With prior disease outbreaks, there’s typically been a prominent scientist who becomes the “public face.”
That involves regular briefings with the press to share the latest scientific developments, and a clear set of recommendations. They must have the trust of the public, and feel confident that they can speak the truth.
That person has been noticeably absent, with the CDC maintaining an unusually low profile during the crisis.
Two prestigious medical journals said they have significant concerns about a database that was used to look at how older drugs, including an antimalarial drug promoted by President Donald Trump, may work in the treatment of Covid-19.
On Tuesday, the New England Journal of Medicine published an “expression of concern” about a study released by the journal on May 1 that looked at the use of heart drugs called ACE inhibitors in coronavirus patients. Later Tuesday the Lancet, a nearly 200-year-old U.K. medical journal, issued its own similar warning about a May 22 trial that examined treating Covid-19 patients with the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine.
A research team led by Northwestern University bioelectronics pioneer John A. Rogers has received a $200,000 grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to continue developing a novel wearable device and set of algorithms specifically tailored to catch early signs and monitor progression of COVID-19.
In partnership with researchers at Shirley Ryan AbilityLab, Rogers launched the device in April. The NSF funding will help Rogers and his team incorporate more advanced data analytics into the device and add a sensor to measure oxygen levels in the blood.
The UK government is claiming to be the first European nation to join the US Covid-19 high performance computing HPC consortium.
The consortium of 40 companies and research institutes is sharing supercomputing resources to tackle the Covid-19 outbreak. There are currently has 56 active projects using more than 430 Petaflops of computing power.
The UK has added more than 20 Petaflops of high-performance computing capability from three supercomputers through UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). These include the ARCHER supercomputer at the University of Edinburgh, based around the Cray XC30, the DiRAC and the Hartree Centre at Daresbury Laboratory as well as the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council’s (BBSRC) Earlham Institute. The Met Office and UK Atomic Energy Authority will also provide capabilities to the consortium.
A patented method for single biomolecule detection that overcomes limitations of current technologies may help in the fight against COVID-19.
Purdue University innovators created a method that uses a special sensor similar to a computer chip. The application-specific integrated circuit chip is designed for the early detection of a number of pathogens and viruses.
“We want to find partners to move this technology to the public as soon as we can to help in COVID-19 testing,” said Saeed Mohammadi, a Purdue professor of electrical and computer engineering. “We know it can be an effective, easy and inexpensive method for detecting viruses, potentially the one linked to the current pandemic.”
In the West African nation of Togo, policymakers decided that modest support payments to the neediest people are part of the solution — and they turned for help to the Center for Effective Global Action (CEGA) at UC Berkeley. The partnership has explored how artificial intelligence — driven by big data and machine learning, satellite images and phone records — can help to pinpoint the areas where needs are most urgent.
In recent weeks, CEGA faculty Co-director Joshua Blumenstock has worked with policymakers in Togo and Nigeria in Africa and in Bangladesh in South Asia to focus the power of advanced technology on pandemic relief. Blumenstock detailed these projects in an article published by Nature on May 14.
In mid-March, a trifecta of academic, non-profit, and commercial neurotech companies united to launch a neuroscientific challenge that embodied a more collaborative future for solving the brain, while physically apart and working from home. (Full disclosure: I was fortunate to be involved in the very initial organization of the project.) The challenge embraced a one-two formula for accelerating scientific progress, most recently encapsulated by research into Covid-19. One, large open databases enabling AI-based tools for analysis; and two, global interest and unity. … The NeurekaTM challenge is much smaller in scale, but it embodies the same principles. The project employed an open database of electroencephalogram (EEG) brain recordings from people with epilepsy, curated by Dr. Joseph Picone and colleagues at the Temple University Hospital (TUH), and challenged a global community of neurotech enthusiasts—while away from their labs and staying at home—to deploy machine learning and other AI tools to better decipher those neural data and predict seizures before they occur.
The metal detectors every sports fan has become accustomed to at the gate might soon be accompanied by thermal body scanners as part of the gargantuan task of preventing the spread of the new coronavirus and other airborne diseases.
And that might be just one thing the public will need to be comfortable with in order to bring games back for in-person viewing.
Tickets have widely transitioned from paper souvenirs to smartphone screens, but how about using your face as your proof of purchase Nascent forms of crowd monitoring — like laser-driven density detection and camera-based calculations of line length — will likely grow faster in a post-pandemic era of live sports that must highlight hygiene.
“The pandemic really ups the need for greater assurance of stadium safety,” said Bob Boland, an athletics official who teaches at Penn State.
The patients of Mayo Clinic, whether they know it or not, have seeded a burgeoning digital health industry with their personal data. Details about their care, from disease diagnoses to digital tracings of their heartbeats, have been provided to companies for training artificial intelligence systems to detect dangerous arrhythmias, pregnancy complications, and deterioration in the hospital.
In the past two years, 16 companies have gained access to de-identified patient data through licensing deals that have widened Mayo’s revenue stream and generated crucial insights for health tech firms eager to commercialize digital products and services. Ethics experts worry, though, that patients’ interests are falling by the wayside: They were not notified of the deals or asked to consent to the use of their data for the products under development.
Mayo, which operates medical centers across the country, has become one of the most active participants in this data trade as it embraces AI to transform the way it delivers care. Executives said its arrangements with AI companies are part of a cycle of innovation in which privacy and progress are not mutually exclusive. They said both goals are attainable — and essential — if Mayo is to develop more effective diagnostic tools and treatments.
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos took to Instagram last week to share an essay by the writer Shenequa Golding, commenting on the “long reach” of racial trauma. The next day, the official Amazon account tweeted a message “in solidarity with the black community.” Amazon Web Services CEO Andy Jassy tweeted last week, “What will it take for us to refuse to accept these unjust killings of black people?”
But Amazon furnishes surveillance tools to police, including the widely criticized facial recognition product, Rekognition. The tool misidentifies darker-skinned people more often than lighter-skinned people, according to a report from AI researcher Joy Buolamwini. In 2018, the ACLU found the tool misidentified members of Congress as criminals, misidentifying black officials more often than white ones.
“Amazon tweeting support of ‘the fight against systematic racism and injustice’ is a textbook case of substituting virtue signaling for virtue,” said Evan Selinger, privacy scholar and professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology. “Not only have civil rights groups criticized Amazon for promoting a facial recognition tool to law enforcement that poses dire threats to minorities, but so have concerned shareholders.”
The Koret Foundation today announced more than $50 million in new grants to Bay Area colleges and universities. The goal of these grants is to increase access to education for the growing number of students who face obstacles to success; create and expand new models for learning; modernize campus technology and infrastructure; and strengthen relationships between institutions in the U.S. and Israel. In addition to students, the grants will directly support faculty and staff, campus programs and initiatives, new and existing on-campus facilities, and the priorities and vision of each school’s leadership
The Ford Foundation today announced the launch of a 10-year Global Fellowship program, which aims to identify, connect, and support the next generation of social justice leaders who are advancing innovative solutions to end inequality in communities most affected around the globe. The program is a $50 million investment over the next decade in a robust network of 240 global fellows. The inaugural fellows cohort is comprised of 24 promising global leaders who have demonstrated meaningful impact in their communities and are well-positioned to benefit from individualized global learning and leadership support.
This partnership will enable the real-time COVID-19 collection and study of detailed demographic data about the communities of color that are being hit hardest by the pandemic.
‘Across the nation, as in Massachusetts, the poorest residents are people of color,’ from a new report by @MassAGO
. Read the full report- https://bit.ly/ejbriefago
Online June 5, starting at 9 a.m. EDT. “NHS England and Improvement are going to be holding virtual challenge huddles to discuss COVID-19 data and analytics activity at a national and local level.”
“Organizers of the 34th Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems made the announcement today along with a statement of solidarity with its black community. The new deadline is Friday, June 5, 2020, at 1 pm PDT.”
Boston, MA “The 10th USENIX Workshop on Free and Open Communications on the Internet (FOCI ’20) will take place August 11, 2020, and will be co-located with the 29th USENIX Security Symposium in Boston, MA, USA.” Deadline for Extended Abstract/Position Paper submissions is June 8.
Online September 22-26. “RecSys 2020 is pleased to invite proposals for tutorials to be given in conjunction with the conference. The goal of the tutorials is to provide conference attendees, including early-career researchers and researchers crossing-over from related disciplines, with an opportunity to learn about recommender system concepts and techniques.” Deadline for submissions is June 8.
The Zoological Lighting Institute™ (ZLI) has announced ZLI’s Beached Campaign to overcome the structural and cultural bigotries that hinder animal sciences. Formed as an initiative to provide photobiology grants for researchers and animal keepers studying whales and dolphins, ZLI’s Beached Campaign recognizes the challenges that racial, cultural and economic bias pose for viable scientific communication and dialogue. Grant applications for aid are due to ZLI by 1 August 2020, with an online monthly lecture and symposium series set to begin on 9 September, 2020.
University of Michigan, Michigan Institute for Data Science
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“University of Michigan researchers can access a compilation of tweets known as the “Decahose” (a 10% sample of all tweets) without charge. MIDAS, CSCAR and ARC-TS together manage and support the use of this data repository, including the historical archive of Decahose tweets and ongoing collection from the Decahose.”
Black lives need to matter. Police brutality must stop. This should go without saying. What makes today different is that, for once, it looks like we all see the same thing. (1/6)
Many people in academia and the tech industry are wondering how to help. As a professor and a Black, first-generation college student, these are 3 things that I think will help. (2/6) [thread]
OSF Preprints; Micaela Parker Arlyn Burgess Philip Bourne
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The past decade has seen an explosion of data science centers, institutes, and programs appearing across the U.S. as universities increasingly recognize the importance and promise of data science to university research and education. It has been, and continues to be, an exciting time. But there are systemic challenges faced by these initiatives in the context of the higher education system. Some, but not all, of these challenges center around funding. Campuses fortunate enough to receive initial funding, often as a result of philanthropy or private sector investment, have some measure of sustainability, especially if these funds are in the form of an endowment. However, at most smaller colleges and universities, or those without a lucrative alumnus or local industry investor, just getting started with very limited funding can be daunting. And yet, every school is facing the reality that to truly prepare their student body for the expectations of 21st century employers, they must find a way to incorporate core critical thinking and data-intensive skills into nearly every discipline. This call to action challenges traditional disciplinary silos and begs for new models of higher education. As data science initiatives attempt to breakdown old barriers, they each face a unique set of challenges due to their campus’ political, financial, and structural environments. Our consideration of these challenges and those we have faced directly ourselves lead us to recognize a set of global commonalities. We capture them here in the familiar Ten Simple Rules (TSR) format for simplicity, recognizing much more could be said.