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Blog – Page 5633

Over the years, much has been said about artificial intelligence (AI) and the healthcare industry. Much of it has been focused on two extremes. On one hand, there’s the fairly mature use of neural networks for radiological analysis. On the other, there’s the focus on fraud management. Those have become “must have’s” in my perspective. It’s filling the middle ground that interests me. Medical insurance is, as patients, providers, and payors all can agree, is often convoluted and complex. There’s a business problem in making processes more efficient, and the foolishly named robotic process automation (RPA) is only a step in the right direction. More robust AI can help all three stakeholder groups address their needs in managing medical insurance. The general medical insurance industry does deal with radiology and images. However, that’s typically in specialties. In the dental industry, radiology is a regular tool, using x-rays to understand tooth and gum conditions and then to document work that has been done. The basics of AI and radiology have been covered, in this column and many other places, so this article isn’t going to cover the concepts, it’s important to realize how important that analysis is in dental care.

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In this case, it’s increasing the accuracy and speed of dental insurance processing, resulting in better medical control, improved financial outcomes for providers and payors, and improved care and customer service for the patient.

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Ceramic Bodies is a collection of four porcelain vases that fit together like a three-dimensional puzzle.

Designer Jörg Hugo studied architecture before opening his own design studio. Calling it Studio Jörg Hugo, his work largely explores “the relationship between materiality, form, and space,” as he describes on his personal website. Relying on either digital or analog design methods and production techniques, Hugo creates timeless pieces that completely reinterpret how we interact with space and material. One of his most recent projects, Ceramic Bodies, comprises a collection of four porcelain vases that almost appear to melt into each other like a three-dimensional puzzle.

Designer: Jörg Hugo

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Water flows more easily through narrower carbon nanotubes than larger ones and we have struggled to explain why. Now, one team has an answer: it may all be due to quantum friction.

Friction in its standard, classical sense is well understood by most people. The greater the degree of contact between two things moving past one another, the greater the energy needed to overcome friction. A narrow pipe has a larger wall relative to its cross-sectional area than a wider pipe, so you would expect the frictional forces experienced by water inside the smaller pipe to be proportionally greater. This means the water should flow less easily.

But carbon nanotubes don’t obey this rule. These are made of thin layers of graphite rolled into tubes just a few nanometres wide – and the narrower the diameter, the easier it is for water to flow through them.

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Concetta Antico is the world’s most famous tetrachromat, meaning she has four types of color receptors (cone cells) in her eyes. Most of us have three types. As a result of this mutation, Antico can see around 100 million colors, 100 times more than other people. Antico is an artist and she says that her psychedelic color paintings depict what she perceives. I wonder though what her paintings look like through her eyes. From The Guardian:

According to Dr Kimberly Jameson, a University of California scientist who has studied Antico, just having the gene – which around 15% of women have – is not alone sufficient to be a tetrachromat, but it’s a necessary condition. “In Concetta’s case … one thing we believe is that because she’s been painting sort of continuously since the age of seven years old, she has really enlisted this extra potential and used it. This is how genetics works: it gives you the potential to do things and if the environment demands that you do that thing, then the genes kick in.”[…]

While the natural world is a positive stimulant for Antico, many man-made environments, such as a large shopping centre with fluorescent lighting, have the opposite effect. “I feel very uneasy. I actually avoid going into those kinds of buildings unless I absolutely have to,” she says. “I don’t enjoy the barrage, the massive onslaught of bits of unattractive colour. I mean, there’s a difference between looking at a row of stuff in a grocery store and looking at a row of trees. It’s like, it’s ugly, and the lights are garish. It makes me not happy.”

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