Category Archives: Deep Mind
After $2 Trillion Rescue Package, This Year’s Deficit Will Be ‘Mind-Boggling’ – NPR
The economic rescue package just passed by Congress will push this year's budget deficit above $3 trillion. Olivier Douliery/AFP via Getty Images hide caption
The economic rescue package just passed by Congress will push this year's budget deficit above $3 trillion.
Over the years, the federal government has spent trillions of dollars more than it brings in, racking up big deficits even in good times, when it ought to be paring debt down.
Now, as it struggles to repair the damage from the coronavirus epidemic, it's getting ready to spend trillions more, pushing up this year's deficit above $3 trillion.
"It's mind-boggling. I never contemplated this," says Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of the American Action Forum, who headed the Congressional Budget Office under President George W. Bush.
"I can remember the quaint days when I was being yelled at because we had a $400 billion deficit and I was the CBO director. It doesn't look so bad right now," he says.
The economic rescue package approved by Congress and signed into law by President Trump contains $2 trillion in tax breaks and loan guarantees, throwing much-needed lifelines to troubled airlines, small businesses, hospitals, medical supply companies and municipal governments.
And more money will almost certainly be needed in the weeks to come, as the pandemic progresses.
"We are talking about massive amounts of money compared to anything we've ever done in this amount of time before," says Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.
At one time, such huge levels of deficit spending set off alarm bells in Washington, where politicians such as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell routinely bemoaned the lack of fiscal discipline in government.
In 2013, when the country was still recovering from the Great Recession, McConnell told CBS News: "We now have a debt of $16.4 trillion. That's as big as our economy. That alone makes us look a lot like Greece. We have an incredible spending addiction."
Today, the total amount owed by the federal government is about to top $25 trillion, and McConnell barely talks about it. Neither does Trump, who has presided over a rapid increase in debt, thanks to the massive 2017 tax cuts and a big increase in defense spending.
Part of this is just raw politics, says Dean Baker, co-founder of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. Politicians tend to focus more on deficits when the other party controls the White House.
But Baker says the past few years have also brought a transformation in the way economists think about deficits.
Once, conventional wisdom said that too much federal borrowing would drive up interest rates, leading to higher inflation and reduced productivity, Baker says. But debt has soared in recent years, and interest rates are lower than ever, he notes.
"The classic story of why deficits are bad just hasn't panned out," Baker says.He is among many economists now arguing that the quick collapse of the economy and the surge in layoffs are so serious that deficit concerns should be set aside.
"The amount of employment in the economy is going through the floor. And the deficit in that context ... it's almost a non sequitur. That's not the sort of thing you should worry about," Baker says.
Even MacGuineas, who's something of a deficit hawk, agrees, saying times like these are precisely when the government needs to run deficits. But she says the government is that much less prepared to deal with the crisis because of deficits run up in good times, when it should have been paying off what it owed.
"It makes sense to borrow from the future today. We have a real emergency. But it also makes it harder for us to get our economy back on track once we get through this emergency," MacGuineas says.
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After $2 Trillion Rescue Package, This Year's Deficit Will Be 'Mind-Boggling' - NPR
Deep Bench: Reframing the discussion from mental health to brain health – WSAW
(WZAW) -- Our nation is in the midst of a growing mental illness epidemic with conditions like suicide, depression, bipolar disorders and addictions increasing dramatically.
Standard treatments and success rates have barley changed in the last seven decades and now neuroscience is transforming psychiatry.
"If you get your brain right, the mind will follow."
That's the advice from Dr. Daniel Amen. He's a psychiatrist and best-selling author of the book "The End of Mental Illness". Dr. Amen talked to Holly Chilsen about his book, and how it's aim is the change the conversation about mental health into brain health.
"Nobody really wants to see a psychiatrist. No one wants to be labeled as defective or abnormal, but everyone wants a better brain," he said.
Amen Clinics has the worlds largest database of functional brain scans relating to behavior. Dr. Amen has been working on brain imaging for the past 30 years, conducting about 170,000 scans, and said researchers realized that it's not mental health issues people face, it's "brain health issues that steal your mind."
"This one idea changes everything."
He added that the mind is a result of the physical functioning of your brain.
"So you can go to therapy for a very long time, but it won't help if your brain's not right," he said. "And I'm a fan of therapy if your brain's right."
It comes down to optimizing the physical functioning of your brain. People start seeing their problems as medical and not moral. He said the stigma of the mental illness label, damaging and devastating on its own, can often prevent sufferers from getting the help they need.
"With this message, there's an increase in forgiveness and compassion from families," he said.
He said ways to improve your brain health are to make sure you're sticking to a healthy diet, exercise regularly and take supplements like vitamins. It's also important to think in different ways and practice mindfulness.
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Deep Bench: Reframing the discussion from mental health to brain health - WSAW
Mind-reading AI turns thoughts into words using a brain implant – New Scientist News
By Jason Arunn Murugesu
Andrew Ostrovsky/Getty Images
An artificial intelligence can accurately translate thoughts into sentences, at least for a limited vocabulary of 250 words. The system may bring us a step closer to restoring speech to people who have lost the ability because of paralysis.
Joseph Makin at the University of California, San Francisco, and his colleagues used deep learning algorithms to study the brain signals of four women as they spoke. The women, who all haveepilepsy, already had electrodes attached to their brainsto monitor seizures.
Each woman was asked to read aloud from a set of sentences as the team measured brain activity. The largest group of sentences contained 250 unique words.
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The team fed this brain activity to a neural network algorithm, training it to identify regularly occurring patterns that could belinked to repeated aspects ofspeech, such as vowels or consonants. These patterns werethen fed to a second neural network, which tried to turn them into words to form a sentence.
Each woman repeated the sentences at least twice, and the final repetition didnt formpart ofthe training data, allowingthe researchers to test the system.
Each time a person speaks the same sentence, the brain activity associated will be similar but not identical. Memorising the brain activity of these sentences wouldnt help, so the network instead has to learn whats similar about them so that it can generalise to this final example, says Makin. Across the four women, the AIs best performance was an average translation error rate of 3 per cent.
Makin says that using a small number of sentences made it easier for the AI to learn which words tend to follow others.
Forexample, the AI was able to decode that the word Turner wasalways likely to follow the word Tina in this set of sentences, from brain activity alone.
The team tried decoding the brain signal data into individual words at a time, rather than whole sentences, but this increased the error rate to 38 per cent even for the best performance. So the network clearly is learning facts about which words go together, and not just which neural activity maps to which words, says Makin.
This will make it hard toscale up the system to a larger vocabulary because each new word increases the number of possible sentences, reducing accuracy.
Makin says 250 words could still be useful for people who cant talk. We want to deploy this in a patient with an actual speech disability, he says, although it is possible their brain activity may be different from that of the women in this study, making this more difficult.
Sophie Scott at University College London says we are a long way from being able to translate brain signal data comprehensively. You probably know around 350,000 words, so its still an incredibly restricted set of speech that theyre using, she says.
Journal reference: Nature Neuroscience, DOI: 10.1038/s41593-020-0608-8
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Mind-reading AI turns thoughts into words using a brain implant - New Scientist News
6 webcomics with deep archives to read in isolation | Etcetera – Daily Hive
At-home entertainment is having a big moment right now with isolation measures being put into place across the country.
YouTube, Netflix, and online books are getting a lot of attention from everyone staying at home, but lets not forget about webcomics.
Theres no shortage of webcomics available to read, but finding a series that has a large archive is another story altogether.
Here are seven picks with deep, deep archives to keep you entertained for a few hours, days, or even weeks!
Running since 2006, this bare-bones stick figure webcomic bills itself as a webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language. Subjects range from the architecture of roadways, what your writing style says about you, coding jokes, and tattoo criticisms, among others.
A long-form webcomic about humanity and connection, mostly. It started with a standard three panel punchline but evolved over the years to become an absurdist, surreal, and sometimes melancholic meditation on human connection and the experience of existence. Canadian artist Winston Rowntree (a pseudonym) renders a vivid and detailed environment, then usually covers it with a mass of text, a monologue, or thought bubbles. The comic has also spawned a successful short animated series, People Watching.
A Canadian treasure, Kate Beatons hand-drawn webcomics tackle the absurdity of historical figures, literature, and more. Beatons comics have been collected into print volumes twice, and shes moved into childrens books with the publication of The Princess and The Pony.
Artist Abby Howard has a particular affinity for zeroing in on the absurd and illustrating them in a cartoony and sometimes grotesquely detailed way. Howards content ranges from one-off jokes to comics about her own life and experiences. Her long-form horror comic The Last Halloween is another excellent read, though it remains unfinished at this time.
Launched in 2008, Aaron Diazs visual storytelling about a cyborg scientist and her adventures has been a highlight on the internet. With several one-off comics and a fully completed arc, Dresden Codak is lush and dense, and well worth the read.
With 74 issues over 15 books, Atomic Robo has only five rules for itself:
With all that in mind, now is a great time to dive into the adventures of robots and monsters created byBrian Clevinger andScott Wegener.
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6 webcomics with deep archives to read in isolation | Etcetera - Daily Hive
It was a lovely, deep sense that God is part of everything – Eternity News
Faith Stories with Naomi Reed | April 1st, 2020 02:39 PM |
Im not the sort of person who likes to find individual Bible verses to fit my own situations. Im cautious like that. How do I know for sure what God had in mind? But there was one time, in 2009, [when] my sister was diagnosed with breast cancer. She had a lot of treatment, and she seemed to be doing better, so they decided to come to visit us on the farm. That particular day, wed been taking photos outside, and then we sat on the front porch and a huge wedge-tailed eagle flew over the house. It stayed above us for ages, circling the house. It was a beautiful moment. My sister left us two days later, but she lost consciousness on the way home. She died the next day in hospital. I never saw her again. It was awful, on so many levels. I cant even tell you about it. At her funeral, though, we used the verse from Isaiah, But those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint. (Isaiah 40:31). It was true. Through that whole time, my sister had been so sick, and lacking in physical strength, but she had such an assurance of her faith in God. She was deeply faithful, even at the end. She ministered to so many people. But thats not all. Six years later, my dad died, from prostate cancer. It was so hard so much loss. But he held onto his faith too, till the end, in his quiet way. As we walked out of the church, with his coffin wouldnt you know it? There was the most extraordinary wedge-tailed eagle, flying over the church. Everybody talked about it, afterwards. It was a lovely, deep sense that God was part of everything. It was almost like a spiritual confirmation of a physical thing. Theyd both been so tired, but they held onto their faith till the end, and their lives impacted so many people. And now for me, theres a deep sense that its okay. God is sovereign. Even when things seem crap, we hang on, because we know that he gives us strength.
Anne-Louises story is part of Eternitys Faith Stories series, compiled by Naomi Reed. Click here for more Faith Stories.
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It was a lovely, deep sense that God is part of everything - Eternity News
New Google Assistant readying Shortcuts and built-in list of supported apps – 9to5Google
The new Google Assistant launched with the Pixel 4 last October and has expanded to more users since then. A look into Google app 11.3 reveals work on Assistant Shortcuts to let you create voice macros for supported apps.
About APK Insight: In this APK Insight post, weve decompiled the latest version of an application that Google uploaded to the Play Store. When we decompile these files (called APKs, in the case of Android apps), were able to see various lines of code within that hint at possible future features. Keep in mind that Google may or may not ever ship these features, and our interpretation of what they are may be imperfect. Well try to enable those that are closer to being finished, however, to show you how theyll look in the case that they do ship. With that in mind, read on.
It starts with the big revamp coming to Assistant settings that we first enabled earlier this month. Android-like in design, theres a new Assistant-enabled apps menu to list Installed apps that work with Assistant.
The full page we enabled is called Assistant Shortcuts with an accompanying description. This is presumably referencing the new Google Assistant, given that the latest version can augment and control applications directly.
You can use Assistant to navigate and get things done with your installed apps.
A Your apps section prompts you to Add quick voice shortcuts to these apps, with Google and YouTube currently listed. The feature is not yet fleshed out and tapping shows an empty Recommended Shortcuts section.
The secondary use of this new feature is being able to see what apps support the new Google Assistants ability to navigate apps by voice. The best-known example today is browsing Google Photos and sending Messages by just talking with Assistant. This new list will hopefully serve as education for an otherwise invisible feature.
Unfortunately, there are many questions about the primary capability. The closest comparison today is Routines for smart home commands and some on-device functionality like silencing your phone, but Shortcuts look to entirely be for first- and third-party apps. (Routines were originally called Shortcuts before a revamp at I/O 2017.)
That said, its unclear in what contexts a command like show me my photos of New York would need to be shortened further or used frequently enough that theres a need to truncate. For the most part, navigating an app is intuitive enough that most people do not need a voice shortcut.
It would make more sense if you could string together longer or multiple commands, but we have no insight into the interface of Google Assistants new Shortcuts yet. On the app front, the hooks for Assistant need to be deep enough that every task can be truly accomplished by voice.
Dylan Roussel contributed to this article.
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New Google Assistant readying Shortcuts and built-in list of supported apps - 9to5Google
‘This Is Us’: Will Rebecca and Miguel’s Relationship Be Explored in Season 5? – Showbiz Cheat Sheet
Not going to lie, its difficult to root for Rebecca (Mandy Moore) and Miguel (Jon Huertas) when their love story hasnt been explored four seasons deep into This Is Us. Thus far, Jack (Milo Ventimiglia) has been portrayed as the perfect husband to the Pearson matriarch. Meanwhile, Miguel still feels like a footnote after 72 episodes. So will This Is Us Season 5 finally dive deeper into Rebecca and Miguels relationship? Fans are itching to see this backstory unfold onscreen.
Even after the This Is Us Season 4 finale, we dont know a whole lot about Miguel. In the past, he was close friends with Rebecca and Jack. He also had two children and divorced his wife. Then years after Jacks death, Miguel reconnected with Rebecca on Facebook.
Eventually, the pair got married. But it became clear Miguels kids did not approve of their fathers relationship with Rebecca in the present day. They blamed Rebecca for their parents split. Meanwhile, Miguels relationship with Kate (Chrissy Metz), Kevin (Justin Hartley), and Randall (Sterling K. Brown) remained lukewarm.
Now This Is Us fans still dont understand the heart of Rebecca and Miguels backstory, including their romance in the past and present day as well as how the children reacted when the pair started a relationship.
At the beginninng of This Is Us Season 4 in October 2019, Huertas opened up about Miguel and hinted viewers may see more from his character.
I often think about what the legacy of this character will be and how he may educate others, the actor told NBC News. Its been a gradual and slow transition to getting fans to embrace Miguel, but hell have his moment.
Then by the midseason premiere in January 2020, fans were still itching for Miguels backstory. And in an interview with The Huffington Post, Huertas said there werent any major discussions about expanding the characters arc at the time. However, he hoped This Is Us would eventually give Miguel a little more backstory.
I hope that the show definitely delves into Miguels backstory, maybe how he became successful, how he became the husband of Rebecca. But we havent had any huge discussions about it yet, Huertas said. We know how they got together. We havent talked about how were going to see that.
By the end of This Is Us Season 4, Rebecca decided to partake in a nine month Alzheimers clinical trial in St. Louis, Missouri. She previously stated she didnt want to go and spend her final days with her family instead. However, Randall pushed her to change her mind.
Then according to The Hollywood Reporter, creator Dan Fogelman revealed the plans for the Pearson matriarch when the NBC drama returns. And now, we have confirmation This Is Us Season 5 will showcase Miguel and Rebeccas relationship.
Its obviously a challenging chapter for Rebecca moving forward, Fogelman said of Rebeccas move to St. Louis. We have a big storyline planned for Mandy in the next upcoming season in present day as an older woman and also her past timelines. That will include a deeper look into Rebecca and Miguels relationship throughout the decades.
Miguels time to shine will finally be upon us when This Is Us returns for its fifth season. Now lets just hope the new episodes will answer all our burning questions about Rebecca and Miguels love story and maybe even tell us where the couple ends up in the future.
Read more: Wait, Did We Already See the This Is Us Season 5 Premiere?
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'This Is Us': Will Rebecca and Miguel's Relationship Be Explored in Season 5? - Showbiz Cheat Sheet
Good to Go: Brick and Bones in Deep Ellum – Dallas Observer
What we love about restaurants is evolving these days, and one new important aspect is how well the food travels.
For that well-accomplished task alone, you should add Brick and Bones in Deep Ellum to your list of places to get takeout.
First note: It has the city's amended emergency regulations posted, and not just one page, but the whole thing. (Businesses are supposed to do this, but not all are, it seems.) Around it, it has an abbreviated version of its menu on offer during this season of COVID-19.
The menu has chicken and four side options, which really is enough especially when those sides are so good.
Chicken strips are made with chicken breast and get a buttermilk bath and battered before deep frying. That cup on the side is a guajillo ranch.
Taylor Adams
And for that food, Brick and Bones uses good packaging, the kind you can wash and reuse. Of course, I'm not bitching about the Styrofoam other places are using, considering the circumstances, but the fact that this spot is using more sustainable materials is delightful.
You also feel intention with the food in that packaging: Each serving is well-plated in the container. The staff could've thrown it in there the food tastes good enough to make you not care but they still care about how you first experience it visually.
As part of my habits to keep things safe, after sanitizing the exterior of containers, I also put the food in dishes from home rather than eat out of them. My apologies for missing the beauty that the green beans were before I slopped them into a bowl.
Brick and Bones is a favorite for many people who live in or frequent Deep Ellum, and there's good reason. The chicken won't blow your mind, but it will hit the spot.
A six-piece serving of Brick and Bones chicken
Taylor Adams
As of now, only the fried chicken is available (theres usually naked, hot, sexy, etc., versions), in three pieces ($9), six pieces ($17) and 10 pieces ($26). The meat's brined for 24 hours, battered and deep fried. They're served with radish, cilantro and lime.
I get excited anytime I see radish; the lime adds acidity to the batter, making this a unique flavor you don't normally get with fried chicken, and we're all for that.
As for the sides, what's currently on the menu are poblano-mashed potatoes ($6), habanero-bacon mac ($7), Mexican corn ($5) and green beans ($6).
This mac and cheese was beautiful when I opened the container. It tasted even better than it looks, too.
Taylor Adams
I'm trying to watch carbs, because Im eating more restaurant food than usual, but I couldn't stop eating the macaroni and cheese. I even had to do that thing where I move the dish across the table so I wouldn't keep taking bites of this super creamy mac. It goes easy on the habanero if you don't do spice, skip these if you're OK with a bit, a nice hit of spice follows on the back end of these.
We appreciate you, too, Brick and Bones.
Taylor Adams
The beans are well-prepared, something that seems to be hard to accomplish at some places. The Mexican corn is just fine; the consumption of carbs is better spent on that mac, though.
I'll keep varying the takeout orders, but it's going to be hard to not return to this one soon.
Brick and Bones, 2713 Elm St. (Deep Ellum). Call 469-914-6776 to order. Currently open 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.
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Good to Go: Brick and Bones in Deep Ellum - Dallas Observer
Artificial Intelligence: IDTechEx Research on State-Of-The-Art and Commercialisation Status in Diagnostics and Triage – PRNewswire
BOSTON, March 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Artificial intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing medical diagnostics. The state-of-the-art results have already demonstrated that software can achieve fast and accurate image-based diagnostics on various conditions affecting the skin, eye, ear, lung, breast, and so on. These technological advancements can help automate the diagnosis and triage processes, accelerating the process to speed up the referral process especially in urgent cases, freeing up expert resources, offering the best accuracy everywhere regardless of skill levels, and making the processes more widely available. This is a ground-breaking development with far-reaching consequences. Naturally, many innovators are scrambling to capitalize on these advancements.
The report "Digital Health & Artificial Intelligence 2020: Trends, Opportunities, and Outlook" from emerging technology research firm IDTechEx, has examined this trend. This report considers the trend towards digital and AI applications in health. It outlines the state-of-the-art in AI-based diagnosis of various conditions affecting the skin, eye, heart, breast, brain, lung, blood, genetic disorders and so on. The data sources employed are diverse including dermoscopic images, fundus images, OCT, CT, CTA, echocardiograms, electrocardiogram, mammography, pathology slides, low-res mobile phone pictures and more. This report then identifies and highlights companies seeking to capitalize on these technology advances to automate the diagnostic and triage process.
Furthermore, this report considers the trend of digital health more generally. It provides a detailed overview of the ecosystem and offersinsights into the key trends, opportunities and outlooks for all aspects of digital health, including:Telehealth and telemedicine, Remote patient monitoring, Digital therapeutics / digiceuticals / software as a medical device, Diabetes management, Consumer genetic testing, Smart home as a carer and AI in diagnostics.
Ground-breaking technology
Significant funding is flowing to start-ups and R&D teams of large corporations who develop AI tools to accelerate and/or improve the detection and classification of various diseases based on numerous data sources ranging from RGB images to CT scans, ECG signals, mammograms and to pathological slides. The state-of-the-art results demonstrate that software can do these tasks faster, cheaper, and often more accurately than trained experts and professionals.
This is an important development which, if successful, can have far-reaching consequences: it can make diagnostics much more widely available and it can free up medical experts' time to focus on more complex tasks which currently sit beyond the capabilities of AI-based automation. The technology is today making leaps forward, but technology is only a piece of the puzzle, and many other challenges will need to be overcome before such software tools are widely adopted. However, the direction of travel is clear.
This trend is today on the rise because (a) the availability of digitized medical data sources is rapidly increasing, offering excellent algorithm training feedstock, and (b) advancements in AI algorithms specially trained deep neural networking are enabling software to tackle tasks which it hitherto could not do.
The IDTechEx report "Digital Health & Artificial Intelligence 2020: Trends, Opportunities, and Outlook" outlines many such advancements and identifies some of the key companies pursuing each opportunity. The remainder of this article briefly outlines two specific cases: eye disease and skin disease.
Eye Disease
Diabetic retinopathy is a complication that affects the eye. Researchers from India have recently shown that the software accurately interprets retinal fundus photographs to enable a large-scale screening program to detect diabetic retinopathy. The software is trained to make multiple binary classifications, allocating a risk level to each patient. The algorithm was trained and tuned on a total of more than 140k images. The machine matched and exceeded the sensitivity and selectivity level achieved by trained manual experts. The software achieved 92.1% and 95.2% sensitivity and selectivity, respectively.
Naturally, there is a strong business case here, and many are seeking to capitalize on it. One example is IDx, based out of Iowa in the US, who has designed and developed an algorithm to detect diabetic retinopathy. Their AI system achieves a sensitivity and specificity of 87% and 90%, respectively. In as early as 2017, it was tested at 10 sites across the US on 900 patients.
A very insightful test in eye clinics is the OCT (optical coherence tomography), which creates high-resolution (5um) 3D maps of the back of the eye and require expert analysis to interpret. OCT is now one of the most common imaging procedures with 5.35 million OCT scans performed in the US Medicare population in 2014 alone. This creates a backlog in processing and triage, and such delays can be harmful when they cause avoidable treatment delay for urgent cases.
DeepMind (Google) has demonstrated an algorithm that can automate the triage process based on 3D OCT image. Their algorithm design has some unique features. It consists of two stages: (1) a segmentation network and (2) a classification network. The first network will output a labelled tissue segmentation map. Based on the segmented maps, the second network will output a diagnosis probability for over 50 eye-threatening eye conditions and provide referral suggestion. The first part was trained on 877 sparely and manually segmented images and the second network on 14,884 training tissue maps with confirmed diagnosis and referral decision.This database is one of the best curated medical eye databases worldwide.
This two-stage design is beneficial in that when the OCT machine or image definition changes, only the first part will need to be retrained. This will help this algorithm become more universally applicable. In an end-to-end training network, the entire network would need to be retrained.
DeepMind demonstrated that performance of their AI in making a referral recommendation, reaches or exceeds that of experts on a range of sight-threatening retinal diseases. The error rate on referral decision is 5.5%, exceeding or matching specialists even when specialists are given fundus images as well as patient notes in addition to the OCT. Furthermore, the AI beat all retina specialists and optometrists on selectivity and sensitivity measures in referring urgent cases. This is clearly the first step, but an important one that truly opens the door.
Skin disease
Researchers at Heidelberg have already demonstrated that trained deep neural networks, in this case based on Google's Inception v4 CNN architecture, can recognize melanoma based on dermoscopy images. These researchers showed that the software achieves 10 percent more specificity than human clinicians when the sensitivity was set at a level matching human clinicians. The machine can achieve a high 95% sensitivity at a 63.8% specificity.
This is a promising result that shows such diagnostics can be automated. Indeed, multiple companies are automating detection of cancer diseases. One example is SkinVision, from the Netherlands, which seeks to offer a risk rating of skin cancer based on relatively low-quality smartphone images. They trained their algorithm on more than 131k images from 31k users in multiple countries. The risk ranking of the training images were annotated by dermatologists. Studies show that the algorithm can score a 95.1% sensitivity in detecting (pre)malignant conditions with 78.3% specificity. These are good results although the specificity may need to improve as it could unnecessarily alarm some patients.
The business cases are not just limited to cancer detection. Haut.AI is an Estonian company that proposes to use images to track skin dynamics and offer recommendations. One example is that their AI can be a simple and accurate predictor of chronological age using just the anonymized images of eye corners. The networks were trained on 8414 anonymized highresolution images of eye corners labelled with the correct chronological age. For people within the age range of 20 to 80 in a specific population, the machine reaches a mean absolute error of 2.3 years.
There are naturally many more start-ups active in this field. Some firms are focused on health diagnostic whilst others are seeking to use the AI to create tailored skincare regimes and product recommendation. The path to market, and the regulatory barriers, for each target function will naturally be different.
To learn more about this exciting field, please see IDTechEx's report "Digital Health & Artificial Intelligence 2020: Trends, Opportunities, and Outlook" by visitingwww.IDTechEx.com/digitalhealth. This report outlines the state-of-the-art in the use of AI in diagnosing a range of medical conditions. It also identifies and discusses the progress of various companies seeking to commercialize such technological advances. Furthermore, this report considers the trend of digital health more generally. It provides a detailed overview of the ecosystem and offers insights into the key trends, opportunities and outlooks for all aspects of digital health, including: Telehealth and telemedicine, Remote patient monitoring, Digital therapeutics / digiceuticals / software as a medical device, Diabetes management, Consumer genetic testing, Smart home as a carer and AI in diagnostics.
To connect with others on this topic, register for The IDTechEx Show! USA 2020, November 18-19 2020, Santa Clara, USA. Presenting the latest emerging technologies at one event, with six concurrent conferences and a single exhibition covering 3D Printing and 3D Electronics, Electric Vehicles, Energy Storage, Graphene & 2D Materials, Healthcare, Internet of Things, Printed Electronics, Sensors and Wearable Technology. Please visit http://www.IDTechEx.com/USAto find out more.
IDTechEx guides your strategic business decisions through its Research, Consultancy and Event products, helping you profit from emerging technologies. For more information on IDTechEx Research and Consultancy contact [emailprotected] or visit http://www.IDTechEx.com.
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Psychodermatalogy treatments: the importance of the mind-skin link – Professional Beauty
How psychodermatalogy works and the importance of the mind-skin linkIn his book, Skin Deep, psychologist Dr Ted Grossbart writes: Shut anger or sadness or frustration out the door and it comes through in the window, or often enough, through the body. Your heart attacks. Your asthma gasps. Your eczema weeps.
If were unable to process stress or emotion, it can show up in the form of acne, eczema, psoriasis, rosacea or even disorders such as dermatillomania, which manifests as repetitive and compulsive skin picking. This can affect our emotions and self-esteem. In fact, a study published in the British Journal of Dermatology found that those who suffered with acne were 63% more likelyto develop depression in the first year of being diagnosed.
The link between mind and skin has been known forcenturies, dating back as far as Hippocrates, says DrAlia Ahmed, a consultant dermatologist who runs apsychodermatology service at Eudelo Skin Clinic inVauxhall, London, and practises in the NHS.
Psychodermatology considers both the mind andthe skin together when seeing aperson with a skin problem. Andthese patients who Dr Ahmed seesare often facing a breadth of skinproblems and body dysmorphiadisorder, coupled with emotionaldistress.
Neuroscientist Dr Claudia Aguirre,who specialises in the mind-skin link,explains that our negative thoughts can affect the skin far more than we may realise. A term in psychologycalled rumination, which is whensomeone has a recurring stream ofnegative thoughts, can wreak havocon the skin.
This can hinder our healing, since it can leadto depressive thoughts or feelings of defeat about arecurring condition, she says. So, we can get stuck in anegative thought pattern, which is a form of stress andanxiety, and can maintain the body in an inflammatorystate this can even trigger or worsen inflammatory skinconditions like eczema and acne.
As a result, this stress can make the issue worse, and sothe viscous cycle begins. Feelings of emotional distresslead to the release of stress hormone cortisol, which isknown to affect the immune system (making theskin less able to defend itself), drive allergicresponses, delay healing and disrupt the skinsnatural barrier, she says. I believe addressing theinteraction between the brain,skin and mind is key toachieving healthy skin.
With the risingacknowledgement ofpsychodermatology andpopularity of mindfulness, theemphasis on the mind-skinlink is now trickling in to salonand spa treatments. Onepractitioner who is paving theway is Beata Aleksandrowicz,founder of the AleksandrowiczSystem. Her treatment Face Cure addresses theconnection to their clients appearance and theemotions that can be held in the face.
If there isa preponderance of negative emotions, themuscles will remain contracted, which will restrictthe flow of oxygen and nutrients to each cell andwill be manifested by a lack of radiance andtone, says Aleksandrowicz.
Combined with mindfulness and massage,her treatment focuses on the client reconnectingwith their facial appearance. I see so manyclients who are unhappy with their face.Many have had aesthetic treatments, so they dontalways know what they should look like anymore; in somecases they become disconnected with their face, shesays. It is as much about inner work on the conscious andsubconscious as outer work on the facial muscles and skin.
The skin can be a barometer for whats going onunderneath, and tapping in to this mind-skin link isbecoming increasingly important to deliver a tailoredtreatment. More clients are coming inwith stressed skin, whether that isredness, rosacea, eczema, psoriasis,or general extremes on the skin, saysKatie Light, a holistic wellness coachand facialist, who treats clients at hertreatment rooms in Brighton andKnightsbridge, London.
Light often sees these skin issues goinghand-in-hand with mental healthproblems. If people are having anxiety,panic attacks or depression, which I see a lot more of now, itaffects the skin, and everyone is supressing it because theythink its the norm; no one is dealing with it, she explains.
Itsnot just about applying things topically, its about looking ateverybodys lifestyle and where the anxiousness is comingfrom to treat the stress as well as the skin.
In her treatments, Light uses a range of techniques. I doaffirmations and visualisations that are personal to thatclient, so I would ask: How do you want to look? What isyour ideal? and we make that in to a storyboard or avisual board of something to aim for, she says.
Neurolinguistic programming (NLP) is another techniqueshe uses to treat her clients holistically, and betweensessions she will also set up homework for them so theyhave a toolbox of techniques to hand to keep both the skinand mind healthy.
Light says the initial consultation is vital to fullyunderstand her clients needs. Its an essentialpart of what I do to treat the physical, mental andemotional; whether its anxiety or eczema, they allneed to be treated from a whole wellbeingperspective, she says.
Similarly, holistic practitionerAlexandra Soveral alsoaddresses the mind-skin link inher facials and massages ather London clinic. Im a greatbeliever in self-healing formany skin conditions, and thiscomes from how we feel aboutourselves, says Soveral. Somany people come to medistressed about theirpersistent acne, irritated eczema or reoccurringrosacea, but seldom have they considered itscause to be laced within the interconnections ofthe various body systems.
Soveral says clients suffering with persistent acneand stress are a common example of this. They findsqueezing their spots a stress-release mechanismthats hard to give up, even when I explain thatuntil they stop the acne is unlikely to go away asthey are spreading the acne-causing bacteriaevery time they do it, she says. After squeezinga spot, the skin is inflamed and red and peopleoften feel guilty, which then adds more stress.
When treating a client, it can often be difficult toget them to open up, says Soveral. Many dontadmit to having emotional issues regardingtheir skin or appearance, and those that want to address it dont have the resources, support or the knowledge of how to approach such a problem, she says.
Therefore, creating an offering on your treatment menu to open up this dialogue is important, as is having the training to spot what the client may have going on. Holistic practitioners like me, and psychodermatologists, know the difference and can offer much-needed help and reassurance, she says.
Part of this is asking the right questions, says Light. There could be severe redness in the clients face and that may be due to cortisol levels, lack of sleep or what theyre putting on their skin topically, but until you start asking those questions and understanding what it is thats going on for that person, you cant get to theroot of that.
Encouraging clients to adopt self-care strategies is another way to improve the mind-skinlink between treatments. This can also be done by practising self-healing on a daily basis and essentially making sure to take good care of ourselves, saysSoveral. Taking action triggers positivity and has a domino effect on our emotions that eventually will benefit the skin.
A new app paving the way for this is Beautification, which offers guided meditations designed to be used in conjunction with a daily skincare routine. With the rising awareness of skin-mind connection, its been proven that only three to four minutes of meditation a day can help ease the tension and bring out physical beauty benefits, says chief executive and co-founder Heyyoung Kim.
Having a relaxing massage with a choice of three oils is not necessarily holistic, says Soveral. The treatment needs to be prescriptive to the client. Its important for salons and spas to understand that working with your client needs to go beyond the technical approach to the face and skin, agrees Aleksandrowicz.
Understand where the clients concern comes from and address them equally on a physical and emotional level. Advice should go beyond practical skincare suggestions to address the lifestyle, the emotional condition of the client and their ability to accept who they are.
Many brands offer training to help tap into the mind-skin link. A partof SBC skincare training is its 5 Phase Concept, which involves an in-depth conversation that includes reading the clients body language and employing methods to understand their emotional needs and establish trust.
Meanwhile, Sienna X skincare training includes Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), a holistic healing method designed to treat both physical and emotional distress by tapping the face at specific pressure points. Energy alignment practices, such as Reiki, are another way to create a holistic offering for your clients.
For a spa to incorporate psychodermatology, it needsto invest in further training of its therapists, change its booking system to accommodate more time for each client, and extend the consultation period, says Soveral. Carving out time for these initial conversations is essential to truly understand the needs of the client.
I generally have a consultation with somebody on the phone first to find out a little bit more detail and then I will book them in according to what I think they might need, says Light. Theres a lot of detail that needs to come out at that point before I even get to the face.
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Psychodermatalogy treatments: the importance of the mind-skin link - Professional Beauty