Big Data and Biomedicine

Big Data will soon become highly relevant in the field of biomedicine. Recently, three organizations (Geisinger Health System, Penn State University, and Penn State Hershey) have joined forces in creating a $2.4 million training program that will help biomedical scientists in its cohorts in using big data.
The funding has come from the National Library of Medicine of the U.S. National Institutes of Health ($1.4 million funding) as well as more than a million dollars from Penn State. This program was developed by Marylyn D. Richie and faculty from Penn State: Vasant Honavar and Runze Li.
As Big Data grows in importance in each industry and the world we live in, biomedical researchers need to strengthen their ability to analyze, interpret and do visualization images on large and complex data sets which we now understand as “big data.”
Nine lucky Penn State graduate students on the data analytics track will get scholarships from this training program. These students will have direct mentorship from Penn State faculty members that are experts in the fields of data sciences and biomedical sciences.
Richie said, “Students admitted to this training program will become a new generation of scientists who can mine mountains of complex scientific data to reveal the information buried there. This will lead to advances in genetic and other types of biological and health-related research.”
One area where big data will play a significant role in the field of artificial intelligence (AI). Biomedicine is an area where AI is making headways. A new study has found that artificial intelligence can make an accurate guess as to the amount of life you have left. Scientists of the University of Adelaide have calculated the AI has an accuracy of 69% as to which patients would die within the next five years. Dr. Luke Oakden-Rayner from the University of Adelaide’s School of Public Health said, “Predicting the future of a patient is useful because it may enable doctors to tailor treatments to the individual. 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.”

Reference:
https://www.technologynetworks.com/informatics/news/making-the-most-of-big-data-in-biomedicine-288231
http://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/ai-can-predict-how-much-longer-you-have-left-to-live/

Computer Glitch Affects Global Air Traffic

This Thursday, airports became mayhem of confusion all over the globe. It was a minor problem of identifying the baggage and the owners of the baggage, but the impact was unprecedented. Those who checked in were not shown in the log book. The airport authorities in the Frankfurt, Paris, and Zurich claimed to have solved the problem within a short while; but did they?
Lufthansa and its code-sharing partner airlines could not check in luggage during that crucial 20 minute period. BA failed to check in passengers while Southwest Airlines addressed several red-faced passengers across the US airports. Quanta’s also faced the same problem in Australia and other airports. The network issue had a snowball effect all over. In fact, almost all airlines use Amadeus software that underpins booking systems and other operations for airlines.
Customers were furious; airlines faced delay and luggage went to destinations not meant for. Services in over 100 airports around the world were disrupted by the notorious Black Thursday’s computer system outage.
In fact, the Wanna cry malware also caused disruption a few weeks back. Then came the cyclones that grounded many planes in the US. The serpentine queues were seen in almost all the major airports. The Amadeus technical teams took immediate action to restore the services in a short period.
Airports of London, Paris, Seoul, Singapore, Tokyo, and Zurich, were among the 100 airports around the world that were severely affected. Lufthansa could not check in luggage for at least 20 minutes.
While Air France, Air China, and Korean Air were affected in London, Paris, Seoul, Singapore, Tokyo angry, the tweets were flying all over. Over 130 airlines worldwide rely on Amadeus’s passenger-service system to manage flight reservations, inventory, and departure-control capabilities. Angrybirds was one tweet that explained all.

Reference URL: http://money.cnn.com/2017/09/28/news/airport-outages-global-airlines/index.html

India Joins Quantum Computing Race

The Department of Science and Technology (DST) in India is funding the development of computers that can run faster than traditional ones.
The quantum mechanics can store information in ‘qubits’ instead of traditional ‘bits’ of 1 and 0. The Qubits can work much faster. It deploys a minute portion of steps compared to conventional computers – 30,000 steps compared to 3.5 million.
The Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore (IISc.), and the Harish Chandra Research Institute, Allahabad, are joining hands to build a quantum computer making the so-called supercomputer insignificant.
The skepticism is that the true quantum computers are still years away from solving complex problems in a jiffy. Essentially, the difficulty in isolating a tiny atom is tricky enough. But the Physics department of IIS.c could make some headway. Here, super cooled Ca atoms (Calcium) atoms are held between electrodes, free from the external forces. These atoms can perform calculations, break secret codes quickly, and unstructured databases. It resembles the days when silicon chips were in the development stage. The shrinking of sizes was the logical outcome.
But there is a limit to shrinking and reduction of sizes. So, the quantum computer is the alternative to enhance the speed and reduce the size of the computers. Quantum scientists are making a new paradigm of computing in making a new cryptography better than the conventional 128-bit encryption. That is leading to the development of a branch of science called quantum cryptography.

Reference URL: http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/india-joins-quantum-computing-race

https://blogs.economictimes.indiatimes.com/Sigma/the-india-bit-in-quantum-computing

Artificial Intelligence Could Trigger World War III

Elon Musk says that an international AI race will trigger World War III, rather than a 20th century-style arms race. With the Hydrogen Bomb and Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles threats from North Korea a reality, we should agree with the multi-billionaire who plans shuttle service -SpaceX- to Space. He is sure that ‘AI superiority at a national level will most likely be the cause of WWIII.’
With the computer science supremacy of US, Russia, and China, the threat is real and imminent. Russian supremo Vladimir Putin is serious of looping in on AI’s geopolitical potential. He says AI is the future of all the occupants in this Earth. The threat is unpredictable and colossal. The future leader of humankind is the one who will master this technique called ‘Artificial Intelligence.’
This incidentally was told by tech-savvy Putin, who told the students via satellite, promising to share the AI findings including nuclear development to the entire world. Musk warned the Governments to refrain from using AI for Military purposes as of now.
Elon Musk said ‘We are summoning the demon with artificial intelligence.’ He leads more than 100 robotics and AI leaders in calling for the United Nations to take action against the lethal autonomous weapons.
Microsoft’s Bill Gates and physicist Stephen Hawking have also warned of the threats AI posed to mankind and raised the same fear. But Chief Executive Officer of Alphabet Larry Page of Google believes AI could help mankind and should be allowed to do so. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg as usual criticised Musk’s skepticism about AI.
Musk is developing Neural ink, which aims to create a computer-brain interface to help keep humans to challenge the emerging AI. Nick Bostrom of Oxford University expressed that we have just 50 years to save ourselves from AI. Yes, Machine intelligence is not far.

Reference URL: https://www.cnet.com/news/elon-musk-artificial-intelligence-wo