It’s not so much machines we should worry about

In the 1940s a journalist asked Claude Shannon, one of the founders of information theory, “can machines think?” Shannon said, “I compute so.” Both his distinction, between thinking and computing, and their deliberate conflation in his aphorism help us understand the current spectacle around ‘AI’. Governments worldwide have moved from a position of “we’re catching up” ignorance, to embarking on “regulating AI”, to a self-regulatory Bill of Rights.

Read the full article on Page No. 14 in the Print edition of The Times of India dated 8th August 2023.

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Amazon unveils dozens of machine learning tools

Calling machine learning "one of the most disruptive technologies we will ever encounter in our generation," Amazon Machine Learning Vice President Swami Sivasubramanian introduced  a bevy of new tools Tuesday at AWS re:Invent. There will be nine new Amazon SageMaker capabilities, a HIPAA-eligible service for healthcare and life science organizations called Amazon HealthLake, and general availability for Amazon Neptune ML, he said.

Read the full article at:

https://www.techrepublic.com/article/amazon-unveils-dozens-of-machine-learning-tools/

How to Operationalize Your Machine Learning Projects

Operationalizing those data science, analytics, and machine learning projects is one of the top concerns of IT leaders. But the same tried-and-true best practices you've used for other IT projects can guide you on these new technologies, too.

Everyone knows that to compete in the future, you need to invest in machine learning, artificial intelligence, data, and analytics. But there still can be a big gap between knowing that you need to do it and figuring out how to do it in a way that is meaningful for your business.

Putting these technologies into production systems continues to be a challenge for many enterprises, according to Erick Brethenoux, a research director at Gartner.

To read the full article, visit:

https://www.informationweek.com/big-data/ai-machine-learning/how-to-operationalize-your-machine-learning-projects/d/d-id/1334323 (Accessed on April 5, 2019)

IISc engineers take fetch to a whole new level

India's first commercial walking robot Stoch uses machine learning to move around


The robot is the size of a small dog with four legs and a thick but flexible spine. When connected to a battery, it starts walking on slender, articulated limbs, like a canine. 

It even has a 'face' that looks vaguely like that of a pug. The developers at the Robert Bosch Centre for Cyber-physical Systems at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) are calling it 'Stoch' and they say it's on target to become the country's first commercial "walking" robot.

Stoch has been under development since January last year. The first version was displayed a month ago at Aero India - it was heavy-footed and clumsy. A sleeker second version was developed just two weeks ago and a third will be ready in three months. A commercial variant is about a year away. 

The robot uses machine learning to figure out how to walk by itself. Specifically, it uses reinforcement learning, where the machine learns over time to take the best possible action in return for the best reward. 

After several million attempts - performed in computer simulation - ؙthe robot learns to walk. Some Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and IISc have been working on such devices in the past few years. There aren't any commercial versions in the market and no institution other than IISc has a prototype that uses reinforcement learning to teach the robot to walk.

The IISc project started when a student, Shounak Bhattacharya, did a master's project in the department of mechanical engineering. After the project, the Bosch Centre at IISc took over development by bringing together professors from other departments. 

It also hired engineers and put together a development team. "We wanted to explore the field of data-driven robotics," said Bharadwaj Amrutur, professor of electrical engineering at IISc and chairman of the Robert Bosch Centre.

Data-driven robotics is a set of technologies that use data to get a robot to learn by itself. As the IISc project got off the ground, it was joined by Shishir Kolathaya from Georgia Tech University. Kolathaya, who has been working with walking robots since the undergraduate level, studied legged robots for his PhD.

When he joined, the Bosch Centre had a non-working prototype. The first real prototype - Stoch 1 - didn't carry batteries. Stoch 2 was twice as powerful, was designed to carry batteries and could walk for 15 minutes without being plugged into an electrical outlet. The third version will improve on looks and be even more powerful. The commercial prototype, when ready, will be bundled with an applica tion.

The Bosch team is mulling several applications - climbing coconut trees, doing surveys in difficult terrain, inspecting construction sites and so on. The project now has five engineers, apart from some faculty members. "We are planning to put a software development kit for people to programme," says Dhaivat Dholakiya, who is technical associate of the project.

Source: https://tech.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/technology/iisc-engineers-take-fetch-to-a-whole-new-level/68418892 (Accessed on 16 March, 2019)

The new mantra of healthcare

AI rewrites the prescription to ‘predict and then prevent’.

 The surgeon uses controls in the console to manipulate special surgical instruments that are smaller and more flexible than the human hand.

But the biggest inroads of robots in healthcare may be in the area of surgery. Robotic Surgery also known as Robot-assisted surgery, marries advanced computer technology with the skill and  experience of  a human surgeon. It is a method of  performing surgery using very small tools attached to a robotic arm. The surgeon controls and manipulates the arm from a computer console. The huge advantage is this: An electronic eye in the  robot arm sends back a high definition 3-D image, magnified 10 times, which the  surgeon can view on the computer screen: something not possible in conventional surgery.
Insta ECG
Headed by cardiologist Charit Bhograj, Tricog found a value proposition in that ubiquitous diagnostic tool the Electro Cardio Graph or ECG. The likelihood of surviving a heart attack is over 80 per cent if action is taken within the first two hours. However, the average time between symptoms and treatment in India is over 6 hours. By simply reducing this, millions of lives can be saved every year.
While heart attacks can be detected by a quick ECG, there are two constraints: First: most primary care clinics are not equipped with ECG machines. Second: Even where such machines are available, staff do not receive sufficient training in ECG interpretation. This is where Tricog steps in — by providing, the fast and accurate diagnosis of an ECG, by combining AI  Technology with human expertise. Tricog ECG devices, strategically located at local clinics help doctors detect heart complications within minutes. The devices are cloud-connected and accessed  by trained expert doctors. Within minutes of collecting the ECG results, the diagnosis is shared with both the patient and the doctor in real-time.
Analysing visual medical data
Bangalore-based SigTuple creates AI-based solutions to automate healthcare screening. It has built intelligent screening solutions to aid diagnosis through AI-powered analysis of visual medical data. The start-up founded by Apurv Anand and Rohit Pandey in 2015, has created an AI platform, Manthana, which helps analyse visual medical data efficiently. This analyses  blood, urine, semen etc — and chest X Rays.
‘Hot’ new way to check breast cancer
Most women are aware of the importance of checking early for any signs of breast cancer. And some still keep putting off a traditional test because of the hassle.
Machines assist Man
Care giving is hard work, tedious, boring and often emotionally draining. Most of it is done by the lowest paid rung of medical workers. And there is always a shortage of such staff. Which is why the healthcare assistive robot market  is seen as the most promising application of robots in medicine —  and an estimated $1.2 billion market within five years.

Healthcare  is poised at a crucial tipping point today. Thanks to technologies like AI, Machine Learning  and — new buzzword — Internet of Medical Things (IoMT), vast amounts of clinical data can now be gobbled up, digested and interpreted within seconds. The patient’s medical history, past and present lifestyle, living environment, personal habits, present medication and genetics can be rapidly analysed to predict future ailments that could conceivably lead to a life-threatening situation. This is where predictive healthcare morphs into preventive healthcare.

This — complemented by DNA testing — is already being touted as the next big technological advancement in healthcare. All this patient-centred data will go into one electronic window called Electronic Health Record (EHR), which may soon become a global standard: Your EHR will be accessible where ever you go ensuring you receive immediate care, anytime anywhere.

Philips, a leader in healthcare technology  is touting another avatar of AI: solutions that are secure, firmly grounded in scientific research, and validated in clinical practice. They call this combination of AI solutions and domain knowledge: adaptive intelligence. The company has  launched a global startup collaboration programme focused on the application of artificial intelligence in healthcare. One of the three centres is Bangalore. The India team screened more than 150 healthcare start-ups in the Asia-Pacific region that had AI and radiology as part of their proposition and the most promising five start-ups are being coached and facilitated today from Philips Innovation Campus, Bangalore.

In other ways too, India has become a fertile ground for startup innovators who are cannily marrying AI and medicine to provide new generation healthcare solutions. Here are the promising new ventures:

Robotic surgery

The surgeon uses controls in the console to manipulate special surgical instruments that are smaller and more flexible than the human hand. The robot replicates the surgeon’s hand movements, and eliminates  human shortcomings like hand tremors. The result: surgeons are able to perform the most complex procedures with a higher degree of precision, dexterity and control than humanly possible.

The All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, led the robotic revolution in India. The first robotic surgery (of the prostate) was performed at  AIIMS in July 2006. The first robotic device to perform surgical procedures was the da Vinci Surgical System launched in 2000 — and it remains the most widely used worldwide — there are some 60 installations in India alone. Robotic surgery  is increasingly used the for treatment of prostate, kidney and urinary bladder cancer   as well as for spine surgery. But in a country where such advanced technology tends to be concentrated in metros, can  robots  perform surgery remotely — with the surgeon miles away from the patient? This  exciting possibility became reality — a few months ago.

The CorPath  system from US-based Corindus Vascular Robotics  was used to conduct the world’s first-in-human robotic coronary surgery in India on  December 4 and 5, 2018. Five patients located at the Apex Heart Institute in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, underwent  the procedure from a distance of 32 km. It was performed by  Dr. Tejas Patel, Chairman and Chief Interventional Cardiologist of the Apex Heart Institute, from inside the Swaminarayan Akshardham temple in Gandhinagar. Robotic surgery is a done thing today and the option is increasingly available in India’s leading hospitals. Now after the  successful Ahmedabad trial, the Next Wave may well  be Tele Robotics — robotics surgery from afar.

Tricog:

SigTuple:

Their USP is the speed with which this data is analysed... enabling doctors  to make a quick diagnosis in life threatening situations.  SigTuple was given the ‘Judges’ Choice’ award at the Google’s first Demo Day Asia programme held in Shanghai, late last year.

Nirmal

Now maybe, more women will take the test —with a new procedure that is simple, non-invasive and radiation free. It is called NIRAMAI (Non-Invasive Risk Assessment with Machine Intelligence), and harnesses an innovation, Thermalytix, a combo of AI with thermal imaging — eat maps — to  detect breast cancer at an early stage.

NIRAMAI which means ‘free from illness’ in Sanskrit is a Bangalore-based tech startup cofounded by Dr Geetha Manjunath, earlier a Principal Research Scientist at Hewlett Packard Laboratories for 17 years and Nidhi Mathur, former Senior Product Manager at Xerox Research.  

The breast cancer test  is based on six patents and is currently available in Bangalore, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Pune, Mysore, Dehradun and Odisha.

Robotic health-givers

Walking robots that cart medication and supplies across hospitals are a common sight in some Japanese and American hospitals, replacing ‘runners’ and ward boys.

But what about a robot that wakes up elderly patients greet them with a human-like voice, help them out of bed and make sure they are clean  after  going to the toilet, then ensure they take their medicine? The Robot Caregiver is triggering a gold rush-like trend in end-of-life care and will soon enable many such patients to remain in their own homes. Robots with  brand names like  Paro, Tugs and  Bestic are available off the shelf, to assist the elderly.

Source URL: http://www.asianage.com/life/health/100319/the-new-mantra-of-healthcare.html (Accessed on 11 March, 2019)

Skills needed for future job market

India finds itself at a unique advantage when compared to other nations due to its young population. However, a young population is both an opportunity as well as a problem depending on how the advantage is utilised to boost the economy. The rapidly growing population indicates the urgent need for skill development in order to enable the growing population to have meaningful employment. An education that places an emphasis on imparting skills over rote learning and memorisation is necessary to ensure that the youth are gainfully employed.

For India to maintain its stature of being the largest provider of skilled programmers and technologists, we will have to ensure that its populace is skilled accordingly so as to remain competitive in the global arena. What follows are five important skills that will continue to be in high demand in the Indian job market in the years to come.

CODING

Coding or programming in languages such as Javascript or Python has consistently been a skill that is in high demand. Many companies in the past few years have produced both hardware and software that feature augmented reality and machine learning. Individuals who possess the skills required to create, design and refine applications that make the most of these technologies and application programming interfaces, will be able to consistently secure rewarding employment.

MACHINE LEARNING

Machine learning (ML) being a branch of Artificial Intelligence (AI), has proved itself to be one of the most important technological developments in the last few years as it facilitates algorithms and programes to continually learn and improve their efficiency with time. Individuals possessing a sound understanding of machine learning will ensure that they become integral components of both emerging and established corporations.

MOBILE DEVELOPMENT

Companies are constantly in need of mobile applications that make their product or service accessible to the growing target audience. An exciting direction in which mobile applications are currently headed in is integrating technologies such as augmented reality like Pokémon Go. Applications such as these blend elements from the environment around users making the content appearing on screen more engaging.

SEO/SEM

Companies are constantly on the lookout for individuals with digital marketing skills in order to be able to better their presence and visibility across the internet. This skill has an obvious advantage as greater exposure to users across the internet would result in more customers and thus revenue.

CYBER-SECURITY SPECIALISTS

It is no surprise that cybersecurity and information security are one of the highest paying and most wanted skillsets. Ransomware attacks such as WannaCry along with hardware vulnerabilities that were exhibited in MeltdownandSpectrehave become the new norm in modern society. As the world continues its reliance on outsourcing services such as cloud computing providers, coupled with internal networks that are vulnerable, the need for businesses to staff a skilled security team is of utmost importance.

These emerging skillsets will be evolving at an exponential pace and wrapping one’s head around them to stay ahead of the curve is essential. A young population can only become an asset if sufficient job opportunities are created and the youth is skilled enough to meet the aspirations of the populace.

The government has struck the right cords with ‘Skill India’ and ‘Make in India’ as well as providing the policy framework under ‘Ease of Doing Business’. However, a lot more needs to be done if we are to fully utilise youth potential. With focus on acquiring the required skillsets, the possibilities that lie before a youthful India are unlimited.

(The author is founder of Indian Institute of Digital Education)

Source: The Time of India dated March 4, 2019

IBM Uses Machine Learning to Lower Bottling Costs

IBM is helping Niagara Bottling lower production costs by using IBM Watson machine learning to gauge how far plastic film can stretch around bottle cases without breaking.

You're probably familiar with the thick plastic wrapping around a 24-pack of water bottles. The plastic is usually strong enough to prevent bottles from slipping through when carried. Water bottle manufacturers try to stretch this plastic during production to save money. However, there's a risk of breakage, which can cost a company the money it's trying to save. Therefore, water bottle manufacturers—such as bottled water company Niagara Bottling—are turning to IBM machine learning(ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) to help optimize the right amount of plastic that automatic pallet stretch-wrapping machines use. Ontario, California-based Niagara Bottling operates hundreds of these machines across more than 24 plants.

To read more, visit:

https://in.pcmag.com/tableau-desktop/128581/ibm-uses-machine-learning-to-lower-bottling-costs (Accessed on February 13, 2019)

10 best ML Researchers in India

Research in AI started soon after the Indian government launched the Knowledge-Based Computing Systems (KBCS) program in conjunction with the United Nations Development program in 1991. Later, a number of nodal centres were set up to focus on various research including expert systems in IIT Madras, a speech processing centre in Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, parallel processing in Indian Institute for Science, image processing in Indian Statistical Institute, and natural language processing in Centre for Development of Advanced Computing.

The top 10 names chosen by Analytics India Magazine were based on various parameters such as their PhD degree, patent papers and authored technical publications, pioneering work, knowledge and many more. We mined LinkedIn and H-Index data for the same. Here are top ten artificial intelligence and machine learning researchers presented in an alphabetical order.

Balaraman Ravindran

Professor Balaraman Ravindran of IIT Madras is one of the top Indian AI researchers in India and foremost reinforcement learning expert. He also heads Robert Bosch Centre for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence at IIT Madras. Ravindran did his PhD research from the University of Massachusetts. According to his Google Scholar profile, his academic work, which spans over two decades, has produced 170 research papers.

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Ravindran’s AI journey began in the late 1980s when he was doing his undergraduation from Thiagarajar College. According to his LinkedIn profile, his current research interest span the broader area of machine learning, ranging from spatiotemporal abstraction in reinforcement learning to social network analysis, and data mining. Much of his work is directed toward understanding interactions and learning from them.

Ravindran is also a co-organiser of several noted data science and AI-focused conferences, seminars and workshops in India.

Bidyut Baran Chaudhuri

Bidyut Baran Chaudhuri is the founding head of Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition Unit at ISI, Calcutta. His research areas are:

• Optical character recognition of Indian scripts
• Design of Indian language workstation for the blind: Bharati braille system
• Natural language processing in Indian languages including electronic dictionaries, word-processing editor, morphological processor and spell-checker design
• Pattern recognition and image processing
• Image data compression
• Optical communication and dielectric waveguides

According to ISI Calcutta website, he has published about 350 research papers in various international journals and conference proceedings. He has also authored five books titled Two Tone Image Processing and Recognition, Object-Oriented Programming: Fundamentals and Applications, Computer and Information technology Dictionary, Digital Document Processing, and Sound Symbolic Words in Bangla.

Chaudhuri obtained BSc (Hons) (1969), BTech (1972) and MTech (1974) degrees from Calcutta University and a PhD degree (1980) from IIT Kanpur.

Krithi Ramamritham

Krithi Ramamritham is a chair professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at IIT Bombay. According to his website, his current research involves applying computational approaches to energy management, based on the SMART principle: Sense Meaningfully, Analyze and Respond Timely. This work explores and extends state-of-the-art database systems, real-time computing, sensor networks, embedded systems, mobile computing and smart grids.

Ramamritham did his PhD in Computer Science from University of Utah (1981) and BTech in Electrical Engineering (1976), MTech in Computer Science from IIT Madras.

Nikhil R Pal

Nikhil R Pal is a professor in the Electronics and Communication Science Unit of Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata. His research interest includes pattern recognition, medical and satellite image analysis, fuzzy sets theory, neural networks, evolutionary computation, bioinformatics, and brain science. According to Researchgate website, Pal produced 299 papers. His research paper received over 14,000 citations.

He has co-authored a book titled Fuzzy Models and Algorithms for Pattern Recognition and Image Processing and Advances in Soft Computing. He also co-edited Advances in Pattern Recognition and Digital Techniques, ICAPRDT99 and Advanced Techniques in Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining.

Pal obtained his BSc (Physics) and MBA (Operation Research) degrees from the University of Calcutta and his MTech and PhD degrees in Computer Science from Indian Statistical Institute.

Pushpak Bhattacharya

IIT Patna director Pushpak Bhattacharya has recently been appointed as the chairman of the committee for standardisation in AI set up by the Bureau of Indian Standards under the Union Ministry of Consumer Affairs. Bhattacharya is known for his contribution to natural language processing and has several distinctions in the field.

He also heads the Natural language processing research group Centre For Indian Language Technology (CFILT) lab at IIT Bombay. His research areas are natural language processing, machine learning, cross-lingual IR and information extraction. According to his LinkedIn profile, he published more than 250 research papers and led government and industry projects of international and national importance. He has also authored a book titled Machine Translation. Bhattacharya received his BTech from IIT-Kharagpur in 1984 and did an MTech from IIT Kanpur in 1986.

Rajeev Rastogi

Rajeev Rastogi is the director of Machine Learning at Amazon, where is developing ML applications and platforms for the e-commerce giant. He has published over 200 papers and holds over 50 patents. His research paper Cure: An Efficient Clustering Algorithm For Large Databases received over 3,100 citations.

Before Amazon, he worked with Yahoo! Labs and Bell Labs Research Center in Bengaluru. Rastogi is active in the fields of databases, data mining and networking.

Rastogi received his BTech from IIT Bombay and a PhD degree in Computer Science from University of Texas, Austin.

Soumen Chakrabarti

Soumen Chakrabarti is a professor at IIT Bombay in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering. According to his Google Scholar profile, Chakrabarti has produced 167 research papers. His current research interests include:

• Better embedding representation for passages, entities, types and relation
• Searching the annotated Web with entities, types and relations
• Graph conductance search, which is supported by IBM and Microsoft.

Chakrabarti holds eight US patents on web-related inventions. He has authored one of the earliest books on web search and mining. He also wrote a book on web search and mining called,Mining the Web: Discovering Knowledge from Hypertext Data.

He has done his B.Tech from IIT Kharagpur (1991) and a Master’s (1992) and PhD (1996) in Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley.

Sankar Kumar Pal

Sankar Kumar Pal is a distinguished scientist and former Director of ISI, Calcutta. He has co-authored 17 books and more than 400 research publications in the areas of:

• Pattern recognition and machine learning
• Image processing
• Data mining and web intelligence
• Soft computing
• Neural nets
• Genetic algorithms
• Fuzzy sets
• Rough sets and bioinformatics

Pal ranked at 77 in Google H-Index and has been the recipient of the 2013 Padma Shri,1990 SS Bhatnagar Prize (most coveted accolade for a scientist in India) and many other prestigious awards in India and abroad.

Sanghamitra Bandyopadhyay

Sanghamitra Bandyopadhyay is the director of Indian Statistical Institute. According to the ISI website, she has authored and co-authored more than 300 research articles and has published six authored and edited books from publishers like Springer, World Scientific and Wiley. Her research interests include:

• Computational biology
• Bioinformatics
• Soft and evolutionary computation
• Pattern recognition using ML in large datasets
• Data Mining

Sanghamitra won the Infosys Prize 2017 in ‘Engineering and Computer Science’ category for her work on algorithmic optimisation and for its significant impact on biological data analysis. She was also awarded Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize in Engineering Science in 2010.

Bandyopadhyay did her BTech, MTech and PhD in Computer Science from Calcutta University, IIT Kharagpur and ISI.

Sunita Sarawagi

Sunita Sarawagi is a professor at IIT Bombay. Her current research interests are deep learning, web information extraction, data integration, graphical models and structured learning. Sarawagi has published more than 130 research papers and holds four patents. She was also a visiting scientist at Google Research. She obtained her BTech in Computer Science from IIT Kharagpur and PhD from University of California, Berkeley.

Source: https://www.analyticsindiamag.com/top-10-machine-learning-researchers-in-india/