This week’s list of data news highlights covers August 28, 2021 – September 3, 2021 and includes articles on forecasting drought conditions and performing spinal surgery with the help of augmented reality.
1. Providing Digital Identification
Apple has announced that iPhone users in Arizona, Georgia, Oklahoma, Connecticut, Kentucky, Maryland, Utah, and Iowa can add their driver’s licenses and state IDs to their Apple Wallet this fall. iPhone users can use the digital ID for daily activities and to prove their identity at security checkpoints in participating airports.
2. Predicting Ventilator Needs
Researchers at Case Western Reserve University have created an AI system that can predict which COVID-19 patients will need a ventilator. The team trained the system on CT scans of nearly 900 patients with COVID-19.
Motional, a U.S.-based autonomous car technology company, has expanded its autonomous vehicle operations into Los Angeles, California. The company will soon deploy a test fleet of autonomous vehicles outfitted with 30 sensors, including radar, lidar, ultrasound, and cameras.
4. Reconstructing Aerial Images
Researchers at Osaka University have developed an AI system that can remove clouds from aerial images. The system can help reconstruct images of buildings that are obscured by cloudy weather.
The Michigan Department of Corrections has partnered with Recidiviz, a U.S.-based nonprofit criminal justice data analysis organization, to establish a data platform for the state’s criminal justice system and identify factors that contribute to recidivism. Department officials will use the results to enact and evaluate measures to lower the state’s recidivism rate.
6. Accelerating Biopsy Analysis
Researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles have created an AI system that can virtually re-stain images of biopsied tissue samples with uncommon dyes to enhance their color and contrast and help pathologists better reach a preliminary diagnosis. The system can accelerate the re-staining process from several hours to less than a minute.
Egypt has started construction of a new capital that will feature smart city technologies. The city, known as the New Administrative Capital, will contain lamp posts that emit public WiFi, a network of 6,000 cameras to collect data on traffic, and a municipal waste system with sensors to identify leaks or faults.
8. Forecasting Drought Conditions
Scientists at James Cook University in Australia have developed an AI system that can forecast drought conditions. The system uses data on soil moisture, salinity, groundwater levels, and dam levels to predict the chances of drought conditions within 3 to 6 months.
9. Performing Surgery with Augmented Reality
Surgeons at Mountain View Hospital in Idaho Falls, Idaho have started wearing augmented reality headsets during spinal surgeries. The headset instructs surgeons on proper placement for screws in patients’ vertebrae.
Researchers at the University of Huddersfield and the South West Yorkshire NHS Trust have developed a machine learning model to screen patients for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). In tests, the model accurately identified 95 percent of cases.
Image credit: Flickr user dasroofless