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The U.S. Office of Science and Technology Policy defines AI as technology that enables computers and other automated systems to perform tasks that have historically required human cognition and what we typically consider to be human decision-making abilities. The history of railroading is replete with advances in mechanical, civil, electrical and chemical engineering. In no small part, advances in AI and computer science are generating even more momentum and driving a new technological revolution expected to dramatically transform all fields of engineering and the future of railroading.

Creating student cohorts of limited size is an effective way that school administrators can stem COVID-19 transmissions when classrooms reopen for in-person instruction, says one expert who has studied how the coronavirus could spread from schools to communities. That means reducing a class of 20 that meets every day to 10 students who come to school twice a week, for example, while also ensuring strict social distancing and sanitization, says Pinar Keskinocak, a systems engineering professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology and director of the Center for Health and Humanitarian Systems.

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published. When it comes to COVID-19, what happens in Vegas doesn’t stay in Vegas. Las Vegas casinos reopened June 4, and they have become a likely hotbed for the spread of the novel coronavirus, public health experts said. But if tourists return home and then test positive for COVID-19, the limitations of contact tracing in the midst of a pandemic make it unlikely such an outbreak would be identified.

The University of North Carolina abandoned in-person classes at the first sign of infections on campus. The University of Notre Dame and Michigan State punted even before they got started. There are dozens of large institutions planning to hold in-person education, while the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is using a hybrid model, mixing in-person and on-line classes. Can the U. of I. succeed where so many others have and will fail?

When schools and nonessential offices closed this spring, the need for cleaning supplies (and toilet paper) shifted from the institution to the home. Consumers snapped up cleaning products seconds after they arrived on store shelves, if they arrived at all. Cleaning and disinfectant product manufacturers, and their retail customers, are continually out of stock and unable to keep up with the demand, said Howard Bochnek, VP of technology and scientific affairs at American Infection Control, a company developing and licensing disinfectants.