[Gretl-users] Re: off topic, critical pandemic

Here is another call for colaboration (I got it from APDIO - the Portuguese association for Operations Research): Dear colleagues and friends,CLAIRE (Confederation of Laboratories for Artificial Intelligence Research in Europe) is looking for ways to help with the current COVID-19 crisis in Europe. OR has, broadly speaking, more than a few things in common with AI, and since there are undoubtedly numerous ways in which our expertise could prove invaluable (e.g., logistics, scheduling), please have a look at the message below, and consider volunteering yourselves or your research group.Thanks in advance,Pieter LeymanDear friends and colleagues of the AI CLAIRE Community in Belgium,You may have seen or heard about the open letter CLAIRE has sent to the leaders of the EU and national governments, in which we offer governmental agencies and public institutions support in managing the unfolding COVID-19 crisis in Europe.The open letter can be found at http://claire-ai.org/openletter-covid-19 (see also our press release at http://claire-ai.org/claire-press-release-13).In a nutshell, CLAIRE has formed a COVID-19 task-force, led by Emanuela Girardi (IT) and Prof. Gianluca Bontempi (BE), and we are committed to supporting it through all CLAIRE offices. There is plenty of evidence that AI techniques from areas such as data analysis, machine learning, robotics, advanced manufacturing, scheduling and resource management can make a difference in managing the COVID-19 crisis, and the CLAIRE community has much to offer in this regard.Here is how you can get involved with our effort. At shorturl.at/fjtz5, we made available a spreadsheet where you can let us know about1) your availability (and that of your research group) in volunteering: note that this is not a formal commitment, but merely a way to let us know that we can contact you in case of open tasks or requests for help related to your expertise;2) public institutions involved in managing the crisis that are interested in collaborating with the CLAIRE community (in particular, ones that you have contacts at or with); 3) other public initiatives we may want to connect to (in particular, ones that you are involved in or in contact with);5) relevant scientific publications or serious news coverage on the use of AI techniques in support of managing the COVID-19 crisis.We would like to move rapidly to an organisation where we share tasks according to application domains (e.g., image analysis of CT scans, data analysis of IC data, robotics, scheduling, ...) and assign a task leader (and subleaders) to each of them.If you would like to get involved in the COVID-19 taskforce in any other way, or if you have other ideas on how to best be of assistance in this difficult situation, let us know on the #covid19 stream on Zulip. This stream is also an excellent place for exchanging information on best practices related to the use of AI techniques in dealing with the COVID-19 crisis. (To subscribe to CLAIRE's Zulip-based community platform, please contact contact(a)claire-ai.org.)Met vriendelijke groetCordialementHolger Hoos (CLAIRE executive)Hans & Claudio (Belgian CLAIRE office)Gianluca Bontempi & Luc de Raedt (NCP's)Bart De Moor, Paul Geurts, Tijl De Bie, Pierre Dupont, Hugues Bersini and Ann Nowé (Board)