Artwork stating 'Education Destroys Barriers', 'We Demand Treatment', and 'I Need A Chance'

Search Results

You searched for: -

There are 158 results  for your search.  View and Refine Your Search Terms

  • The Newest Weapon Against Covid-19: AI That Speed-Reads Faxes

    Researchers from Stanford University have developed a software that uses machine-learning algorithms to identify and flag urgent faxes about COVID-19 cases. While the project doesn't have complete accuracy, it has helped overwhelmed and overburdened health care workers at the health department in Contra Costa County, California work more efficiently.

    Read More

  • Can an Algorithm Prevent Suicide?

    Veterans Affairs' Reach Vet program uses an algorithm weighing 61 factors to flag veterans deemed at highest risk of suicide. While its results have not been shown to affect the suicide rate, it has more than doubled high-risk veterans' uses of V.A. services and been associated with a lower overall mortality rate. Built on an analysis of thousands of previous suicides in the V.A.'s system, Reach Vet assesses scores of facts from medical records, including some that are not obvious to humans trying to spot problems. Doctors then intervene and ensure the veteran has a suicide safety plan in place.

    Read More

  • The ambitious effort to piece together America's fragmented health data

    The uncertainty surrounding COVID-19 and the health impacts it may have for different people prompted doctors from across the U.S. to create a national patient database to better study and understand how the virus interacts with other underlying conditions. Although the database itself is adaptable and researchers hope it can also be used in the face of future pandemics, they also say "five years from now, the greatest value of this data set won’t be the data. It’ll have been the methods that we learned trying to get it working."

    Read More

  • Hope, the Senegalese app that saves lives by optimizing blood donations

    An app developed by a two telecommunications design engineers in Senegal is helping to connect hospitals with blood donors. The app alerts donors in nearby areas when blood is needed and sends "messages of thanks and donation reminders," which has helped to decrease the regional stigma about donating blood. Although the technology has not achieved widespread adoption, where it has been used, blood donations have significantly increased.

    Read More

  • How Many Coronavirus Cases Are Happening In Schools? This Tracker Keeps Count

    The National Education Association has launched a school-focused COVID-19 case tracker in the U.S., all thank to the efforts of a Kansas theater teacher. Alisha Morris started with an excel sheet and took to online searches to start logging the number of positive cases, first around her state, and later was tracking 48 U.S. states. By the time she handed off the data to the NEA, Morris, along with various volunteers "had logged over nearly 4,300 cases at more than 1,000 schools."

    Read More

  • The young people fighting the worst smog in Europe

    To measure the level of air quality in Skopje – one of the most polluted cities in Europe – an engineering student developed an app that alerts residents of the pollution levels. The app has raised the awareness of the severity of the city's pollution problem and has helped to kickstart initiatives aimed to address it.

    Read More

  • How police forces in western Canada are working to speed up ballistic imaging to solve gun crimes quicker

    As Canada sees an increase in gun violence, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) are increasing their capacity to do ballistic imaging – an analysis that is able to potentially connect multiple crimes. Across the country, individual police agencies are developing their own way of conducting this analysis or working with the RCMP, which has access to an integrated network of crime information, to expedite the process.

    Read More

  • Tech startups want to reinvent the bulk aisle—grocery's most glorious, affordable, unwieldy section. That's going to be harder than it looks.

    The bulk food aisle in grocery stories - where dry goods are weighed and put in containers that consumers can bring from home - is getting more attention as tech solutions arise to revamp this shopping experience. From SmartBins to MIWA, solutions typically involve using technology to track weight more efficiently and cleanly while generating data on consumer habits. These solutions help consumers save money, have a higher profit margin for companies, and reduce waste in the process.

    Read More

  • Save the Words

    Efforts are underway on the Menominee Reservation in northeastern Wisconsin to preserve the at-risk language of Menominee. That looks like conducting school entirely in Menominee, printing Menominee-language books, updating the language with twenty-first-century terms, and poring over old texts and audio transcripts to transfer vocabulary into a database. There are many challenges facing this initiative and many of the workers are volunteers or poorly-compensated, but those doing the work feel a great sense of responsibility and duty to carry on.

    Read More

  • With command and control, Taiwan excels in managing COVID-19

    After the 2003 SARS epidemic, Taiwan formed the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC), which has proved necessary in the face of COVID19. The CECC has helped coordinated screenings for incoming travelers, rationing face masks, creating a hotline, and enforcing mandatory self-quarantines. They’ve also integrated health insurance, immigration, and customs databases to identify those most at risk.

    Read More