Mereja

Author: Serkadis

  • Study: Deadly ‘superbug’ MRSA now being found at U.S. wastewater treatment plants

    Using reclaimed water to irrigate lawns, parks, gardens, and various other types of landscaping is common in many communities across the U.S., particularly in areas prone to water shortages and drought. But a new study headed by researchers from the University of Maryland…

  • India: We Will Not Allow Dolphinariums

    Government Cites High Intelligence as Indication that Keeping Dolphins is Morally Wrong The Indian Ministry of Forests and Environment has released an official statement indicating that dolphin captivity will not be welcome anywhere in the nation. The anticipated…

  • Discover the seven most nutrient-dense foods on earth

    The superfood tag is awarded to nutrient-dense foods, which pack more nutrients or antioxidants per bite than most other foods. Superfoods are food, not just nutritional extracts, minerals, or vitamins sold as supplements to food, such as B complex capsules, etc. One…

  • Four natural ways of getting rid of indigestion

    People often see the term “indigestion” as a way of referring to upper abdominal pain and/or heartburn that could be accompanied by a feeling of having a stomach full of gas, bloated sensations after eating, difficulty swallowing, feelings of heaviness after eating,…

  • Improve osteoporosis, arthritis, and other orthopedic disorders with exercise

    Older people and those with conditions affecting their bones often believe that exercise is unsafe. However, exercise is known to reduce symptoms and even reverse some musculoskeletal issues. Older adults and people with frail bones caused by osteoporosis or aging-related…

  • Hang gliding instructor slips into psychosis, recovers without drugs, gets PhD and writes the book Rethinking Madness

    If you want to hear a story about how real mental health and recovery from mental illness should work, look no further than Paris Williams. During the May 15, 2013 episode of Mental Health Exposed, Paris tells his personal story of mental illness, recovery and a new…

  • Ron Paul and Jim Rogers: Government confiscation of private bank accounts to happen here, too

    The United States has been a stable country for most of its 230-plus years, as well as a global hegemonic power since the end of World War II and the world’s primary superpower since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the crumbling of the Soviet Union in 1990. That kind…

  • List of dangerous antidepressants that cause sudden death is rapidly expanding

    The list of antidepressants that can cause sudden death is growing exponentially, with citalopram – under the brand names Celexa and Cipramil – the latest such drug to be added, according to a new study. The research, published recently in the British Medical Journal…

  • Homeopathic and herbal remedies for surviving bioterrorism attacks – A disaster plan for emergency preparedness

    To protect against a bioterrorism attack such as anthrax, plague or smallpox, perform a bioterrorism risk assessment to put in place an effective disaster plan for survival. Emergency response and preparedness is best achieved by preparing a kit beforehand, including…

  • Manage your diabetes naturally with these simple remedies and tips

    Even what conventional medicine might consider a well-managed case of diabetes can be well off the mark of optimal health. Any person with diabetes can tell you that managing this condition — whether type 1 or type 2 — requires a great deal of tenacity and awareness…

  • Facts over fiction: Gun deaths plummet 39 percent over 18 years as Americans buy record number of guns

    The anti-gunners will try to spin it, of course, but there is no spinning the cold, hard data surrounding economist John Lott’s longtime contention – backed up by years of research, of course: More guns truly does equal less crime. And now, it’s official. According…

  • Misguided scientists declare all-natural amino acid compound in red meat to be ‘bad for the heart’

    The anti-meat segment of the mainstream scientific community has come out with yet another new study condemning meat as damaging to human health, this time claiming that an all-natural, amino acid-producing substance naturally found in red meat causes heart damage. Demonstrating…

  • Eating walnuts and walnut oils slashes heart disease risk by improving multiple biometrics

    The impact of eating nuts has been evident for the past decade as repeated scientific studies confirm that the omega-3 fats in this tasty nut promote cardiovascular health as they improve cholesterol biomarkers. Walnuts provide healthy doses of essential minerals, fiber…

  • A little bit of thyme will do much more than just enhance the taste of your foods

    Thyme is extensively utilized in European cuisines and it is much appreciated as a spice enhancing the taste of various foods. The Greeks use it regularly as a medicinal herb as they are particularly fond of its many health benefits. Thyme, also known as thymus vulgaris…

  • US government buying up all the ammo to make sure you can’t

    Unhappy with the lack of progress on new gun control legislation, the Obama Administration is using your tax dollars to corner the market on ammunition, buying up as much as possible to limit the amount the public can purchase, according to a U.S. lawmaker. Sen. Jim…

  • Hilarious! Top official to plead Fifth Amendment protections after targeting constitutional groups that taught the Bill of Rights

    IRS official Lois Lerner who heads the tax exempt division of the IRS will be invoking Fifth Amendment protections under the Bill of Rights to avoid incriminating herself in federal testimony, reports the LA Times. What makes this such a hilarious example of hypocrisy…

  • Bored with mere medicine, IBM’s Watson adds customer service to its resume

    IBM’s Watson computer has taken on a new job — that of customer service agent — as Big Blue puts its Jeopardy-playing computer into a new role. This will also be the first time IBM delivers Watson completely as a service, instead of as a highly customized software product for select customers in the medical and financial services field. But as Watson expands its role it may invite more comparisons to Siri, Apple’s natural language processing assistant.

    Tuesday at the IBM Smarter Commerce Global Summit in Nashville, Tenn., IBM plans to launch the Watson Engagement Advisor, aimed at helping consumer brands better recommend products to customers and provide better customer service at scale. Yes, that’s right. This is a technology that can diagnose cancer will be used to help sell people more products.

    Why we need Watson-level AI for customer service today.

    Still, customer service is a legitimate and complicated problem, especially in an era where social media meets our desire for a personalized and instant response to any inquiry or service issue. Firms have to engage with customers via phone calls, tweets, Yelp, Facebook posts and for all I know, angry letters. And many of those customers using new media don’t want to wait for a response. Companies that can offer good service quickly in a variety of mediums have an advantage. And Watson would allow them to do this at scale. Imagine offering Ritz Carlton service at Holiday Inn prices.

    Brands who buy the Engagement Advisor software will get access to a much smarter virtual agent that can sift through massive amounts of information to respond to users’ questions quickly. As someone who was totally schooled at Jeopardy by Watson, I cannot emphasize enough how fast it is.

    The IBM release notes that the Engagement Advisor software is designed to help existing customer service personnel answer questions quickly or it can be deployed via the brand’s mobile site where customers can interact with Watson directly. As IBM’s release says, “In one simple click, the solution’s “Ask Watson” feature will quickly address customers’ questions, offer advice to guide their purchase decisions, and troubleshoot their problems.”

    iPhone5_1136x640-004It’s possible this will remind users of Siri, Apple’s chatty personal assistant on the iPhone and iPad. However, instead of being deployed on a device, Watson is embedded on a brand web site.

    It can greet customers by name, however and offer to help them via a chat window on the company site or via a mobile push alert, that will appeal to people who want to tweet or text their customer care questions without having to stay focused on a single web page. In the ideal case Watson will have access to customer records plus the data stores it was trained on, and will be able to use both in giving a customer a recommendation or help.

    The business of Watson is a big one

    Instead of naming customers directly IBM writes that brands including ANZ, Celcom, IHS, Nielsen and Royal Bank of Canada are, “exploring how the Watson Engagement Advisor can help them engage with their customers.” This may be phrased this way because the initial pilot projects involving Watson require a lot of training of the computer before it becomes valuable. During Watson’s “apprenticeship period,” IBM in some cases hasn’t charged clients, or charges them lower rates.

    But it’s no secret that Watson is a big business bet for IBM. At last year’s Structure conference, Dan Cerutti, IBM’s VP of Watson Commercialization, explained IBM’s ambitions for Watson, including delivering the machine as a service over more and more devices. IBM sees Watson as a new type of computing and plans to build out new business models to support it, as Cerutti detailed in our chat almost a year ago.

    Along the way Watson not only impresses with its ability to filter through reams of data to correctly answer a natural language question, it also has been able to do this as it shrinks in size. Since its television debut, Watson has seen a 240 percent improvement in system performance, and a reduction in physical requirements by 75 percent. The whole system can now be run on a server that takes up the size of four pizza boxes from a giant machine that took up an entire bedroom. Smart, svelte and delivered as a service. Get ready to meet Watson in more roles and in some surprising places.

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  • Eos Energy raises $15M from NRG, investors for zinc-air batteries

    Startup Eos Energy Storgae announced on Monday that it has raised a $15 million series B round from a group of investors including power company NRG Energy. Eos Energy, based in New Jersey, has been building a low cost grid battery using air and zinc that it hopes utilities and power companies will buy to help manage their grids and combine with solar and wind projects.

    The company is looking to use the funding to help commercialize its batteries, which they’re calling Aurora, and Eos Energy hopes to deliver those to the market in 2014. According to a filing, this B round has been under development for over a year, and the company also says in its release that it is already in the process of raising a series C round, too.

    Eos Energy is testing out its first batteries with New York utility ConEdison, and the two are using a state grant to install batteries on the New York grid. The company says it also has other utility partners in the works.

    Scientists have been working on using air as the cathode for batteries for half a century. A battery is made up of an anode on one side and a cathode on the other, with an electrolyte in between. Air, of course, is abundant, light weight, and doesn’t require a heavy casing to contain it inside a battery cell. Also theoretically air can achieve a high energy density, or amount of energy that it can store.

    Eos Energy tech innovation comes from founder and inventor Steven Amendola who discovered a breakthrough with his original design of the bi-directional air cathode that could last for 10,000 cycles (or around three decades). The company has told me that its initial battery could cost $160 per kWh, lasts 30 years and be made up of everyday benign materials.

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  • No-treatment approach may be best choice for older prostate cancer patients

    Older prostate cancer patients with other underlying health conditions should think twice before committing to surgery or radiation therapy for their cancer, according to a multi-center study led by researchers from the UCLA Department of Urology.
     
    The study reports 14-year survival outcomes for 3,000 men diagnosed with prostate cancer between 1994 and 1995. The results suggest that older patients with low- or intermediate-risk prostate cancer who have at least three underlying health problems, or comorbidities, are much more likely to die of something other than their cancer.
     
    “For men with low-to-intermediate–risk disease, prostate cancer is an indolent disease that doesn’t pose a major risk to survival,” said the study’s first author, Dr. Timothy Daskivich, a UCLA Robert Wood Johnson fellow. “The take-home point from this study is that older men with multiple underlying health problems should carefully consider whether they should treat these tumors aggressively, because that treatment comes with a price.”
     
    Aggressive treatments for prostate cancer, including surgery, external radiation and radioactive seed implants, can result in major side effects, including erectile dysfunction, urinary incontinence and bowel problems. Also, the survival advantage afforded by these treatments does not develop until approximately eight to 10 years after treatment.
     
    In many cases, Daskivich said, either “watchful waiting” or active surveillance — monitoring the patient’s cancer very closely with regular biopsies and intervening with surgery or radiation if the disease progresses — is better than hitting the disease with everything in the treatment arsenal.
     
    The study appears May 21 in the early online issue of the peer-reviewed journal Annals of Internal Medicine.
     
    The study looked at men diagnosed with prostate cancer in two age ranges: those between 61 and 74, and those 75 and older. The men completed surveys within six months of their diagnoses, documenting the other medical conditions they had at that time. Researchers then determined survival outcomes 14 years after diagnosis using information from the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results database. 
     
    “This was a great opportunity to get a glimpse at the long-term outcomes of these men diagnosed with prostate cancer in the mid-1990s,” Daskivich said. “What we were most interested in was their survival outcomes. We wanted to prove that in older men with other health problems, the risk of dying from their cancer paled in comparison to the risk that they’d die from something else.”
     
    The study examined patients who had three or more comorbidities, such as diabetes, hypertension, congestive heart failure and arthritis. The researchers found that the 10-year risk of dying from causes other than prostate cancer was 40 percent in men aged 61 to 74, and 71 percent in men 75 or older. In comparison, the 14-year risks of dying from low- or intermediate-risk prostate cancer were 3 percent for and 7 percent, respectively, which Daskivich characterized as low.
     
    “If you’re very unlikely to benefit from treatment, then don’t run the risk and end up dealing with side effects that can significantly impact quality of life,” he said. “It’s important for these men to talk to their doctors about the possibility of forgoing aggressive treatment. We’re not talking about restricting care, but the patient should be fully informed about their likelihood of surviving long enough to benefit from treatment.”
     
    However, Daskivich said, older men with high-risk, aggressive prostate cancers may benefit from treatment so that they don’t die of their cancers. The risk of death from high-risk prostate cancer was 18 percent over the 14 years of this study.
     
    Daskivich said that prior to this study, there was very little long-term data on which patients could base these crucial decisions. The study will result in patients who are much better informed on the risks and benefits of treatment, he said.
     
    As they age, many men will develop prostate cancer and not know it because it’s slow growing and causes no symptoms. Autopsy studies of men who died from other causes have shown that almost 30 percent over the age of 50 have histological evidence of prostate cancer, according to a study published in 2008 in the journal Urology.
     
    In 2013, prostate cancer will strike 238,590 men, killing 29,720. It is the most frequently diagnosed cancer in men aside from skin cancer.
     
    The study was funded by the Robert Wood Johnson/VA Clinical Scholars Program, the Urology Care Foundation of the American Urologic Association, the American Cancer Society, and the National Institutes of Health.
     
    For more news, visit the UCLA Newsroom and follow us on Twitter.

  • How to make a less creepy robot? Simple, just add data

    Disney’s research arm has solved a problem that you probably didn’t even know robots have — their inability to accept objects from people in a natural way. The Disney Research team, working with funding from the International Center for Advanced Communication Technologies (interACT) at Carnegie Mellon and the University and Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), believe that robots who can’t naturally accept “handoffs” of objects from people are creepy. In a paper presented this month, Disney and its partners detailed how they used several motion-sensitive cameras, a database of gestures and some fancy algorithms to solve this handoff problem.

    From the press release announcing the findings:

    “If a robot just sticks out its hand blindly, or uses motions that look more robotic than human, a person might feel uneasy working with that robot or might question whether it is up to the task,” Katsu Yamane, Disney Research, Pittsburgh senior research scientist explained. “We assume human-like motions are more user-friendly because they are familiar.”

    RecMo_image-1024x174

    Despite the robot pictured on the Disney page touting this research looking like the mechanical, blue-haired skeleton that haunted my childhood nightmares, its attempts to grab the purse from the person do seem reactive to the human’s gestures, as opposed to the robot just sticking his arm out there and the person having to accommodate it. And that sort of naturalism will be important as we bring more robots into our homes and workplaces.

    For example, an MIT group used a dancer’s motions to build a robotic bartender in a quest for naturalism — even though that robot doesn’t interact with people.

    Today, designers try to endear robots to us with quirky noises (like R2D2) and maybe light displays or LED faces — anything to help anthropomorphize them. But as robots become more human-looking they can also become more sinister — achieving that same uncanny valley that Disney and other content companies have struggled with in animation. Remember the dead-eyed stars of the Polar Express that you probably couldn’t empathize with? The jerky movements of a home health robot might engender similar feelings — or worse — they may scare people.

    Building the natural gestures of the Disney robot took the creation of a hierarchical gesture database that the robot can access as it detects the person passing something to it. In the Disney paper research, the robot is not only able to reach for the handbag, but when the human attempts a fake pass to the robot, the blue-haired monstrosity robot is able to adapt. From the release:

    To enable a robot to access a library of human-to-human passing motions with the speed necessary for robot-human interaction, the researchers developed a hierarchical data structure. Using principal component analysis, the researchers first developed a rough estimate of the distribution of various motion samples. They then grouped samples of similar poses and organized them into a binary tree structure. With a series of “either/or” decisions, the robot can rapidly search this database, so it can recognize when the person initiates a handing motion and then refine its response as the person follows through.

    Even if you don’t have an opinion on how naturally robots should move, this research brings home the awesome amount of work it takes to build computers and robots that mimic the capabilities of a person. Much like computer visualization, the science of robotic interaction takes a problem the size of a mountain and has to chip it down into grains of sand using a toothpick to find solutions. It’s a testament to human curiosity that people are willing to try.

    Also, I expect Disney might be lured by the idea of natural-looking robots roaming its theme parks. My only question is would they be dressed up as characters or working the cash register at the gift stores.

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