Posted by AGORACOM-JC
at 10:42 AM on Friday, December 7th, 2018
SPONSOR: Esports Entertainment $GMBL – Esports audience is 350M, growing to 590M, Esports wagering is projected at $23 BILLION by 2020. The company has launched VIE.gg esports betting platform and has accelerated affiliate marketing agreements with an additional 42 Esports teams, bringing total to 176 Esports teams. Click here for more information
———————-
Magic: The Gathering tournaments, whether they’re informal
competitions at local game shops or large, formal affairs, have been an
institution for years. And as announced at the 2018 Game Awards, those
tournaments are now being brought into the esports arena with the reveal of Mythic Championship events and a pro league.
Magic: The Gathering has increasingly been digitized this year, with
the development of Magic: The Gathering Arena, a new way to play the
game online separate from the preexisting Magic: The Gathering Online.
Arena is currently in open beta for PC users, with a full release
planned for 2019. But even though awareness about Arena may benefit most
from this reveal, this new esports structure won’t just apply to the
digital version of the game.
The prize pool is split evenly between two ways to play the game. The
traditional tabletop game and Arena will each have a $5 million prize
pool, with a total of 10 tournaments that begin with the Mythic
Championship being held at next year’s PAX East.
The Magic Pro League, meanwhile, will include the 32 top-ranked
players in the world. Though everyday players will have means to qualify
for championship events (with more details promised for 2019), each of
these players is afforded automatic entry and are promised “competitive
pro contracts,” according to Wizards of the Coast.
Arena players can also receive an esports starter kit by entering the promo code “GameAwards.”
Posted by AGORACOM-JC
at 9:49 AM on Friday, December 7th, 2018
SPONSOR:Â Betteru Education Corp.Connecting global leading educators to the mass population of India. BetterU Education has ability to reach 100 MILLION potential learners each week.
Online Education for India
Online education has become popular among working professionals and
students in higher education. These categories of online learners find
immense benefit in the autonomy, and flexibility, that these courses
offer.
Online courses can be planned into their schedule, which may include full-time employment, internships and caring for a family. It can also help them take out quiet time to study.
Online learning in an education system
Distance learning has been around for a long time, even before
technology made it extremely accessible. Traditional schooling is now
seeing an increased proliferation of virtual training materials and
online courses. Even in a world of tried and tested schooling
systems and curricula, the most successful schools are the ones who
adapt to the changing times, as well as to the expectations of students,
parents and the society.
If online education is here to stay, then what are its implications
for traditional learning? Instead of focusing on pros and cons, the
conversation we should be having today is about leveraging online
learning to make our education system more conductive to learning.
Setting goals, tracking progress and meeting deadlines
Online courses involve setting our own goals, tracking progress and meeting deadlines
Online courses call for a greater amount of motivation and
self-discipline than a classroom-based course. A classroom has one or
more instructors and peers, who can hold a student accountable for their
course-work. In contrast, online courses involve setting our own goals,
tracking progress and meeting deadlines.
One does not learn in isolation, so online courses do offer
discussion forums, email, and one-on-one support. Technology also adds
on to the visual experience by incorporating animations, that can be
used interactively for effective teaching, and communication.
The classroom advantage
A school provides structure, support, and a system of rewards and penalties to groom its students. Classroom education has the benefit of face-to-face interactions with peers, which are typically moderated by a teacher.
It provides children, especially those in their early developmental
years, with a stable environment for social interactions, helping them
develop skills like boundary setting, empathy, and cooperation. This
also allows plenty of room for spontaneity, unlike a virtual learning
setup.
Online education in the context of schooling
As students’ progress to higher classes, they seek more autonomy and
intellectual freedom. Online learning can help them pursue highly
individualized learning programmes, possibly even college-level courses.
These, combined with hands-on exercises, real-world exploration, and
thorough assessments, can be highly beneficial to their learning
progress.
Here’s what the Managing Director of Trio World Academy said:
“They can explore their options, by trying out introductory topics
from different fields, before committing to a specialization. Online
learning platforms can help these students become more independent
learners before they make their way into college,” said Naveen K M.
“I believe that we must not hold students back from picking any
online course, but instead act as their guide as they navigate through
it,” he added.
Teachers and parents should act as anchors and mentors
Teachers and parents should be anchors and mentors
Mobile apps that provide enhanced learning opportunities for school
children have become mainstream. Since mobile phones have already found
their way into their hands, these apps are being used to supplement
classroom learning.
Teachers and parents need to act as anchors and mentors, curating the
kind of educational content students are exposed to, during the tricky
phase of finding the right career to pursue.
Programmes to support families wishing home-school
Virtual public schools, that offer a full scale K12 education, have
already sprung up in some parts of the world. They even offer a
combination of the traditional system with online education. There are
programmes that provide support to families that wish to home-school
their children, in the form of online course material.
These programmes bring parents and teachers into the fold, by
involving them into their child’s education from the get-go. However,
their effectiveness in the long term needs to be studied.
Online programmes for weaker communities
Online programmes for weaker sections
Online learning programmes will also open up opportunities for
children from weaker socio-economic communities, who possess a limited
access to learning resources i.e. teachers, textbooks and
infrastructure.
It will connect them to a global network of online learners, exposing
them to new perspectives. The ideas that they receive, will not be
limited by the number of heads in one classroom.
Online education can also be designed to be accommodating of a variety of learning styles among students.
“As educators, it is likely that we will have to put in additional
efforts to incorporate online learning programmes into the curriculum,
in the most suitable manner,” said the managing director.
Online training programmes are helping teachers/educators advance
their skills in curriculum implementation, policy, education systems and
leadership, both independently and with the support of their
institutions.
It lets them collaborate with their peers, and learn new
instructional skills, that are relevant to their career. These
programmes can help them develop new skills and capabilities in their
students, with the help of technology and interdisciplinary approaches.
Education for future
As the overlap of the traditional and online educational worlds is
becoming more and more inevitable, we owe it to our students to make
their education relevant to their future, through our own ingenuity,
passion and careful planning.
-Authored article by Naveen K M, Managing Director, Trio World Academy
Posted by AGORACOM
at 2:35 PM on Thursday, December 6th, 2018
Completed 43-101 includes a mineral resource estimate (Inferred ) for the Jaclyn Main Zone, Golden Promise
Golden Promise hosts multiple gold bearing quartz veins and is located in a region of recent significant gold discoveries
significant gold discoveries in this region include those of Sokoman Iron Corp. (TSXV.SIC) at the Moosehead Project and Marathon Gold Corp. (TSXV.MOZ) at the Valentine Lake Gold Camp.
VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / December 6, 2018 / GREAT ATLANTIC RESOURCES CORP. (TSX-V: GR) (the “Company” or “Great Atlantic”) announces that it has received and filed on SEDAR a National Instrument 43-101 Technical Report, dated December 4, 2018 (revising a previous filed version dated November 28, 2018) (the “Report“) on the Company’s Golden Promise Gold Property, located in the central Newfoundland gold belt. The report was completed by Mr. Greg Z. Mosher, M.Sc. App., P.Geo., and Mr. Larry Pilgrim, B.Sc., P.Geo. The amendments in the December 4 version of the technical report principally relate to disclosure of QA/QC programs in Part 11 and data verification in Part 12. The material conclusions of both versions of the Report are the same.
The Report includes the following mineral resource estimate (Inferred resources) for the Jaclyn Main Zone, the maiden resource estimate for the Company on the property:
The Golden Promise Property hosts multiple gold bearing quartz veins and is located in a region of recent significant gold discoveries. The property is located within the Exploits Subzone of the Newfoundland Dunnage Zone. Within the Exploits Subzone, the property lies along the north-northwestern fringe of the Victoria Lake Supergroup (VLSG), a volcano-sedimentary terrane. The northwestern margin of the Golden Promise Property occurs proximal to, and, in part, contiguous with a major (Appalachian-scale) collisional boundary, and suture zone, known as the Red Indian Line (RIL). The RIL forms the western boundary of the Exploits Subzone. Recent significant gold discoveries in this region of the Exploits Subzone include those of Sokoman Iron Corp. (TSXV.SIC) at the Moosehead Project and Marathon Gold Corp. (TSXV.MOZ) at the Valentine Lake Gold Camp.
High-grade gold is reported in quartz veins and quartz vein boulders within the Golden Promise Property. Gold bearing quartz veins are reported in multiple areas of the property, including at least 5 gold bearing quartz vein systems reported in one zone referred to as the Jaclyn Zone, located in the northern half of the property. Much of the reported historical exploration within the property has been focused on the Jaclyn Zone with gold bearing vein systems reported at the Jaclyn Main, Jaclyn East, Jaclyn West, Jaclyn North and Jaclyn South Sub-zones. The majority of historic drilling (2002-2010) was conducted at the Jaclyn Main Zone. Significant historical work is also reported in the southwest region of the property at the Linda / Snow White vein, including grab sample reported to return 105 and 232 g/t gold, a reported channel sample returning 29.7 g/t gold / 0.5 meters, and a diamond drillhole intersection of 19.5 g/t gold / 1.15 meter core length. Gold bearing veins and gold bearing float are reported in other regions of the property.
The Report includes a mineral resource estimate for the Jaclyn Main Zone, the only area within the Property for which sufficient data exists to support a mineral resource estimate. The resource estimate was completed by Mr. Greg Z. Mosher, M.Sc. App., P.Geo.
The current mineral resource estimate for the Jaclyn Main Zone is based on assays from 107 drillholes (2002 – 2010). The drill core from most of these holes has been preserved at a Provincial Government storage facility in Buchans, NL. As part of the data verification process prior to the resource estimate, core from five (5) holes, representing a range of contained gold grades and locations within the zone, were examined and six (6) quarter-core samples were collected from three of these holes for verification of the original assay values. The six check samples were assayed for gold in 2018 at ALS Canada in North Vancouver. The following table shows the comparison of original and check assay values.
Drill Hole
From (m)
To (m)
Length (m)
Original Au g/t
Check Au g/t
Sample #
GP02-09
47.6
48.3
0.7
1.4
1.455
CNF10434
GP02-09
48.3
48.7
0.4
1.0
0.005
CNF10435
GP06-51
153.5
153.8
0.3
14.1
25.1
CNF13676
GP06-51
153.8
154.2
0.4
9.4
4.27
CNF13677
GP07-74
181.0
181.5
0.5
5.2
1.79
CNF19937
GP07-74
181.5
182.0
0.5
2.4
0.083
CNF19938
Discrepancies between the original and check assays are attributable to the fact that 1) original and check samples were collected from different portions of the core; 2) the gold is particulate in nature and therefore a high degree of variability exists between the half-core and quarter-core samples; and 3) the original samples were assayed using screened metallics to capture any coarse particles of gold whereas the check samples were of too small a volume to permit the use of screening and therefore some gold particles may not have been captured by the analytical process.
Original assay certificates for approximately 60% of the Jaclyn Main Zone assays were checked against assay values in the dataset used for the mineral resource estimate and no discrepancies were found. The results of QA/QC monitoring of drill core samples submitted for analysis during the period 2004 – 2008 and 2010 – 2011, were compiled and assessed. These measures include use of standards, blanks and duplicate samples, although not all measures were employed in all programs. Regardless, all QA/QC metrics fall within acceptable limits.
The zone was modelled as a single quartz vein that strikes east-west and dips steeply to the south. Modelled vein thickness was based on true thickness derived from quartz vein intercepts. The estimate is based on 220 assays that were composited to 135 one-meter long composites. A bulk density of 2.7 g/cm3 was used. Blocks in the model measured 15 meters east-west, 1-meter north-south and 10 meters vertically. The block model was not rotated. Grades were interpolated using inverse-distance squared (ID2) weighting and a search ellipse that measured 100 meters along strike, two meters across strike and 50 meters vertically. Grades were interpolated based on a minimum of two and a maximum of 10 composites with a maximum of one composite per hole so the grade of each block is based on at least two drillholes thereby demonstrating continuity of mineralization. For the capped mineral resource estimate, all assays that exceed 65 g/t gold were capped at 65 g/t gold. All resources were classified as Inferred because of the relatively wide spacing of drill holes through most of the zone.
Because part of the vein is near surface the resource estimate was constrained by a conceptual open pit to demonstrate reasonable prospects of eventual economic extraction. Generic mining costs of US$2.50/tonne and processing costs of US$25.00/tonne were used together with a gold price of US$1,300/ounce. A conceptual pit slope of 45° was assumed with no allowance for mining loss or dilution. Based on the combined hypothetical mining and processing costs and the assumed price of gold, a pit-constrained cutoff grade of 0.6 g/t was adopted. For the underground portion of the resource a cutoff of 1.5 g/t was assumed. The cutoff grade for the total resource is the weighted average of the pit-constrained and underground cutoff grades. The resource estimate for conceptual pit-constrained and underground at various gold cutoff grades and total resource estimate are tabulated as follows:
Jaclyn Main Zone Inferred Mineral Resource Estimate: Pit-Constrained
Cutoff Au g/t
Au Cap g/t
Au Uncap g/t
Tonnes
Au Ounces Capped
Au Ounces Uncapped
10
21.9
28.5
63,300
44,600
57,900
5
16.4
20.5
101,100
53,300
66,700
4
15.2
18.9
112,300
54,900
68,300
3
14.1
17.5
124,000
56,300
69,600
2
13.7
17
128,400
56,700
70,000
1.5
13.2
16.3
134,100
57,000
70,300
1
11.8
14.6
151,500
57,700
71,000
0.8
11.5
14.2
155,700
57,800
71,100
0.6
11.4
14.1
157,300
57,800
71,200
0.4
11.4
14
157,800
57,800
71,200
0.2
11.4
14
158,200
57,800
71,200
Mineral Resources are not Mineral Reserves and do not have demonstrated economic viability. There is no certainty that all or any part of the Mineral Resources estimated will be converted into Mineral Reserves. Mineral resource tonnage and contained metal have been rounded to reflect the accuracy of the estimate, and numbers may not add due to rounding. Mineral resource tonnage and grades are reported as undiluted. Contained Au ounces are in-situ and do not include recovery losses.
Jaclyn Main Zone Inferred Mineral Resource Estimate: Underground
Cutoff Au g/t
Au Cap g/t
Au Uncap g/t
Tonnes
Au Ounces Capped
Au Ounces Uncapped
10
15.7
15.7
51,100
25,700
25,800
5
11.1
11.2
111,300
39,800
39,900
4
10.1
10.2
130,800
42,600
42,700
3
9.1
9.1
155,400
45,300
45,500
2
8
8.1
184,500
47,700
47,800
1.5
7.5
7.6
200,200
48,600
48,700
1
7
7
218,500
49,300
49,500
0.8
6.7
6.7
230,400
49,700
49,800
0.6
6.5
6.5
239,300
49,900
50,000
0.4
6
6
262,100
50,200
50,400
0.2
5.2
5.2
305,100
50,600
50,800
Mineral Resources are not Mineral Reserves and do not have demonstrated economic viability. There is no certainty that all or any part of the Mineral Resources estimated will be converted into Mineral Reserves. Mineral resource tonnage and contained metal have been rounded to reflect the accuracy of the estimate, and numbers may not add due to rounding. Mineral resource tonnage and grades are reported as undiluted. Contained Au ounces are in-situ and do not include recovery losses.
Jaclyn Main Zone Total Inferred Mineral Resource Estimate
As discussed previously in this News Release, significant recent gold discoveries in the central Newfoundland gold belt within the Exploits Subzone include that of Sokoman Iron Corp. and Marathon Gold Corp. Sokoman Iron Corp. (TSXV.SIC) recently announced a high grade gold discovery on its Moosehead Property, located approximately 40 kilometers east-northeast of the Golden Promise Property. The discovery was made during the 2018 diamond drilling program. A drill intersection of 44.96 g/t gold over 11.90 meter core length was reported including a 1.35 meter core length quartz vein intersection of 385.85 g/t gold (Sokoman Iron Corp. News Release of July 24, 2018). The Valentine Lake Gold Camp of Marathon Gold Corp. (TSXV.MOZ) is located approximately 55 kilometers southwest of the Golden Promise Property. As reported on Marathon’s website, the Valentine Lake Gold Camp currently hosts four near-surface, mainly pit-shell constrained, deposits with measured and indicated resources totaling 2,691,400 oz. of gold at 1.85 g/t gold and inferred resources totalling 1,531,600 oz. of gold at 1.77 g/t. Readers are warned that mineralization at the Moosehead Property and Valentine Lake Gold Camp is not necessarily indicative of mineralization on the Golden Promise Property.
The Report may be subject to review by the British Columbia Securities Commission.
David Martin, P.Geo., a Qualified Person as defined by NI 43-101 and VP Exploration for Great Atlantic, is responsible for the technical information contained in this News Release.
On Behalf of the board of directors
“Christopher R Anderson“
Mr. Christopher R Anderson ” Always be positive, strive for solutions, and never give up ”
President CEO Director
604-488-3900 [email protected]
About Great Atlantic Resources Corp.: Great Atlantic Resources Corp. is a Canadian exploration company focused on the discovery and development of mineral assets in the resource-rich and sovereign risk-free realm of Atlantic Canada, one of the number one mining regions of the world. Great Atlantic is currently surging forward building the company utilizing a Project Generation model, with a special focus on the most critical elements on the planet that are prominent in Atlantic Canada, Antimony, Tungsten and Gold.
Posted by AGORACOM
at 1:31 PM on Thursday, December 6th, 2018
Phase 2 identified 30 epithermal veins that remain open at depth and along strike
1000m to the northeast lies the SG3 target area, which is a feeder system type target.
Plan to drill deeper into the vein system to look for the boiling point in epithermal veins
Vancouver, British Columbia–(Newsfile Corp. – December 6, 2018) – Advance Gold Corp. (TSXV: AAX) (“Advance Gold” or “the Company”) is pleased to provide an update on exploration plans for its Tabasquena project near Ojocaliente, Mexico. Based on the phase 2 drilling program, and historical work completed by the geological survey of Mexico, a dual track drilling program is being planned.
The recently completed drilling in phase 2, has identified a series of epithermal veins (more than 30), which have only been drilled above the boiling point and remain open at depth and along strike. Approximately 1000 metres to the northeast, the SG3 target area, is a structural intersection mapped and sampled by the geological survey of Mexico which is a feeder system type target.
Allan Barry Laboucan, President and CEO of Advance Gold Corp. commented: “Now that we have established that there is a large cluster of epithermal veins at Tabasquena, we are also eager to explore for feeder system type targets. Our plan to drill deeper into the vein system to look for the boiling point in our epithermal veins, combined with stepping out into other areas of the property gives us a good chance to open things up.
“Past work by the geological survey of Mexico, at the SG3 target area, has mapped a key structural intersection to the northeast of the vein system and a coincident gold anomaly.
“The more work we do on the property, the more it becomes clear that we are looking at a large epithermal vein system, and other compelling targets on the project. We are looking forward to more drilling to test these targets in our phase 3 drilling.”
Julio Pinto Linares is a QP, Doctor in Geological Sciences with specialty in Economic Geology and Qualified Professional No. 01365 by MMSA., for Advance Gold and is the qualified person as defined by National Instrument 43-101 responsible for the accuracy of technical information contained in this news release.
Other News
The Company is cancelling the previously announced, see November 2/2018 news release, private placement. It proposes to undertake a non-brokered private placement of units at a price of $0.06 (6 cents) per unit for gross proceeds of up to $300,000. Each unit shall consist of one common share in the capital of the company and one common share purchase warrant.
Each warrant shall entitle the holder to purchase one common share at a price of $0.08 (8 cents) per share at any time within 24 months of the date of issuance. All securities to be issued under this private placement will be subject to a four-month resale restriction.
The company intends to close the private placement immediately following the satisfaction of customary closing conditions, including receipt of all regulatory approvals. There are no material facts or material changes relating to the company that have not been previously disclosed.
Advance Gold will use the net proceeds of this private placement for general corporate purposes and to advance its Tabasquena silver project in Zacatecas, Mexico.
About Advance Gold Corp. (TSXV: AAX)
Advance Gold is a TSX-V listed junior exploration company focused on acquiring and exploring mineral properties containing precious metals. The Company acquired a 100% interest in the Tabasquena Silver Mine in Zacatecas, Mexico in 2017, and the Venaditas project, also in Zacatecas state, in April, 2018.
The Tabasquena project is located near the Milagros silver mine near the city of Ojocaliente, Mexico. Benefits at Tabasquena include road access to the claims, power to the claims, a 100-metre underground shaft and underground workings,plus it is a fully permitted mine.
Venaditas is well located adjacent to Teck’s San Nicholas mine, a VMS deposit, and it is approximately 11km to the east of the Tabasquena project, along a paved road.
In addition, Advance Gold holds a 14.5% interest on strategic claims in the Liranda Corridor in Kenya, East Africa. The remaining 85.5% of the Kakamega project is held by Acacia Mining (63% owned by Barrick Gold).
For further information, please contact:
Allan Barry Laboucan,
President and CEO
Phone: (604) 505-4753
Email: [email protected]
Posted by AGORACOM
at 9:23 AM on Thursday, December 6th, 2018
Identified 5 vertical sets for its graphene products
Aerospace, Biomedical, Water Treatment, Transportation and Civil Engineering
Graphene has many potential applications and ZEN is working in close collaboration with researchers both in industry and in academia.
Multiple Canadian government agencies have already directly contributed over $2 million to ZEN’s graphene research and development work.
Thunder Bay, Ontario–(Newsfile Corp. – December 6, 2018) – Zenyatta Ventures Ltd. (TSXV: ZEN) (“Zenyatta”, “ZEN” or “Company”) is pleased to provide an update on its graphene market development work which has led to the creation of five significant potential market verticals for the Company which include aerospace, biomedical, water treatment, transportation and civil engineering.
Graphene is an emerging market opportunity with many potential applications. The challenge for a new supplier like ZEN is to define the priority market segments offering the best value creation potential. ZEN is tackling this challenge by working in close collaboration with researchers both in industry and in academia. From the work done by the ZEN team over just the past 6 months, the Company is now actively collaborating with 22 industrial end users and 10 Canadian universities. ZEN is also receiving significant interest from multiple Canadian government agencies who have already directly contributed over $2 million to ZEN’s graphene research and development work.
ZEN’s graphene solutions and the potential economic benefit that they can bring to the Canadian economy has attracted the attention of several government agencies that are supporting innovation, sustainability and new clean technology. The Company will continue to work with the government program coordinators for the opportunities that ZEN’s unique Albany Graphite product offers for innovative nano-materials applications. This effort is led by ZEN’s Ottawa-based Outreach Program Coordinator, Monique Manaigre.
The market development work is being led by the Company’s Head of Sales, Phil Chataigneau along with Research Catalyst, Colin van der Kuur. Their combined efforts have led to the development of the 5 most significant potential graphene market verticals:
Aerospace Applications:
Graphene light-weighting, hydrogen applications, Lightning strike protection, composite enhancement, solid state heat sinks, solid state wiring, leading edge/wing de-icing, ceramic armour, radar/sonar absorption, technical/smart fabrics, personal body armour, Graphene Oxide (GO) in jet fuel, lighter cargo containers.
Biomedical Applications:
Oncology treatment using Graphene Quantum Dots (GQD) to deliver targeted therapies.
Diabetes, other standard diagnostic testing with Functionalized GO sensors.
Water Treatment:
Graphene based desalination membranes and other water purification products.
Transportation:
Applications with auto makers and resin manufacturers for: Heat Sinks & Light-weighting, Graphene wires for electric motors, graphene 3-d printing apps to deliver weight savings, (GO) Fuel Additives (Diesel & Jet Fuel), Hydrogen Economy: Fuel Cells, Electrolysis Units, Next-Generation Fuel Cells with graphene 3-D printed circuits and graphene plates.
Civil Engineering:
Graphene additive in cement/concrete.
Graphene in roads/surfacing products.
In recognition of the excellent progress made by the Company’s market development team over the past six months, the Board of Directors has approved the grant of 50,000 incentive stock options grant to each of these three individuals. These options will be priced at $0.40 per share. One-third of the options vested on the date of their grant, one-third of the options will vest six months following the date of grant and the balance will vest on the one-year anniversary of the date of grant. The options have a term of two years and are subject in all respects to the terms of the Company’s incentive stock option plan and the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange.
Zenyatta’s Albany Graphite Project hosts a large and unique quality deposit of highly crystalline graphite. Independent labs in Japan, UK, Israel, USA and Canada have demonstrated that Zenyatta’s Albany Graphite/Naturally PureTM easily converts (exfoliates) to graphene using a variety of simple mechanical and chemical methods. The deposit is located in northern Ontario just 30km north of the Trans-Canada Highway, near the communities of Constance Lake First Nation and Hearst. Important nearby infrastructure include hydro-power, natural gas pipeline, a rail line 50 km away and an all-weather road just 10 km from the deposit.
To find out more on Zenyatta Ventures Ltd., please visit our website at www.zenyatta.ca. A copy of this press release and all material documents with respect of the Company may be obtained on Zenyatta’s SEDAR profile at www.sedar.ca.
Posted by AGORACOM-JC
at 4:28 PM on Wednesday, December 5th, 2018
By Dr. Kiran Garimella
In parts 1-3, we briefly touched on some of the historical foundations of blockchains from computer science and mathematics, including their sub-topics such as distributed systems and cryptography. Specific topics in either of these categories were consensus mechanisms, fault-tolerance, scaling, zero-knowledge proofs, etc.
Obviously, this brief series doesn’t do justice. The history of computing and mathematics is rich, with many interconnections and dependencies. The goal of this series was to provide just enough to make the point that the technologies that power blockchain (whether public or private) were built on a well-established foundation of various topics with contributions from real scientists in both industry and academia. The graphic below depicts the broad brush-strokes of development, clearly showing how current blockchain technologies are based on a wide spectrum of historical developments.
Technologies of Blockchain – Historical Timeline
Conclusion
As you can see, a tremendous amount of development that took place for almost half a century made the modern blockchain possible. Bringing these technologies together—almost all of them based not on just techniques but deep mathematical foundations—into a cohesive whole in the form of a bitcoin application was no doubt a tremendous achievement in itself.
Moving forward, we need to keep in mind the initial motivation for each of these technologies, their strengths, their limitations, and determine how to create different architectures based on business needs. A good example of this is to relax the requirements of anonymity, strengthen safety, incorporate recourse, improve security, and incorporate the enormous complexity of regulatory compliance in securities transactions. Making such trade-offs doesn’t detract from the need for public, decentralized blockchains. On the contrary, this strengthens the use of the blockchain technology ‘horizontally’ across many industries and use cases.
In the near future, we expect to see some innovation in blockchains to improve performance and scalability, which is a special challenge for public blockchains. Along the same lines, there will be new consensus mechanisms going mainstream (such as proof-of-stake). For consensus and validation, blockchain researchers are investigating efficient implementation of zero-knowledge proofs and specific variants such as zkSNARKs.
Posted by AGORACOM-JC
at 4:19 PM on Wednesday, December 5th, 2018
Kiran Garimella
In Part 2, we saw how a simple concept of a linked list can morph into complex, distributed systems. Obviously, this is a simple, conceptual evolution leading up to blockchain, but it’s not the only way distributed systems can arise. Distributed systems need coordination, fault tolerance, consensus, and several layers of technology management (in the sense of systems and protocols).
Distributed systems also have a number of other complex issues. When the nodes in a distributed system are also decentralized (from the perspective of ownership and control), security becomes essential. That’s where complex cryptographic mechanisms come into play. The huge volume of transactions makes it necessary to address performance of any shared or replicated data, thus paving the way to notions of scaling, sharding, and verification of distributed data to ensure that it did not get out of sync or get compromised. In this segment, we will see that these ideas are not new; they were known and have been working on for several decades.
Cryptography
One important requirement in distributed systems is the security of data and participants. This motivates the introduction of cryptographic techniques. Ralph Merkle, for example, introduced in 1979 the concept of a binary tree of hashes (now known as a Merkle tree). Cryptographic hashing of blocks was implemented in 1991 by Stuart Haber & W. Scott Stornetta. In 1992, they incorporated Merkle trees into their scheme for efficiency.
The hashing functions are well-researched, standard techniques that provide the foundation for much of modern cryptography, including the well-known SSL certificates and the https protocol. Merkle’s hash function, now known as the Merkle-Damgard construction, is used in SHA-1 and SHA-2. Hashcash uses SHA-1 (original SHA-0 in 1993, SHA-1 in 1995), now using the more secure SHA-2 (which actually consists of SHA-256 and SHA-512). The more secure SHA-3 is the next upgrade.
Partitioning, Scaling, Replicating, and Sharding
Since the core of a blockchain is the database in the form of a distributed ledger, the question of how to deal with the rapidly growing size of the database becomes increasingly urgent. Partitioning, replicating, scaling, and sharding are all closely related concepts. These techniques, historically used in enterprise systems, are now being employed in blockchains to address performance limitations.
As with all things blockchain, these are not new concepts either, since large companies have been struggling with these issues for many decades, though not from a blockchain perspective. The intuitively obvious solution for a growing database is to split it up into pieces and store the pieces separately. Underlying this seemingly simple solution lies a number of technical challenges, such as how would the application layer know in which “piece†any particular data record would be found, how to manage queries across multiple partitions of the data, etc. While these scalability problems are tractable in enterprise systems or in ecosystems that have known and permitted participants (i.e., the equivalent of permissioned blockchains), it gets trickier in public blockchains. The permutations for malicious strategies seem endless and practically impossible to enumerate in advance. The need to preserve reasonable anonymity also increases the complexity of robust solutions.
Verification and Validation
Zero-knowledge proofs (ZKP) are techniques to prove (to another party, called the verifier) that the prover knows something without the prover having to disclose what it is that the prover knows. (This sounds magical, but there are many simple examples to show how this is possible that I’ll cover in a later post.) ZKP was first described in a paper, “The Knowledge Complexity of Interactive Proof-Systems†in 1985 by Shafi Goldwasser, Silvio Micali, and Charles Rackoff (apparently, it was developed much earlier in 1982 but not published until 1985). Zcash, a bitcoin-based cryptocurrency, uses ZKPs (or variants called zkSNARKs, first introduced in 2012 by four researchers) to ensure validity of transactions without revealing any information about the sender, receiver, or the amount itself.
Some of these proofs and indeed the transactions themselves could be implemented by automated code, popularly known as smart contracts. These were first conceived by Nick Szabo in 1996. Despite the name, it is debatable if these automated pieces of code can be said to be smart given the relatively advanced current state of artificial intelligence. Similarly, smart contracts are not quite contracts in the legal sense. A credit card transaction, for example, incorporates a tremendous amount of computation that includes checking for balances, holds, fraud, unusual spending patterns, etc., with service-level agreements and contractual bindings between various parties in the complex web of modern financial transactions, but we don’t usually call this a ‘smart contract’. In comparison, even the current ‘smart contracts’ are fairly simplistic.
Posted by AGORACOM-JC
at 4:03 PM on Wednesday, December 5th, 2018
Kiran Garimella
Technologies of Blockchain – Part 1: The Foundations
Blockchain is not just a single technology but a package of a number of technologies and techniques. The rich lexicon in the blockchain includes terms such as Merkle trees, sharding, state machine replication, fault tolerance, cryptographic hashing, zero-knowledge proofs, zkSNARKS, and other exotic terms.
In this four-part series, we will provide a very high-level overview of each of the main components of technology. In reality, the number of technologies, variations, configurations, and considerations of trade-offs are numerous. Each piece in this puzzle was motivated by certain business requirements and technical considerations.
In this first part, we look at the origins of the ‘chain’ and the most important technological advancement that makes blockchain (and all e-commerce) possible, i.e., the Internet.
While there have been genuine innovations within the last decade, blockchain’s underlying technologies are mostly quite old (in computer science time scale). Let us unpack a typical blockchain to trace out the origins of the constituent technologies. In this short post, I’ll only point to a very small (some may say, infinitesimally small) subset of the historical origin of technologies that make the modern blockchain possible. I’ll make no attempt to trace the development of these concepts from origin to the present time (that would fill up several books). The fact that blockchain’s technologies have a long and respectable history should help us gain confidence that blockchain, as a technology, is not some fly-by-night, newfangled idea cooked up by the crypto fandom.
What is less certain and much more controversial is the economic justification for blockchain (or at least some types of blockchain), ranging from the unrealistic expectation that it is a panacea for all of humankind’s ills (most optimistically, for social and economic inequities), to the total and premature dismissal of blockchain in its entirety.
The Beginnings
At the conceptual heart of blockchain is the ‘chain’. By definition, the links of the chain are, well, linked. It’s a list of data elements or packets of information (in blockchain, these are called ‘blocks’) that are linked. A blockchain is, therefore, a type of linked list.
The concept of a linked list was defined by pioneers of computer science and artificial intelligence, Alan Newell, Cliff Shaw, and Herbert Simon, way back in 1955-56.
In the early days of computer science, data and processing power lived on individual computers. Soon, people wanted these computers to ‘talk’ to each other. The grand idea of an Intergalactic Computer Network was put forth by J. C. R. Licklider as early as 1963. Unfortunately, even after half a century of rapid development, we have achieved only a planetary-wide Internet so far. An ‘intergalactic’ network is still a few years away!*
These ideas and the need to connect dispersed computers gave rise to wide-scale distributed systems in the 1960s-70s, with the advent of ARPANET and Ethernet. Technically, these linked computers are not necessarily treated in the same way as a traditional linked list that lived on one computer, but the conceptual idea is similar. When data and computational power get dispersed, layers of management, coordination, and security become increasingly important.
Blockchain would not exist without the Internet, which itself would not exist without TCP/IP, developed by Bob Kahn and Vint Cerf in the 1970s and ‘80s. Along the way, some scientists managed to have some fun too. They carried out an April Fools prank in 1990 by issuing an RFC (1149) for IPoAC protocol (IP over Avian Carriers, i.e., carrier pigeons). The punch line was delivered in April 2001 when a Linux user group implemented CPIP (Carrier Pigeon Internet Protocol) by sending nine data packets over three miles using carrier pigeons. They reported packet loss of 55%. A joke that takes a decade to pull off is practically Saturday night live comedy in Internet time scale!
In part 2, we will see how the extension of the concept of linked list on the Internet leads to distributed systems, the attending challenges, and their solutions.
Posted by AGORACOM
at 11:54 AM on Wednesday, December 5th, 2018
Gratomic is focused on the manufacture of high quality, high demand graphenes and graphene derivative products primarily targeted towards elastomers and polymers for automotive tires
Intends to cultivate and exploit Aukam graphite to facilitate the manufacture of graphenes for large volume, mass-market applications
Gratomic owns 63% of the Aukam graphite mine in southern Namibia which it has developed as its key asset since 2015
The Aukam graphite mine is a rare massive vein graphite occurrence which has formerly only been mined commercially in small veins in Sri-Lanka
Aukam graphite has been tested and proven in several high value applications including graphitic foils and is currently being tested by an anode manufacturer for performance quality
Gratomic recently announced LOI to create Blockchain ecosystem for Gratomic Graphene
FULL DISCLOSURE: Gratomic is an advertising client of AGORA Internet Relations Corp.
