How Machine Learning Enables Clinical Forecasting, Visualization
“The main problem with using machine learning in clinical care – and being able
to make changes therein – is that there are many preprocessing design decisions
that will affect the performance of the model. With this tool, healthcare
experts are able to select those at their own location so that when they go to
train these models, they're focused on the very specific task at hand,” said
Weiss. By seeing the impact of their design choices, users can understand their
data more completely and adjust machine learning settings for their analysis.
The tool allows healthcare experts to develop algorithms tailored to their
patients and organizations. “If you were to use a risk scoring system from
another site, they might have defined the population based on the patient data
that were available at entry and at the beginning of the hospitalization. But
then the physician might want to have a risk score for a little bit later in
treatment, maybe the first or second day after they've entered and they've
already been stabilized,” Weiss explained. “The outside model will not be
tailored to that population and could give misleading predictions. Using
TL-Lite, the physician can quickly train a model with the risk profiles for the
particular population they’re interested in evaluating.”
On the Road to Good Cloud Security: Are We There Yet?
Although most IT security teams are well past being the department of no when
it comes to cloud initiatives, many are still struggling with how to best
secure those cloud-based assets — at least when they are tasked with doing so
... The research also uncovered a disconnect that raises the question: Is that
confidence misplaced? When asked to rate the level of visibility the security
team had into their organization's use of specific cloud service types,
including software-as-a-service (SaaS), platform-as-a-service (PaaS), and
infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS), that same level of confidence faltered.
For example, when asked to rate the security team's level of visibility into
their organization's SaaS usage on a five-point scale, with 1 being the
highest level, only 18% gave it a 1 and 27% gave it a 2. Visibility into PaaS
and IaaS was rated as only slightly better. At the same time, respondents'
knowledge of the shared responsibility model was found to be lacking. When
asked to indicate whether the customer or cloud provider was responsible for
securing a list of seven different elements that make up an IaaS account,
around half of respondents gave the wrong answer.
Digital Identity: Fulfilling Consumer Cravings for Elevated ‘Digital Experience’
Whilst some organisations have embraced this potential to strengthen their
bond with consumers, others have not been as future-forward, even though 82%
of business executives recognise that customer experience is directly
intertwined with revenue growth, according to Forrester. It is no longer
sufficient for organisations to ‘digitise’ through newly hosting existing
products and services on online platforms. Consumer delight is won through the
ability to identify market gaps, capitalise on the latest technological
capabilities and improve upon existing standards and quality of life that is
already on offer. If it is not clear how a product, service and experience is
able to add to their existing digital portfolio it is not pushing market
boundaries or entertaining consumer curiosities. The sensitivity of this
digital shift is clear; companies must ensure that throughout their digital
strategy they consider consumer experience as the key driver for change. This
means listening to the wants and needs of consumer trends, working along the
tide of consumer behaviour to ensure their business remains attractive,
socially relevant, and profitable.
How agile can power frontline excellence
The strategic choices that companies make often don’t filter down to the
hearts and minds of frontline workers. But what if sales employees could
exercise informed judgment, become entrepreneurs within the enterprise, and
conduct short-term experiments and share ideas on what works? Magic can happen
if frontline employees understand how their targets link to strategic
objectives and how their work contributes to wider company success. In agile
sales organizations, the average frontline employee receives more information
and is included in communications about the purpose of, and strategic choices
for, the organization as a whole. Communication is more inclusive and
interactive. These agile organizations foster dialogue and understand how
sales functions can drive the strategic agenda using customer feedback. They
operate from the belief that empowered employees will make more and better
emotional connections with customers, leading to greater engagement on both
ends and a stronger, longer, and broader relationship as a result. In
addition, in agile sales organizations, the number of performance indicators
is drastically reduced to a set of clear outcomes to focus energy on the
things that matter most through the lens of the strategic aspiration.
Open Source vs. Proprietary DataOps
One advantage of open source is in its flexibility and availability. Open
source licenses, excluding the SSPL, gives users incredible freedom over what
they can do with the software. If you have the skill, you can compose a
DataOps pipeline that can take any data, enrich it and route it to the right
place. That flexibility, though, is also a downside. While you can do anything
you want, you also have to do it. Open source projects like Kafka, Pulsar,
Spark, Airflow and Flink don’t know anything about the data they’re handling.
That’s up to the developer. This may not sound like a problem, but today’s
data engineers are handling dozens of data types in hundreds – or even
thousands – of different formats. If you add in operational data, you’re also
looking at data flooding in from firewalls, containers, SNMP traps and HTTP
sources. And that’s just what’s coming at you. You also need to fetch data
from object stores, multiple activity hubs and other messaging sources. No
open source project natively supports the variety and volumes of data required
in a modern DataOps pipeline.
What’s the Difference Between Solution Architecture and Design?
As a Technical Lead, I was the communication point for my team as well as
leading the actual solution delivery, getting my hands dirty. As a Solution
Architect, I became untethered from delivery, sitting outside of the teams
doing the actual work. But in both roles, I was producing designs. So is the
distinction down to whether or not you write code yourself? Is the answer that
Architects don’t get their hands dirty? Absolutely not. That’s just a feature
of the organisations you work with, and what they expect from their Solution
Architects. My experiences as a Solution Architect just so happen to be with
organisations where the role doesn’t touch code — either as a result of
outsourcing Delivery or having internal Product Engineers to do the build.
Other organisations will have Solution Architects more embedded within
Delivery teams, t-shaping to provide additional value. ... In the Agile
organisations I’ve worked for over the last few years, Solution Architecture
has been best deployed in the early stages of a change to produce a vision of
the solution and how it fits into the existing landscape, identifying impacts,
opportunities and risks associated with the change.
4 Ways Your Small Business Can Benefit From Blockchain
The first thing a business can do to adopt blockchain technology is to simply
accept cryptocurrency as a method of payment. What signals more of a
commitment to blockchain than allowing customers to pay with bitcoin or other
cryptocurrencies? The rollout will require a lot of planning and testing, as
traditional merchant services are not set up to accept bitcoin. As such, a
small business will need to evaluate and spend money on a digital wallet, a
merchant gateway or a combination of services needed to accept the
cryptocurrency from customers. ... Businesses can use blockchain for smart
contracts, which are basically self-verifying, self-enforcing contracts.
Stored within a blockchain ledger, the contract is recorded in a way that
cannot be changed or manipulated. Smart contract examples include commercial
leases, agreements with vendors or suppliers and even employee contracts.
Smart contracts offer small businesses a level of protection it would
otherwise never be able to afford. The middleman — usually an attorney — would
not be needed in a smart contract, and as such, a business would have lower
costs.
What’s limiting digital transformation initiatives?
CXOs are aware of the need to adopt a cloud-first approach and change the way
IT is delivered in response to the digital acceleration brought about by
COVID-19. Many have already done so, with 91% increasing their cloud services
usage in the first months of the pandemic, and the majority will continue to
do so, with 60% planning to add more cloud services to their IT delivery
strategy. However, while businesses recognize the need to accelerate their DX
journeys over the next 12 months, 40% acknowledge that economic uncertainty
poses a threat to their DX initiatives. As organizations increasingly adopt
modern IT services at rapid pace, inadequate data protection capabilities and
resources will lead to DX initiatives faltering, even failing. CXOs already
feel the impact, with 30% admitting that their DX initiatives have slowed or
halted in the past 12 months. The impediments to transformation are
multi-faceted, including IT teams being too focused on maintaining operations
during the pandemic (53%), a dependency on legacy IT systems (51%) and a lack
of IT staff skills to implement new technology (49%).
Apple’s iPhone factories are Industry 4.0 rock stars
Apple being Apple, we don’t know too much about how the company and its
manufacturing partners are making use of AI, Internet of Things and
connectivity on the factory floor, but we have seen a few examples, such as
its Daisy recycling robot. We do know that Foxconn’s state of the art "lights
off' Shenzen factory is highly-automated with robots deployed across the
production line, reducing its reliance on human workers. The WEF has praised
that factory, noting a 30% increase in production efficiency and a 15% lower
inventory cycle. Broadening our understanding a little, it claims the factory
"utilizes a fully automated manufacturing process," and has an "automated
optimization system for Machine Learning and AI devices, an intelligent
self-maintenance system, and an intelligent real-time monitoring system.”
Foxconn’s Chengdu plant has seen efficiency increase by 200% through the
adoption of mixed reality, AI, and IoT technologies. Foxconn says it put these
technologies in place to resolve rapid business growth when it faced a lack of
skilled workers, presumably on the iPhone production line.
Remote work, one year in: 5 ways to boost mental health
Research consistently shows that social interaction plays an essential role in
well-being, which in turn has a positive impact on employee engagement and
performance. Building social connections is much easier when you’re in the
office; chats at the coffee machine or catch-ups over lunch are all part of
normal working life. If someone is stressed, you can usually pick up on the
signs. However, opportunities to communicate diminish when you’re working from
home, and it can be difficult to know how people are really feeling. Make a
conscious effort to encourage personal connections to help prevent people from
feeling isolated. This is even more important given social distancing
measures, which have left many without their usual support network. Check in
regularly with your team members on an individual basis, especially those with
heavy workloads or who live alone. Build in time at the start of calls for a
general catch-up. Not everyone is comfortable chatting on the phone, so also
consider using instant messaging to keep the channels of communication
open.
Quote for the day:
“Successful people are not gifted;
they just work hard, then succeed on purpose.” -- G.K. Nielson
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