Bracco Diagnostics Inc., the U.S. subsidiary of Bracco Imaging S.p.A., a leading global company in the diagnostic imaging business, announced the results of an experimental artificial intelligence (AI) study of two gadolinium-based contrast agents (GBCAs) which found that ProHance (Gadoteridol) Injection, 279.3 mg/mL and Gadavist provided similar degree and pattern of contrast enhancement in brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of patients with glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) previously enrolled in a large scale, multicenter, randomized, double blinded controlled clinical study (the TRUTH study).1 Full study results will be presented at the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) Annual Meeting on Wednesday, December 4, in Chicago, IL. GBCAs are widely used imaging agents with a favorable safety profile. While recent research has shown that the gadolinium from these agents may remain in the body for months to years after injection,2 the American College of Radiology and the Food and Drug Administration agree that there are no known adverse clinical consequences associated with gadolinium retention in the brain based on the available data.3,4 Nevertheless, some practitioners have concerns, and questions have been raised over whether using a GBCA that retains less would come with a tradeoff in the effectiveness of the contrast enhancement. The purpose of this study was to use AI to determine the effectiveness of standard concentration ProHance (0.5mmol/ml) compared to double concentration Gadavist (1.0 mmol/ml), since animal studies have shown that Gadavist retains two to seven times more in the brain versus ProHance, at up to 4 weeks after injection5-6.

Princeton, New Jersey--(Newsfile Corp. - December 3, 2019) - NotForgotten Digital Library LLC, creators of the first digital time capsule powered by blockchain, today announced their use of Veritone aiWARE and Digital Media Hub. Veritone's cognitive capabilities will add a new dimension to NotForgotten's current offerings by adding automated video transcription and metadata creation to make large volumes of video content easily searchable. Videos within NotForgotten archives can then be easily accessed through the custom-branded Digital Media Hub and users can discover insights about a set time and place in history. "The new capabilities Veritone is adding to NotForgotten's archives are set to change the way future historians study our present," says Adrienne Liebenberg, co-founder at NotForgotten. "Veritone aiWARE will analyze the videos within the NotForgotten Digital Library and add AI-enabled insights about society and people within a set time and place. This will be the first time we - society at large - will have the framework in place to not only record and research history from a personal perspective, but to also see how these events made people feel."

It is said to have the potential to save the industry countless hours and millions of pounds a year. The strength prediction engine was developed in collaboration with BAM Nuttall, using funding from an Innovate UK grant awarded last year. The system is already being used on BAM Nuttall's London City Airport expansion project. Development of the system was made possible by Converge's access to a huge data set on concrete performance, paving the way for the commercial application of machine learning to monitor and predict material performance in a live project. BAM Nuttall head of innovation Colin Evison said: "This advancement in construction technology is a game changer. The Converge prediction engine gives us insight into material performance we didn't think possible. We are delighted to be Converge's industry partner in bringing this exciting new tool to market."

Last year's Cyber Monday was the biggest single shopping day in Amazon's 25 year history, but the company's success has led to problems for the country's recycling industry. The number of annual deliveries through the US Postal Service, Amazon's default delivery method, has doubled over the last decade, going from 3.1 billion in 2009 to 6.2 billion in 2018. The extraordinary growth of cardboard waste from shipping materials has been dubbed'the Amazon effect' at many waste removal and recycling companies. Waste management and recylcing firms have begun to call the enormous growth in packaging materials that end up in the trash as'the Amazon effect' According to a report in The Verge, corrugated cardboard accounts for close to half of the curbside recycling material in New York today, compared to just fifteen percent in 2003. The enormous increase in residential packaging materials has come at the worst possible time, as in 2018 China, formerly the world's largest recycler, began refusing shipments of recyclable cardboard from the US in instances where it was contaminated by .5 percent or more of other material.

When looking at breasts, both men and women stare at the area around the nipples the most, plastic surgeons have determined using eye-tracking technology. The findings may help improve the outcomes of both cosmetic and reconstructive surgery by providing a more objective measure of breast aesthetics. Three quarters of'gaze time' was focused on the lower breast and nipple areas, which received the most attention from men and women, the researchers found. Furthermore, people are most likely to glance towards the so-called nipple-areola complex, which was found to be the'most common point of initial fixation'. 'Thanks to objective analysis of observer's gaze pattern, eye-tracking technology may provide a better insight into the visual perception of breast aesthetics and symmetry,' said paper author Piotr Pietruski of the Memorial Hospital, Warsaw.

Actress and freelance writer Yumi Ishikawa, whose campaign against mandatory high heels in the workplace won broad public support, has stepped up her fight against strict corporate dress codes in Japan -- including a ban at some firms on women wearing glasses. Ishikawa shot to prominence this year with her drive against Japanese office culture, in which high heels are seen as near-obligatory when job-hunting or working in the office. Known by the hashtag #KuToo -- a play on words from the Japanese word "kutsu", meaning "shoes," and "kutsuu," meaning "pain" -- the campaign was chosen on Monday as one of the buzzwords of the year. Ishikawa's latest petition to relax the rules, delivered to the labor ministry on Tuesday, has attracted more than 31,000 signatures. "The root cause of the problem is that (there are companies) that have rules for women only -- such as a ban on wearing glasses or a requirement to wear make-up," the 32-year-old told reporters.

In a test case for these issues, a team led by Professor Ryan Abbott at the University of Surrey has filed several patent applications for inventions which they claim were invented by an AI named DABUS (Device for the Autonomous Bootstrapping of Unified Sentience). The inventions in question are a'Fractal Container' and a'Neural Flame'. Patent applications to both of these inventions have been filed with the UK IPO, USPTO and EPO. PCT applications to these inventions have also been filed. The'Fractal Container' patent application relates to a container having a wall with a fractal profile.

Amazon Web Services likes to spice things up at its annual AWS re:Invent conference with unexpected hardware announcements, with past surprises such as a semi-truck for transporting data, a machine-learning camera, and a miniature self-driving race car. Now you can add a machine-learning-enabled musical keyboard to the list. Kicking off the event overnight in Las Vegas, the company introduced AWS DeepComposer, a 32-key, two-octave keyboard that the company holds up as an early example of "generative" artificial intelligence. "Generative AI is one of the biggest recent advancements in artificial intelligence technology because of its ability to create something new," Amazon explains on the AWS DeepComposer site. "It opens the door to an entire world of possibilities for human and computer creativity, with practical applications emerging across industries, from turning sketches into images for accelerated product development, to improving computer-aided design of complex objects."

A new leak of highly classified Chinese government documents has uncovered the operations manual for running the mass detention camps in Xinjiang and exposed the mechanics of the region's Orwellian system of mass surveillance and "predictive policing." The China Cables, obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, include a classified list of guidelines, personally approved by the region's top security chief, that effectively serves as a manual for operating the camps now holding hundreds of thousands of Muslim Uighurs and other minorities. The leak also features previously undisclosed intelligence briefings that reveal, in the government's own words, how Chinese police are guided by a massive data collection and analysis system that uses artificial intelligence to select entire categories of Xinjiang residents for detention. The manual, called a "telegram," instructs camp personnel on such matters as how to prevent escapes, how to maintain total secrecy about the camps' existence, methods of forced indoctrination, how to control disease outbreaks, and when to let detainees see relatives or even use the toilet. The document, dating to 2017, lays bare a behavior-modification "points" system to mete out punishments and rewards to inmates. The manual reveals the minimum duration of detention: one year -- though accounts from ex-detainees suggest that some are released sooner. Experts say the platform, which is used in both policing and military contexts, demonstrates the power of technology to help drive industrial-scale human rights abuses. The China Cables reveal how the system is able to amass vast amounts of intimate personal data through warrantless manual searches, facial recognition cameras, and other means to identify candidates for detention, flagging for investigation hundreds of thousands merely for using certain popular mobile phone apps.

In 2010, US authors in top-rated AI journals outnumbered Chinese counterparts by two to one. That ratio has now reversed. Last year, 1,073 AI experts based at Chinese universities were credited in AI journals such as the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers's Transactions on Neural Networks, compared to 492 US authors. Australia and Israel also do well on this metric. When experts are ranked according to their'H-index' – a metric of productivity and the citation impact of the publications of a scientist or scholar – Americans occupy 626 of the 1,000 top spots, including all of the top ten spots at the time of our analysis. New Zealand, Saudi Arabia and Finland's AI academics are also highly ranked.