We have reached a point where computers are needed to make our medical providers act more human. The idea is to use virtual reality techniques and programs to help train doctors to deal with health emergencies and other clinical care situations. The MPathic-VR system covers a wide range of situations and real-world behaviors that are typical in a clinical situation. You can read my story on Medical Cyberworlds (who developed the system) on Dice today here.

A friend of mine, Arielle Goldfarb, is a graduate student in counter-terrorism at the IDC school outside of Tel Aviv. Goldfarb grew up in Israel and then moved to Toronto for several years, before going back to Israel to finish her studies. She found herself last week in Brussels. This is her story.

First, realize that I speak from my own personal experience and my own opinions. As part of my master’s program, we were offered to be part of an Israeli delegation to visit NATO and that is why I was there in Brussels. After the attacks, one of the immediate feelings I had was that I wanted to go home, home being Israel. It was such a strange thing to say, considering that Israel faces terrorism every single day. Somehow, being in Israel felt safer than staying in Europe. When we learned that El Al was sending a jumbo jet, I cannot say I was surprised, but I was relieved. Being on that plane, especially on Purim, was a very meaningful experience. I felt at that moment that all the passengers on the plane (over 400 of us) were grateful to be able to fly back to Israel. Without this flight, who knows how long we would have been stuck in Brussels?

Going through this experience has somewhat shifted my attention and interests. I would like to take steps to learn more about Europe’s security outlook, not only in relation to terror, but also as a doctrine as a whole.

It is somewhat ironic but the Brussels trip also strengthened my understanding of the reality of terrorism in the world today. That was an important learning experience. To me, it became clear through this trip that there is a requirement for international cooperation when it comes to fighting terror and that it is imperative for every country to think ahead and prepare, instead of acting to increase security only after being personally affected by terror.

I also learned that there are serious shortcomings in security in Europe that should be addressed. One of the recurring themes of the trip was that Europe does not view terrorism as an existential threat. With this outlook on the security situation, it is hard to believe that Europe is taking sufficient and drastic enough measures to increase their intelligence sharing among the various countries and agencies. What I do think is that unfortunately, with every attack, Europe’s outlook changes coming one step closer each time to viewing terrorism as a threat to its existence.

Another thing that I learned – which was somewhat surprising for me — has been the method in which terrorist organizations are funded. I had previous knowledge of the need to fight terrorism from its root, that is to follow the money trail, but I was not aware of the extent and the creativity of terror fundraising. I learned that charities are probably the main way that terrorists funnel money, and that ISIL has come up with new tactics for funding, such as selling antiquities that they pillage on the black market.

Thanks for the report Arielle. I am glad that you are safe and back in school.

There are lots of circumstances that don’t fall under abuse but do account for inappropriate spreadsheet usage.

Part of the problem has to do with the universal appeal of spreadsheets: after all, they have been around for decades and the user interface of the grid of empty cells is so seductive. You just have to type in a number or a formula and you are good to go, right?

Well, not exactly. There are lots of warning signs that it is time to retire your Excel spreadsheet and move to something more sophisticated and capable to build your mathematical models. As a public service, let’s look at a few questions to get to the bottom of things.

Is your data poorly structured? Just like poorly structured programs, a spreadsheet that has input cells all over the place (instead of at the top or organized into a single section) can quickly become a nightmare to debug and understand. Say one of those input cells is accidentally deleted. Or what if you have a spreadsheet that doesn’t clearly label its input fields at all (with a contrasting color or some other graphic device)? When you get to this level of complexity, it is time to consider using something else.

Do you have a very sparse matrix? When you have a spreadsheet that has hundreds of rows and columns with just a few numbers or formulae sprinkled throughout, it becomes harder to find those numbers across all that empty space. Even on the largest of monitors, there is a whole lot of scrolling around to see the active data cells, and easy to miss something that is hiding in an open field. Databases are better for this sort of situation.

Are you mixing spreadsheets with other data sources? You have heard the expression oil and water don’t mix, right? The more complex your data model, the more difficult it is to see how it works and what is the ultimate goal. This is especially true when it comes to using SQL and other data sources as part of your spreadsheet. Ideally, your spreadsheet shouldn’t depend on any external data file to do its work, but that isn’t always possible. If you are building a more complex model like this, think about using a different product or entering the world of serious programming. You probably should start by using an online tool that can make the data connections easier. One way to go would be to look carefully at what Microsoft is doing in its support for online OData sources, and while certainly you can add this to an existing spreadsheet, you probably don’t want to.

Can you find your mistakes quickly? Most spreadsheets suffer from this problem, because they have been built over time with lots of additions and changes to their models. This means that obvious arithmetic mistakes are often hidden or obscured. Or worse yet, you don’t have a feel for your numbers. You may not be able to test your assumptions and making some common sense inputs to see if your spreadsheet produces results that are within your expectations. If your spreadsheet has grown like topsy then maybe it is time to look at some other way to model your calculations.

Do you have more than one author of your spreadsheet? This can be a real issue. Having two or more authors writing formulae can be a problem: how do you track changes and who has the most current version of your file? Chances are, you have experienced this when two people are working on different portions of the file concurrently, and then it is up to someone else to be the final judge of which changes get put into production where. When your spreadsheet is in the cloud, this becomes a non-problem.