which also includes several Mason undergraduate students, will also study black holes and neutron stars. These studies will help scientists understand similar processes occurring in the solar atmosphere and how they can affect life on Earth.

Most of the Mason teams work will be performed at the NRL in Washington, D.C., although space has also been allocated at George Mason Universitys Fairfax Campus to accommodate visiting NRL scientists working on joint space science research projects.

Others researchers working on Beckers team include associate research professors Tyrel Johnson and Iulia Deneva; senior research administrator Jessica Hanna; research scientists Jacob Smith, Carlos Braga, Natsuha Kuroda, Eliana Nossa Gonzalez and Craig Johnston; senior research scientists Megan DeCesar and Keiji Hayashi, postdoctoral research fellows Sherry Chhabra, Micah Weberg, and Shaheda Shaik.

Mason scientists are working to explore and understand the nature and level of these dangerous threats to our infrastructure posed by strong solar activity, Becker said, and how to predict extreme events and mitigate the damage.

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Mason scientists to work with the U.S. Navy to avert 'internet ... - George Mason University

Bullying can happen to anyone at any age. And the effects of bullying can extend well into adulthood, leading to depression, anxiety, health complications and decreased academic performance. Yet many adults are hesitant to intervene when children are bullied, said Shawn Worthy, Ph.D., professor of Human Services and Counseling at Metropolitan State University of Denver.

RED talked to Worthy to learn best practices for parents to keep in mind when having conversations about bullying with their children.

For K-12 kids, bullying occurs most frequently in middle school, with 28% of middle-schoolers reporting being bullied in 2019, compared with 19% of high school students. Additionally, approximately 16% of students experience cyberbullying every year, though that number is likely an underestimation, Worthy said.

Whenever you have something that is humiliating or socially inappropriate, you tend to get an underestimate of it because people dont want to say that its happening to them, Worthy said.

In schools, students can experience verbal, physical or relational bullying, as well as property destruction. Online, cyberbullying can occur over social media, text messages, direct messages, emails or while gaming. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the U.S. Department of Education define bullying as unwanted aggressive behavior that involves a power imbalance, whether real or perceived, and is likely to be repeated.

Worthy said to keep an eye out for any of the following symptoms that may occur as the result of being bullied: sadness, isolation, loss of confidence, bruises, injuries, lost or broken items, declining grades, trouble eating and sleeping, loss or change of friends and avoiding specific people or situations.

RELATED: What kids need in the classroom

Typically, bullying occurs for a couple of reasons. The first reason, Worthy said, is because the child has experienced bullying and their response is to bully others. Bullying can also happen when something else is going wrong in the childs life and he or she doesnt know how to deal with it.

A lot of times, bullying is displacement, Worthy said. Something is making them angry or frustrated, and they cant deal with it where its happening, so they take it out on other people.

If you discover your child has bullied someone, Worthy recommends taking steps to prevent bullying from happening again and talking to your child about any problems theyre having at home or with people who are close to them.

Its important to talk to your kids about bullying, but its more important just to talk to your kid, Worthy said. Creating positive habits around communication can go a long way, he added, saying young people who have a habit of honest communication with their parents are much more likely to tell them when theyre being bullied.

Parents who dont regularly communicate with their kids can start small. Worthy said spending time with your kids, even while eating dinner or driving to school and back home, can help create space for kids to feel comfortable talking to their parents about difficult subjects.

The reality is that you dont choose when important conversations happen, Worthy said. Your kid chooses when the important conversation happens, and if youre not around when they need you, it likely wont happen.

As long as its safe to do so, young people should feel empowered to step in when they see bullying happening and stand up for the person being bullied. But it depends on the circumstances, Worthy said. Kids often arent particularly good at understanding social cues and nuances, so ask for details about the situation before offering advice.

When one or two people step up and ask the bully to stop or notice it or dont laugh at it, that goes a long way in stopping the bullying, Worthy said.

Its also a good idea to let your child know they should talk to whoever is in charge when they see bullying. Hopefully, the adult will step in to correct the behavior.

Cyberbullying, though, is completely different, Worthy said. Thats because it can come from multiple places and can be anonymous, and the comments or pictures can have a lasting presence.

The better option (online) is not to engage, because a lot of times they can turn their bullying to you, Worthy said.

Cyberbullying and online safety, especially on social-media platforms, are intrinsically linked, Worthy said. Its important to have a bigger conversation with your kids about how to protect themselves when using the internet. For example, kids should know to never disclose their address, phone number or Social Security number online. They should also know how to identify unsafe links and sites that can lead to viruses or data mining.

RELATED: Should you be worried about TikTok?

Additionally, he recommends talking to your kids about parental controls that are available on social-media sites.

You dont want to secretly monitor your kids online, but you do want to have some parental controls in places where you can check in every now and then and help your young person understand what constitutes bullying and abusive behavior, Worthy said. Sometimes, they dont recognize it when they experience it.

If theres one major takeaway for parents to know about bullying, its to take it seriously, Worthy said. Bullying can impact a childs life for an extended period, and parents should always show concern when their child is involved in a bullying incident.

Its not uncommon for people not to want to get involved, Worthy said. But kids will be kids is not an OK response.

If your child does approach you about bullying, Worthy said there are three things to remember when entering the conversation: Dont shame them. Dont blame them. Believe them.

Visit online resources such as stopbullying.gov and the CDCs violence-prevention page for facts and general advice about bullying. If youre worried that your child is being actively bullied, talk to the school or the school district, which should have resources such as counselors or social workers available. Outside counseling is an option if additional support is needed.

Continue reading here:

Eight tips for talking to your kids about bullying - RED. Relevant. Essential. Denver

A new project aims to harness the power of data to help farmers to make more money from their produce and save crops from going to waste.

De Montfort University Leicester (DMU) has teamed up with Nigerian data company Microscale Embedded and University of Ilorin in Nigeria to develop and launch a new online platform that will connect producers to buyers, markets and processors across Nigeria.

A cassava harvest being processed

Research shows that the agricultural value chain the process which connects farmers to buyers is fragmented and unclear with many growers unaware of the nearest processing facilities, or unable to get goods to market quickly enough because they do not know of storage or transport solutions.

The digital platform AVAC (Agricultural Value Chain) will allow farmers to get location-based information on processors, transporters, markets and distribution. The Knowledge Transfer Project (KTP) has been funded by Innovate UK through a grant of more than 140,000. KTPs connect forward thinking businesses with university expertise to solve a specific, strategic innovation challenge faced by a business.

Darsh Chauhan, Knowledge Exchange officer at DMU, said: AVAC will have positive impacts on food security and the welfare of the poor. Impoverished areas with smallholder farming communities will experience improved welfare through improved economic activities.

Long term sustainability and growth of small farmers will lead to increased export capacity and national GDP growth.

Dr Sulemain Yerima, senior lecturer in Cyber Security at DMU, will be bringing his expertise in data mining and cyber security to help Microscale to develop the tools and techniques it needs to run the AVAC platform. He will work alongside Professor Joshua Olaoye in Nigeria, an expert in agricultural engineering who can help model and simulate crop value chain data, and Dr Shola Sunmonu, head of the Food Engineering Department at the University of Ilorin.

Small farmers remain stuck in traditional value chains driven by subsistence markets and lack of access to formal value chains driven by growth in exports and manufacturing.

Studies have shown that 50 per cent of annual proceeds from crop production are lost post-harvest, due to inadequate access to information between farmers and buyers. Many famers do not know different markets where they can sell, and do not have the means of getting info on locations and prices of different available crops.

The project, which runs over 15 months, will provide access for farmers to this data and will allow them to enable farmers to sell direct to new buyers. They will also get information on the nearest processing and storage facilities.

Posted on Wednesday 9th August 2023

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Power of data being used to help boost farmers - De Montfort University

Martin Kidston

(Missoula Current) Legislative changes and pressure to address certain issues sooner than later has prompted the city's planning department to prepare several updates to its zoning and codes.

Dubbed Our Missoula, the code-reform effort is intended to bring the city's wide array of regulations into a single document and streamline housing and development. The process is likely to take several years, though a number of changes will be made sooner.

Many of the changes outlined in the process are legally mandated because of changes made during the legislative session, said Eran Pehan, director of the city's planning department. The city is very well prepared to implement these mandates. It's also an opportunity for the community to help define how the city will meet state mandates while identifying additional changes that can be made now to support the ultimate creation of housing.

The city kicked off its long-anticipated code reform effort last year. The work will result in a range of policy changes, from subdivision review to land use. It will also align city zoning with the growth policy, something that's been an issue for years.

Changes mandated by the Legislature will also come into play. Among other things, they include subdivision review, changes to condo projects, allowing accessory dwelling units, parking reductions, an increase in the number of children at daycare, and allowing cryptocurrency.

They're also going to be restricting use of design standards and the design review process, said city planner Laval Means. The legislative changes are legally mandated by the state, and we must comply with them.

The city plans to divide its recommendations into two phases. The first phase will address legislative bills that go into effect this year. The second phase would incorporate bills effective next year.

This phased approach enables us to get the most pressing state mandates integrated into our local rules as soon as possible, Means said. Some code amendments shouldn't wait until the end of the process, but should be brought forward as early deliverables. That would address urgent community needs and address state policy changes.

Like many cities across the region, Missoula has fallen short on its housing inventory, which no longer meets current demand. The result has driven home prices and rent to record highs.

To address the issue, Gov. Greg Gianforte last year convened a housing task force to explore solutions. While Missoula had already launched its code and zoning reforms, recommendations passed by the Legislature will force updates sooner than the city had planned.

That also allows cryptocurrency and other data mining operations. Both the city and county had regulated the industry given its enormous use of energy, but that's no longer possible.

The way state law is written right now, we don't have an option to address cryptocurrency, said Means. They are required by state law to be allowed in industrial areas, as a baseline.

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Legislative changes, housing pressure force updates to city code - Missoula Current