Wellness
A Hybrid Machine Learning Method for Fusing fMRI and Genetic Data: Combining both Improves Classification of Schizophrenia
We demonstrate a hybrid machine learning method to classify schizophrenia patients and healthy controls, using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) data. The method consists of four stages: (1) SNPs with the most discriminating information between the healthy controls and schizophrenia patients are selected to construct a support vector machine ensemble (SNP-SVME). The method was evaluated by a fully validated leave-one-out method using 40 subjects (20 patients and 20 controls). The classification accuracy was: 0.74 for SNP-SVME, 0.82 for Voxel-SVME, 0.83 for ICA-SVMC, and 0.87 for Combined SNP-fMRI. Experimental results show that better classification accuracy was achieved by combining genetic and fMRI data than using either alone, indicating that genetic and brain function representing different, but partially complementary aspects, of schizophrenia etiopathology.
FinTech Trends: Robots in Financial Services HCL Blogs
Bank of America Merrill Lynch released a report this week that said that annual global sales of robots has reached a record 10.7 billion in 2014. The authors valued the overall market for robotic technologies (including related software and sensors) at 32 billion for that same year. By 2020, the authors expect the robot market to be worth 83 billion. The autonomous driverless cars, developed by Google, provide one example of how manual tasks in transport and logistics may soon become automated. The combination of AI, machine learning, deep learning, and natural user interfaces (such as voice recognition) is making it possible to automate many knowledge-worker tasks.
5 things you didn't know about Amazon's 'Alexa'
Amazon's Echo voice-activated speaker has more "skills" than you may be using. Amazon's Echo has become a sleeper hit thanks to tasks its digital assistant Alexa can carry out. There's probably more you could do with it. In case you haven't played around with an Echo or similar Alexa-driven voice speakers, the 179 cylindrical-shaped, cloud-connected speaker sits in a room and you use your voice to ask a question or give a command. Using the wake word "Alexa," a sensitive microphone picks up the request and dishes up the info you want in a human-like voice.
'Mr. Robot' Season 2 in Review: Identity Crisis Run Amok
A recurring motif put our divided-mind anti-hero Elliot Alderson (Rami Malek) -- and by extension, us, his "hello, friend" buddy -- in the backseat of a car and took us for wild rides by mad men and toady tools. This was the premise of the madly meta "Mr. Robot" sitcom, when Mr. Robot (Christian Slater), Elliot's rogue alter-ego and frequent altered state, seized the wheel of his consciousness and took him on a great escape. This was the cliffhanger of last week's trippy and tricky outing, with Elliot riding shotgun in a cab with a dark passenger he thought was dead, Tyrell Wellick (Martin Wallstrom). He freaked and demanded his immediate release, a hair-pulling panic that might have spoken for us, too. Such was the thrill, frustration, and meaning of season 2, a saga of identity crisis run amok in a high anxiety culture on the blink and on the brink. All of its characters became unreliable narrators of themselves, and their distortions and their dimness became threatening to everyone as they executed reckless campaigns for change. Each of them had ideas for how to make the world great again.
Our values alive and well
Contrary to what some people will try to tell you, there are Canadian values. We aren't just a collection of disparate people who happen to occupy the same country. We're one of the few nations on earth with a native-born and immigrant population that welcomes people from all over the world to come here, work hard, obey the law, live in peace and freedom, and help each other. To pick one of countless examples, Canada is Jamaican-Canadians extending a helping hand to a brilliant young Albanian-born computer student, whose family immigrated here 17 years ago when he was four, leaving behind the turmoil of the Kosovo war. Jurgen Aliaj, 21, is the student and the Jamaican-Canadians who are helping him head the Independent United Order of Solomon, a charity run by my friends Lloyd and Madaine Seivright.
Artificial intelligence has rising impact on financial markets
Automation and artificial intelligence are profoundly transforming trading and markets. Many scientists and futurists agree that the effects of artificial intelligence and automation on society are difficult to predict. While many predicted that the tip of the spear for such technology would play out in areas such as medicine or general computer system markets, the AI revolution is already underway in the financial markets. Many of the predicted challenges and solutions are occurring now -- in real time. Financial technology becoming possibly the first major component of society to be completely AI enabled is not surprising if you consider that financial markets are inherently big-data intensive, attract bright minds and high-quality capital, and often have a short investment-to-profit time horizon.
The rise of AI and algorithms in the financial services sector - Raconteur
Demand for non-equity trading algorithms serving institutional asset managers and retail investors is expanding the prevalence of artificial intelligence in the world's financial markets. A recent report by Thomson Reuters estimates that algorithmic trading systems now handle 75 per cent of the volume of global trades worldwide and this figure is predicted, by those in the industry, to grow steadily. Firstly, while the institutional market has enjoyed a large variety of "algos" serving the equity markets to date, other areas such as futures are still witnessing huge product demand and innovation as a result. Secondly, regulations affecting the institutional investment market, such as the European Union Markets in Financial Instruments Directive II or MiFID II, are pushing for greater automation of trades in some asset classes which traditionally were not executed electronically. The fixed income market is a prime example and negotiations between industry groups are ongoing as to how practical a fully automated fixed income could really be, given the magnitude of the required shift from telephone to electronic trading.
Artificial intelligence has rising impact on financial markets
Many scientists and futurists agree that the effects of artificial intelligence and automation on society are difficult to predict. While many predicted that the tip of the spear for such technology would play out in areas such as medicine or general computer system markets, the AI revolution is already underway in the financial markets. Nearly all market-making is presently dominated by machines that employ AI techniques, including advanced pattern recognition. The markets evolution from the primordial ooze of computers, networks and massive storage systems to a complex, intelligent and somewhat singular market entity will impact society well beyond finance.
Artificial intelligence has rising impact on financial markets
Automation and artificial intelligence are profoundly transforming trading and markets. Many scientists and futurists agree that the effects of artificial intelligence and automation on society are difficult to predict. While many predicted that the tip of the spear for such technology would play out in areas such as medicine or general computer system markets, the AI revolution is already underway in the financial markets. Many of the predicted challenges and solutions are occurring now -- in real time. Financial technology becoming possibly the first major component of society to be completely AI enabled is not surprising if you consider that financial markets are inherently big-data intensive, attract bright minds and high-quality capital, and often have a short investment-to-profit time horizon.
As Our Jobs Are Automated, Some Say We'll Need A Guaranteed Basic Income
Customers use interactive kiosks to place orders at Eatsa, a fully automated fast food restaurant in San Francisco. Customers use interactive kiosks to place orders at Eatsa, a fully automated fast food restaurant in San Francisco. Much of the anger and anxiety in the 2016 election is fueled by the sense that economic opportunity is slipping away for many Americans. This week, as part of NPR's collaborative project with member stations, A Nation Engaged, we're asking the question: What can be done to create economic opportunity for more Americans? When we talk about the economy, we spend a lot of time talking about jobs -- how to create more of them and how to replace the ones being lost.