Europe
A probabilistic network for the diagnosis of acute cardiopulmonary diseases
Magrini, Alessandro, Luciani, Davide, Stefanini, Federico Mattia
We describe our experience in the development of a probabilistic network for the diagnosis of acute cardiopulmonary diseases. A panel of expert physicians collaborated to specify the qualitative part, that is a directed acyclic graph defining a factorization of the joint probability distribution of domain variables. The quantitative part, that is the set of all conditional probability distributions defined by each factor, was estimated in the Bayesian paradigm: we applied a special formal representation, characterized by a low number of parameters and a parameterization intelligible for physicians, elicited the joint prior distribution of parameters from medical experts, and updated it by conditioning on a dataset of hospital patient records using Markov Chain Monte Carlo simulation. Refinement was cyclically performed until the probabilistic network provided satisfactory Concordance Index values for a selection of acute diseases and reasonable inference on six fictitious patient cases. The probabilistic network can be employed to perform medical diagnosis on a total of 63 diseases (38 acute and 25 chronic) on the basis of up to 167 patient findings.
Apple's Probably Not Gonna Buy McLaren, But It Should
Rumors swirl around Apple like exhaust around a race car, and one of the most persistent is that Apple wants to break into the auto industry with an electric, self-driving car. The speculation intensified today when the The Financial Times reported that company is negotiating a deal to buy McLaren. McLaren is perhaps best known as one of the most storied teams in Formula 1, but the company, based in England, also makes sports cars. Very expensive, very fast sports cars. Now, it makes sense that, if Apple is indeed serious about cars, it would buy a company with the expertise to do the job.
DeepMind wants its healthcare AI to charge by results -- but first it needs your data
Mark your Google calendars because from today'Don't be evil' rides again, via the DeepMind AI division of the Alphabet ad giant, as a Hippocratic assurance to'Do no harm'. It's no small irony that DeepMind's new mantra for its healthcare push, voiced by co-founder Mustafa Suleyman at an outreach event today for patients to hear what the Google-owned company wants to build with U.K. National Health Service data, is uncomfortably close to its old one -- i.e. the one that embarrassingly fell out of favor. Suleyman cited the Hippocratic oath when discussing his takeaways from patient feedback on the company's plans. "[Do no harm] has to be a mantra we repeat and becomes an inherent part of our process," he said towards the end of the three hour discussion session which was live streamed on YouTube (with a call for comments via a #DMHpatients Twitter hashtag). "And [do no harm] should be the first measure of success before any deployment or before we attempt to demonstrate any utility and patient benefit," he added.
Adidas shows off the first shoe made at its robot factory
Last last year, Adidas began rolling out its plans for Speedfactory, a set of robot-staffed manufacturing facilities located in Germany and, soon, the US. Today, the sportswear giant revealed the first silhouette developed through this new project, known as Futurecraft M.F.G. It's a sleek running shoe that features Adidas' trademark Primeknit upper and Boost midsole, similar to what you see on popular models like Kanye West's Yeezy 350s. While there is some human assistance during the assembly process, as shown in the video below, the majority of the crafting is done by the machines. What's more, the design itself relies heavily on data from ARAMIS, a motion capture technology that maps an individual's skin, bone and muscle to create a more comfortable shoe.
Tech billionaire Mike Lynch: 'You're seeing the beginning of a new age'
This Wednesday, the tech billionaire investor announced an investment in Luminance, a newly launched startup that uses artificial technology to read contracts in order help law firms with the arduous process of due diligence for mergers and acquisitions (M&A). It's not a "sexy" piece of technology, Lynch argues -- but one that has huge implications for the way we live our lives, and is indicative of a quiet revolution in artificial intelligence. What this is is probably an example of what's going to be changing a lot of things. If you can get machine technology to be reading contracts, it's going to be changing a lot of the world around us ... you're seeing the beginning of a new age." He has since founded venture capital firm Invoke Capital -- the vehicle through which the investment in Luminance was made. This week, Business Insider sat down with the investor to discuss Luminance, Brexit, his augmented reality plans, and why he likes having an "unfair advantage." Mike Lynch is an investor in Luminance -- but was also instrumental in helping create it. "The bit that makes it possible is the machine learning, and that was being done by some research people at Cambridge, and I actually have a connection because my PhD a long, long time ago was in machine learning," Lynch said. "I was introduced to them, and what they were doing looked great, but I said to them'look, you gotta go and meet some real world people.' "So they started getting real data and they met up with [law firm] Slaughter and May, and basically the machine learnt from Slaughter and May how to do these thing and at that point they made a little company. They got a CEO who is a lady who'd actually been involved in a lot of M&A deals over their career and we funded it, and it's been developing the product, and today it comes out into the bright lights of day."
UBS trials artificial intelligence wealth managers
Wealth management firm and investment bank UBS is running artificial intelligence (AI) trials with some of its richest clients. AI applications being tested include tools designed to read facial expressions and uncover clients' unconscious biases towards or against certain types of investment. The aim is to help the company's cash-rich, but time-poor, clientele to ask the right questions about their decisions, according to UBS. The move comes as little surprise. The financial services market is in the vanguard of automation, AI, machine learning and robotics at a time when many customers prefer app-based mobile banking to online or bricks-and-mortar alternatives. Several international banks plan mass software automation, including HSBC and Bank of America investment arm Merrill Edge.
Gene-reading software to cut TB diagnosis from months to minutes
A DOCTOR in Mumbai, India, puts a spit sample into a handheld device. The doctor checks the results to see exactly what kind of drug-resistant tuberculosis the person has, and the precise combination of drugs needed to treat it. "If you can identify drug-resistant TB in less than a day, you will massively improve treatment" This is the goal of CRyPTIC, a global project run by a team at the University of Oxford. It aims to speed up the diagnosis and treatment of drug-resistant TB, cutting the wait from months to days, or even minutes. The idea is that the software will prescribe the right medication for TB just by looking at its genome.
Germany to create world's first highway code for driverless cars
This month, Germany's transport minister, Alexander Dobrindt, proposed a bill to provide the first legal framework for autonomous vehicles. It would govern how such cars perform in collisions where lives might be lost. The laws attempt to deal with what some call the "death valley" of autonomous vehicles: the grey area between semi-autonomous and fully driverless cars that could delay the driverless future. Dobrindt wants three things: that a car always opts for property damage over personal injury; that it never distinguishes between humans based on categories such as age or race; and that if a human removes his or her hands from the steering wheel โ to check email, say โ the car's manufacturer is liable if there is a collision. "The change to the road traffic law will permit fully automatic driving," says Dobrindt.
Google Allo: Why people such as Edward Snowden are advising against using the app
Nasa has announced that it has found evidence of flowing water on Mars. Scientists have long speculated that Recurring Slope Lineae -- or dark patches -- on Mars were made up of briny water but the new findings prove that those patches are caused by liquid water, which it has established by finding hydrated salts. Several hundred camped outside the London store in Covent Garden. The 6s will have new features like a vastly improved camera and a pressure-sensitive "3D Touch" display
Amazon 'pushes customers towards more expensive products with automated suggestions'
Nasa has announced that it has found evidence of flowing water on Mars. Scientists have long speculated that Recurring Slope Lineae -- or dark patches -- on Mars were made up of briny water but the new findings prove that those patches are caused by liquid water, which it has established by finding hydrated salts. Several hundred camped outside the London store in Covent Garden. The 6s will have new features like a vastly improved camera and a pressure-sensitive "3D Touch" display