Artificial Neural Networks Help Identify Predisposing Factors for Conversion of Mild Cognitive Impairment to Alzheimer’s Disease

ScienceDaily (Mar. 2, 2010) — Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is often considered an early symptom of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). An analysis of genetic risk factors predisposing to MCI is critical for accessing individual predisposition and reliably evaluating the effectiveness of early treatment. In a groundbreaking study published in the February 2010 issue of the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease investigators successfully used artificial neural networks (ANNs) to help understand the causal relation between multiple factors and the occurrence of neurodegenerative disorders.

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See Also:

Health & Medicine

• Alzheimer’s Research
• Multiple Sclerosis Research

Mind & Brain

• Alzheimer’s
• Dementia

Computers & Math

• Hacking
• Information Technology

Reference

• Functional neuroimaging
• Dementia with Lewy bodies
• Epidemiology
• Mental retardation

ANNs are computer algorithms inspired by the highly interactive processing of the human brain. Like the brain, they can recognize patterns, manage data and learn. This novel form of data analysis can accurately detect complex relationships between independent and dependent variables. When exposed to a complex data set, they recognize the underlying mechanisms of time series and outcomes, thus identifying complex interactions among input data, and recognising hidden relations that are not apparent using traditional statistical methods.

Using ANNs a team of researchers lead by Massimo Tabaton, University of Genova, Italy, analyzed 22 variables, which are recognized risk factors of AD in patients with MCI. Analysis indicated that hyperglycemia, female gender and the apoE4 genotype, in this order, were the biological variables with the highest relevance for predicting the conversion of MCI into AD within 2 years. This was followed by the scores on attentional and short memory tests.

Professor Tabaton and his colleagues commented, “This finding may have implications in clinical practice, as genetic variations can be easily examined and combined with other biomarkers, personal history and environmental exposure to establish a tailored risk profile. In fact, adjustment for the baseline risk, which should be more accurately assessed by taking into account genetic variations, would be required to estimate the utility of therapeutic and preventive intervention.”

“This work highlights the biological and genetic basis for the conversion of benign forgetfulness to AD and directs our efforts to new therapeutic avenues,” agree George Perry and Mark A. Smith, Editors-in-Chief of the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease.

After reports emerged of patient deaths and several dozens of injuries linked to malfunctions in the health IT (HIT) systems, the Food and Drug Administration is now considering regulating the new technology for the first time ever.

In a testimony prepared for a government hearing yesterday, Jeffrey Shuren, director of the FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health, said because the reports are “purely voluntary, they may represent only the tip of the iceberg.”

In an attempt to improve the quality of medical care, reduce costs and decrease medical errors and waste, hospitals and healthcare facilities are spending up to $27 million in stimulus money to purchase electronic medical records systems that rely on digital software. However, the new systems have proven to be anything but problem free. Over the past two years, the FDA’s voluntary notification system logged 260 reports of “malfunctions with the potential for patient harm,” including 44 injuries and six deaths. In addition, the systems have mixed up patients, put test results in the wrong person’s file and lost vital medical information.

“The FDA recognizes the tremendous importance of HIT and its potential to improve patient care,” Shuren said. “However, in light of the safety issues that have been reported to us, we believe that a framework of federal oversight of HIT needs to assure patient safety.”

To fix the problem, the FDA has outlined three possible approaches for tighter scrutiny. In the first scenario, FDA could require makers of the devices to register them with the government and to submit reports on safety issues and correct eventual problems.  The FDA could track this information “to help improve the design of future products.” In the second scenario, the agency could require manufacturers to report safety concerns and set minimum guidelines and standards. In the third scenario, the systems could be included in broader regulatory actions that new medical products must face before they ever reach the market.

Regulations do not guarantee safer electronic medical records and they might even limit innovation and responsiveness, said Carl Dvorak, executive vice president of Epic Systems Corporation, a company that builds systems mainly for hospitals and large medical practices. However, another vendor, Cerner Coporation, favored increased scrutiny. In the recent years, Cerner has reported potential safety concerns because it is the “right thing to do,” a company official said.

Philips VISICU eICU Program
The Philips VISICU eICU Program is an integrated healthcare solution for remote, 24-hour monitoring of critically ill patients. Philips, in collaboration with Microsoft, is showcasing a conceptual Critical Care Analytics Portal designed to support executive decision-making.

Being demonstrated for feedback at HIMSS10, the eICU Program/SharePoint solution seeks to aggregate critical patient information in a way that can be easily accessed, seamlessly shared and simply utilized. Combining users’ familiarity with Microsoft interfaces and SharePoint’s strengths, the solution aims to create a standardized front-end analytics portal to display information from the Philips VISICU eICU Program database and enables executives to view, share and analyze ICU data relating to their health system’s operations.

“In today’s data-intensive, fast-paced critical care environment, specialists often make critical life and death decisions for the patients under their care,” said Curtis Veal, M.D., Critical Care and eICU Medical Director for Swedish Medical Center. “We continue to utilize advanced systems like the eICU Program that facilitate shared access to both clinical and operational data for optimal delivery of patient care.”

Philips IntelliVue XDS
Philips and Microsoft will also demonstrate technology interoperability with a look at the first of Philips’ patient monitoring connectivity products, currently being adapted to run on Windows 7.

Philips IntelliVue XDS Clinical Workstation provides fast, convenient access to patient-focused clinical information from hospital IT systems on Philips IntelliVue monitors. XDS creates a flexible, customizable clinical workspace, combining patient monitoring views and IT applications, with the ability to interact freely among them to optimize patient care. By leveraging the user-friendly capabilities of Microsoft Windows 7, IntelliVue XDS will allows users the ability to launch multiple third-party IT applications within the familiar Windows environment.

To see the demonstrations at HIMSS, please visit the Philips Healthcare booth #1933 and Philips VISICU booth #2232.

The Eurostars Programme: Answering to the research ambitions of innovative small businesses

Monday, 8th of March 2010, 14:21:34–>

Over 300 applications representing more than 1000 applicants were received by 25 February 2010—the latest application deadline for the Eurostars SME joint research funding programme. More than 70% of applicants are small or medium enterprises (SMEs), the main target for Eurostars funding, proving that this SME-focussed programme indeed responds to this important sector’s needs and expectations.

Core Facts

1. ‘The number of applications has further increased since last September’s cut-off.

2. The Eurostars Independent Evaluation Panel (IEP)announced early this year that 112 of the 279 applications of the September 2009 application deadline had surpassed the quality threshold.

3. The National Funding Bodies funded 85 of these following a ranking list established by the IEP. National funding bodies from Eurostars-participating countries have provided 45 million euro in funding, with the European Community adding a further 15 million. National public funds allocated to projects have substantially increased in some participating countries, in order to better support the research excellence being carried out by SME-led project consortia under the auspices of Eurostars.

4. More than 70% of Eurostars participants are SMEs and more than 70% of public funding goes directly to these SMEs.

5. Eurostars is a joint initiative between the EU and 32 participating countries , managed by EUREKA, and is open to applications in all technological areas. While assessment and evaluation are conducted centrally in Brussels by an independent panel of technical and business experts, project applicants benefit from the bespoke business advice and expertise offered by EUREKA’s network of national project coordinators (NPCs) in each member country.

6. The strength of Eurostars lies in the commitment to funding from participating countries and the European Commission through its Seventh Framework Programme (FP7).

7. The next Eurostars application deadline is 30 September 2010.

more –>

Relevant Files

•  Name: PR-2010-01—Eurostars-4th-cut-off.pdf, Size: 96762 bytes, Download

Quotes

Luuk Borg, director of the EUREKA Secretariat in Brussels

Once again, the encouraging number of applications received for this February’s deadline shows the real value of Eurostars as a means of raising research ambitions in research-intensive SMEs. The number of applications has further increased since last September’s cut-off, which is really promising.

–Company information

EUREKA is one of the leading platforms for R&D-performing entrepreneurs in Europe. Founded in 1985, EUREKA now unites 39 member countries. Together, they promote international, market-oriented research and innovation through the support they offer to enterprises, universities and research institutes. Results stemming from EUREKA projects are everywhere: mp3, HDTV, mobile phone technology, navigation systems, smartcards to support mobile and electronic commerce, film special effects software for cinema, state-of-the-art medical devices and technologies to monitor and limit environmental pollution.

 

SAS has teamed up with Accenture to fight the threat created by IBM and Microsoft. According to SAS, this expanded SAS and Accenture partnership will accelerate clients’ business results with predictive analytics. SAS and Accenture are already working together, and current deal is an extension of their co-operative efforts.

IBM announced its new Business Analytics and Optimization service line earlier and since then there were speculation of Accenture moving closer to SAS. SAS might have chosen to remain independent and fought with competitors like SPSS, FICO and InfoCentribity, but Microsoft and IBM seem too heavy for the Analytics Tool Giant.

Microsoft has started providing Data Integration and Business Intelligence package along with its Data base system, MS SQL. MS SQL 2008 has Integration and Analytics service packages. This is no where close to what SAS and FICO has built in terms of Algorithmic Advancement, but it is preferred by IT Teams as it comes as a package with Database System. Same for IBM as well.

The other challenge is from SAP. After the acquisition of Business Objects, the company has nicely integrated OLAP and MIS Reporting in all its ERP packages making life difficult for other vendors to enter up the value chain for the clients.

Most of these Software Vendors entered Analytics from the base. They started providing Data Management Solutions, moved to Data Integration, OLAP and MIS Reporting, while finally landing at all integrated advanced Analytics solutions.

FICO came down the value chain from Analytics Consulting and Advanced Analytics products like Model Builder (Predictive Analytics Software), and  Triad (Business Rules Engine). FICO’s superiority can hardly be challenged in terms of its high end products sophistication as it uses techniques like Linear Machines, Neural Network and Support Vector Machines together coupled with intelligent decision processing engine that Mutates at different level of processing. This makes them stand at much higher level, but the company is losing business mostly due to lack of product focus and efficient marketing.

Analysts believe that after Mark Greene, an Ex-IBM verteran, became FICO CEO in 2007 the company has improved in both of these fronts and are trying to bring an integrated EDM Platform very soon. This might again change the game in the Analytics and BI Space.

Things are getting interesting. SAS and Accenture partnership will surely help both of these companies, but it is not free of challenges. They are threatened seriously, and from all angles.

Official Statement from SAS (taken from Email received from SAS News)

In the news this week, SAS and Accenture announced a game-changing step in the movement of business analytics. The two companies are expanding their current partnership to create the Accenture SAS Analytics Group, dedicated to developing, implementing and managing next-generation predictive analytics solutions.

This announcement comes on the heels of several others, making it a busy month in the world of business analytics:

• In The Forrester Wave: Predictive Analytics and Data Mining Solutions, Q1 2010, SAS earned top overall ranking in all three categories – current offering, strategy and market presence – including perfect scores for functionality, professional services, licensing and cost, direction, and company financials criteria.
• New research from Accenture shows that companies are recognizing the value of predictive analytics. Seventy-one percent of respondents said that their organization’s senior managers are “totally” or “highly” committed to analytics and fact-based decision-making. And the greatest long-term analytical priority? Developing the capabilities to model and predict. Take a look at the summary slides.
• The newly released book “Analytics at Work” provides a pragmatic guide to becoming an analytical competitor. This book builds upon the research and methods of Tom Davenport and Accenture’s Jeanne Harris in their previous blockbuster “Competing on Analytics.”

For patient care in North American, South American and Latin American markets, Philips has opened the doors to its healthcare Customer Care Solutions Center in Alpharetta, Georgia offering technology and local expertise to remotely support hospitals in keeping their equipment running.

The Philips Customer Care Solutions Center features a network that enables data downloads and image information, the company stated. Additionally, Philips said that the center is equipped with actual pieces of medical equipment so that technicians can attempt to replicate the problem without ever having to leave a call or put the customer on hold.

According to the Philips, the center handles 2,500 inquiries a day on average and more than a third of those are able to be fixed remotely. Service can be offered at a customer’s request, but often the medical equipment itself can send an alert to the service center and issues can be addressed or fixed remotely, according to the company.

BOCA RATON, Fla., Feb. 23, 2010 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Emergin, a Philips Healthcare company, announced today the availability of an interface between the Emergin alert management platform and the Voalte communication server to deliver alert message notifications from Emergin to the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch devices. This integration facilitates the orchestration of voice, alert, and text communications by leveraging the flexibility of the Apple platform.    

Voalte One is a unified communications solution enabling phone calls across the hospital VoIP system, text messaging via the user directory and user-friendly alert management through Emergin’s interface adapter. Through this interface, caregivers can receive and respond to alert messages dispatched by Emergin from an increasing array of input data systems and devices within the hospital.  

Two-way output integrations with the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch have been implemented at Sarasota Memorial Hospital in Sarasota, FL and Huntington Hospital in Pasadena, CA respectively. 

“Traditional communication methods, such as pagers, were not working for the hospital’s caregivers,” said Ron Rutherford, RN, director of informatics at Huntington Hospital. “We were in need of greater flexibility for accessing important information.”

“We were using antiquated pagers to receive alerts from our Philips patient monitors,” said Eunie Lee, RN at Huntington Hospital. “The pagers were slow and information was difficult to understand. Now we have clear, up-to-date notifications right at our fingertips.”

After an onsite workflow analysis, Voalte worked with Huntington Hospital and Emergin to design an implementation plan to facilitate more effective communication among nurses and other caregivers. The initial implementation phase focused on replacing the pager with the iPod Touch which was then integrated to Philips monitoring through an Emergin Patient Monitoring Gateway. Low and high priority ringtones were assigned to yellow and red alerts to automatically notify caregivers to the level of importance for the message.

The Emergin/Voalte solution then enabled “quick messaging” on the iPod Touch to facilitate real-time communication between caregivers. “The text messaging feature enables me to better prioritize my tasks and communicate more efficiently with my coworkers,” added Lee.

The results from implementation of the Emergin/Voalte solution at Huntington Hospital show a dramatic reduction in the number of phone calls made per shift and improved Press Ganey scores for the unit in the two categories, “noise in and around the room” and “response time to call bell.”

At Sarasota Memorial Hospital, hospital rooms and halls are a lot quieter as a result of the Emergin/Voalte integration with iPhones, which has significantly reduced overhead paging. After Sarasota’s implementation of the Emergin/Voalte solution, overhead paging frequency was reduced by 78%.

Following the success of the Emergin/Voalte integration at Sarasota Memorial Hospital, Huntington Hospital has initiated a project to replace legacy phones with iPhones and extend the Emergin/Voalte solution to the hospital’s in-house phone system. Huntington clinical staff will have voice, alert and text communications on one device. Phone numbers will automatically link to user names and each user will retain the same extension, regardless of device, further optimizing communications.

The Emergin alert management solution integrates to a broad suite of input medical devices, nurse call systems, and output communication devices.

US intros health IT task force

The White House will form an interagency task force to coordinate federal health IT programmes, reports Federal Computer Week.

Currently, lack of coordination among many councils and advisory groups is holding back progress, the memo said. “The fragmentation of current federal health IT responsibilities, programmes and coordinating mechanisms must be overcome to execute effectively the president’s programme,” says Peter Orszag, director of the Office of Management and Budget.The task force will be led by the Health and Human Services Department’s national coordinator for health IT, Dr David Blumenthal. The group is needed to facilitate president Obama’s health reform agenda and distributing $20 billion in economic stimulus law funding for health IT.

Health facility tracks physicians

South Jersey Healthcare Regional Medical Centre has deployed its Amelior Tracker system to automatically track and manage physician location and communication inside and outside the facility, states RFIDNews.

The installation at the 262-bed facility in Vineland, New Jersey will consist of department to facility-wide software solutions and services designed to coordinate care through the real-time patient flow.

The Web-based Amelior tracking software visualises workflow by automatically identifying the location of people and equipment and the care progression of patients.

In-home telemedicine study released

Mayo Clinic, GE Healthcare, and Intel have introduced an initiative to study the care and cost benefits of home-based health monitoring for elderly patients with chronic illnesses, writes InformationWeek.

During the year-long study, 200 high-risk patients over the age of 60 who suffer chronic conditions such as heart failure, diabetes, and lung disease will use at-home medical devices to take their vital signs, such as blood pressure, peak air flow, weight, or blood sugar readings.

The medical devices transmit the information to an Intel Health Guide remote patient monitoring system located in the patient’s home. Depending on the particular medical device, data is transmitted to the Intel Health Guide system either via wired or wireless connection, such as Bluetooth.

An Italian SME is looking for several partners from both industry and academy for a project to be submitted under the FP7-ICT-2009-6 call with deadline on 13/04/2010, specific objective 5.3 Virtual Physiological Human. The project will provide a reliable simulation solution to significantly enhance the effective results of demanding wrist surgical interventions by forecasting them on virtual patient-based models.

Description complète

The Italian SME looking for partners is specialised in high technology complex system development and integration, mainly with regard to software applications for simulation and real-time embedded systems. This company matured several years of experience integrating its simulation suite for virtual prototyping and real-time monitoring of complex objects in different activity fields.

The project for which partners are sought is aimed at providing surgeons with a framework for virtual surgery, focused on wrist pathologies. The framework will allow surgeons to evaluate how much the surgical intervention restores wrist functionalities. In this way, surgeons will be able to approach the same surgical intervention using as many different strategies as they want, compare them and, finally, choose the best one to be applied as the real surgical intervention. Moreover, the framework will allow appropriate training for apprentice surgeons, which will be able to learn by doing, in a virtual way, on the real cases available from the framework virtual library.
The proposed solution is based on a simulation computerized environment that manages user’s interaction with wrist 3D graphic models according to the corresponding biophysical models. This solution is proposed as the result of the integration of already available technologies and tools with new ones that will implement the algorithms resulting from the specifc scientific research applied to the project. The wrist 3D graphic models to be adopted will be generic models at first and later on patient’s effective models generated from TAC/RM images.

3 to 6/8 partners are currently needed in order to finalise the project proposal and the appropriate consortium building. The following partners/expertises would be particularly appreciated:

a) Research organisation (preferably): bioengineering / algorithm development for the description of tissues and wrist physical movements, reactions and modifications
b) SME/Research organisation: high-definition image processing for human tissues recognition (particularly for arm/wrist/hand)
c) SME (preferably): advanced 3D graphic modeling
d) SME/Research organisation: definition and development of software interface to patients’ databases
e) End-users (patient-side): hospitals and clinics / demonstration activities (typical end-user may deal with: e.g. arthritis and/or carpal tunnel and/or wrist related problems due to sport practice)
f) R&D + End-users (trainee-side): university, hospitals, clinics, SMEs active in training methods, models and instruments for surgeons / demonstration activities, joint development and integration with existing surgery training platforms
g) SME: active in the sector of biomedical ICT solutions with a keen interest for future commercialisation

Technical Specifications / Specific technical requirements:
Call identifier: FP7-ICT-2009-6
Challenge 5: Towards sustainable and personalised healthcare
Objective ICT-2009.5.3: Virtual Physiological Human
Project type: Collaborative project/STREP
Call deadline: 13/04/2010
Proposal development stage: under development, with 3 partners already identified
Requested EU funding: approx. ¬ 2M
Percentage of EU funding: 75%

Expertise recherchée:

- Type of partner sought: Both from industry and university

– Specific area of activity of the partner: Bioengineering, biomedicine, 3D graphic, simulation, virtualisation, surgery, training

– Task to be performed by the partner sought: Depending on further proposal development. The Italian SME could act as project coordinator but would also evaluate other possibilities, should a most suitable coordinator express a motivated interest in short time

Here’s an example of the type of opportunity we’ll be pursuing in the future. Apparently the pace of Calls and Awards will accelerate from now and there’ll be an increasing emphasis on the involvement of multiple SMEs in projects.

Why SMEs? Because they’re seen as the best hope of a) successful completion of projects (commercial rigour) and b) commercial exploitation.

That’s us!