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Tag: Stanford University

  • Smartwatches Can Serve As Early Coronavirus Detection

    Smartwatches Can Serve As Early Coronavirus Detection

    Smartwatches can do much more than count steps, with research showing they can detect coronavirus infections days before diagnosis.

    One of the keys to combatting coronavirus is early detection and diagnosis. The faster someone is diagnosed, the faster they can be quarantined and the less likely they are to spread the virus to others. Adequate testing has long been a major problem, making it difficult to get the pandemic under control. Adding to the challenge is COVID-19’s long incubation period, as well as the fact that patients can transmit the disease before they are visibly symptomatic.

    According to CBS News, researchers at Mount Sinai Health System in New York and Stanford University in California have shown that wearable devices — such as the Apple Watch, Fitbit and Garmin — can detect coronavirus before symptoms appear and even before tests can detect it.

    The key is in detecting minute changes in a wearer’s heart rate, skin temperature and other physiological markers. In particular, heart rate variability is a key factor. Heart rate variability measures the time between heartbeats, and is impacted by the state of a person’s immune system.

    “We already knew that heart rate variability markers change as inflammation develops in the body, and Covid is an incredibly inflammatory event,” Rob Hirten, assistant professor of medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai told CBS MoneyWatch. “It allows us to predict that people are infected before they know it.”

    The findings could be another important step in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic, and will likely lead to a jump in wearables demand.

  • Better-Paid, White-Collar Jobs Most Threatened By AI

    Better-Paid, White-Collar Jobs Most Threatened By AI

    In a recent Brookings Institution report, authors Mark Muro, Jacob Whiton and Robert Maxim make the case that better-paid, white-collar professionals are most at risk of losing their jobs to artificial intelligence.

    As the report points out, past studies have had little actual data to go on and have, instead, relied on case studies and subject assessments to predict which jobs and industries were most vulnerable.

    “What’s more, most research has concentrated on an undifferentiated array of ‘automation’ technologies including robotics, software, and AI all at once,” the report says. “The result has been a lot of discussion—but not a lot of clarity—about AI, with prognostications that range from the utopian to the apocalyptic.”

    In contrast, a new method devised by Stanford University Ph.D. candidate Michael Webb compares job descriptions with AI-related patents, giving a higher degree of accuracy.

    The new data shows that low-wage jobs will continue to be heavily impacted by automation and robotics. When it comes to true AI, however, “the present analysis suggests that better-educated, better-paid workers (along with manufacturing and production workers) will be the most affected by the new AI technologies, with some exceptions.”

    Professions that have a high amount of predictive work, or pattern-oriented tasks are the kind of jobs AI is particularly well-suited to take over.

    “At the high end of AI involvement, for example, are numerous well-paid occupations that had relatively low exposure in our earlier, all-encompassing automation analysis. They range from market research analysts and sales managers to programmers, management analysts, and engineers. Often analytic or supervisory, these roles appear heavily involved in pattern-oriented or predictive work, and may therefore be especially susceptible to the data- driven inroads of AI, even though they seemed relatively immune in earlier analyses.”

    In addition, individuals “with graduate or professional degrees will be almost four times as exposed to AI as workers with just a high school degree.” The data also shows that high-tech metro areas will be more susceptible than most rural areas.

    The original, in-depth report is 46 pages long and is a fascinating read, providing some all-new insights into the far-reaching impacts AI will have on all economic sectors.

  • Cameron Diaz Surprises Class At Stanford University As a Guest Lecturer

    Cameron Diaz surprised a class of students at Stanford University on Thursday and one can only imagine what must have gone through those students’ heads when the Charlie’s Angels star walked in.

    Diaz, 43, helped lead a lecture on environmentally friendly design as part of taping for an mtvU program called Stand-In, in which celebrities teach a class.

    In similar fashion, Madonna lectured students at New York’s Hunter College last week.

    Diaz has long been a champion for the environment and has served as a sidekick for friend and renowned environmental architect William McDonough, a consulting professor at Stanford.

    “He’s very charismatic, captivating,” Diaz said of McDonough, who Time magazine once called “Hero for the Planet.” “Bill is one of those people who is thinking big, but is also producing.”

    Needless to say, the students in the Stanford class pretty much lost it with gasps and giggles when Diaz interrupted the class right in the middle of McDonough’s lecture.

    Cameron Diaz, who is starring in the recently released In Her Shoes, later took some time to snap selfies with the students on their cell phones.