29.10.16

Local Clarendon County HS Football Team Scores and Schedules - October 29, 2016

The following are the latest scores and Win-Loss Records for all the local Clarendon County high school football team games that were played as of October 29, 2016:
  • Manning HS Monarchs beat Lake Marion 28-0.
  • Summerton's Scotts Branch Eagles lost to C.E. Murray 41-18.
  • Clarendon Hall Saints (2-6) - No Game/Score Reported.
  • Laurence Manning Academy (LMA) Swampcats beat Wilson Hall 28-0.
  • East Clarendon HS Wolverines beat Creek Bridge 14-12.
The following are links to the 2016 Football schedule, roster, and detailed stats for local high schools in Summerton and across Clarendon County, SC:
* Check out MAXPREPS, a CBSSports.com web site for football team standings, other sports teams at your school, and more detailed statistics.
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24.10.16

Whatever Happened to the 1st Century Apostles of Jesus



During the life and ministry of Jesus in the 1st Century A.D., the Apostles were his closest followers and became the primary teachers of the gospel message of Jesus. The word disciple is sometimes used interchangeably with apostle. The following are very brief glimpses into the life and death of the major apostles of Jesus.

  • Andrew was one of the original Twelve Apostles, a fisherman by trade, and the brother of Peter. After Jesus death, resurrection, and ascension, he went to the "land of the man-eaters," in what is now known as Russia. Christians there claim him as the first to bring the gospel to their land. He also preached in Asia Minor, modern-day Turkey, and in Greece. He is said to have been crucified on an X-shaped cross in Patras, Greece. After being whipped severely by seven soldiers they tied his body to the cross with cords to prolong his agony. His followers reported that, when he was led toward the cross, Andrew saluted it in these words: "I have long desired and expected this happy hour. The cross has been consecrated by the body of Christ hanging on it."
  • Bartholomew, also known as Nathaniel, was one of the original Twelve Apostles. He is noted for widespread missionary travels in Asia attributed to him by tradition. He is said to have traveled to India with Thomas, then to Armenia, Ethiopia and Southern Arabia. There are various accounts of how he met his death as a martyr for the gospel. It is said he was martyred for his preaching in Armenia where he was flayed to death by a whip and then beheaded.
  • Barnabas, a Cypriot Jew, was one of the early group of ‘seventy disciples’ who followed Christ.  He was not one of the original Twelve Apostles. He traveled extensively with Paul and successfully evangelized among the early ‘God-fearing’ Gentiles who attended synagogues in various in cities and towns within the Roman Empire. He traveled and preached throughout Italy and Cyprus. Christian tradition holds that Barnabas was martyred at Salamis, Cyprus, in AD 61. He is considered to be the founder of the Cypriot Orthodox Church.
  • James the Lesser, 'brother' of Jesus and Jude, was one of the original Twelve Apostles. He became one of the leaders of the church in Jerusalem. He is reckoned to have ministered in Syria. He was first stoned and then thrown over a hundred feet down from the southeast pinnacle of the Temple when he refused to deny his faith in Christ. When they discovered that he survived the fall, his enemies beat James to death with a club.
  • James the Greater, a son of Zebedee and brother of John, was a fisherman by trade when Jesus called him to a lifetime of ministry. He is said to have preached the Gospel in Iberia. As a strong leader of the church, James was ultimately beheaded in Jerusalem. The Roman officer who guarded James watched amazed as James defended his faith at his trial. Later, the officer walked beside James to the place of execution. Overcome by conviction, he declared his new faith to the judge and knelt beside James to accept beheading as a Christian.
  • John, a son of Zebedee and brother of James,  is the only one of the company generally thought to have died a natural death from old age.  He is said to have faced martyrdom when he was boiled in a huge basin of boiling oil during a wave of persecution in Rome during Emperor Domitian's reign in the 90's. However, he was miraculously delivered from death. He was then sentenced to the mines on the prison island of Patmos. There he is credited with writing the last book of the New Testament--the Revelation. The apostle John was later freed and returned to serve as Bishop of Edessa in the area of Ephesus. He died as an old man, the only apostle to die peacefully. He is said to have taken care of Mary the mother of Jesus in his home.
  • Jude, also known as Judas Thaddeus, was one of the original Twelve Apostles. He was a farmer and the 'brother' of Jesus and James. The Armenian Apostolic Church honors him as one of its patron saints. He was killed with arrows when he refused to deny his faith in Christ. Various traditions say he preached the Gospel in Mesopotamia, Persia and elsewhere, before he was martyred
  • Luke was not one of the original Twelve Apostles, but is venerated as one of the Four Evangelists. Early church fathers ascribed to him authorship of both the Gospel according to Luke and the book of Acts of the Apostles. It is said he was martyred, hanged by idolatrous priests on an olive tree in Greece. Others say Luke died at the ripe old age of 84 in Boeotia, Greece.
  • Matthew, also called Levi, was one of the original Twelve Apostles and author of one of the Gospels. He was a tax collector in Capernaum. For many years after the Lord's Resurrection he remained with the other apostles to work among his own people, the Jews. He is also said to have ministered in Persia and Ethiopia. Some of the oldest reports say he was not martyred, while others say he was stabbed to death by sword in the region of Ethiopia.
  • Mark is the traditionally ascribed author of the Gospel of Mark. Mark is said to have founded the Church of Alexandria in Egypt. Today, both the Coptic Orthodox Church and the Greek Orthodox Church of Alexandria claim to be successors to this original community. It is said he died in Alexandria after pagans dragged him by horses through the streets until he was dead.
  • Matthias was the apostle chosen to replace Judas Iscariot, following the betrayal of Jesus. According to the Book of Acts, he had been with Jesus from the time of His baptism by John until the Ascension. Tradition sends him to Syria and along the coast of the Caspian Sea with Andrew. He has been variously said to have been stoned to death, beheaded, or sentenced to death by burning.
  • Peter, also known as Simon, was known as the ‘Apostle of the Apostles’. Originally a fisherman, he played a leadership role and was with Jesus during events witnessed by the inner circle of the original apostles. It is believed he was crucified in Rome, upside down on an X-shaped cross at his own request, since he did not feel he was worthy to die in the same manner as his Lord.
  • Paul, also known as Saul of Tarsus, is generally considered one of the most important figures of the Apostolic Age even though he was not one of the original Twelve Apostles. Paul founded several churches across Asia Minor and Europe. During his lengthy imprisonment, he wrote his many epistles to the early churches. These letters, which taught many of the foundational doctrines of Christianity, form a large portion of the New Testament. He was subsequently tortured and then beheaded by the Emperor Nero in Rome in 67 A.D.  
  • Philip was one of the original Twelve Apostles. He was from Bethsaida, a fisherman's village, on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. He was supposedly married and had three daughters.  He apparently had an evangelical ministry in North Africa, then Syria and Greece. Clement of Alexandria affirmed that Philip, like the apostles Matthew and Thomas, died a natural death. Numerous others, however, maintained that he died a martyr at the age of 87, crucified upside down in Hierapolis during the reign of Roman Emperor Domitian.
  • Simon, one of the more obscure Apostles known as the Zealot, was related to Jude and James. He ministered in Persia, Syria, and Lebanon. He was supposedly killed around 65 A.D. in Persia, after refusing to sacrifice to the sun god.
  • Thomas, one of the original Twelve Apostles, He is informally called doubting Thomas because he doubted Jesus' resurrection when first told of it. He was probably most active in the area east of Syria. Tradition has him preaching as far east as India, where the ancient Marthoma Christians revere him as their founder. They claim that he died there when pierced through with the spears of four soldiers in India during one of his missionary trips to establish the church in the subcontinent in 72 A.D.

To conclude, most of our information about the deaths of the Apostles is derived from early church traditions. While tradition is often unreliable as to small details, it very seldom contains outright inventions. The Church historian Schumacher researched the lives of the apostles and recounted the history of their martyrdoms. See http://www.ecclesia.org/truth/martyrdom.html In addition, you might also want to check out http://www.catholic.org/ for more detail.
 

 

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22.10.16

Searching for Godot – Health 4.0 by 2040

1.0 – Introduction to Health 4.0


Health 4.0 focuses on collaboration, coherence, and convergence – or connecting all available health information, services, devices and people together in a more meaningful way. See Global Artificial Intelligence Network for 2040.

Future Scenario: By 2040, a space-based global artificial intelligence (AI) network of satellites will be put in place that will monitor and help provide healthcare to people on Earth and in colonies across our solar system on the Moon, Mars, and other locations. The system will be linked to massive global health data warehouses storing data from a wide range of health IT systems, e.g. Electronic Health Record (EHR) systems, Personal Health Records (PHR), Health Information Exchange (HIE) networks, wearable fitness trackers, implantable medical devices, clinical imaging systems, genomic databases and biorepositories, surgical robots, health research knowledgebases and more.

The space-based global AI system will monitor and analyze the health data gathered on all humans in real-time, detecting potential individual and public health issues. The global AI system will detect problems, diagnose them, send alerts to patients and their healthcare providers, and recommend treatment plans to resolve the healthcare issue. The system will also be interfaced to pharmacies, laboratories, health insurers, public health agencies, and other institutions as needed. The system will also be able to monitor a patient's progress, as well as adherence to recommended treatment plans. It will also seek to anticipate potential healthcare issues and provide preventive health and predictive health information tailored to each human.

 

Evolution of Health IT Systems

The following is a brief overview of the evolution and use of health information technology in the US since the late 1960's:
  • Health 1.0 (1970's – 1990) = Modular Health IT Systems, e.g. Patient Registration, Billing, Pharmacy, Lab…
  • Health 2.0 (1990's – 2010) = Integrated Electronic Health Record (EHR) Systems + Personal Health Records (PHR) + Clinical Imaging
  • Health 3.0 (2015 – 2030) = Networked EHR Systems + Genomic Information + Wearable & Implantable Sensor Data
  • Health 4.0 (2030 – 2040's) = Global Networked EHR Systems + Artificial Intelligence + Convergence of all Technologies Above + Real-Time Global Data Collection & Analysis
As we approach 2020, we are currently in the process of developing, and implementing Health 3.0 technologies and solutions in the US and other advanced nations across the globe. Preliminary design and pilot testing of some Health 4.0 solutions is just beginning.

Looking at 2040 and Beyond

Looking ahead to when Health 4.0 systems will finally start rolling into place, keep in mind some of the following predictions for Healthcare and Health IT systems by 2050. See Health 2020-2050.
  • By 2050 we will see more instances of global pandemics and the spread of deadly diseases as a by-product of the skyrocketing growth and migration of the global population.
  • Rise of 'Regenerative Medicine', Genetic Engineering, Stem Cell Research, and the development of 'Human Augmentation' technologies will dramatically alter people's life spans and capabilities.
  • Use of biorepositories and genomic information systems will further transform healthcare and help lower costs.
  • Emergence of future knowledge driven global health platform and solutions will be based on 'open' standards and technologies.


Selected Links




2.0 – Building a Global Artificial Intelligence Platform for Health 4.0


Futurist Ray Kurzweil has predicted that computers will be as smart as humans by 2030. By 2045, he claims 'artificial intelligence' systems may be a billion times more powerful than our unaided 'human intelligence'. Are you prepared for what this means?

In computer science, an ideal Artificial intelligence (AI) system is designed to mimic cognitive functions that humans associate with other human minds, such as “analyzing”, "learning" and "problem solving". Cognitive computers are self-learning artificial intelligence (AI) systems that can find patterns in massive collections of unstructured data and turn it into a presentable form for many others to use. For more detail, see Wikipedia.

The promise of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has always been just beyond the horizon, not quite realistic yet still visible to our imagination through movies and literature. At its inception, AI was initially deployed for highly selective defense or space exploration applications. However, over time it has steadily advanced and has begun to be utilized in many other industries, such as healthcare and manufacturing.


 Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Data-Driven Medicine

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and data-driven medicine are the next frontier in the healthcare revolution. Electronic Health Record (EHR) systems have been widely adopted by all major healthcare institutions across the US over the past decade. Now state and local Health Information Exchanges (HIE) networks are being deployed to allow access to data in the EHR systems by healthcare providers whenever or wherever it's needed.

In the meantime, consumers have been gradually starting to use Personal Health Record (PHR) systems that contain their patient data from the various EHR systems of healthcare institutions where they have been treated. Now we are seeing the growing use of other healthcare technologies that are also gathering and generating even more personal health data, e.g. wearable and implantable devices, genomic information systems and biorepositories, clinical imaging systems, and more.

It turns out that Medical data is the essential part of today's comprehensive healthcare systems. However, processing and analyzing the massive quantity of data now being generated by the wide range of converging health information technologies is almost too much to handle. It is an area the healthcare industry is struggling to come to grips with as it turns more and more to use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) as the means to gain control of the growing mountain of health related data.

Roughly every three years, the amount of medical data on the planet doubles in size. By 2020, it is expected to double every 73 days.

It is time to begin focusing more proactively on the design and development of a 'global healthcare platform for 2040' built on artificial intelligence (AI) technologies.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Healthcare

Analysts predict a tenfold growth of the use of artificial intelligence in healthcare in the next five years, for everything from cancer diagnosis to diet tips. According to Frost and Sullivan, healthcare providers will spend $6 billion per year on artificial intelligence tools by 2021. Google, IBM and Microsoft are all investing heavily in healthcare and analysts predict 30 percent of providers will run cognitive analytics on patient data by 2018. See Artificial Intelligence: There's Still Hope for the Human Race

Early types of these type of cognitive systems built on artificial intelligence (AI) technologies have already started entering the market. These include 'smart' triage systems that check patients’ symptoms against massive health data warehouses, then advise patients and providers what they should do next. Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems are also being used to help consumers when buying health insurance, to monitor biometric data from personal fitness trackers, analyzing genomic data to predict and potential life-threatening diseases, and much more.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is advancing rapidly and is in the process of transforming the face of healthcare. Just a few of the many areas in which AI is being used to affect practice management and healthcare services include Diagnosis and Treatment, Disease Management, Personal Health & Wellness, Utilization Management & Reimbursement. Read 5 Ways AI is Changing Healthcare.

Other areas where AI technology and data-driven systems can be designed, developed, and used to improve healthcare include:
  • Examining and analyzing genomic data on hundreds of millions of patients.
  • Building systems that gradually teach themselves to become more accurate in its diagnosis.
  • Improving the speed and accuracy of diagnosis for genetic diseases.
  • Unlocking the possibility of personalized preventive and medical treatment plans.
  • Regularly monitor patients’ biometric data to see they are complying with their treatment plans.
  • Helping healthcare providers deliver better low-cost, evidence-driven care to consumers.
  • Helping consumers to avoid costly visits to doctor offices and hospitals.
  • Giving everyone in the world the equivalent of a doctor in their pocket – or smartphone.
Future Scenario: By 2040, a space-based global artificial intelligence (AI) network of satellites will be in place that will monitor and help provide healthcare to people on Earth and in colonies across our solar system, e.g. Moon, Mars. The system will be linked to massive global health data warehouses storing data from a wide range of health IT systems, e.g. EHR, PHR, HIE, IoT devices...
 
The global AI system will monitor and analyze the health data gathered on all humans in real-time, detecting potential individual and public health issues. The system will detect problems, diagnose them, send alerts to patients and their healthcare providers, diagnose the problems and recommend treatment plans to resolve the healthcare issue. The system will also be interfaced to pharmacies, laboratories, health insurers, public health agencies, and other institutions as needed.


Current News & Activities

The following are a few selected articles you might want to read to get a better handle on the latest news about current activities related to Artificial Intelligence (AI) in healthcare:

Selected Issues

The following are some of the key issues that need to be addressed as we continue moving forward with the design, development, and use of AI technologies and data-drive healthcare information systems:

  • Ethics - This emerging issue is concerned with the moral behavior being programmed by humans into robots and other 'smart' machines, i.e. Roboethics.
  • Privacy & Security – This is always a key issue. When AI systems are turned loose to monitor all health information systems gathering data on all facets of your personal health, concerns about who has access to the data and who it is being shared with are just a few of the issues that must be adequately addressed upfront.
  • Jobs - The Bank of England has predicted that intelligent machines might take over 80 million American and 15 million British jobs, respectively over the next 10 to 20 years. The healthcare industry will not be immune to this change.
  • Legal Issues - One of the most important points of interest that needs to be hammered out first is the legality of these machines. When a doctor's gross negligence leads to a misdiagnoses and patient harm, the fault is placed squarely on the shoulders of the offending physician. But what happens when a similar situation befalls an AI system? If such a program were to misdiagnose a patient, who's to blame?
  • Open Source - Many new 'open source' tools are arriving that can now run on affordable hardware and allow individuals and small organizations to perform prodigious data crunching and predictive tasks. Read about H2O, OpenAI, and other machine learning and AI tools being used in healthcare at Open Health News. 

    * Check out the growing List of AI Projects on Wikipedia.
    Regenstrief Institute and Indiana University School of Informatics & Computing, recently examined open source algorithms and machine learning tools in public health reporting: The tools bested human reviewers in detecting cancer using pathology reports and did so faster than people. Indeed, more and more healthcare systems on the cutting edge are looking at ways to harness the power of AI, cognitive computing and machine learning. See Artificial intelligence and cognitive computing - Healthcare IT News

    Recommended Next Steps

    Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems today can learn in ways society once thought impossible, which has major implications for multiple industries – especially the healthcare industry. It is now time to begin focusing more proactively on a public-private sector collaboration to design and develop a 'global healthcare platform for 2040' built on artificial intelligence (AI) technologies.

    Many countries are beginning to support the idea of having a global healthcare network of data centers coupled with a state-of-the-art AI technology platform that will allow sort through all the data, standardize it, and put it into a form that is useful and easily understood by patients, healthcare providers, healthcare insurers, researchers, and other individuals and organizations.

    Any such global effort should keep in mind the key management strategies for success in the 21st century – Collaboration, Open Solutions, and continuous Innovation (COSI). Building such a global solution will require a massive global public-private sector partnership. Think of all the components that will need to converge to compose such a global solution – e.g. healthcare technologies, research, knowledge, organizations, and more.

    One final note, advances in AI and technology are helping create a futuristic human-to-machine and machine-to-human interaction that can best be described as an 'Invisible' User Interface (IUI) of the future that simply works non-stop in the background to monitor and improve health for everyone. It will just be there – serving mankind.

    Recommended Links
    Companies
    Systems & Projects
    News Sites
    Associations
    Journals


     3.0 - Invisible User Interface (IUI) for Health 4.0

    The Invisible User Interface (IUI) will be a key characteristic of next generation Health 4.0 systems.

    The emerging Invisible User Interface (IUI), also referred to as the Natural User Interface (NUI), involves a major paradigm shift in man machine interaction using a computer interface that will be basically invisible. Most computer interfaces today use artificial controls and tangible devices whose operation has to be learned, e.g. Windows, computer mouse, joystick. That's about to change big time with the convergence of multiple modern technologies. See Wikipedia.

    The Invisible User Interface (IUI) will include sound, touch, gesture, and tactile inputs and outputs as humans interact with an ever increasing numbers of 'smart' machines all around us, i.e. Internet of Things (IoT). The goal for system developers is to now make ubiquitous computing technology ever more simple to use – designing systems to seemingly be more intuitive and accessible for use by humans with minimal technical knowledge and expertise.

    Health 4.0 - Imagine a next generation Artificial Intelligence (AI) system linked to a massive global health data warehouse storing data from a wide range of health IT systems, e.g. Electronic Health Record (EHR) systems, Personal Health Records (PHR), Health Information Exchange (HIE) networks, wearable fitness trackers, implantable medical devices, clinical imaging systems, genomic databases and bio-repositories, health research knowledgebases, medical sensors and more.

    Health 4.0 Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems of the future will constantly monitor and analyze the health data gathered on humans in real-time, quietly detecting potential individual and public health issues in the background. It will detect problems and diagnose them, send alerts to patients and their healthcare providers, and generate treatment plans to resolve any healthcare issues. The system will also be interfaced to pharmacies, laboratories, health insurers, public health agencies, and other institutions as needed. The key is that most of this activity will be done quietly in the background.
     
    Health 4.0 systems will use a variety of emerging technologies that will allow an infrastructure of intelligent sensors embedded in our living and working environment to unobtrusively monitor your personal health data and then interact with you, your family, healthcare provider, and other concerned parties using a range advanced verbal and non-verbal communication technologies – think Amazon Echo or Apple's Siri personal assistants.


    Invisible User Interface (IUI)

    Today's computers can hear, see, read and understand humans better than ever before. Using advanced ambient intelligence devices embedded in the environment where we live and work, these emerging technologies will be able to monitor our movements, voice, glances, and even thoughts – causing these systems to respond and meet our needs in a variety of ways.

    These technologies are opening a world of opportunities for AI-powered systems to interact and serve us using next generation Invisible User Interfaces (IUI). Think about it! Our words and natural gestures will trigger interactions with computer systems and the Internet of Things (IoT) all around us, just as if we were communicating to another person. Essentially, we'll be doing away with old-fashioned 'screens', today's graphical user interface (GUI), and the ever growing number of mobile apps.

    Building the Invisible User Interface (IUI) is a new way of approaching the user experience that thinks beyond the screen. The goal is to design systems to better fit within our lives, rather than forcing us to adapt to the machines we use. Key features of the IUI and future systems include:
    • Anticipatory design of new products and experiences that use constantly available, real-time data to anticipate what customers need and want to do next.
    • Personalization is the way that companies can better connect and interact with their customers, giving them the information they need in a way that feels more 'human'.
    • Ambient communication involving an infrastructure of intelligent sensors that will be embedded in our living and working environment – including wearable and implantable systems.
    • Artificial Intelligence (AI) will be needed to monitor, analyze, and take action based on the wide array of data being collected on each person.
    • 'Deep learning' is the process of teaching computers to understand and solve a problem by itself, rather than having engineers code each and every solution.

     

    Examples of Systems using Invisible User Interfaces (IUI)


    The following are some current examples of emerging next generation apps and interfaces to tomorrow's information systems. What makes them special is that they use a non-traditional invisible or conversational user interfaces as their means of interaction with humans - Read 'No UI' Is The New UI.
    • Amazon Echo – Voice interaction device capable of accepting commands and providing a wide range of information to you upon request. It can also control smart devices in your home.
    • Braingate - Creating and testing transformative neurotechnologies to restore communication, mobility, and independence of people with neurologic disease, injury, or limb loss.
    • Emotiv – Creating mobile EEG wearable systems, providing access to advanced brain monitoring and cognitive assessment technologies. Read Telepathy and Brain Interface
    • FitBit – Creating wearable fitness and health tracking devices for individuals.
    • Magic – This company provides access to a 'smart' personal assistant set of services to meet a range of customer needs.
    • 'M' by Facebook - A personal assistant powered by artificial intelligence (AI) that’s integrated with Messenger to help complete tasks and find information on your behalf.
    • TIII Project – Collaborative research project focus on developing tangible, intuitive, interactive interfaces (TIII) for the future.
    • Wii – Uses a handheld pointing device for interacting with the Wii computerized game system that detects movement in three dimensions.

    * You might also want to explore Google Glass, Hexoskin, and other 'smart' wearable systems.

     

    Conclusions and Next Steps


    How people communicate with each other is very different from how people interact with machines. The trend in computer systems design now involves looking more closely at how humans interact and communicate intuitively. The goal is to teach computers, machines, and the Internet of Things (IoT) to better comprehend and communicate with humans.

    ‘The most profound technologies are those that disappear. They weave themselves into the fabric of everyday life until they are indistinguishable from it.’ That’s what computer scientist Mark Weiser wrote in his famous article The Computer for the 21st Century, originally published in 1991.

    In the relatively near future, we will be interacting with computers all around us without noticing them. This ties in closely with the Invisible User Interface (IUI) and the rapid growth of the Internet of Things (IoT), which includes wearable, implantable, and embedded health sensors.

    Collaboration, Coherence, and Convergence will be the key to industry efforts to challenge the current generation of health IT and healthcare delivery systems. Efforts are already underway to design and build the next generation healthcare systems – Read Global Health 4.0 for 2040 and Beyond

    Other Selected Links






    Conclusion - Global collaboration, 'open' solutions, and convergence of the many innovative technologies currently under development are key for plans to build and deploy Health 4.0 by 2040.


    * Send us your suggestions and ideas on the development of Health 4.0 
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