JM was looking over my Eisenhower application and said it needed more sparkle. What a great way to think of myself… sparkling!? On to it, thank you.
Monthly Archives: January 2014
Very cool Eulerian Video Filtering to monitor heart rate
This is so cool and will transform biological monitoring… can’t wait for it to become mainstream.
http://people.csail.mit.edu/mrub/vidmag/
Abstract
Our goal is to reveal temporal variations in videos that are difficult or impossible to see with the naked eye and display them in an indicative manner. Our method, which we call Eulerian Video Magnification, takes a standard video sequence as input, and applies spatial decomposition, followed by temporal filtering to the frames. The resulting signal is then amplified to reveal hidden information. Using our method, we are able to visualize the flow of blood as it fills the face and also to amplify and reveal small motions. Our technique can run in real time to show phenomena occurring at temporal frequencies selected by the user.
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| An example of using our Eulerian Video Magnification framework for visualizing the human pulse. (a) Four frames from the original video sequence. (b) The same four frames with the subject’s pulse signal amplified. (c) A vertical scan line from the input (top) and output (bottom) videos plotted over time shows how our method amplifies the periodic color variation. In the input sequence the signal is imperceptible, but in the magnified sequence the variation is clear. |
Hapax Legomenon
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hapax_legomeno
A hapax legomenon (/ˈhæpəks lɨˈɡɒmɨnɒn/ also /ˈhæpæks/ or /ˈheɪpæks/;[1][2] pl. hapax legomena; sometimes abbreviated to hapax, pl. hapaxes) is a word that occurs only once within a context, either in the written record of an entire language, in the works of an author, or in a single text. The term is sometimes incorrectly used to describe a word that occurs in just one of an author’s works, even though it occurs more than once in that work. Hapax legomenon is a transliteration of Greek ἅπαξ λεγόμενον, meaning “(something) said (only) once”.
Weight training reduces diabetes risk by 18%
http://www.medicalobserver.com.au/news/weight-training-cuts-type-2-diabetes-risk-in-women
Weight training cuts type 2 diabetes risk in women
Emily Dunn all articles by this author
WOMEN who regularly lift weights or do other resistance exercise may reduce their risk of developing type 2 diabetes, a study has found.
Researchers from Harvard Medical School followed up 99,316 women aged 36–81 years who were participants in the Nurses’ Health Study and found that those who reported weekly sessions of just 30 minutes of total muscle-strengthening activity had an 18% lower relative risk of type 2 diabetes, compared to their non-weight lifting counterparts.
Total muscle strengthening activities included resistance training as well as lower-intensity exercise such as yoga or stretching.
Women who participated in resistance exercise had the lowest relative risk, but even those who only participated in the lower-intensity activity showed an improvement in relative risk compared to those who did nothing.
The benefits were on top of any benefits gained from aerobic exercise. The women who engaged in the recommended 150 minutes of aerobic activity and at least an hour of muscle-strengthening activity per week had the most substantial relative risk reduction, cutting their chance of developing type 2 diabetes by a third.
Previous research has shown the importance of aerobic activity to stave off type 2 diabetes, and regular resistance training is already recommended for both men and women to maintain muscle mass and protect against other diseases.
However, this is the first study to demonstrate the benefits of muscle-strengthening for the prevention of type 2 diabetes, and that the findings concur with similar research in men.
The results are also consistent with those published last year from the 2004–05 Australian Diabetes, Obesity and Lifestyle Study that found regular strength training was associated with lower prevalence of impaired glucose metabolism, independent of other physical activity.
PLOS Med 2014; online 14 January
Teach your kids to code… ohhhh YEAH
Such a cool idea, and why not? It’s just another language.
http://www.springwise.com/wooden-toy-teaches-preschoolers-code-read-write/
Wooden toy teaches preschoolers to code, before they can read and write
The startup successfully reached its funding target on Kickstarter, and is currently selling the full play set for USD 170 through its website. Much like the code-inspired Robot Turtles board game, Primo aims to set up the next generation to be able to read and write code — not just use it — while also entertaining them. How else can programming be promoted among young children?
Website: www.primo.io
Contact: play@primo.io
Cherish
I was reflecting on my time in the Minister’s office over dinner with BN and riffing on the idea that I in no way enjoyed it but nonetheless found it a profound and important thing. BN came back to me with the word that completely encapsulated the idea – that I “cherished” the time. Spot on, thanks.
Nutrition labels don’t work in NZ
- Complicated nutrition labels don’t help… who would have thought?
- Running, walking and traffic light labels were far better recalled.
Nutritional food labels not working in New Zealand, says study
By Ankush Chibber, 13-Jan-2014
Related topics: Markets, Asian tastes
A new study from New Zealand has found that nutritional food labels in use under the country’s daily intake system of labelling are not as effective as once thought and could be adversely impacting public health.
The study, which was conducted by researchers at the University of Canterbury, instead found that Kiwi consumers reacted better to labels which provide relatable, transparent information that is easily converted into exercise expenditure or clearly states which products are good and which are bad.
Under the study, UC researchers collected a total of 591 online responses from participants who were given an identical survey, where the way in which the nutritional information was communicated differed across the sample.
Michelle Bouton, a researcher on the study, said that they included a star system which displayed one, two or three stars on the product, depending on how many calories were in the product.
“A traffic light label was divided into five categories of the main nutritional components and coloured red [bad], orange [moderate] or green [good],” Bouton said, adding that they also included walking and running labels which stated how many minutes of exercise were needed to burn off the product.
Daily intake system ineffective
“Our findings showed that the current daily intake system was so insignificant that only 23% of participants recalled seeing it. This was alarmingly low compared to the recall rate of the running [89%], walking [93%] and traffic light label [70%],” she said.
Bouton said that through their study, the researchers found that those who were presented with the walking label were most likely to make healthier consumption choices, regardless of their level of preventive health behaviour.
“Therefore, consumers who reported to be unhealthier were likely to modify their current negative behaviour and exercise, select a healthier alternative or avoid the unhealthy product entirely when told they would need to briskly walk for one hour and 41 minutes to burn off the product,” said Bouton.
Traffic lights work
“The traffic light system was found to be effective in deterring consumers from unhealthy foods, while also encouraging them to consume healthy products,” she added.
“Although the running label was found to be effective with participants who reported a healthy lifestyle, it was found to be ineffective with those who were yet to adopt a healthy lifestyle. A consumer who does not actively exercise is less likely to start running than a consumer who is already active.”
Ekant Veer, associate professor of marketing at UC’s Department of Management, Marketing and Entrepreneurship and study supervisor, said the findings differ from what people initially thought would be an effective communication method.
“Information and numeric figures are ineffective at aiding consumers with low levels of health literacy to make healthy consumption choices. Images and colours are found to be much more effective and understandable forms of communication,” he said.
“As the overwhelmingly high obesity rates in New Zealand continue to climb, something needs to be done to improve the health of our society. This information provides valuable insight into understanding consumption behaviours’ associated to food labels. New Zealand still has one of the highest obesity rates in the world.”
Doximity bigger than AMA
Very clever… wonder if they’re coming out here?
Doximity’s social network for doctors now has more members than the American Medical Association
Shutterstock
January 9, 2014 9:57 AM
A social network could actually help your doctor give you better care.
Doximity’s physician network doubled in size last year to 250,000 members,outstripping even the American Medical Association in terms of numbers.
Its free network now reaches 35 percent of all doctors in the U.S., which CEO Jeff Tangney said is a “significant tipping point.”
“This essentially means Doximity will get doctors the answers they want faster, and more reliably, than a simple Google search,” Tangney told VentureBeat. “Doctors can ask a critical mass of their peers any number of questions ranging from drug interactions to specialist advice, and it points to the demand and hunger for specialized, vertical social networks that meet an unmet need.”
Doximity has consistently grown since its launch in 2011, and it’s added a number of new features to make it much more than a “Facebook or LinkedIn for doctors.” In 2013 alone, the company built a recruiting tool called Talent Finder, released an API to enable easy authentication, launched a “digital fax line,” and rolled out a continuing medical education (CME) platform.
Medicine is a collaborative profession. Doctors and other medical care providers rely on communication with their peers to get expert advice, ask questions, coordinate patient care, and discuss difficult cases. But medical communication is extremely sensitive and highly regulated, so it happened primarily offline for a long time.
That is beginning to change now as tech startups like Doximity create secure, HIPAA (Health Insurance Privacy and Accountability Act)-compliant, doctors-only places for them to connect online. Tangney said saves them “precious” time and reduces the “burden” of paperwork, which is increasingly important now that the Affordable Care Act is kicking in and millions more people have access to medical care.
“With Obamacare and baby boomers filling patient waiting rooms, maintaining a high standard of care demands ever greater efficiency from our health care professionals,” Tangney said. “Doctors need a secure way to connect and collaborate.”
More than 10,000 physician-to-physician messages are now sent daily through the site. Fifty-plus third-party sites use Doximity’s login API, and 200 paying clients are using TalentFinder, which facilitated 70,000 consulting and career offers to physicians.
Tangney said most of the platform’s growth has been grassroots — doctors telling doctors .
Prior to founding Doximity, Tangney was the founder of Epocrates, a San Francisco Bay area company that develops mobile health applications. Doximity is based in San Mateo, Calif., and has raised just shy of $30 million from Emergence Capital Partners, Morgenthaler Ventures, and InterWest Ventures.
Google mucking around with contact lenses and health data
Interesting highly-speculative piece on Google’s visit to the FDA for a meet and greet.
The eye is a great place to stick a sensor given it’s continuity with the innards. It’s also a great place to view the innards. While we’re there, why not be powered by the innards at the same time?
Google X Staff Meet With FDA Pointing Toward New Device
By Brian Womack and Anna Edney Jan 10, 2014 4:01 PM ET
Google Inc. (GOOG) sent employees with ties to its secretive X research group to meet with U.S. regulators who oversee medical devices, raising the possibility of a new product that may involve biosensors from the unit that developed computerized glasses.
The meeting included at least four Google workers, some of whom have connections with Google X — and have done research on sensors, including contact lenses that help wearers monitor their biological data. Google staff met with those at the Food and Drug Administration who regulate eye devices and diagnostics for heart conditions, according to the agency’s public calendar.
As technology and medicine merge to give consumers more control over their health, innovators from mobile-health application developers to DNA analysis companies have struggled to meet the demands of federal oversight. The FDA ordered Google-backed 23andMe Inc. in November to halt sales of its personal gene test, saying it hadn’t gained agency approval.
Google, expanding beyond its core search-engine business, is investing in long-term projects at its X lab that may lead to new market opportunities, including the Glass devices, driverless cars and high-altitude air balloons to provide wireless Internet access. While some projects may not deliver significant profits and revenue, the company is committed to making bets on research and development, according to Chief Executive Officer Larry Page.
Google has introduced Glass devices, computerized eyewear that lets users check e-mail… Read More
“Our main job is to figure out how to obviously invest more to achieve greater outcomes for the world, for the company,” Page said during a call with analysts last July. “And I think those opportunities are clearly there.”
Google Glass
Already, Google has introduced Glass devices, computerized eyewear that lets users check e-mail or access their favorite music. The devices, now being used by testers and developers, aren’t yet widely available for consumers.
FDA’s public calendar also shows the Google representatives met with the head of the agency’s office that reviews device applications for marketing approval, and the FDA adviser who wrote the agency’s guidelines for mobile medical apps. The FDA classified Google’s visit to Silver Spring, Maryland, where the agency is based, as a meet and greet. Jennifer Rodriguez, a spokeswoman for the agency, confirmed the meeting and declined to provide further information.
One of the Google participants was Andrew Conrad, who joined X last year. Conrad is a former chief scientist at Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings and co-founder of its National Genetics Institute.
A Google Inc. logo sits on a wall outside the entrance to the company’s offices in Berlin.
Among other attendees was Brian Otis and Zenghe “Zach” Liu. Courtney Hohne, a spokeswoman for Mountain View, California-based Google, didn’t return messages seeking comment on the company’s meeting with the FDA.
Engineering Work
Otis is on leave to Google from the University ofWashington in Seattle, where he is an associate professor in the electrical engineering department, according to the university’s website. Otis has worked on biosensors and holds a patent that involves a wireless powered contact lens with a biosensor.
One of Otis’ colleagues is Babak Parviz, who was involved in the Google Glass project and has talked about putting displays on contact lenses, including lenses that monitor wearer’s health.
“Noninvasive monitoring of the wearer’s biomarkers and health indicators could be a huge future market,” Parviz wrote in a 2009 paper titled “Augmented Reality in a Contact Lens.”
In 2012, the two were among the co-authors in a paper titled “Glucose Sensor for Wireless Contact-Lens Tear Glucose Monitoring” for the IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits.
‘Wearable’ Lenses
“Advances in technology scaling, sensor devices, and ultra low-power circuit design techniques have now made it possible to integrate complex wireless electronics onto the surface of a wearable contact lens,” according to the paper.
In a presentation, Parviz said a tear drop provides many different components to give sensors various types of information about how a body is operating.
“There is actually one interface on the surface of the body that can literally provide us with a window of what happens inside, and that’s the surface of the eye,” Parviz said in a video posted on YouTube. “It’s a very interesting chemical interface.”
Liu, formerly with the medical-device manufacturer Abbott Laboratories (ABT), also holds a patent that involves devices that use bodily fluids to read levels of human substances such as glucose or cholesterol.
To contact the reporters on this story: Brian Womack in San Francisco atbwomack1@bloomberg.net; Anna Edney in Washington at aedney@bloomberg.net
Recommended vs actual eating…
Great post from Marion – recommended vs actual. As she says… oops!!
http://www.foodpolitics.com/2014/01/what-are-americans-eating/
What are Americans eating?
I’ve only just come across this USDA chart, which first appeared in an article in Amber Waves.
USDA’s Economic Research Service (ERS) researchers looked at 1998-2006 grocery store food expenditures and compared what consumers buy to dietary guidelines for healthy eating.
Oops.
