Government
A Perspective for Adapting Generalist AI to Specialized Medical AI Applications and Their Challenges
Wang, Zifeng, Wang, Hanyin, Danek, Benjamin, Li, Ying, Mack, Christina, Poon, Hoifung, Wang, Yajuan, Rajpurkar, Pranav, Sun, Jimeng
The integration of Large Language Models (LLMs) into medical applications has sparked widespread interest across the healthcare industry, from drug discovery and development to clinical decision support, assisting telemedicine, medical devices, and healthcare insurance applications. This perspective paper aims to discuss the inner workings of building LLM-powered medical AI applications and introduces a comprehensive framework for their development. We review existing literature and outline the unique challenges of applying LLMs in specialized medical contexts. Additionally, we introduce a three-step framework to organize medical LLM research activities: 1) Modeling: breaking down complex medical workflows into manageable steps for developing medical-specific models; 2) Optimization: optimizing the model performance with crafted prompts and integrating external knowledge and tools, and 3) System engineering: decomposing complex tasks into subtasks and leveraging human expertise for building medical AI applications. Furthermore, we offer a detailed use case playbook that describes various LLM-powered medical AI applications, such as optimizing clinical trial design, enhancing clinical decision support, and advancing medical imaging analysis. Finally, we discuss various challenges and considerations for building medical AI applications with LLMs, such as handling hallucination issues, data ownership and compliance, privacy, intellectual property considerations, compute cost, sustainability issues, and responsible AI requirements.
Gradient Routing: Masking Gradients to Localize Computation in Neural Networks
Cloud, Alex, Goldman-Wetzler, Jacob, Wybitul, Evลพen, Miller, Joseph, Turner, Alexander Matt
Neural networks are trained primarily based on their inputs and outputs, without regard for their internal mechanisms. These neglected mechanisms determine properties that are critical for safety, like (i) transparency; (ii) the absence of sensitive information or harmful capabilities; and (iii) reliable generalization of goals beyond the training distribution. To address this shortcoming, we introduce gradient routing, a training method that isolates capabilities to specific subregions of a neural network. Gradient routing applies data-dependent, weighted masks to gradients during backpropagation. These masks are supplied by the user in order to configure which parameters are updated by which data points. We show that gradient routing can be used to (1) learn representations which are partitioned in an interpretable way; (2) enable robust unlearning via ablation of a pre-specified network subregion; and (3) achieve scalable oversight of a reinforcement learner by localizing modules responsible for different behaviors. Throughout, we find that gradient routing localizes capabilities even when applied to a limited, ad-hoc subset of the data. We conclude that the approach holds promise for challenging, real-world applications where quality data are scarce.
Putin mulls striking Kyiv with new hypersonic missile that can reportedly reach US West Coast
Veteran and former intel officer Don Bramer joined Fox & Friends First to discuss his reaction to Trump tapping Keith Kellogg to be his Ukraine-Russia envoy and the Biden admin working with the Trump team on peace in the Middle East. Following an overnight missile and drone attack by Russia targeting Ukraine's key energy infrastructure, Russian President Vladimir Putin now says that government buildings in Kyiv could be targeted next using a new hypersonic missile that could also potentially reach the U.S. Russian attacks have not so far struck "decision-making centers" in the Ukrainian capital as Kyiv is heavily protected by air defenses. But Putin says Russia's Oreshnik hypersonic missile, which it fired for the first time at a Ukrainian city last week, is incapable of being intercepted. Russia fired the Oreshnik at the Ukrainian city of Dnipro on Nov. 21, striking a weapons production plant. This was in retaliation against Ukrainian strikes on a Russian military facility in Bryansk two days earlier with U.S. made long-range missiles called ATACMS, after President Biden had given Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy permission to do so.
Russia launches another large missile, drone attack on Ukraine's energy infrastructure
Fox News' Stephanie Bennett has updates on the war in Ukraine on'Fox News Live.' Russia launched another "massive" attack on Ukraine's energy infrastructure on Thursday, knocking out power for more than a million households, according to Ukranian officials. Thursday's attack, which involved more than 200 missiles and drones, marks the second on Ukraine's power grid in less than two weeks. Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko said on Facebook that "attacks on energy facilities are happening all over Ukraine." He added that emergency power outages have been implemented nationwide. Areas affected include the Lviv region in western Ukraine, the northwestern Rivne region, the bordering Volyn region and the western Ivano Frankivsk region, according to The Associated Press. A Su-34 bomber of the Russian air force drops bombs on Ukrainian positions at an undisclosed location.
Use robots instead of hiring low-paid migrants, says shadow home secretary
Businesses should be using more robots instead of hiring low-paid migrants, the shadow home secretary has said. The Conservative MP Chris Philp says other countries "use a lot more automation" for tasks such as picking fruit and vegetables "rather than simply importing a lot of low-wage migrant labour". Speaking on BBC Breakfast, he called for more investment in technology to reduce the UK's net migration figures. Philp said: "To give an example, in Australia and New Zealand, they are rolling out robotic and automated fruit- and vegetable-picking equipment, in South Korea they use nine times the number of robots in manufacturing processes compared to us, in America they use a lot more modular construction which is much faster and much more efficient. "There's a lot of things British industry can do to grow without needing to import large numbers of low-wage migrants." At an impromptu press conference on Wednesday, Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative leader, said her party had got it wrong on immigration. She promised a review of "every policy, treaty and part of our legal framework" including the role of the European convention on human rights (ECHR) and the Human Rights Act. Get the day's headlines and highlights emailed direct to you every morning She said her party still believed in a "deterrent" to irregular migration but did not commit to restoring the Rwanda scheme scrapped by Labour, even though Philp called for it to be reinstated two weeks ago. He said on Thursday that Labour had "cancelled the Rwanda scheme before it even started". Philp was asked about reports that under the Conservatives, ministers had been examining using a giant wave machine to deter Channel crossings. He told the BBC: "I don't recall ever having seriously looked at that idea.
Third of NI adults visit porn sites, Ofcom finds
Third of NI adults visit porn sites, Ofcom finds Getty ImagesA new Ofcom report finds over 430,000 adults in Northern Ireland visited "pornographic content services" online in May 2024 Adults in Northern Ireland are more likely to look at pornography online than those in any other part of the UK. That is according to new research published by the communications regulator Ofcom. It said that more than 430,000 adults in Northern Ireland visited "pornographic content services" online in May 2024 - more than one third of the adult population. That was higher than the proportion of adults viewing similar content in Wales, Scotland and England. The figures come from Ofcom's Online Nation report for 2024, which looks into the UK's digital habits.
UK government failing to list use of AI on mandatory register
Not a single Whitehall department has registered the use of artificial intelligence systems since the government said it would become mandatory, prompting warnings that the public sector is "flying blind" about the deployment of algorithmic technology affecting millions of lives. AI is already being used by government to inform decisions on everything from benefit payments to immigration enforcement, and records show public bodies have awarded dozens of contracts for AI and algorithmic services. A contract for facial recognition software, worth up to 20m, was put up for grabs last week by a police procurement body set up by the Home Office, reigniting concerns about "mass biometric surveillance". But details of only nine algorithmic systems have so far been submitted to a public register, with none of a growing number of AI programs used in the welfare system, by the Home Office or by the police among them. The dearth of information comes despite the government announcing in February this year that the use of the AI register would now be "a requirement for all government departments".
Virtual Sensing-Enabled Digital Twin Framework for Real-Time Monitoring of Nuclear Systems Leveraging Deep Neural Operators
Hossain, Raisa Bentay, Ahmed, Farid, Kobayashi, Kazuma, Koric, Seid, Abueidda, Diab, Alam, Syed Bahauddin
Effective real-time monitoring is a foundation of digital twin technology, crucial for detecting material degradation and maintaining the structural integrity of nuclear systems to ensure both safety and operational efficiency. Traditional physical sensor systems face limitations such as installation challenges, high costs, and difficulty measuring critical parameters in hard-to-reach or harsh environments, often resulting in incomplete data coverage. Machine learning-driven virtual sensors, integrated within a digital twin framework, offer a transformative solution by enhancing physical sensor capabilities to monitor critical degradation indicators like pressure, velocity, and turbulence. However, conventional machine learning models struggle with real-time monitoring due to the high-dimensional nature of reactor data and the need for frequent retraining. This paper introduces the use of Deep Operator Networks (DeepONet) as a core component of a digital twin framework to predict key thermal-hydraulic parameters in the hot leg of an AP-1000 Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR). DeepONet serves as a dynamic and scalable virtual sensor by accurately mapping the interplay between operational input parameters and spatially distributed system behaviors. In this study, DeepONet is trained with different operational conditions, which relaxes the requirement of continuous retraining, making it suitable for online and real-time prediction components for digital twin. Our results show that DeepONet achieves accurate predictions with low mean squared error and relative L2 error and can make predictions on unknown data 1400 times faster than traditional CFD simulations. This speed and accuracy enable DeepONet to synchronize with the physical system in real-time, functioning as a dynamic virtual sensor that tracks degradation-contributing conditions.
Convex Regularization and Convergence of Policy Gradient Flows under Safety Constraints
Malo, Pekka, Viitasaari, Lauri, Suominen, Antti, Vilkkumaa, Eeva, Tahvonen, Olli
This paper studies reinforcement learning (RL) in infinite-horizon dynamic decision processes with almost-sure safety constraints. Such safety-constrained decision processes are central to applications in autonomous systems, finance, and resource management, where policies must satisfy strict, state-dependent constraints. We consider a doubly-regularized RL framework that combines reward and parameter regularization to address these constraints within continuous state-action spaces. Specifically, we formulate the problem as a convex regularized objective with parametrized policies in the mean-field regime. Our approach leverages recent developments in mean-field theory and Wasserstein gradient flows to model policies as elements of an infinite-dimensional statistical manifold, with policy updates evolving via gradient flows on the space of parameter distributions. Our main contributions include establishing solvability conditions for safety-constrained problems, defining smooth and bounded approximations that facilitate gradient flows, and demonstrating exponential convergence towards global solutions under sufficient regularization. We provide general conditions on regularization functions, encompassing standard entropy regularization as a special case. The results also enable a particle method implementation for practical RL applications. The theoretical insights and convergence guarantees presented here offer a robust framework for safe RL in complex, high-dimensional decision-making problems.
Self-Supervised Learning for Graph-Structured Data in Healthcare Applications: A Comprehensive Review
Atitallah, Safa Ben, Rabah, Chaima Ben, Driss, Maha, Boulila, Wadii, Koubaa, Anis
The abundance of complex and interconnected healthcare data offers numerous opportunities to improve prediction, diagnosis, and treatment. Graph-structured data, which includes entities and their relationships, is well-suited for capturing complex connections. Effectively utilizing this data often requires strong and efficient learning algorithms, especially when dealing with limited labeled data. It is increasingly important for downstream tasks in various domains to utilize self-supervised learning (SSL) as a paradigm for learning and optimizing effective representations from unlabeled data. In this paper, we thoroughly review SSL approaches specifically designed for graph-structured data in healthcare applications. We explore the challenges and opportunities associated with healthcare data and assess the effectiveness of SSL techniques in real-world healthcare applications. Our discussion encompasses various healthcare settings, such as disease prediction, medical image analysis, and drug discovery. We critically evaluate the performance of different SSL methods across these tasks, highlighting their strengths, limitations, and potential future research directions. Ultimately, this review aims to be a valuable resource for both researchers and practitioners looking to utilize SSL for graph-structured data in healthcare, paving the way for improved outcomes and insights in this critical field. To the best of our knowledge, this work represents the first comprehensive review of the literature on SSL applied to graph data in healthcare.