Global
Health, Fraud
"There are a several reasons why fraud and waste are rife in the global
health sector. Donors tend to send money to ministries of health and other
organizations in large tranches, mostly because making smaller grants involves
higher transfer fees and bigger administrative burdens. This creates surpluses
and easy targets for graft. What’s more, supply chains in low- and
middle-income countries are often weak and opaque, sometimes involving dozens
of changes in custodianship before goods reach their destinations. Medicines
and equipment can easily go missing or expire–as 1.3 million doses of
pentavalent vaccine (a kind of vaccine that protects against five diseases) did
in Pakistan in 2015. The cost of identifying the breakdowns in supply chains
often outstrips the value of the goods that are lost.
Many
international organizations are trying to deal with these problems. Since July
2011, the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank,
the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and several others have
blacklisted 368 individuals and firms involved in corruption. But such scrutiny
takes money and time. The World Bank employs 417 people to monitor compliance
with its financial and procurement standards, and in a single investigation in
the case of Mali in 2010, the Global Fund reviewed some 59,000 documents.
Worse, auditors can only identify fraud that has already occurred. They cannot
track and stop problems as they develop. The result is that donors catch only a
fraction of transgressions, months or years after they have happened. And when
donors respond by suspending aid, patients suffer.
This is where blockchain
comes in. Commonly referred to as a distributed-ledger technology, blockchain
creates secure digital records of transactions that can be accessed by approved
users across a wide network. Every transaction validated by the network adds a
new “block” to the “chain,” creating an indelible record that can be accessed
in real time. A number of multinational corporations—from Walmart and IBM to
the mining giant BHP Billiton—are already using the technology to manage supply
chains, following goods as they move around the world."
Fall
Travel, Italy
"For
many travelers — both those who have had the chance to visit in person and
those who dream of it — a trip to Italy is
often envisioned in the summer, when they can stroll the piazzas eating
gelato or take a dip in Lake Como.
But
Italy, much like gelato, is
something to be enjoyed year-round, and one of the best times to go is
November.
Sandwiched
between the peak seasons of summer and the winter holidays, November is a time
when museum lines are shorter, restaurants are less crowded, and even airfare
dips. But those aren't the only reasons to book your trip now.
Aid groups could similarly use the technology to oversee medical
supplies as they travel from factory to patient. As a shipment of vaccines
approaches its destination, for instance, each of its handlers—from the crew
unloading the shipment at the airport to the courier bringing it by motorcycle
to a village clinic—could use a smartphone to tag it with a permanent,
real-time record of where it has been, when it was there, and who has dealt
with it. All these details would become part of the shipment’s digital
identity, creating a record of its custody and making it impossible for goods
to be stolen or replaced with counterfeits without the network being notified."
Immunotherapy,
Cancer, HIV
"Immunotherapies, and checkpoint inhibitors in
particular, were the first type of therapy that could truly transform cancer
patients into long-term survivors. While other therapies, including
chemotherapy, prolonged survival a couple of months, a certain percentage of
patients treated with checkpoint inhibitors, in the order of 10-20%, live on
for years.
Now, the next step is: how would you increase the number
of patients that benefit from it? And the answer was quite clear. Everybody is
trying to combine immunotherapy treatments to enhance the effect, and it works.
Currently, there are hundreds of combination trials ongoing worldwide.
Then, if you look at the complexity of the
immune system, there are so many targets that you can trigger. Many are still
there to be explored. And the whole medical community is learning so much about
how to treat cancer, how to tackle it. With every year, we are coming closer
and closer to making many cancer indications manageable diseases. The number of
patients that survive cancer today is much, much bigger than compared to the
past."
Artificial
Intelligence
"It wasn't so long ago that artificial intelligence was reserved to the realm
of science fiction according to the public. Skip ahead to 1997 and IBM's Deep Blue brought
real artificial intelligence into the public eye when it bested Chess Grandmaster Garry Kasparov in 2
matches(though losing the series 4-2). Fast-forward to last year and AI has
beat the masters in virtually every game you can think of, including Go(which
is both older and more difficult than Chess). From mastering games to
contemplating the meaning of life, AI has made major strides in recent years.
A fully developed, self-teaching AI unit is no longer a dream,
it has transitioned into an inevitability with the only real question being
"who will get their first?" There have been so many artificial
intelligence breakthroughs in recent years, it can be difficult to imagine what's
next.
So, in the hopes of shedding some light on that subject, here's a list of 5 AI trends to watch
in 2018."
Feel Good Story, Animal Rescue
"Zeus the dog was on a sailboat whose motor supposedly failed. The
USS Ashland came to the rescue."
