Author: IGIHE

Artificial intelligence predicts patient lifespans

{A computer’s ability to predict a patient’s lifespan simply by looking at images of their organs is a step closer to becoming a reality, thanks to new research led by the University of Adelaide.}

The research, now published in the Nature journal Scientific Reports, has implications for the early diagnosis of serious illness, and medical intervention.

Researchers from the University’s School of Public Health and School of Computer Science, along with Australian and international collaborators, used artificial intelligence to analyse the medical imaging of 48 patients’ chests. This computer-based analysis was able to predict which patients would die within five years, with 69% accuracy — comparable to ‘manual’ predictions by clinicians.

This is the first study of its kind using medical images and artificial intelligence.

“Predicting the future of a patient is useful because it may enable doctors to tailor treatments to the individual,” says lead author Dr Luke Oakden-Rayner, a radiologist and PhD student with the University of Adelaide’s School of Public Health.

“The accurate assessment of biological age and the prediction of a patient’s longevity has so far been limited by doctors’ inability to look inside the body and measure the health of each organ.

“Our research has investigated the use of ‘deep learning’, a technique where computer systems can learn how to understand and analyse images.

“Although for this study only a small sample of patients was used, our research suggests that the computer has learnt to recognise the complex imaging appearances of diseases, something that requires extensive training for human experts,” Dr Oakden-Rayner says.

While the researchers could not identify exactly what the computer system was seeing in the images to make its predictions, the most confident predictions were made for patients with severe chronic diseases such as emphysema and congestive heart failure.

“Instead of focusing on diagnosing diseases, the automated systems can predict medical outcomes in a way that doctors are not trained to do, by incorporating large volumes of data and detecting subtle patterns,” Dr Oakden-Rayner says.

“Our research opens new avenues for the application of artificial intelligence technology in medical image analysis, and could offer new hope for the early detection of serious illness, requiring specific medical interventions.”

The researchers hope to apply the same techniques to predict other important medical conditions, such as the onset of heart attacks.

The next stage of their research involves analysing tens of thousands of patient images.

Source:Science Daily

June 3, 2017
Volcanoes: Referees for the life on Earth

{At the Triassic-Jurassic boundary, 200 million years ago, some 60% of species living on Earth disappeared. Scientists suspected that magmatic activity and the release of CO2 were responsible for this environmental disaster. To corroborate this, one would need to find and to precisely date traces of this activity and make sure that it coincides with this mass extinction. The precise determination of this timing has been achieved by scientists at the University of Geneva, and is published in Nature Communications.}

Scientists have often linked the annihilation of life at the Triassic-Jurassic boundary with the emission of gas during the volcanic activity of the Central Atlantic Magmatic Province, a huge volcanic province that erupted around the same time. Geological studies, however, have questioned this hypothesis since the flood basalt eruptions from the igneous province are too young to be responsible for the mass extinction. The scientists, among them a team from UNIGE, therefore went to look for traces of magmatic activity that may be older, proving the role of magmatic activity in mass extinctions that hit the history of Earth during this period of time.

The geologists identified large areas covered by flood basalts assigned to the Central Atlantic Magmatic Province (CAMP), which extends over several million km2 from Northern to Southern America, and from Europe to Africa. They also discovered vertical fissures that extend over hundreds of kilometres and large intrusions. “We therefore erected the hypothesis that these fissures and intrusions are older or coeval to the mass extinction at the Triassic-Jurassic boundary, and we have verified this applying our high-precision dating techniques,” explains Joshua Davies, research fellow at the Department of Earth Sciences of the Faculty of Science at the University of Geneva (UNIGE).

The basalts enclose the mineral zircon in tiny quantities, which itself contains uranium. Uranium has the particularity of disintegrating itself over time into lead at a known rate. “It’s because of this, by measuring relative concentrations of uranium and lead, we can determine the age of crystallization of minerals in a rock to about 30’000 years, which is extremely precise for a period of time 200 million years ago,” adds Urs Schaltegger, professor at the Department of Earth Sciences of the Faculty of Science at the University of Geneva (UNIGE).

To carry out precise age determinations is a complicated exercise, only around four laboratories are capable of at this level of precision, among them the laboratory at UNIGE. The geologists were particularly interested to date basalts that can be found in the Amazonian sedimentary basin, an huge reservoir of coal and oil. And indeed, the results of their age determinations confirm that the age of these basalts correlates with the mass extinction at the Triassic-Jurassic boundary. This result allows the scientists to link this magmatic activity with the thermally induced release of immense volumes of CO2 originating from coal and hydrocarbons which likely caused the climate change the drove the disappearance of 60% of the species that were living at this time.

Source:Science Daily

June 3, 2017
RNP takes child protection campaign to Rulindo

{In a bid to ensure no abuse of children’s rights, Police in Rulindo District met with 350 tea farmers operating at Muvumo and Kavumo sites in Rulindo District and tutored them about effects of child labour.}

They were also urged to advance the rights of children.

The call was made by District Community Liaison Officer Inspector of Police (IP) Fidèle Mbonimana, along with the Inspector of Labour, Evelyne Nyirahahakizimana, in a meeting held on May 30.

Nyirahahakizimana told the farmers that, “any child who is below the age of 16 should be in school not working for money.”

“Some parents involve children in field work collecting tea which amount to child labour and punishable by laws,” the labour inspector said.

In his address to the farmers, IP Mbonimana said: “There are clear laws against child labor and several campaigns have been conducted in line with sensitizing the public against such child rights violations.”

“Eeryone should be in position to understand that whoever exploits or deprives a child of their rights will face the wrath of the law,” he said.

“Such attitude should change; parents should know they have the primary responsibility of ensuring children are not exploited or prematurely forced into labour.”

Under no circumstance, he said, should a child be allowed to work in the tea fields.

In June 1999, Rwanda became a signatory to the Convention of the International Labour Organization on prohibition and immediate elimination of worst forms of child labor.

The law relating to the rights and protection of the child states in its article 51 that, “all forms of economic exploitation of a child by requiring him or her to accomplish a work that is likely to put him or her at risk or to compromise his or her education or to harm his or her health, her physical, mental, spiritual, moral or social development are prohibited and punishable by law.”

A child aged 16 years of age and below, is not allowed to be engaged in any income generating works.

The penal code punishes child labour with imprisonment term of up to seven years.

Source:Police

June 3, 2017
Meet the most nimble-fingered robot ever built

{Grabbing the awkwardly shaped items that people pick up in their day-to-day lives is a slippery task for robots. Irregularly shaped items such as shoes, spray bottles, open boxes, even rubber duckies are easy for people to grab and pick up, but robots struggle with knowing where to apply a grip. In a significant step toward overcoming this problem, roboticists at UC Berkeley have a built a robot that can pick up and move unfamiliar, real-world objects with a 99 percent success rate.}

Berkeley professor Ken Goldberg, postdoctoral researcher Jeff Mahler and the Laboratory for Automation Science and Engineering (AUTOLAB) created the robot, called DexNet 2.0. DexNet 2.0’s high grasping success rate means that this technology could soon be applied in industry, with the potential to revolutionize manufacturing and the supply chain.

DexNet 2.0 gained its highly accurate dexterity through a process called deep learning. The researchers built a vast database of three-dimensional shapes — 6.7 million data points in total — that a neural network uses to learn grasps that will pick up and move objects with irregular shapes. The neural network was then connected to a 3D sensor and a robotic arm. When an object is placed in front of DexNet 2.0, it quickly studies the shape and selects a grasp that will successfully pick up and move the object 99 percent of the time. DexNet 2.0 is also three times faster than its previous version.

DexNet 2.0 was featured as the cover story of the latest issues of MIT Technology Review, which called DexNet 2.0 “the most nimble-fingered robot yet.” The complete paper will be published in July.

Source:Science Daily

June 3, 2017
New discovery: Cormorants can hear under water

{For the first time, researchers have shown that a marine birds can hear under water. This offers new possibilities for the protection of marine birds in trafficked waters. Seals, whales and other marine animals can hear under water. The cormorant also has this ability, which new research from University of Southern Denmark (SDU) shows.}

According to the biologists it makes good sense, that cormorants can hear under water — the environment where it finds most of its food.

About every tenth bird species — ca. 800 species — in the world hunts under water, and it may turn out that they too can also hear under water.

{{The sound of fish}}

Researchers Kirstin Anderson Hansen, Alyssa Maxwell, Ursula Siebert, Ole Næsbye Larsen and Magnus Wahlberg from the Department of Biology at University of Southern Denmark have tested the cormorant, Loke’s, hearing. Loke lives at SDU’s marine biology research station in the Danish town Kerteminde.

“Hearing under water must be a very useful sense for cormorants. They depend on being able to find food, even if the water is not clear, or if they live in the Arctic regions where it is dark for long periods at a time,” says Kirstin Hansen, Ph.D.

Loke’s hearing abilities are on a par with the hearing of the toothed whale and the seal.

{{The sound of humans}}

He can hear sounds ranging between 1 and 4 kHz, and it is in this range that fish such as sculpin and herring produce sounds. Both sculpin and herring are on the cormorant’s menu.

1 — 4 kHz is not only the range in which fish sounds are found. There are also various human-made sounds found in this range.

“Human-made sounds can disturb the ocean’s animals to such an extent that they cannot find food or communicate with each other. It is a known problem for porpoises and seals for instance, and now it is also a potential problem for birds. It is certainly something that we should be more aware of, says Magnus Wahlberg, Associate Professor.

Human-made sounds can be everything from spinning wind turbines and ship traffic to water scooters and drilling platforms.

The SDU biologists are now planning more trials, and the next birds to be tested will probably be the common murres and puffins.

Source:Science Daily

June 3, 2017
Gene therapy could ‘turn off’ severe allergies

{A single treatment giving life-long protection from severe allergies such as asthma could be made possible by immunology research at The University of Queensland.}

A team led by Associate Professor Ray Steptoe at the UQ Diamantina Institute has been able to ‘turn-off’ the immune response which causes allergic reaction in animals.

“When someone has an allergy or asthma flare-up, the symptoms they experience results from immune cells reacting to protein in the allergen,” Professor Steptoe said.

“The challenge in asthma and allergies is that these immune cells, known as T-cells, develop a form of immune ‘memory’ and become very resistant to treatments.

“We have now been able ‘wipe’ the memory of these T-cells in animals with gene therapy, de-sensitising the immune system so that it tolerates the protein.

“Our work used an experimental asthma allergen, but this research could be applied to treat those who have severe allergies to peanuts, bee venom, shell fish and other substances.”

Dr Steptoe said the findings would be subject to further pre-clinical investigation, with the next step being to replicate results using human cells in the laboratory.”

“We take blood stem cells, insert a gene which regulates the allergen protein and we put that into the recipient.

“Those engineered cells produce new blood cells that express the protein and target specific immune cells, ‘turning off’ the allergic response.”

Dr Steptoe said the eventual goal would be a single injected gene therapy, replacing short-term treatments that target allergy symptoms with varying degrees of effectiveness.

“We haven’t quite got it to the point where it’s as simple as getting a flu jab, so we are working on making it simpler and safer so it could be used across a wide cross-section of affected individuals,” Dr Steptoe said.

“At the moment, the target population might be those individuals who have severe asthma or potentially lethal food allergies.”

Dr Steptoe’s research has been funded by the Asthma Foundation and the National Health and Medical Research Council.

Asthma Foundation of Queensland and New South Wales Chief Executive Officer Dr Peter Anderson said more than two million Australians have asthma, and current statistics show that more than half of those are regularly burdened with symptoms of the disease.

“Even though there are effective treatments available for the vast majority, patients face a number of obstacles and challenges in their self-management practices,” Dr Anderson said.

“The Foundation welcomes the findings of this research and looks forward to a day in the future when a safe one-off treatment may be available that has the potential to eliminate any experience of asthma in vulnerable patients.”

Source:Science Daily

June 3, 2017
Do you want to be attractive?Research has found that attraction isn’t all about looks

{A lot of men and women want to be attractive and they believe attraction is tied to their looks, but attractiveness isn’t just a matter of good looks, but also the right voice and scent, a recent study has found.}

“Recently, most reviews have focused on visual attractiveness — for example, face or body attractiveness,” says Agata Groyecka, lead author of the review and a researcher at the University of Wroclaw in Poland. “However, literature about other senses and their role in social relations has grown rapidly and should not be neglected.”

Groyecka and her team of researchers combed through over 30 years of literature to provide a brief overview of the few studies that have looked into the role of voice and scent.

They discovered that the nose and ears are just as important as the eyes in noticing how attractive someone is. “Perceiving others through all three channels gives a more reliable and broader variety of information about them,” says Groyecka.

Perceived attractiveness impacts day-to-day life in a variety of ways, influencing not only romantic relationships, but also friendships and professional interactions. Without incorporating such information, psychological studies of everyday decision making and social communication can’t capture the whole picture. Groyecka’s review also highlights a variety of proposed evolutionary explanations for these multisensory aspects of attraction, such as the utility of having traits that can be detected both from a distance (voice and looks), as well as up close (scent).

“I hope that this review will inspire researchers to further explore the role of audition and olfaction in social relations,” says Groyecka.

This mini review is found in Frontiers in Psychology.

Source:Elcrema

June 3, 2017
Amb. Stanislas Kamanzi presented his credentials to President of Ghana

{The High Commissioner of the Republic of Rwanda to the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Amb. Stanislas Kamanzi yesterday presented his Letters of Credence to the President of Ghana, HE Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, at a ceremony held at the Presidential Villa, State House, in Accra-Ghana.}

The presentation marked the official assumption of duties as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Rwanda to the Republic of Ghana, with residence in Abuja. Following the ceremony of presentation of credentials, H.E. Ambassador Stanislas Kamanzi was hosted by HE the President of Ghana in a private conversation, featuring a Vin d’Honneur on the occasion.

Ambassador Stanislas Kamanzi conveyed to HE the President of Ghana, greetings and best wishes from H.E President Paul Kagame, expressing the desire to further strengthen the already existing relationship and partnership between Rwanda and Ghana. (Please see the attached short speech).

The President of Ghana also conveyed his best regards to H.E President Kagame and to the people of Rwanda. Ambassador Stanislas Kamanzi was accompanied by Mr. Francois Mkuriyingoma, First Secretary at the Rwanda High Commission to Nigeria.

June 3, 2017
Remote Estates to use special materials to build affordable houses in Kigali

{Remote Group’s subsidiary, Remote Estates will use Autoclaved Aerated Concrete (AAC) to build affordable housing units in Masaka, Kicukiro District, starting in the next three months.}

Marco Tiel Groenestege, Architectural Engineer at Remote Group, has revealed to IGIHE that the project in Masaka is the first ever in East African Region to use AAC, the high quality building material that is largely used in developed countries.

Comparing with concrete cement which is usually the building material in the region, Tiel Groenestege said AAC is far lighter, more insulated and has less carbon emission, all making it the most efficient and environmental friendly building material.

“We want to use AAC for this project of affordable housing units in Masaka. It is a new building material in Rwanda and the region. We want to put up a factory in Rwanda to produce the material. AAC is used on walls, floor, roof and lintels. It is a common material everywhere in Europe, Asia, Australia, North and South America,” said Tiel Groenestege, the project manager.

The project is designed by MASS Design group. It will avail 282 housing units in five typologies including 162 apartments, 54 attached townhouses, 24 semi-detached units, seven detached units as well as 34 units for shops or offices. The first units will be completed next year while the entire project’s completion is due in 2019.

{{Sustainable still affordable units}}

With Remote Estates, a client pays an advance of $100 for reservation of a unit of their choice while the balance will be paid in five installments with the first installment due at the beginning of construction works.

The cost a three-bedroom apartment equipped with its facilities starts at $35,000 (around Rwf30 million) and the interior of the apartment is incremental (Self-build) to allow the owner to customize the inside walling the way they want. Self build is an option to keep the costs down, but buyers can also choose for a complete apartment.

Tiel Groenestege said that key to affordability of the housing is to optimize the design and basically fit the structure of the building, and the characteristics of the building materials all together.

AAC is composed of a mixture of cement, lime, water, sand and aluminum powder. AAC helps reduce at least 30% of environmental waste as opposed to going with traditional concrete. There is a decrease of 50% of greenhouse gas emissions. The thermal conductivity of the AAC blocks helps maintaining the inner temperature to be warm during the night and cool during the day. The material also has excellent sound insulation characteristics.

Besides AAC’s insulating capability, one of its advantages in construction is its quick and easy installation because the slab panels, the walling blocks and the lintels are pre-fabricated. Remote Estates will produce the material in the factory, transport it to the site for installation using a crane.

By Jean d’Amour Mugabo

June 2, 2017
Botched vaccination kills 15 children in South Sudan

{The same syringe was used, without sterilisation, on 300 children during a four-day vaccination campaign.}

At least 15 children have died in rural South Sudan in a botched measles vaccination campaign that saw people as young as 12 years old administering vaccinations.

South Sudan’s health ministry blamed the deaths on human error. Health workers vaccinating the children against measles used the same syringe without sterilising it, and failed to store the vaccine properly.

Health Minister Riek Gai Kok said on Friday the deaths occurred in Nacholdokopele village in Eastern Equatoria state, where about 300 children aged up to five years old were vaccinated from May 2 to May 5.

“The team that vaccinated the children in this tragic event were neither qualified nor trained for the immunisation campaign,” said Kok.

An investigation supported by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the UN children’s fund UNICEF found that the deaths were caused by severe toxicity resulting from the administration of a contaminated vaccine, according to the UN statement.

The untrained vaccination team used a single reconstitution syringe for multiple vaccine vials throughout the entire four-day campaign, and kept vaccines in a building without adequate cold storage facilities.

Thirty-two other children suffered symptoms of fever, vomiting and diarrhoea, but eventually recovered, according to the statement.

‘Training not passed on’

The local vaccination teams had been trained by development partners, including the WHO. UNICEF supplied the vaccines.

“We have to look into why the training was not passed on to the teams on the ground,” WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic said in Geneva.

The vaccination campaign has continued across the country in an effort to reach two million children, despite the deadly incident.

Friday’s UN statement said the risk of measles in the country remains “extremely high”.

In 2016, South Sudan had at least 2,294 measles cases and 28 people died, according to UN data.

So far this year, at least one person has died and 665 people have been infected.

Measles is yet another challenge facing the East African country that has already been devastated by more than three years of civil war, a recently declared famine, and a deadly cholera outbreak.

Source:Al Jazeera

June 2, 2017