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Allred, Domingo, Latour to Headline American University’s 2025 Spring Commencement

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WASHINGTON, April 9, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — An all-star lineup of leaders from the fields of law, food security, entertainment, journalism, business and finance will address and celebrate 3,000 American University graduates during this year’s spring commencement on AU’s Washington, D.C. campus.

This year’s speakers are Gloria Allred, founding partner at Allred, Maroko & Goldberg; Orlando Bravo, co-founder and managing partner of Thoma Bravo, a private equity investment firm; Colman Domingo, Academy Award–nominated actor, producer and director; Almar Latour, SOC/MA ’96, publisher of The Wall Street Journal and CEO of Dow Jones; Radha Muthiah, president and CEO of Capital Area Food Bank; and Elhadj As Sy, global health, development and humanitarian leader.

The traditional bagpipe processional will kick off commencement ceremonies, which will be held in Bender Arena on Friday, May 9, and Saturday, May 10, for undergraduate and graduate students across most AU schools and colleges, and on Saturday, May 17, for the Washington College of Law. The events will be livestreamed for the families and friends of AU’s newest alumni.

American University graduates are dedicated to lives of purpose, service and leadership and our six outstanding 2025 commencement speakers all reflect this dedication to civic engagement,” AU President Jonathan Alger said. “Each of our honorees has made lasting impacts in communities around the world and they exemplify our charge to ‘dream big.’ They will further inspire our graduating Eagles as they begin their own journeys and fulfill their unique big dreams.”

Speakers on Friday, May 9:

Radha Muthiah is the president and CEO of Capital Area Food Bank, which anchors our region’s charitable food ecosystem. Under her leadership, CAFB distributes the food for more than 60 million meals annually and operates multiple innovative, cross-sector initiatives focused on addressing food insecurity in the long term. Muthiah has been recognized by Washington Business Journal as Nonprofit CEO of the Year and as a Woman Who Means Business and by Washingtonian magazine as Washingtonian of the Year and one of Washington’s Most Powerful Women. She will address graduates of the College of Arts and Sciences on Friday, May 9, at 9 a.m.

Elhadj As Sy is a global health, development and humanitarian leader who served as the secretary general of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and has held leadership positions at such international agencies as UNICEF, UNAIDS, UNDP, WHO Health Emergencies Programme and The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. He chairs the board of the Kofi Annan Foundation and was recently named the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine’s first chancellor in its 125-year history. He will address graduates of the School of International Service on Friday, May 9, at 2 p.m.

Speakers on Saturday, May 10:

Colman Domingo starred as civil rights leader Bayard Rustin in Netflix and Higher Ground’s Rustin, for which he received Academy Award, Golden Globes, BAFTA and SAG nominations. He also played Mister in the Warner Bros. production of The Color Purple, which received a SAG ensemble nomination. Domingo executive produced and starred in Greg Kwedar’s film Sing Sing, for which he received a second Academy Award nomination. He will address graduates of the School of Public Affairs on Saturday, May 10, at 9 a.m.

Almar Latour, SOC/MA ’96, is the publisher of The Wall Street Journal and CEO of Dow Jones. Under his leadership, Dow Jones has delivered record financial results, more than doubling profitability in four years, with significant growth in subscriptions and business information services. Latour will address graduates of the School of Education and the School of Communication on Saturday, May 10, at 2 p.m.

Orlando Bravo is a founder and managing partner of Thoma Bravo, a leading software investment firm, and the founder and chair of the Bravo Family Foundation, which provides young adults in Puerto Rico with access to opportunity. In 2019, he committed $100 million to the foundation’s Rising Entrepreneurs Program with the goal of fostering entrepreneurship on the island. Bravo is one of the top software investors in the world. He will address graduates of the Kogod School of Business and Professional Studies, which recently launched the Institute for Applied Artificial Intelligence (IAAI), further positioning the university and business school as global leaders in AI education, application and research. The ceremony will be held on Saturday, May 10, at 6 p.m.

Speaker on Saturday, May 17:

Gloria Allred is the founding partner at Allred, Maroko & Goldberg, a law firm that has successfully handled more women’s rights cases than any other private firm in the nation. Over the course of her nearly 50-year legal career, Allred has received numerous honors in recognition of her groundbreaking work, including the Lifetime Achievement Award from The National Trial Lawyers for her pioneering role in combating injustices and winning new rights, especially for women and minorities. President Barack Obama introduced her as “one of the best attorneys in the country,” while President Ronald Reagan presented her with the 1986 Volunteer Action Award for Outstanding Volunteerism. Allred will address graduates of the Washington College of Law on Saturday, May 17, at 10 a.m.

About American University

American University leverages the power and purpose of scholarship, learning, and community to impact our changing world. AU’s faculty, students, staff, and alumni are changemakers who shape the future from sustainability to social justice to the sciences. Building on our 130-year history of education and research in the public interest, we say ‘Challenge Accepted’ to addressing the world’s pressing issues.

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SOURCE American University

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JAMS Launches AI for Enterprise Job Scheduling: JAX and JAMS MCP, on the Model You Choose

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A new AI agent and an open-standard connector let IT teams query, diagnose, and manage automation in plain language, on the model they choose, with operational data staying inside their own network

LONDON, July 24, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — JAMS Software, an orchestration solution for scheduled and event-driven automation, today announced the general availability of two AI capabilities for enterprise job scheduling: JAX, an AI agent built into the JAMS Web Client, and JAMS MCP, a connector built on the open Model Context Protocol standard that brings JAMS into external AI coding tools. Both capabilities ship at no additional cost as part of JAMS Web.

Automation environments grow faster than the teams that run them. Jobs multiply across SQL Server, Azure Data Factory, Airflow, SAP, JDE, and Banner, and when one fails, finding the root cause often means searching several consoles at once, frequently outside business hours. At the same time, IT leaders carry pressure to adopt AI while staying accountable for where operational data goes. JAX and JAMS MCP close both gaps together.

Full details on how JAX and JAMS MCP work, including the control model behind every action, are available at jamsscheduler.com/product/ai.

JAX is an AI agent that runs inside the JAMS Web Client. It finds jobs, troubleshoots failures, and answers how-to questions in plain language, with each response grounded in the JAMS user guide and checked against a built-in glossary. JAX acts only when a user asks it to. Reads flow freely, and every write action pauses for the user’s explicit approval before it runs. JAX does not learn between sessions, and conversations are not retained on the server.

JAMS MCP is a connector, built on the open Model Context Protocol standard, that brings JAMS into the AI tools engineering teams already use, including Cursor, VS Code with Copilot, Claude Code, Claude Desktop, and Codex. Users query jobs, investigate failures, and manage runs in plain language without leaving their tool.

Both capabilities run inside the customer’s own network and act as the signed-in user, with that user’s exact JAMS permissions. There is no elevated AI account: whatever a user cannot do in the JAMS interface, JAX and JAMS MCP cannot do on that user’s behalf. Every JAX and MCP operation is recorded in its own dedicated log, and changes made through the JAMS API land in the JAMS audit trail like any other change. Customers choose their own AI model, whether a commercial provider such as OpenAI or Anthropic or a model running entirely on their own hardware, and JAMS never trains on customer data. In the current release, neither feature edits or deletes a job, folder, schedule, or agent definition. For teams that must keep operational data within a defined boundary, JAX runs on a local model entirely inside the customer’s own network, so nothing leaves at all.

“Adopting AI usually means giving something up, most often visibility into where your data goes,” said Pete Hegland, Chief Executive Officer of JAMS Software. “We built JAX and JAMS MCP so that trade does not have to happen. Every action runs as the signed-in user, every change waits for approval, and the model itself can run entirely inside your own network.”

“IT teams across the United Kingdom and EMEA tell us the same thing: they want the benefit of AI without losing sight of where their data goes,” said Greg McLaughlin, Account Executive for EMEA at JAMS Software. “JAX and JAMS MCP let them keep operational data inside their own network and still get answers in plain language. That combination is what makes this practical for the teams I work with.”

JAX and JAMS MCP are available now to all JAMS Web customers across the United Kingdom and EMEA, with no separate licence, SKU, or additional cost. AI-assisted creation of new jobs and workflows from a plain-language description is on the roadmap for a future release, gated by the same approvals and permissions as every other action.

Learn how JAX and JAMS MCP work at https://jamsscheduler.com/product/ai.

Fast facts

JAX is an AI agent built into the JAMS Web Client for job scheduling and workflow automation.JAMS MCP is a connector built on the open Model Context Protocol standard, for Cursor, VS Code with Copilot, Claude Code, Claude Desktop, and Codex.Both act as the signed-in user, with that user’s exact JAMS permissions, and there is no elevated AI account.Customers choose the AI model, including a local model that runs entirely inside their own network.JAMS never trains on customer data.Both are available now at no additional cost as part of JAMS Web.

About JAMS Software

Founded in 1987, JAMS Software is an orchestration solution that helps IT teams centralize, automate, and manage scheduled and event-driven jobs across complex, hybrid environments. Over 850 customers rely on JAMS to run their automated workloads. JAMS Software, LLC is headquartered at 108 Patriot Drive, Suite A, Middletown, DE 19709.

Media Contact
Bobby Schmidt, Vice President of Marketing
press@jamssoftware.com
800.261.4267

 

 

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Video: CNPC offers green chemical answer

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BEIJING, July 24, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — A news report from chinadaily.com.cn:

Located on the edge of the Taklamakan Desert in Northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, the Tarim 1.2 MTA Phase II Ethylene Project and its supporting green and low-carbon demonstration facility of PetroChina Dushanzi Petrochemical Company, a subsidiary of China National Petroleum Corporation, are offering a new example of China’s low-carbon industrial transformation.

Watch the video to discover how CNPC is exploring a cleaner and more circular future for the industry.

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/apac/news-releases/video-cnpc-offers-green-chemical-answer-302834036.html

SOURCE chinadaily.com.cn

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Shanghai Electric showcases embodied intelligence robot matrix and AI-native smart factory solutions at WAIC 2026

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Featuring humanoid robots with 41 degrees of freedom, pipe‑inspection robots with ±1mm positioning accuracy, and 51 industrial‑grade AI agents

SHANGHAI, July 24, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Operations in high-end equipment manufacturing often involve confined spaces, complex objects, and fine manipulation tasks that demand sustained and stable precision. At the recent 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference and High-Level Meeting on Global AI Governance (WAIC 2026), Shanghai Electric (SEHK: 02727, SSE: 601727) showcased its comprehensive portfolio of embodied intelligence solutions tailored to a range of industrial scenarios.

Themed “AI for All: Smart Squad, Shining Without Limits,” Shanghai Electric highlighted its capabilities across embodied AI robots, robot core components, and AI-native smart factory solutions, demonstrating end-to-end capabilities spanning complete robot systems, critical parts, industrial software, and smart factory architecture.

“The true value of embodied intelligence lies in understanding real industrial tasks: combining the strength, precision, and stability of machines with human experience and judgment to drive a genuine paradigm of ‘machine-assisted, human-machine collaboration,'” said Wang Chunlei, deputy general manager of the Robotics Business Unit at Shanghai Electric Automation Group.

Shanghai Electric’s robotics portfolio covers five key industrial scenarios: connector insertion, electrical operations, flexible sorting, intelligent assembly, and pipe processing. Highlights include:

“SUYUAN” bipedal humanoid robot: With 41 degrees of freedom for enhanced mobility, it is equipped with a multimodal visual sensing system on the head and torso, along with a dual-battery hot-swap system. It is well-suited for inspection, material handling, and assembly tasks.”TUOYUAN” industrial wheeled humanoid robot: Powered by an embodied intelligence foundation model and force-position hybrid control, it is capable of multi-spec connector insertion, material sorting, and loading/unloading of automotive sheet metal parts.”Mermaid” bionic wheeled humanoid robot: Capable of autonomously identifying buttons, knobs, and air switches, it generates real-time operation paths.Autonomous pipe inner-wall chamfering robot: Designed for confined spaces, it can position and process thousands of hole edges with accuracy within 1 millimeter while transmitting data in real time.

Shanghai Electric also showcased its portfolio of core components ranging from power-output to end effectors. Among them, the planetary roller screw offers more than three times the load capacity of traditional ball screws, while the DexHand dexterous hand is designed to meet diverse gripping and manipulation requirements.

Shanghai Electric launched 51 AI models and agents under its “StarCloud Intelligent Manufacturing” series across three domains: R&D and design, production and manufacturing, and operations and maintenance—covering critical equipment processes such as process optimization and wind power facility maintenance.

These industrial agents are embedded in robotic decision-making systems and the operational logic of AI-native smart factories, transforming industrial expertise into digitized, reusable capabilities. They support production-line scheduling, quality inspection, and predictive maintenance, driving the evolution of manufacturing systems from experience-driven to data-driven operations.

Shanghai Electric also released the “AI-Native Smart Factory Technology White Paper,” proposing an active evolution architecture that enables real‑time, closed‑loop optimization of production data, giving the factory self‑perception, self‑decision, and self‑execution capabilities. Built on First Principles, the AI‑native smart factory vertically integrates process flows, industrial software, agents, and smart equipment to dismantle traditional hierarchies while horizontally bridging data silos. The architecture features three core layers: the AI factory brain as the “control center,” industrial agents and embodied robots as the “execution network,” and the physical twin as the “digital mirror.”

Leveraging its deep industrial expertise and comprehensive solution capabilities, Shanghai Electric will continue to drive the implementation of AI in industrial settings, tackle technical challenges facing embodied intelligence in complex scenarios, accelerate the large‑scale deployment of AI‑native smart factories, and deliver replicable solutions across diverse manufacturing environments.

SOURCE Shanghai Electric

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