SEPTA will soon begin using an artificial intelligence system that can detect people getting on trains and buses with guns. Why it matters: There's been a dramatic spike in violent crime aboard the public transit system. Driving the news: SEPTA is the U.S.'s first major transit system to test out the AI technology, known as ZeroEyes. It's been deployed by the Pentagon as well as public schools, universities and Fortune 500 companies in more than 30 states, according to a SEPTA statement. How it works: The company behind ZeroEyes was founded by former Navy SEALs who used hundreds of thousands of images and videos to train the AI system.

During the meeting, a presentation was made featuring the City Brain system for developing the public transport network planning, which RTA intends to implement this year in cooperation with Alibaba. The system, which is meant for managing urban traffic systems, uses AI and advanced algorithm to analyse a massive number of big data captured from nol cards, buses and taxis in operation as well as the Enterprise Command and Control Centre. Then it converts the data into information useful in sending instant notifications about the revised bus schedules and routes. The system is expected to improve the bus ridership by 17 per cent, reduce the average waiting time by 10 per cent, and shorten the journey time and the average bus use by five per cent.

Ozone levels in the earth's troposphere (the lowest level of our atmosphere) can now be forecasted with accuracy up to two weeks in advance, a remarkable improvement over current systems that can accurately predict ozone levels only three days ahead. The new artificial intelligence system developed in the University of Houston's Air Quality Forecasting and Modeling Lab could lead to improved ways to control high ozone problems and even contribute to solutions for climate change issues. Nobody had done this previously. I believe we are the first to try to forecast surface ozone levels two weeks in advance." The findings are published online in the scientific journal, Scientific Reports-Nature. Ozone, a colorless gas, is helpful in the right place and amount. As a part of the earth's stratosphere ("the ozone layer"), it protects by filtering out UV radiation from the sun. But when there are high concentrations of ozone near earth's surface, it is toxic to lungs and hearts.

LONDON: Scientists have developed an artificial intelligence (AI) based method that is as good at identifying and grading prostate cancer as world-leading uro-pathologists. The AI-system has the potential to solve one of the bottlenecks in today's prostate cancer histopathology by providing more accurate diagnosis and better treatment decisions, according to the study published in The Lancet Oncology journal. "Our results show that it is possible to train an AI-system to detect and grade prostate cancer on the same level as leading experts," said Martin Eklund, an associate professor at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden. "This has the potential to significantly reduce the workload of uro-pathologists and allow them to focus on the most difficult cases," Eklund said. A problem in today's prostate pathology is that there is a certain degree of subjectivity in the assessments of the biopsies, researchers said. Different pathologists can reach different conclusions even though they are studying the same samples, they said.

Japanese scientists say they have developed a novel machine-learning technique that can detect dementia with over 90 per cent accuracy from conversations between humans and avatars on a computer. This technique developed by a team from Osaka University and Nara Institute of Science and Technology involves learning characteristics of sounds of elderly people who answer easy questions. Dementia could be distinguished by combining features of the disorder, such as delay in response to questions from avatars depending on the content of questions, intonation, articulation rate of the voice, and the percentage of nouns and verbs in utterance. An avatar is the graphical representation of the user or a character in an internet forum. "If this technology is further developed, it will become possible to know whether or not an elderly individual is in the early stages of dementia through conversation with computer avatars at home on a daily basis," said researcher Takashi Kudo.

A new artificial intelligence approach can design drugs from scratch and is expected to help bring new drugs to patients quicker. Researchers from the University of North Carolina's (UNC) Eshelman School of Pharmacy have developed a new artificial intelligence system that can teach itself to create new drug candidates from scratch. Called Reinforcement Learning for Structural Evolution (ReLeaSE), the new approach is expected to potentially expedite the design and development of new drugs. The algorithm and computer programme features two neural networks, one of which carries knowledge on chemical structures for nearly 1.7 million biologically active molecules. The second network learns from the first one, over time, and proposes molecules with potential as new therapeutics.

A new computer system could spell the end for animal testing. The new system offers up more accurate results than animal testing, predicting the toxicity of a substance almost immediately. It is also less expensive, less time-consuming, and poses much less of an ethical dilemma. "These results are a real eye-opener, they suggest that we can replace many animal tests with computer-based prediction and get more reliable results," Professor Thomas Hartung, the lead designer of the system, told the Financial Times. Hartung and his team of researchers used artificial intelligence to analyze the results of 800,000 tests on 10,000 different chemicals, held on a database.

A team of engineering students has developed an artificial intelligence (AI) system that can identify areas prone to water logging, and may help metro cities avoid tedious road congestions caused by monsoon showers. The researchers, including Aman Bansal and Apoorva Gupta from Netaji Subhas Institute of Technology (NSIT) in New Delhi combined rainfall, traffic, and location data to predict the severity of water logging in the vulnerable areas. "In a lot of developing countries, including India, the issue of water logging is persistent. In 2016, the roads of Gurgaon were flooded leading to severely waterlogged streets, which left thousands of people stranded for several hours. In Mumbai too, such incidents are very common," said Rishab Gupta, from NSIT, told.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming a huge tool for people in many fields, especially in healthcare. A new artificial intelligence, deep learning network called deep learning convolutional neural network (CNN) has been developed to help dermatologists. Through testing, the new CNN has been proven to detect skin cancer even better than expert dermatologists. The CNN was developed by researchers from around in the world, including Germany, the United States and France. The new development is important because 232,000 new malignant melanoma cases are found around the world every year and 55,500 people die from melanoma cases each year. If the CNN is developed to be used as a tool in a dermatologist's office, many lives could be saved.

NEW DELHI: The Commerce and Industry Ministry has constituted an 18-member task force to explore possibilities to leverage artificial intelligence (AI) for economic transformation. In a statement, Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said with rapid development in the fields of information technology and hardware, the world is about to witness a fourth industrial revolution. Artificial intelligence, machine learning to impact workplace practices in India: Adobe According to a global report by software major Adobe, over 50 per cent respondents did not feel concerned by artificial intelligence (AI) or machine learning. "Driven by the power of big data, high computing capacity, artificial intelligence and analytics, Industry 4.0 aims to digitise the manufacturing sector," she added. The panel comprised experts, academics, researchers and industry leaders.