Meta wants you to understand anyone, from anywhere, no matter which language they speak. To achieve this the company is looking to build a universal, instantaneous speech translator, capable of translating any language to any other language — including languages that are primarily spoken.
Mark Zuckerberg announced this goal during an AI-focused event Wednesday, describing it as a key step toward a world-encompassing metaverse. “The ability to communicate with anyone in any language — that’s a superpower people have dreamed of forever, and AI is going to deliver that in our lifetimes.”
Meta’s ambitious universal translation project is part of a broader push to build out the company’s translation capabilities for the metaverse. “This is going to be especially important when people begin teleporting across virtual worlds and experiencing things with people from different backgrounds,” Zuckerberg said.
As part of these efforts, Meta’s AI researchers have begun to build an AI model called “No Language Left Behind” that is supposed to be able to learn new languages with less training data than existing machine translation models to more easily understand languages like Luganta, a language spoken by an estimated 2 million people in Uganda.
Going even further, the company’s “Universal Speech Translator” is supposed to be able to translate speech directly to speech without first transcribing it.
Zuckerberg and Meta’s AI researchers also used Wednesday’s event to announce a range of other AI initiatives meant to support the company’s metaverse push, including algorithms that will help people more easily create virtual worlds with the help of AI assistants. To this end, Meta’s researchers built a “Builder Bot,” which Zuckerberg demonstrated in a short clip that had his VR avatar create a beach scene, complete with palm trees and a picnic table, with just a few spoken commands.
“As we advance this technology further, you'll be able to create nuanced worlds to explore and share experiences with others, with just your voice,” Zuckerberg said.
RNA therapeutics comprise a rapidly expanding category of drugs that will speed clinical solutions, actualize personalized medicine, and make the term “undruggable” obsolete, according to a March 2021 Frontiers inBio-engineeringand Biotechnology review.1 Different classes of RNA-based therapeutics include antisense oligonucleotides, aptamers, small interfering RNAs, microRNAs, and messenger RNA (mRNA). The widespread use of mRNA vaccines for COVID-19 marked 2020 as a breakout year for mRNA technology platforms.
mRNA therapeutics are applicable to cancer immunotherapies, infectious diseases, and other indications that require protein replacement therapy or antibodies. After cellular uptake, the therapeutic molecule translates genetic information into protein, an antigen, antibody, or other therapeutic protein. During development of the therapeutics several aspects must be taken into consideration–synthesis, optimization, and formulation–to deliver the cargo to the target site.
Heinrich Haas, PhD
Vice President RNA Formulation and Drug Delivery, BioNTech
Although currently best known for their work with Pfizer on the BNT162b2 mRNA vaccine for SARS-CoV-2, according to Heinrich Haas, PhD, Vice President RNA Formulation and Drug Delivery, BioNTech, one of the company’s key areas of development is cancer immunotherapies.
To achieve this particular type of vaccination an mRNA that codes for a tumor-associated antigen (TAA) is transferred into dendritic cells, which have a key function in tumor therapy. Inside the cells the mRNA is translated and stimulates a cascade of immune responses specific to the TAA in addition to a systemic immune response.
R&D Formulation Development
The coding region of mRNA contains the information required to synthesize a protein. Other important elements include the 5’ and 3’ UTR regions, a 5’ cap and a 3’ polyA tail. Synergistically, the elements make a pharmaceutically-applicable molecule and need to be optimized individually to facilitate increased intercellular half-life, translation, and MHC presentation.
“The good thing is that mRNA can be manufactured in a cell-free in vitro transcription (IVT) enzymatic reaction,” said Haas. A DNA plasmid containing the DNA template is linearized, and RNA polymerase, nucleotide triphosphates (NTPs), modified UTP substrates, inorganic pyrophosphatase, ribonuclease inhibitors, and the cap structure are added. Once the mRNA is transcribed, the DNA is digested.
Then, importantly, the RNA needs to be formulated for delivery. “Here the challenges are a bit higher than for small molecules as many functions need to be fulfilled by the formulation,” said Haas. The formulation has to control serum interactions and protect the RNA from degradation in circulation, control biodistribution and deliver the RNA to the target site, enable and improve cellular uptake and translation at the target site, and, finally, ensure protein expression and release into circulation.
Most lipid nanoparticle formulations consist of four components: the ionizable lipid (e.g. DODMA, Dlin-MC3-DMA), cholesterol, helper lipid (DSPC, DOPE) and grafted lipid (PEG-lipid). The ionizable lipid is positively charged at low pH and neutral at higher pH. The ionizable lipids bind the RNA in the positively charged state through electrostatic interactions and their pKa values are tailored to favor release from the endosome following cellular uptake.
To manufacture the nanoparticles, the RNA dissolved in buffer, and lipids dissolved in ethanol are rapidly mixed at precise ratios, to induce self-assembly into particles with the desired properties. Further process steps, comprising buffer adjustment, addition of stabilizers, concentration adjustment and sterile filtration may be involved to obtain the end product. After determining various physico-chemically characteristics for quality control, the biological activity is measured in cell or animal models. The correlation between particle characteristics and biology is used as a basis for system optimization.
In lipid-based delivery systems some general features are considered to be related to activity. One is the capacity to undergo transitions between phase states, e.g., hexagonal, inverse hexagonal, or lamellar. Lipids where the transition between lamellar and hexagonal phases is facilitated are considered to be particularly helpful for uptake or release across bilayer membranes. Another important aspect is the pKa value of ionizable lipids, which is decisive for pH dependent changes of the particle characteristics in circulation and during endosomal processing after uptake.
Two examples of lipid-based delivery systems are lipoplexes (LPXs) and lipid nanoparticles (LNPs). LPXs are made by mixing preformed cationic liposomes with RNA to form a lamellar-like lipoplex stack. In contrast, LNPs are formed by mixing lipids (an ionizable lipid, a helper lipid, and a grafted lipid) in ethanolic solution with RNA in an acidic buffer to complex the RNA and form the LNP in one step. Permanently cationic LPXs are thought to be more cytotoxic than LNPs, which are largely uncharged at physiological pH. This reduces serum interactions and thus also reduces one main cause of potential toxicity.
Alnylam’s Onpattro™ for the treatment of polyneuropathy caused by hereditary ATTR (hATTR) amyloidosis and the Moderna mRNA-1273 and Pfizer-BioNTech BNT162b2 SARS-CoV-2 vaccines all use ionizable cationic lipids formed by precipitation in ethanol.
The two systems differ in their internal structure, which can be demonstrated by small angle x-ray scattering (SAXS) where the sample is irradiated with an x-ray beam and the scattered light collected. Scattering profiles are displayed as a function of the angle or the momentum transfer. “From this profile you can determine if a Bragg peak is present along with its height and area to get quantitative information on the internal organization of your particle to assist system specification and optimization,” explained Haas.
The LPX structure is characterized by a narrow and well-defined Bragg peak whereas the LNP peak is broader, indicating a lower degree of internal organization. A further difference between LNPs and LPXs is that typically in the former ionizable lipids are used, while LPXs typically comprise permanently charged cationic lipids.
“This is something that might deserve a closer evaluation,” cautioned Haas. “For example, homologous lipids may be considered, which are identical in structure except for one nitrogen atom in the head group which can be permanently charged or ionizable. If they are ionizable the charge can be switched by adjusting the pH. This impacts packing.”
“SAXS provides accurate information on the pH dependent structural changes inside nanoparticles comprising either permanently charged or ionizable lipid. This allows one to determine a structural equivalent to pKa values with high resolution and purpose,” said Haas. “By variation of mixing ratios between lipids and RNA these values can be accurately fine-tuned. This can be helpful along with chemical synthesis of a lipid library. You can tailor the library based on composition and other aspects of the LPX system, which allows easier and more accurate adjustment of parameters to optimize endosomal processing.”
There is also another straightforward approach to modulate particle characteristics and activity, added Haas. “If you mix RNA and liposomes in different ratios, you can find conditions where you obtain colloidally-stable particles either with an excess of negative or positive charge,” he said.
Animal experiment using luciferase as a reporter gene demonstrated that LPXs formed at an excess of positive charge (liposomes) resulted in high transfection efficacy in the lung, whereas those formed with an excess of negative charge (RNA) showed high expression in the spleen. “Just by changing that one physical parameter you can change organ efficacy,” emphasized Haas. Such insight allowed initiation of various clinical studies in the field of cancer immunotherapy.
Thorough characterization of the particles by SAXS and other measurements were helpful to accurately determine critical quality attributes as a basis for manufacturing of the drug products.
Clinical Product Development
“After you have identified your formulation the development work begins. Now you have to refine all of the parameters and justify them,” said Haas. He recommends review of the FDA Liposome Drug Products guidance that details the requirements for characterization and data generation.
“For liposome manufacturing, when it comes to process development, you start with something adapted for lab-scale experiments,” said Haas. “Since this process may change as it is scaled up into a GMP environment you need to control, detail, and justify all process parameters with more accuracy and care than what was done for the formulation experiments.”
In order to follow up with the requirements in the guidances, extensive characterization and thorough understanding of structural and functional coherencies inside the product in development is mandatory. Here, SAXS and other measurements for extended characterization can be useful to generate a sound database. By performing many measurements for all parameters, the process conditions needed to manufacture and store a pharmaceutical product can be defined.
Summary
RNA is labile, highly charged, and complex. As a result, pharmaceutical development becomes a greater challenge than that for small molecules. CMC (chemistry, manufacturing, and controls) aspects are extremely important for successful development of complex nanoparticles that consist of RNA and vehicular molecules. Formulation is of key importance because it may affect the broader qualities.
A thorough understanding of the coherencies inside the delivery systems, such as structure and function as derived from advanced characterization, including SAXS analysis, assists performance of rational formulation development. This also helps define the critical quality attributes required to specify the product that will be important for successful translation of RNA into clinical development.
Listen to Dr. Haas’ full keynote presentation from Precision NanoSystems’ Virtual Symposium: Genetic Medicine from Concept to Clinic.
Reference
Damase TR, Sukhovershin R, Boada C, Taraballi F, Pettigrew RI., Cooke JP. The Limitless Future of RNA Therapeutics. Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology 9, 161 (2021).
Martti™ Translation is the latest addition to UpHealth's suite of products and services that bridge healthcare disparities and enhance whole-person care.
"At Martti™, our technologies focus on one simple goal – connecting people. Effective communication is critical to the safety and quality of care for communities across the world," said Andy Panos, President of US Telehealth at UpHealth. "Whether you're in a healthcare or educational setting, Martti™ Translation will help patients receive vital documentation in their preferred language, mitigating language barriers and improving patient care outcomes."
Hospitals, healthcare systems, provider groups, and other organizations can establish institutional access to the Martti™ Translation portal, where they can upload documents for comprehensive, reliable translation by experienced translators. Each translated document undergoes a comprehensive quality assurance review, ensuring accuracy and clarity each time, in addition to review for cultural considerations.
"Martti™ services allow our care teams to quickly and easily provide medical information to patients in the language of their heart, the language they understand best," said Laura Cranston, Supervisor of Interpreter Services at CentraCare. "Martti™ services have inherent quality assurance processes built-in, so we're confident patients are getting accurate, culturally responsive information. It saves us a lot of time and allows us to provide life-saving treatment and education, and excellent care to our community."
Institutions, organizations, agencies, and care teams can implement Martti™ Translation access following a quick consultation with an UpHealth Martti™ representative. After a brief implementation process, the easy-to-use, self-serve portal allows for efficient, timely completion of translation jobs on demand. To learn more about Martti™ Translation by UpHealth, visit https://ift.tt/eV8Ytys.
About UpHealth UpHealth is a global digital health company that delivers digital-first technology, infrastructure, and services to dramatically improve how healthcare is delivered and managed. UpHealth's solutions holistically enable clients to deliver on their affordability, access, quality, outcomes, and patient experience goals. UpHealth's technology platform helps its clients improve access, coordinate care teams, and achieve better patient outcomes at lower cost, with care management solutions, analytics, and telehealth tools that serve patients wherever they are, in their native language. Additionally, UpHealth's technology-enabled virtual care infrastructure and services improves access to quality primary and acute care, behavioral health, and pharmacy services. UpHealth's clients include health plans, global governments, healthcare providers and community-based organizations.
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The 2020 Census confirms California’s status as one of the nation’s most diverse states — second behind only Hawaii, despite a likely undercount of Latino and Black voters. About 40% of Californians speak a language other than English at home — more than 200 languages and dialects — and one in five have limited English knowledge.
Combined with California’s tradition of expanding voting rights, that’s why some advocates are sounding the alarm over Secretary of State Shirley Weber’s decision to reduce the number of languages required in at least some voting precincts to 20 from 56 for the 2022 election.
As a result, some local election officials may find it more difficult to get funding to translate ballots and other voting materials for languages beyond what’s required by the federal Voting Rights Act. In a Feb. 11 letter to Weber, four voting advocacy groups expressed concern at what they called “the massive rollback of language assistance” and urged her to use her authority to uphold the expanded options.
The letter — sent by ACLU California Action, Common Cause California, Asian Americans Advancing Justice California and the Partnership for the Advancement of New Americans — cited a Brennan Center report that in 2021, at least 19 states enacted laws that made it more difficult for Americans to vote, and that bills have been introduced in four more states this year.
“The reduction of covered languages similarly creates new obstacles for limited-English proficient voters,” the letter states. “With so much at stake, California cannot backslide. We must continue to lead and take bold steps to protect voting rights and remove barriers to the ballot box for all eligible voters, including voters who are members of language minority groups.”
“The fact that each citizen is a primary officeholder in a democracy is the lodestone tenet of our system of government,” Weber said at her swearing-in ceremony in January 2021. “It is my responsibility as Secretary of State to ensure that more Californians are able to exercise that power through the electoral process, and that our elections remain secure, accessible and fair even under the most adverse conditions.”
Over the last year, her office has regularly hosted events and campaigns to promote voter participation. And in a joint commentary with Michigan’s secretary of state published Friday by CNN, Weber stressed her commitment to equal access for all voters — and warned that supporters of the “Big Lie” that former President Donald Trump won in 2020 are running to be the chief election officers in their states this year. A “choice between truth and lies, autocracy and democracy” will be on the ballot, wrote Weber, who is seeking reelection.
Over the years, California dropped its ID requirement and allowed same-day voter registration and preregistration as early as age 16. The state also expanded early voting and vote-by-mail. For the 2020 election and 2021 recall election, California joined three other states that responded to the pandemic by mailing a ballot to every voter. Despite COVID, the November 2020 election set records for voters registered and total votes cast.
Last year, the Legislature passed and Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill to permanently require mail ballots be sent to every voter.
In 28 California counties, the federal Voting Rights Act requires translations for the most common languages for non-English speakers, including Spanish, Filipino, Mandarin, Cantonese, Korean and Vietnamese.
The state determines whether to add more languages — including Khmer, Russian and Farsi — and whether to require language assistance in more voting precincts.
On Jan. 1 of each year with an election for governor, the Secretary of State determines which voting precincts have enough “single language minority” voters who need assistance to vote. In precincts where 3% or more of the voting-age population falls into that category, counties must provide translations for ballots and voting materials in those languages and make a good-faith effort to recruit poll workers who speak those languages.
But this year, new Census Bureau privacy rules to protect its data from being used by private companies means the state is getting less information to use for its language determinations. And that means there will be far fewer precincts that meet that 3% threshold, Weber’s office says.
The difference is stark between the state tabulation based on Census data and the federal Voting Rights Act data.For instance, while the latest Voting Rights Act data shows 9,228 Tagalog-speaking adults in Orange County, the Census shows none. In Sacramento County, voting rights data shows 6,574 Hmong voting-age residents, while the Census data lists none.
“We strongly encourage counties to work with their community groups to determine if a need exists for any of the previously covered languages. Counties should consider the need of their communities before eliminating languages that were previously covered,” Weber’s office told county clerks and registrars of voters.
But without the state determinations, the advocacy groups say that languages will be cut.
For example, counties including Santa Clara and San Mateo confirmed to the groups that they would continue offering the languages they did in the 2021 recall election. Other counties, however, said that they could not secure funding from their board of supervisors without a mandate from the secretary of state.
Since 2018, the number of potential languages for voter information translations has grown in California. Six were added that year: Arabic, Armenian, Hmong, Persian, Punjabi, and Syriac.
And after Asian Americans Advancing Justice and the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California Foundation won a lawsuit against then-Secretary of State Alex Padilla, another 14 languages were addedin 2019: Bengali, Burmese, Gujurati, Hindi, Indonesian, Japanese, Laotian, Mien, Mongolian, Nepali, Tamil, Telegu, Thai and Urdu.
The translations are meant to ensure that residents with limited English skills — 6.8 million, making up about 20% of the state’s population — can vote without any barriers. In some places, voter participation is lower among non-whites.
“California has often led on language assistance for voters, and we don’t want to see a problem coming out of a data issue getting in the way of voters getting the language assistance they’re accustomed to and that they need to be able to vote,” said Julia Marks, staff attorney and program manager with the voting rights project at Asian Americans Advancing Justice.
Jonathan Mehta Stein, executive director of Common Cause California, said his group believes that Weber’s office understands “the enormity of the problem” created by the new language determinations.
“Everything their office stands for suggests that they’ll work towards solutions immediately,” he said. “We hope that they’ll do that in collaboration with voting rights advocates and leaders in limited-English speaking communities.”
Jeanine Erikat, a policy associate with Partnership for the Advancement of New Americans, a research and advocacy group for refugees in San Diego County, said the Secretary of State’s language decisions are especially important to guarantee language assistance to the people her organization serves — such as Middle Eastern and North African voters, who are designated as White in the census, or East African residents.
“It’s really an exciting moment for communities who’ve been here for five-plus years and are acclimating and engaging civically in different ways,” she said. “And now they’re having to rely on someone who can translate for them, and we know often that means relying on a child or a neighbor or a community member. And it’s just not the same as being able to vote for yourself and really ensure you’re getting all the correct information.”
CalMatters is a nonprofit newsroom committed to explaining California politics and policy.
Honk Honk Meaning and Urban Dictionary Definition Explained: Canadian Liberal MP Ya’ara Saks has been making the headlines everywhere after claiming ‘Honk Honk’ is a code for heil Hitler. Ever since she has been in the limelight. Ya’ara Saks is one of the most popular and renowned politicians in Canada. She has gained a huge reputation and fame in the political world. Since she talked about the phrase ‘Honk Honk’, everyone wants to know what is its exact meaning? People have been seeking details online to know about it. In this article, we are going to share some essential details about Ya’ara Saks and the meaning of Honk Honk. Follow More Update On GetIndiaNews.com
Honk Honk Meaning Explained
As per the sources, Canadian Liberal MP Ya’ara Saks claimed that ‘the Honk Honk’ catchphrase was used by Freedom Convoy protesters over the past few weeks which is a secret code for ‘Heil Hitler’. It has become an unofficial slogan in support of the truckers who played their horns continuously in protest of pandemic mandates in the course of demonstrations that paralyzed the capital city of Ottawa for almost a month.
In the course of Monday’s debate on the Emergencies Act called by the Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, Ya’ara Saks defended the Act to remove protesters from the Parliament Hill area on Sunday because she launched into what she believed was the meaning of the Honk Honk slogan, a secret to support the Hitler. In the initial days of the protests in January, a confederate flag and a swastika flag were seen in the crowd, leading Trudeau to call all protesters swastika wavers in a speech addressing the manifestation.
Honk Honk Meaning Dictionary Definition
The comments of the prime minister emerged outrage for branding anti-mandate protesters of the Freedom Convoy swastika wavers. After the comments of Saks on Monday, several netizens took social media platforms to condemn the Liberal MP. On Twitter, she replied back to the backlash saying, “For those who think that ‘Honk Honk’ is some innocuous joke. I’ll just leave this here.” There is another definition for Honk Honk in the Urban dictionary that refers to the Freedom Convoy.
Talking about Ya’ara Saks is a Canadian politician who was born on 09 March 1973 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He was elected to the House of Commons of Canada in a by-election on 26 October 2020. She has won the 2020 York Centre federal by-election. Stay tuned with us for more updates.
Viva Translate was co-founded in June 2020 by CEO Belinda Mo and COO Tony Hua, both Stanford University graduates and the children of immigrants. The company’s platform offers real-time translation of email and other interactive written correspondence via machine translation (MT) specifically for Spanish-speaking workers based in Latin America who wish to work for US employers.
Investors in the seed round, led by General Catalyst, include Chris Manning and Richard Socher from AIX Ventures, Fellows Fund, Hyphen Capital, and First Check Ventures, as well as executives from Microsoft, Meta, Rappi, and PayClip.
On what attracted General Catalyst to Viva Translate, the VC firm said the founders’ vision “aligns well to our thinking around tailored productivity: ultimately, abstracting away cultural blockers creates the opportunity for freelancers to be more strategic in their work.”
After Viva Translate’s January 2021 pre-seed round, funded by Blue Ridge Foundation, the platform’s waitlist rose to 15,000 users in just one week. CEO Mo told Slator, “Tony and I realized how big of a need language translation for cross-border work was, and that’s how we knew this was the right time to raise.” She declined to comment on the company’s valuation.
Millions of Unfilled Jobs
The funding announcement coincides with headlines about the ongoing “Great Resignation” of US employees across industries leaving their jobs for a variety of reasons. The result, more than 10 million job openings are yet to be filled.
In this market, Mo and Hua saw the opportunity. Skilled independent contractors living in Latin America can earn good wages relative to their lower cost-of-living locations, while US employers save on expenses.
Slator 2021 Language Industry M&A and Funding Report
Data and Research, Slator reports
46 pages on language industry M&A and venture funding. Includes financial investments, mergers, acquisitions, and IPOs.
“The job market is now global and, with technology, language doesn’t have to be a barrier for filling positions with qualified employees,” Mo said. “It makes a huge amount of sense for US employers to open themselves up to this large, untapped talent pool.”
Viva Translate estimated that there are some 160 million Spanish-speaking professionals across Latin America who could benefit from the platform.
The company is currently in beta testing with a few hundred users, professionals from IT/engineering, design, administrative, data entry, and customer service, and has over 100,000 workers on its waitlist.
How It Works
Individual professionals subscribe for access to Viva Translate’s industry-specific translation models and customized support for finding and maintaining jobs with foreign employers, including recommendations for remote job openings that non-fluent English speakers can apply for, tailored to each user’s skill set and résumé.
As the user types, Viva Translate’s product automatically translates the text from Spanish into English. Behind the scenes, the MT is trained specifically on content relevant to professional environments and freelancer-client communications. The tool also detects grammatical issues and suggests industry-specific improvements that users can incorporate into their writing.
The company believes its offering of specialized MT to individual users is what makes it stand out.
“Competitors in the machine translation space primarily operate either in free consumer space (e.g., Microsoft Translate) or paid enterprise space (e.g., Lionbridge),” Mo explained. “Domain-specific translations are only available to big enterprises/governments, whereas those accessible to consumers are not domain-specific.”
Wanted: English-Spanish translators
Viva Translate’s current team includes about 10 full-time employees — all children of immigrants — distributed across San Francisco, Mexico, Guatemala, Colombia, and Brazil. With the funds raised in the seed round, the company plans to build out the team, specifically adding its first engineering and translator hires.
“We’re looking for English-Spanish translators and linguists who are passionate about technology,” Mo said. “For now, we are focused on English-Spanish translation so that we can provide the best possible product for this language pair first.”
Over the next few years, the company plans to expand to cover other languages, including Chinese, Hindi, Brazilian Portuguese, and Tagalog. The guiding strategy is to focus on languages spoken in other high-tech remote work centers of the world.
