MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 23rd July, 2021) In this digest, we will share with you Russian officials' expectation from the national team performance at the Olympics, update you on how many Russians keep a special diet and how many of them eat only fast food, and also tell you about a new AI project aimed at warning university students about risks of expulsion.
RUSSIA'S CHANCES ON TOKYO OLYMPICS
The Russian national team does not have a specific goal in terms of the number of medals at the Tokyo Olympics but the aim is to be among the leaders, Sports Minister Oleg Matsytsin told Sputnik.
The opening ceremony of the Olympic Games will be held on Friday.
"I think there is a chance to win medals in almost all [sporting] disciplines, but it is rather difficult to talk about the medal plan and the specific place that the Russian team will take. As I said earlier, our task is to be among the leaders. We will strive to achieve it," Matsytsin said.
The sports minister said the Russian team is traditionally strong in rhythmic gymnastics, artistic gymnastics, synchronized swimming, wrestling, boxing, tennis, and fencing. Russia also has chances to show good results in team sports like handball and volleyball, according to Matsytsin.
"We hope for a good performance in the athletics, despite the fact that their number is limited to ten athletes," the minister added.
Meanwhile, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Chernyshenko said that the country's Olympic team has all the chances to finish in the top three.
"Despite the difficulties that we had to go through during the preparation for the Games, we believe in our athletes and look forward to a good result. The national team includes our strongest athletes ... Our team has every chance of finishing in the top three in the overall team ranking of these Olympic Games," Chernyshenko said.
Only 30% of Russians do not sting themselves in food, while 17% do not eat flour and sweet products and only 1% are ready to give up meat, according to a study conducted by the Rambler & Co media holding on almost 1 million people (59% men and 41% women)
Only 30% of respondents do not limit themselves. All the rest try to eat healthy foods or even follow special diets. For 35%, proper nutrition is the ability to choose and use natural products, and 24% describe it as the ability to eat a lot of vegetables and fruits. A total of 17% exclude flour and sweet foods in order to normalize their diet, and 9% place a special emphasis on products rich in vitamins and minerals. Only 5% eat strictly in line with a schedule and monitor calories.
Modern food trends separate the respondents into four groups. The majority (62%) eat sugar-free foods, 17% have tried intermittent fasting, almost one in seven chooses gluten-free food and only 7% replace animal milk with vegetable milk.
A total of 86% prefer flexitarianism (moderate consumption of meat), while only 1% of the surveyed Russians are ready to give it up completely. Every tenth person eats only poultry meat, while 2% adhere to the ideas of pescetarianism and vegetarianism.
The opinion about fast food was almost equally divided: 49% sometimes eat it just to please themselves or save time on cooking; for various reasons, 47% never eat such dishes; and only 4% admitted that they eat only fast food.
AI TO WARN RUSSIAN STUDENTS ABOUT THREAT OF EXPULSION
A system for warning students about the threat of expulsion, based on artificial intelligence, will be used in Russian universities from 2022, the National Technology Initiative Platform announced.
Student assessment will be based on discipline, grades and attendance. In addition, absences from theoretical classes, lectures, seminars and laboratory classes will be taken into account. The information will be available to teachers and students themselves in their personal account.
As part of the pilot project, launched at the Tomsk Polytechnic University, anonymized data on the assessments of 4,800 students from about 500 groups were analyzed. In total 230,000 grades in around 2,800 disciplines were analyzed. The accuracy of assessing students' academic performance was 98%.
"It is usually difficult for the dean's office to identify low-performing students in the middle of the semester ... Our system will allow singling out students who follow the 'negative' scenario and convey information to teachers. They will be able to offer assistance or use another approach to these students," project founder Alexey Kudashkin said.
