Breakthrough Stories Challenge Post stories every day. "Dizzy" story

“Are they not dizzy?” - this question was asked by everyone who at least once saw their strange, incomparable dance. These unique people are called whirling dervishes. Their dance is as old as the world... or a little younger. At different times, in different eras and in different countries the dervishes swirl themselves in rapture and turn the heads of thousands of spectators. And today they have become almost the main symbol of Turkey, a kind of inexplicable curiosity, which thousands of tourists from all over the world come to see.

This "dizzying" story began a long time ago, in the 11th century. At that time, Muslims were dominant in many regions of the Middle East and North Africa. As a reward for successful campaigns, warriors received power, lands and gold. Someone took it for granted, and someone - on the contrary. And then there was the so-called spiritual reaction to wealth and comfort. Many wealthy people began to take earthly goods as a temptation, forcing a person to forget about his true destiny. As a sign that they do not need anything and they voluntarily renounce wealth, these people began to wear coarse woolen cassocks, hand-sewn. Thus, a new ascetic religious trend, Sufism, appeared (translated from Arabic "suf" - "wool"). His adherents were called dervishes, which is translated from Persian as "poor", "beggar". The current did not oppose itself to the generally accepted canons of Islam. In Sufism, rites and ceremonies simply appeared, hitherto not characteristic of Islam. One of these mystical ceremonies was a bewitching dizzying dance, about which we will talk below.

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At a certain time, many orders arose in the Muslim world, each of which was distinguished by its set of rules, its complex rituals and its own orders. One of the Sufi communities that emerged early in Turkish history and is still very popular today is the Mevlevi order of whirling dervishes. This is a religious group whose members are followers of the great Persian poet Mevlana, or Jalaluddin Rumi. The order settled in Central Turkey, in the city of Konya, where it exists to this day.

The main and main condition for joining the order was the absence of any movable and immovable property in a person. For the sake of serving God, the dervish refused all worldly temptations. It was categorically unacceptable for him to call things "his". He had nothing of his own - no house, no shoes, no clothes, no food. Some of the dervishes lived in communities, but mostly they wandered and lived away from people. The dervishes once and for all chose eternal wanderings, long roads and foreign cities.

Such a way of life earned them the glory of being close to God, ascetics and sages. Today, dervishes are called eternal wanderers, whose main wealth is an open soul. Many considered it an honor and happiness to meet a dervish somewhere on a dusty road: such a meeting promised great success in all matters.

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The poet Mevlana - Jalaleddin Rumi, whose followers the dervishes consider themselves to be, is also called the "Mentor with a shining heart." He was born in Persia, in the city of Balkh (present-day Afghanistan), traveled a lot, studied in Iraq, Iran and Syria, and then came to the territory of modern Turkey, to Konya, where he lived until the end of his days. His father was a Sufi and gave his son as an apprenticeship to a Sufi master. Towards the end of his life, Rumi founded the Mevlevi order of whirling dervishes. The poet left the material world in 1273 and was buried in Konya. His body rests in the mausoleum, which is visited by thousands of tourists and pilgrims every year.

The small city of Konya 700 years ago was the refuge of writers, philosophers and poets, the cradle of Turkish architecture and fine arts. Creative people, fleeing from the Tatar-Mongols and the Crusaders, found peace and shelter in Konya. Where, if not here, could Sufism originate, and where, if not here, could the dervishes come up with their mysterious dance? The legends describe how Rumi, having heard the rhythmic tapping of a hammer on the bottom of a repaired pan, even in squares and bazaars, was able to freeze for a second, and then begin to spin in a whirlwind of magical dance.

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The bewitching whirling of dervishes (Sema) is one of the most mystical and amazing dances in the world. However, this is more than a dance, it is a ritual, an art that takes years to comprehend. By the way, the dervish is not immediately allowed to perform Sema. Before that, the future dancer passes a three-year test: a beginner spends 1001 days in a monastery, devoting the first year to serving his neighbor, the second to the monastery, and the third to caring for his soul.

The whirling dervish dance begins with the recitation of a hymn in honor of the Prophet. The anthem was written by Rumi himself. There is a translated version, which, as a rule, is listened to by tourists. Then dancers appear to the sound of music. Each item of dervish attire is symbolic: a floor-length skirt is a shroud, a black cape is a coffin, a conical headdress is a tombstone.

One by one, the dancers pass by the sheikh and bow to him, holding crossed arms on their chests - by this they show that they are ready for rapprochement with God. The sheikh gives them secret instructions, and to the sound of a flute and a drum, the dervishes begin to spin in place. To facilitate movement, their heads are tilted to the side. The members of the order spin from left to right, faster and faster, mesmerizing the audience. During the dance, one hand of the dervish is raised to the sky, and the other is lowered to the earth: this means that he receives energy from space and, passing it through himself, gives it to the earth and people. All without a trace.

The music is getting louder, the people are spinning faster. The dervishes spin separately, without touching each other with their shoulders, each around its own axis and around the sheikh and other dervishes. They do not make a sound, do not make any movements with their palms or head.

During the ritual, the dervishes stop four times. These pauses are called “sells” (greetings). The first symbolizes the knowledge of the existence of the Creator. The second is performed as a sign of admiration for the Universe. The third - in honor of the love born of this admiration, and the transition to a state of infinite creation. The fourth greeting is sent to the soul that has left the body to merge with God. During the ritual, the sheikh symbolizes the sun, and the rest revolve around him, like the moon and stars.

This magical dance continues for several hours in a row. In the end, there comes a moment when it begins to seem to the dancers that it is not they themselves that are revolving, but the whole world around them. This is an altered state of consciousness, a mystical trance. It is believed that, being in it, you can travel in time, penetrate into other dimensions and visit distant planets.

When the last musical chord sounds, the dervishes fall to their knees. By this, the dancers show that they have returned to the people from their amazing journey.

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Today whirling dervishes - business card Turkey. Every year from 10 to 17 December, the Dervish Festival takes place in Konya. The choice of the date is not accidental: this is how the followers honor the memory of Rumi, marking the day of his death with these mysterious performances.

In mid-December, thousands of pilgrims and tourists come to Konya. Huge posters with the symbols of the festival are hung out in all shops and souvenir shops. At every step, small figurines of dancing dervishes are sold, which guests are happy to buy as a keepsake. The entrance to the mausoleum of Mevlana (it was converted into a museum in 1927) is free throughout the festive week. Many Muslims come to the tomb to pray to their saint, but for most tourists this visit is more of an educational excursion.

In general, at the festival they try not to reveal the religious background of the colorful performance. Performances take place not only in the main hall of the Mevlana Museum, but also in the stadium. Some of the celebrations are transferred to large venues, because every year more and more people come to see the magic show, and the former place is no longer able to accommodate everyone.

The performance does not leave indifferent any spectator, be it a Muslim, a Christian or an atheist. The dance of the dervishes is, first of all, an art that equally enchants everyone, regardless of faith and race. Of course, the majority of the audience perceives this as a colorful performance, although there are also such impressionable spectators who, along with the dancers, go into a trance.

At the initiative of the Turkish government and the decision of UNESCO, 2007 was declared the year of Rumi in honor of his 800th birthday. And at the same time, UNESCO ranked the Sema of the Mevlevi order among the world's masterpieces.

Hackathon, codefest, programming marathon, hack day - whatever you call it, today it is one of the most popular event formats in the IT field.

This type of competition is similar to the classic work on a full-fledged project, only the life cycle is reduced to 24 or 48 hours and the conditions dictate the nominations from the organizers and partners.

Alexander Frolov, the author of the DMPipeline project, wrote a column for Rusbase, in which he talked about what was done in 48 hours on the AI ​​Hackathon, organized by Science guide together with Flint Capital, Haxus and Embria Ventures.

Winning or participating - what is more important at a hackathon?

The history of one project, or a hackathon as a challenge

Alexander Frolov

Our project received second place and recognition from representatives of venture capital funds of the potential inherent in the application of technologies artificial intelligence, machine learning and big data in medicine and pharmaceuticals.

The starting point of any success is desire

I try to follow interesting IT events, seminars and conferences in our city. About a month before the start of the hackathon, I saw information on the Internet and registered. At first I thought about joining some team whose idea I would like, then I decided to participate with my own project.

Modeling and designing molecules is something of a small hobby for me. There is a phrase: "physics is what physicists do in their free time in the evenings."

This phrase fully describes me, in my free time on weekends I am interested in reading articles, understanding modern algorithms and approaches of chemoinformatics, computational biology and drug design. Therefore, I had no doubt that I should go and participate in the AI ​​Hackathon.

I wanted to hear opinions about the project from the outside, see what questions the experts would have in order to assess the attractiveness of the idea “from the outside”, to understand where the problems lie and what could be improvement points. I want to say right away that this was my first prototype, developed together with the team, before that there were only ideas, articles, experiments. The experience of participating in such a large-scale hackathon for 270 people is also new to me.

Progress happens outside your comfort zone

In general, the development of drugs based on small molecules is a complex and resource-intensive task.

On average, it takes pharmaceutical companies between 7 and 15 years to develop a drug molecule, conduct many tests and clinical trials.

At one of the stages of development, molecules are assembled from different fragments and synthesized. Various tests are carried out on these molecules - the molecules must be soluble, have low cardiotoxicity, have good cell permeability, and so on. And also they must be active in relation to the oncological target.

It's all expensive and time consuming. As a rule, even large pharmaceutical companies do not have the ability to synthesize and study all possible chemical structures. The hackathon became for me a way out of what is called the comfort zone, and the pipeline was designed to automate some of the above processes.

We can sort through the huge chemical space of molecules on a computer, which can never be done in a real laboratory, evaluate their physical and chemical properties and get the structures that are most attractive in order to become a cure for a particular disease!

Take it and do it

We implemented the project as a SaaS application and named it DMPipeline (Druggable Molecules Pipeline). The main goal of the project is to improve the quality of drug molecules and reduce R&D costs.

Bringing the project to the prototype was a difficult task, as there was always a temptation to dive into the study of articles about ML algorithms and experiments with different libraries. We even managed to train the grid on Shakespeare, as, probably, everyone once did :)

In the final, DMPipeline consisted of three blocks:

1. Generation of pre-trained RNN molecules based on a prototype (drug molecule). We trained a recurrent network (lstm) on a sample of 17 million drug like molecules.
2. Prediction of physico-chemical properties (solubility, permeability through blood) using xgboost. The training set includes 1800 known solubility molecules and 700 structures with blood permeability data.
3. Ranking and selection of the top of the molecules closest in properties to the prototype. The process is carried out by analyzing a pharmaceutical molecule (prototype), as a result of which the service provides a set of similar molecules that have acceptable pharmacological properties and activity in relation to the disease.

In the future, we plan to implement the fourth block: prediction of the synthesis scheme.

Our technology stack is quite trivial:

• backend - python, Flask, gunicorn as wsgi and everything starts supervisor,
• ML - xgboost, char-rnn,
• working with molecules - rdkit, AutoDock.

Of course, we understand that our service will not be in demand as a Saas platform. For one of the main values ​​is data, and they are not ready to give it to the side, that is, upload it to third-party applications. Pipeline should rather be run as a Daas application. But we also have a few ideas on how to make uploading to our service safe, from the point of view, and we plan to implement them.

In addition, we want to improve the UI / UX, expand the functionality and range of tasks to be solved, and also add the ability to integrate with existing platforms used by pharmaceutical companies.

Truth is born in a dispute, or everyone does everything

We met the team only on the first day of the hackathon, before that we only knew each other virtually. It is especially important that there are no professional specialists among us. And for us it was very interesting to dive into the area, a kind of challenge! The whole team is four people.

• Misha is a very cool developer,
• Tanya is a bioinformatician, graduated from the Academic University, worked in a pharmaceutical company,
• Sveta - graduated from the Physics Faculty of St. Petersburg State University (Phys Faculty is a champion!), Now she works as a programmer,
• I also graduated from the Physics Faculty (molecular biophysics), was engaged in drug design, now I work in one cool startup.

I can say that everyone did everything. And the preparation of data for training, and the stack, and the presentation - we discussed and prepared all this together. Everyone shared their knowledge, expressed their opinion, which is why we ended up with a product that each of us believes in.

All work was done on site. We went home for a few hours to get some sleep and read a little about ML algorithms.

A molecule located in the active site of an oncological target

If you ignore preparation, you are preparing for failure.

We did not have a question how to use 48 hours. On the first day, we found a sample of molecules, cleaned it, and launched the network to train. By the end of the hackathon, the network had not fully trained, so we had to generate molecules on an undertrained network. But, to be honest, the quality of the structures turned out to be quite acceptable. I expected a worse result.

On the first day, we quickly sketched out a prototype of the backend, then on the last day we already reworked it, or rather, Misha urgently completed it while preparing the presentation. In fact, during the first day we dealt with the generation of molecules, and the second day was dedicated to filtering by physicochemical properties and activity. We found several datasets, tried different models.

I would like to note that the model for estimating solubility proved to be quite good! The molecules that ended up in the final sample had tails with ionized nitrogen or sulfamide, which really provide solubility!

Already on the last day, we assembled everything into a single pipeline, debugged our application and prepared a presentation. And a day after the hackathon, we noticed that our grid understood that oxygen and nitrogen can be ionized, but it does not always place the charge correctly.

So a new challenge appeared for us - to figure out how to improve our network so that at a given pH it selects the right structures.

Follow the vision, not the money, and then the money will come

We didn't expect to win, so we were pleasantly surprised. In addition to the prize of 200,000 rubles, we were also given the opportunity to keep a server with a GPU for three months!

I really like the phrase: "The more you do, the more you can do." If you have an idea, you should try! Hackathon is a great event to try your hand at programming, and as an organizer or creative, to test your endurance, courage, ability to make presentations and communicate with people.

“Being the richest man in the graveyard doesn’t matter to me. Going to bed with the thought that we did something wonderful - that's what matters to me ”- I think everyone knows whose words these are.

Therefore, the key factor in any story or business is the opportunity to do what you love and do interesting things. Only this way is correct and successful! And if your project also helps others, saves people's lives, then it will find its niche.

Only those who do nothing do not take risks

Now we are trying different ideas that we did not have time to test in the framework of the hackathon.

Over the past few years, many healthcare startups have emerged. Most of them are related to personalized medicine or genetics. In the field of small molecules, we probably have no competition so far - only two companies come to mind: Atomwise and Insilo Medicine (our compatriots, the guys are great, they have interesting developments).

• On the one hand, we have a clear understanding of how the product should look like, who the potential users are and what their current needs are.
• On the other hand, we know how complex this subject area is (we can say that it is only at the stage of formation), and how little has been done so far. But you have to work, study and try new things, experiment!

As for promotion, many of my acquaintances work in pharmaceutical companies, laboratories, and universities. We often communicate, share news, and I can say that at least the top 20 pharmaceutical companies cooperate with startups or have their own internal teams that work at the intersection of AI, chemistry, and biology. The demand is there, the opportunities are huge!

But after 2 or 4 months to wait for the finished prototype, the emergence of a new company and the conquest of the market is not worth it - it's too early ☺

Success usually comes to those who are too busy to just wait.

Of course, hackathons today no longer surprise anyone, and not every one of them produces something even conditionally similar to a product. However, if life prompts and throws you different options for the experiment, get the most out of them.

1. At the AI ​​Hackathon, I found the missing “minds” for my team. So, the Data Science experts who were present at the site also helped us a lot with advice.
2. We asked the experts technical questions, and even learned about their experience of professional growth in their companies.
3. A lot of useful things came out after the presentation of the prototype - here we were already asked very useful questions, which now are worth considering and analyzing.
4. Even at the presentation of ideas (and there were 57 of them together with ours), I noted several interesting projects for myself. I plan to apply some of the algorithms in our pipeline.

In general, new acquaintances are never superfluous! And personally, at the hackathon, we got into such an atmosphere of coding, when so many people in one place give birth to projects, which in itself motivates us to achieve high standards.

Recently, in social network"VKontakte", appeared interesting quest, if you can call it that, under the name "Red Fox". Today, many users of this social network are interested in such a quest and people actively participate in it, completing all sorts of tasks. Today it is popular with the people, although in fact it does not carry anything important.

Of course, many are interested in how to outwit the fox, why it was invented and what such a quest gives. In our today's article, we will not take a closer look at what kind of red fox it is, why it was invented and how it is necessary to complete the quest, what it actually is.

"This is a challenge of dizzying stories. Post stories every day - this way you will open new stickers and collect the whole set"

The red fox is a kind of quest in which you need to complete tasks on the VKontakte social network, for which this fox will give his performer stickers with his image. To get a sticker, you must complete the task that comes in private messages. Often these tasks are not difficult, to get the first three stickers, you just need to write "yes" to the fox. then you have to complete a certain task. The next 4th sticker is given if a person takes a selfie and adds it to the "story" section in this social network. After completing this task, the next task comes the next day and the fox can ask him to write a story for him. Copying texts from the Internet is not worth it, since the robot determines their non-uniqueness and does not give stickers, you can write a simple set of words, as long as it is unique, for which you can get another sticker.

A story is a short video or photo above the news feed. It can only be done in mobile application In contact with. Find the blue circle at the top of the feed and click the plus to create your story. How to get additional stickers, the red fox already tells in private messages. However, nothing complicated, you complete tasks, you get stickers.

Everyone can notice that stickers are not very beautiful, not interesting, a lot of free stickers on the VKontakte social network look much more attractive than this fox. But excitement takes over and gamblers will definitely fall for the fact that they would collect the entire set of stickers that they don’t really need.

Recently, this social network has been updated and has become very similar to Facebook, many functions have appeared that are actually not needed. And so the "history" function appeared. But experienced users of the social network did not take the innovation very well and refused to use this function. Usually the story appears in the news feed, which would be a great feature for an ad that failed.

Now, to revive this function, they came up with such a red fox. If you really want to get stickers, then only through the function in the "History" news feed, you can get stickers. In addition, the fox turns out to be very annoying and sends new messages every day with content that is not understandable to everyone, as can be seen in the next photo.

So, if you don’t “hack” the system, what else is “hack”, then it will you.

In general, it’s up to you to decide whether you need a red fox or not, but it’s already clear that this is a completely pointless game or quest, for which they give completely ugly stickers. Unless if you have excitement and interest in what will happen next, then you can try and put yourself in the story in the news feed, which looks somehow strange.

Video review

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Red fox- a bot of the social network "VKontakte", which offers users free stickers if they publish "Stories" on their pages - photos or videos that disappear after a day. The bot reminded many of the suicidal Blue Whale game, and after a few days users got tired of it, which gave rise to many memes.

Origin

VKontakte launched the campaign on April 28. As part of this action, the social network created a bot known as Red fox. This character offered all users a free sticker pack for posting "stories".

After the publication of the "History" it was necessary to write to the bot and get the first part of the stickers. Then Lis offered to complete his tasks - to keep posting photos or videos to unlock new types of stickers.

This game reminded many of the Blue Whale game, which was played by teenagers, completing the tasks of unknown moderators. The tasks were related to mutilation, and the last one was suicide.

After a couple of days, users began to notice that their friends filled the feed with their “stories”. Moreover, even those who had not published stories before were doing this. Why there is such a demand for stickers on the social network remains a mystery. However, in the wake of popularity virtual game popular publics have become active. One by one, memes related to the Red Fox began to appear. The vast majority of them were based on other memes.

In parallel with the funny pictures about the Red Fox, disturbing reports began to appear that the game was not only similar to the Blue Whale, but also related to it. In particular, bots that sent the same text became more active in the comments.

Have you heard of the Blue Whale? For those who are in the tank: this is a real quest in which you will be given different tasks every day at a certain time, the purpose of which will be to encourage you to commit suicide. There are 50 such tasks in total, the last one is not difficult to guess, based on the goal. Tasks are given to you in VK by your “curator”, after you post a post on the wall with the hashtag “Blue Whale”, “Quiet House”, etc. I haven’t heard of them, perhaps, the most deaf, because a lot on the open spaces of both TV and the Internet broadcast about the rise in the suicide rate among teenagers who got involved with this game. the most popular bloggers sounded the alarm, in every news feed you could read about some 13-year-old girl jumping off the roof of a high-rise building, or how a 15-year-old athlete girl from the Kuban drank pipe cleaner, and much more. And if there are few similarities with the daily tasks received with VK and the unauthorized desire to complete them, then here's another

Cool coincidence, don't you think? It is especially interesting that all these “groups of death” worked through VKontakte, and who, if not them, should know on what principle this game is built. And what is it then: the most stupid accident or the most subtle joke?

Walks and such an alarming text.

In fact, LIS is nothing more than the Blue Whale game, which became widespread on the social network VKontakte this winter. LIS is the name of the instigator of the game itself and the creator of the f57 sect (he was convicted, sorry, not for life). At the very beginning, the FOX gives you stickers, as if opening the gates to the sacred world. To open them, you need to complete tasks every day and lay them out for people to see. Today he ordered people to show their faces, which can be associated with the Last Judgment, where all people will take off their masks (MASKS are filters for VKontakte photos) and show their essence. Every day, the tasks will become more and more disgusting, and at the end, the FOX will offer for an animated iridescent sticker - KILL YOURSELF! Repost this if you don't want your kids to be dragged into the new deadly game, which is sponsored by the Jewish company mail. ru and personally Alisher Usmanman!!!

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