Staff Report

WASHINGTON Winners of the Department of Veterans Affairs 2020-2021 Artificial Intelligence Tech Sprint are six tech companies that created programs aimed at preventing Veteran suicide and improving their health care using the latest AI technology.VAs National Artificial Intelligence Institute competition encourages innovators to develop ways to improve services for Veterans.National AI Tech Sprint award recipients include:First place and $50,000 to Behavidence for a smartphone application that monitors Veteran activity, categorizes users by similar behavior and flags for follow-up those at increased risk for suicide.Second place and $25,000 to SoKat Consulting, LLC, for creating a chatbot that can integrate with VAs Blue Button medical records access. The chatbot can help Veterans get answers to questions and better understand their health care between visits.Third place and $10,000 to General Dynamics IT for an algorithm that can classify skin lesions and help medical staff determine if the quality of an image is good enough to make a skin cancer diagnosis.VA also gave $5,000 awards to JumpStartCSR for an app that integrates with physical therapy to prevent and treat injuries; HIVE Lab at George Washington University for a an app that helps Veterans manage conditions such as diabetes by personalizing treatments based on gut microbiome; and Ouva, LLC for a platform that helps clinicians better monitor vital signs and other health care issues for patients in isolation.The intent of the sprint is to match the private sector with Veterans, VA clinicians and other experts who mentor the companies to brainstorm solutions and new ideas over a three-month period. VA will further evaluate the best ideas and products to potentially adopt at pilot sites and then roll out nationwide.Participating teams gave presentations and demonstrations judged by panels of Veterans and other experts. In all, 44 teams from industry and universities participated, addressing a range of health care challenges such as chronic conditions management, cancer screening, rehabilitation, patient experiences and more.VA has long been an industry leader in research and innovation, and this sprint competition accelerates discovery, said Artificial Intelligence Tech Sprint Lead Rafael Fricks, Ph.D. The short timeline and mentoring allow VA to partner with industry leaders without any roadblocks to develop the health care solutions of the future not just for those giving the care, but those who will benefit from it most.Instead of the traditional contracting process that might take months or years to bring a product online that may not work as anticipated, this allows companies to tailor their products while VA is involved from the ground up.The next round of competition will open by the end of 2021. More information can be found at the Challenge.gov.NAII is a joint initiative of the Office of Research and Development and the Secretarys Center for Strategic Partnerships. For more information, visit the NAIIs Tech Sprint web site, or sign up for the AI@VA Community for the latest announcements.

More here:
VA National Artificial Intelligence Institute award winners of AI Tech Sprint - Newton County Times

Haley Joel Osment in A.I. Artificial Intelligence.(Warner Bros.)

Spielbergs prescient epic of faith remains miraculous.

Its the 20th anniversary of the best film of the 21st century, Steven Spielbergs A.I. Artificial Intelligence, which opened June 29, 2001. The title suggests the opposite of mindfulness. It points to soul, the spirit an unexpected theme for a movie that gestated from Spielbergs collaboration with Stanley Kubrick, popularly considered the most cerebral of all filmmakers. Each man exchanges his sentiments and alarms. Its the toymakers and the intellectuals private joke made public.

No other millennial movie went so deep as A.I. into universal experience the secret needs of childhood that are forgotten in adulthood. Although based on the short story Supertoys Last All Summer Long, by Brian Aldiss, it most significantly re-creates the 1883 Carlo Collodi classic Pinocchio. Walt Disneys 1940 animated version is a touchstone for Spielberg and his special regard for childhood innocence. He updates the story of a puppet who longs to be a real boy into a modern tale about sensitivity-equipped robot David (perfectly acted by The Sixth Senses Haley Joel Osment), who desires to achieve human fulfillment. It combines dark sci-fi futuristic fantasy with the emotional amplitude of classic fairy tales. Spielberg-Kubricks conceit confronts pop nihilism and resolves it, which is why stupid reviewers castigated a film that demands reconsideration today.

Ian Simmons and I, on his Kicking the Seat podcast, recently discussed A.I.s prophetic aspects specifically the storys class divide, according to which rich citizens of the post-diluvian world enjoy the profligate luxuries of technological human simulation (robot David is used as substitute for the ailing child of a wealthy couple, Monica and Henry), while the unrefined working class objects to the upper classs inhumane domination. (Simmons made a Silicon Valley association that helps reveal A.I.s sociological prescience.)

Spielbergs Flesh Fair sequence shows the rowdy class waving American flags and cheering crude heavy-metal music during a Luddite demolition derby against the fiber-optic, cybertronic metallic toys artifacts of leisure-class decadence. The carnival uncannily resembles the Save America rallies that todays corporate media either mock or ignore.

When A.I. debuted just three months before 9/11, no one imagined that America would become a nation where citizens liberties were curtailed by Silicon Valley overlords through methods of artificial intelligence and virtual-reality substitutes for humanity. But this extraordinary sequence predicts the conditions of emotional totalitarianism the visceral hatred, the lack of love that amounts to political persecution.

It resonates in two ways: panic among humans, and also among mechanicals (Mechas) such as David and the fugitive adult robot Gigolo Joe (Jude Law), who are fleeing the threat of roundups, witch hunts, and capture. A charred Flesh Fair robot (voiced by comedian Chris Rock) grins at the audience. Symbolizing historical lynchings, this image evokes todays twisted political rhetoric in which media elites use race victimization to further a bifurcated class culture. Who could have guessed, in 2001, that this powerfully disturbing sequence could be reversed or that Spielberg and Kubrick knew that Jim Crow rhetoric and race exploitation would be revived? A.I.s speculative fiction shows us the terror that has come true.

When David escapes the Flesh Fair, scenes of his woodland wandering recall the fairy-tale splendor and menace of Bambi and Hansel and Gretel and Little Red Riding Hood, followed by the sexual extremes of Rouge City from childhood innocence to adult corruption that David must traverse while seeking transformation. David is the opposite of Hal 9000, the murderous automaton of 2001: A Space Odyssey that was the ultimate product of self-annihilating egotism. David moves toward religiosity through ideation, quizzing Rouge Citys computer guru Dr. Know for the whereabouts of the Blue Fairy. Davids adventure, a search for ineffable love, touches on the sublime.

After the apocalypse, A.I.s Pinocchio figure uses self-motivated reasoning in pursuit of love and the meaning of creation. Spielberg redeems and transcends Kubricks nihilistic sniggerings about human existence and the spiritual void. Kubricks brainy sarcasm, admired by adolescents, is also the cynical despair that propels Davids suicide attempt. Depicted as a simulated tear over Gigolo Joes mock-human face, Davids leap into the abyss is this centurys single greatest movie image. Its closest match is equally significant: the clear, profound evangelism expressed by the Day of the Dead seekers reaching for salvation in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.

A.I. Artificial Intelligence surpasses Spielbergs other entertainments by extrapolating fantasy to reveal the recesses of memory and Mariology like no other movie. Davids faith challenges our despondent present. The conscience that Disney represented as Pinocchios Jiminy Cricket is embodied here by the animatronic toy bear Teddy (a Spielberg motif I discuss in Make Spielberg Great Again), who gives the films powerful conclusion a breathtaking grace note. It remains miraculous, especially following 20 years of pop-culture decline.

Since A.I.s release, only Mohsen Makhmalbafs The President, Marco Bellocchios Vincere, Alain Resnaiss Wild Grass, Zack Snyders Man of Steel, S. Craig Zahlers Dragged Aaross Concrete, Brian Taylors Mom and Dad, and a few other movies have defied the trend of insisting that moral questions are moot. Most millennial movies substitute the question of existence, and the significance of love and faith, with darkness, disbelief, and trashy formulaic political distraction. A.I. shines out in Hollywoods Dark Ages.

Go here to read the rest:
A.I. Is the Best Film of the 21st Century - National Review

The use of artificial intelligence in business is showing signs of acceleration. Nearly three-quarters of companies are now using AI (31%) or are exploring the use of AI (43%), according to IBM's "2021 Global AI Adoption Index."

IT professionals responding to the IBM survey cited changing business needs in the wake of the pandemic as a driving factor in the adoption of AI at their companies. Indeed, 43% said their companies have accelerated AI rollouts as a result of the pandemic.

Advances in AI tools have made artificial intelligence more accessible for companies, according to survey respondents. They listed data security, process automation and customer care as top areas where their companies were applying AI. Natural language processing (NLP) is at the forefront of AI adoption, the report found: Over half of businesses are using applications with NLP.

Business leaders, IT managers, executive advisors, analysts and AI experts interviewed for this article said they're not surprised by the expansion of AI in the enterprise. AI can significantly lower costs, increase efficiency and boost productivity as well as create avenues into new products, services and markets, they said.

Here are nine top applications of artificial intelligence in business and the benefits that AI brings. This is followed by a section on industry-specific AI use cases.

One of the most common enterprise use cases for AI centers around customer experience, service and support.

"The uses for AI that are really first and foremost in organizations are customer-facing types of things," said Seth Earley, author of The AI-Powered Enterprise and founder and CEO of Earley Information Science.

Chatbots, for example, use both machine learning algorithms and NLP to understand customer requests and respond appropriately. And they do that faster than human workers can and at lower costs.

AI also powers recommendation functions, which use customer data and predictive analytics to suggest products that customers are most likely to need or want and therefore buy.

Intelligent systems can help employees better serve customers, too, drawing on analytics similar to the ones used in chatbots and recommendation engines to give workers suggestions as they tend to customers.

"The system can propose next-best actions, how to take discussions with the customer further and how to present a certain targeted option," explained Alex Linden, an analyst and research vice president with Gartner who specializes in data science, machine learning and advanced algorithms.

Online search providers, online retailers and other internet entities use intelligent systems to understand users and their buying patterns, so they can select advertisements for the specific products that they're most likely to want or need.

"Every advertisement [on the internet] is placed by machines, and it's designed to optimize click-through rates," Linden said.

AI also helps businesses deliver targeted marketing in the real world, too. Some organizations have started combining intelligent technologies, including facial recognition and geospatial software along with analytics, using the technologies to first identify customers and then promote products, services or sales designed to match their personal preferences.

Organizations across industries are using AI to improve management of their supply chains. They're using machine learning algorithms to forecast what will be needed when as well as the optimal time to move supplies.

In this use case, AI helps business leaders create more efficient, cost-effective supply chains by minimizing and even possibly eliminating overstocking and the risk of running short on in-demand products.

Gartner, the tech research and advisory firm, predicted that 50% of supply chain organizations will invest in applications that support AI and advanced analytics capabilities between 2020 and 2024.

As developers of business process applications build AI-enabled capabilities into their software products, AI is becoming embedded across the enterprise.

"There is AI in all the functions that support the business, like human resources, finance and legal," said Beena Ammanath, executive director of Deloitte AI Institute. "The [software] itself is using AI, and the team members may be using the tool and might not even know that AI is being used in a way that's enabling their function."

AI, for example, can handle many customer requests; it can route customer calls not just to available workers but to those best suited to handle the specific needs.

Meanwhile, retailers are using AI for intelligent store design, optimized product selection and in-store activities monitoring. Some are using AI to monitor inventory on shelves in various ways, including for the freshness of perishable goods.

AI is also impacting IT operations. For example, some intelligence software applications identify anomalies that indicate hacking activities and ransomware attacks, while other AI-infused solutions offer self-healing capabilities for infrastructure problems.

AI is being used by a multitude of industries to improve safety.

Construction companies, utilities, farms, mining interests and other entities working on-site in outside locales or in spacious geographical areas are gathering data from endpoint devices such as cameras, thermometers, motion detectors and weather sensors. Organizations can then feed that data into intelligent systems that identify problematic behaviors, dangerous conditions or business opportunities and can then make recommendations or even take preventative or corrective actions.

Other industries are making similar use of AI-enabled software applications to monitor safety conditions. For example, manufacturers are using AI software and computer vision to monitor workers' behaviors to ensure they're following safety protocols.

Similarly, organizations of all kinds can use AI to process data gathered from on-site IoT ecosystems to monitor facilities or workers. In such cases, the intelligent systems watch for and alert companies to hazardous conditions -- such as distracted driving in delivery trucks.

Manufacturers have been using machine vision, a form of AI, for decades. However, they're now advancing such uses by adding quality control software with deep learning capabilities to improve the speed and accuracy of their quality control functions while keeping costs in check.

These systems are delivering a more precise, and ever-improving, quality assurance function, as deep learning models create their own rules to determine what defines quality.

Businesses are also using AI for contextual understanding. Linden pointed to the insurance industry's use of monitoring technologies to offer safe driving discounts as a case in point. AI is used in processing data about driving behavior to predict whether it is low or high risk. For example, driving 65 miles per hour is safe on a highway but not through an urban neighborhood; intelligence is needed to understand and report when and where fast driving is acceptable or not.

"Classifying the risk is to some extent AI," Linden explained.

AI is used in a similar manner in the emerging area of usage-based prices, he said. Turning again to the insurance industry as an example, he said providers could use AI to customize rates beyond the typical parameters of annual mileage and place of registration by understanding when, how and where -- perhaps even down to street level -- a vehicle is being driven

Optimization is another use case for AI that stretches across industries and business functions. AI-based business applications can use algorithms and modeling to turn data into actionable insights on how organizations can optimize a range of functions and business processes -- from worker schedules to production product pricing.

AI's potential impact on education is significant, with many organizations already using or exploring intelligence software to improve how people learn.

"There are so many ways that AI can be used to make learning better," Ammanath said, noting that use of AI in this space is still in its early stages. "This is the one area we will definitely see evolve over the next couple of years."

Ammanath said intelligent tools can be used to customize educational plans to each student's unique learning needs and understanding levels. Businesses, too, can benefit from AI-infused training software to upskill workers.

Although many AI applications span industry sectors, other use cases are specific to individual industry needs. Here are some examples:

Read the original here:
9 top applications of artificial intelligence in business - TechTarget

Newswise June 30, 2021 For most patients, the reasons for having a facelift are simple: to "turn back the clock" for a younger and more attractive appearance. Even during the pandemic year 2020, more than 234,000 patients underwent facelift surgery, according to American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) statistics.

When considering facelift surgery, patients may ask, "How much younger will I look?" For plastic surgeons, that has been a difficult question to answer. Typically, the cosmetic outcomes of facelifting have been judged on a case-by-case basis, or with the use of subjective ratings.

Now research suggests a new, objective approach to assessing the reduction in apparent age after facelift surgery: artificial intelligence (AI) networks trained to estimate age based on facial photos. "Our study shows that currently available AI algorithms can recognize the success of facelifting, and even put a number on the reduction in years of perceived age," comments senior author James P. Bradley, MD, Vice Chairman of Surgery, Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell. The study is published in the July issue of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, the official medical journal of the ASPS.

The study used a type of AI algorithm called convolutional neural networks. "By training on datasets containing millions of public images, these neural networks can learn to discern facial features with much higher 'experience' than a typical person," Dr. Bradley explains.

Four different, publicly available neural networks were used to make objective age estimates of facial age for 50 patients who underwent facelifting. The AI estimates were made using standardized photos taken before and at least one year after facelift surgery. The results were compared with patients' subjective ratings of their appearance, along with responses to a standard patient-rated evaluation (FACE-Q questionnaire).

The patients were all women, average age 58.7 years. The AI algorithms used in the study were 100 percent accurate in identifying the patients' age, based on "before" photos.

In the "after" photos, the neural networks recognized a 4.3-year reduction in age after facelift surgery. That was substantially less than the 6.7-year reduction, as rated by patients themselves. "Patients may tend to overestimate how much younger they look after facelift surgery perhaps reflecting their emotional and financial investment in the procedure," Dr. Bradley comments.

On the FACE-Q questionnaire, patients were highly satisfied with the results of their facelift surgery: average scores (on a 0-to-100 scale) were 75 for facial appearance and over 80 for quality of life. Neural network estimates of age reduction were directly correlated with patient satisfaction. "The younger the AI program perceives a patient's age, the greater their satisfaction with the results of their facelift," says Dr. Bradley.

Artificial intelligence algorithms can provide an objective and reliable estimate of the apparent reduction in age after facelift surgery, the new findings suggest. These age estimates also seem to provide an indicator of patient satisfaction scores even if the reduction in years doesn't quite match the patient's own subjective rating.

"Together with powerful image analysis tools used in modern plastic surgery, neural networks may play a useful role in counseling patients and demonstrating successful results of facial rejuvenation procedures," Dr. Bradley adds. "We think that AI algorithms could also play a useful role for plastic surgeons in assessing their own results and comparing the outcomes of different techniques."

Click here to read Turning Back the Clock: Artificial Intelligence Recognition of Age Reduction after Face-Lift Surgery Correlates with Patient Satisfaction.

DOI: 10.1097/PRS.0000000000008020

###

Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery is published in the Lippincott portfolio by Wolters Kluwer.

About Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery

For over 75 years, Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery (http://www.prsjournal.com/) has been the one consistently excellent reference for every specialist who uses plastic surgery techniques or works in conjunction with a plastic surgeon. The official journal of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery brings subscribers up-to-the-minute reports on the latest techniques and follow-up for all areas of plastic and reconstructive surgery, including breast reconstruction, experimental studies, maxillofacial reconstruction, hand and microsurgery, burn repair and cosmetic surgery, as well as news on medico-legal issues.

About ASPS

The American Society of Plastic Surgeons is the largest organization of board-certified plastic surgeons in the world. Representing more than 7,000 physician members, the society is recognized as a leading authority and information source on cosmetic and reconstructive plastic surgery. ASPS comprises more than 94 percent of all board-certified plastic surgeons in the United States. Founded in 1931, the society represents physicians certified by The American Board of Plastic Surgery or The Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada.

About Wolters Kluwer

Wolters Kluwer (WKL) is a global leader in professional information, software solutions, and services for the clinicians, nurses, accountants, lawyers, and tax, finance, audit, risk, compliance, and regulatory sectors. We help our customers make critical decisions every day by providing expert solutions that combine deep domain knowledge with advanced technology and services.

Wolters Kluwer reported 2020 annual revenues of 4.6 billion. The group serves customers in over 180 countries, maintains operations in over 40 countries, and employs approximately 19,200 people worldwide. The company is headquartered in Alphen aan den Rijn, the Netherlands.

Wolters Kluwer provides trusted clinical technology and evidence-based solutions that engage clinicians, patients, researchers and students in effective decision-making and outcomes across healthcare. We support clinical effectiveness, learning and research, clinical surveillance and compliance, as well as data solutions. For more information about our solutions, visit https://www.wolterskluwer.com/en/health and follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter @WKHealth.

For more information, visit http://www.wolterskluwer.com, follow us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube.

Original post:
Did your Plastic Surgeon Really Turn Back the Clock? Artificial Intelligence May Be Able to Quantify How Young You Actually Look After Facelift...