Lifeboat Foundation

A new deep-learning algorithm could provide advanced notice when systems — from satellites to data centers — are falling out of whack.

When you’re responsible for a multimillion-dollar satellite hurtling through space at thousands of miles per hour, you want to be sure it’s running smoothly. And time series can help.

A time series is simply a record of a measurement taken repeatedly over time. It can keep track of a system’s long-term trends and short-term blips. Examples include the infamous Covid-19 curve of new daily cases and the Keeling curve that has tracked atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations since 1958. In the age of big data, “time series are collected all over the place, from satellites to turbines,” says Kalyan Veeramachaneni. “All that machinery has sensors that collect these time series about how they’re functioning.”

Before the pandemic, the lab of Stanford University biochemist Peter S. Kim focused on developing vaccines for HIV, Ebola and pandemic influenza. But, within days of closing their campus lab space as part of COVID-19 precautions, they turned their attention to a vaccine for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Although the coronavirus was outside the lab’s specific area of expertise, they and their collaborators have managed to construct and test a promising vaccine candidate.

“Our goal is to make a single-shot vaccine that does not require a cold-chain for storage or transport. If we’re successful at doing it well, it should be cheap too,” said Kim, who is the Virginia and D. K. Ludwig Professor of Biochemistry. “The target population for our vaccine is low-and middle-income countries.”

Their vaccine, detailed in a paper published in ACS Central Science (“A Single Immunization with Spike-Functionalized Ferritin Vaccines Elicits Neutralizing Antibody Responses against SARS-CoV-2 in Mice”), contains nanoparticles studded with the same proteins that comprise the virus’s distinctive surface spikes.

Hale — “Surviving Corona.”

Produced by Gary Jesch of CHOPS Live Animation.
with Peter Cummings — Contagious Productions.
COVID-19 Animation by Fusion Medical Animation.

Continue reading “CHOPS — ‘CyberHuman on a Performance System’ meets COVID-19 and learns there is a new book out” »

Circa 2017 o.o

Advance spreads optimism for gene therapy approach.

Have you been sleeping worse since the pandemic came round? If so, do not despair, you are not alone, studies have found that even amongst those who previously had no problems, there were issues. Now there are many reasons why this might be so, from added stress and uncertainty, to less physical exertion during the day and much more… But, one factor that can play a huge role is your diet. I am sure you know about fast and slow carbs, and I am sure some of you try your hardest to avoid them at all costs…not me though, I am a carb fan lol. But anyway, carbs can actually help you sleep when paired with the right foods because of the way they create competition between amino acids for absorption into muscles, when stimulated by glucose, but on the negative side, quick, or beige, carbs can cause waking during the night, as the blood sugar is not as stable. If you want to find out more, in a bit more depth, along with all the studies I have brought together, then check out this video, all links are in its description. Sleep well wink

In Carbs Sleep Problems — How Nutrition Affects Your Sleep Quality, I look at just that, the importance of the reciprocal link between diet and sleep.

Continue reading “How Nutrition Affects Your Sleep Quality” »

Israeli aerospace company Urban Aeronautics announced this week that it sold its first four vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) aircraft to Hatzolah Air, a nonprofit emergency medical air transport provider based in New York. The organization already operates fixed-wing aircraft (meaning propeller-driven or powered by a jet engine, with wings that don’t move) as part of its emergency missions.

To that end, “flying ambulances” isn’t a new concept; they’ve existed for a long time in the form of helicopters and planes. In fact, the Association of Air Medical Services estimates that around 550000 people get medevaced in the US each year.

But Urban Aeronautics’ Cormorant CityHawk, as the aircraft is called, will bring some functional new features to the skies. Though it’s lightweight and has a compact footprint, its interior cabin is 20 to 30 percent larger than that of a helicopter, meaning it will be able to fit two EMTs, the patient plus a companion, and medical equipment (plus the pilot) without things getting too cramped.

Deep learning has come a long way since the days when it could only recognize handwritten characters on checks and envelopes. Today, deep neural networks have become a key component of many computer vision applications, from photo and video editors to medical software and self-driving cars.

Roughly fashioned after the structure of the brain, neural networks have come closer to seeing the world as humans do. But they still have a long way to go, and they make mistakes in situations where humans would never err.

These situations, generally known as adversarial examples, change the behavior of an AI model in befuddling ways. Adversarial machine learning is one of the greatest challenges of current artificial intelligence systems. They can lead to machine learning models failing in unpredictable ways or becoming vulnerable to cyberattacks.

A scalpel-free alternative to brain surgery has the potential to benefit people with Parkinson’s disease symptoms that are much more severe on one side of the body, new research suggests.

More testing is needed, but the approach, which uses a technology called focused ultrasound, could offer a new option for patients whose symptoms are poorly controlled by medications and those who cannot or do not wish to undergo traditional brain surgery.

“This small brain region, the subthalamic nucleus, had a very strong and potent effect on parkinsonian symptoms when we targeted it with precise, focused ultrasound energy,” said researcher Jeff Elias, MD, a neurosurgeon at UVA Health and a pioneer in the field of focused ultrasound. “The key for the ultimate adoption of this new procedure will be further refinements of the technology to ensure reliability and safety.”

There were a number of fascinating new electric motorcycles that were slated for release in 2020, but many saw their timelines stretched by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Now 2021 appears to be the year of the new e-moto swarm with a score of models set to finally debut. Here are the ones keeping me on the edge of my seat.

I’ve been following this one for way too long.