Nobody ever mentioned or should care about motivation for this. What counts is the collected data and the benefits we as a society get from understanding extreme weather like that in order to better predict it in the future. I don't care if the scientists do it for fun or because they love people or money (hint: it's not the money in science!) but I do care about the results. Frankly most scientists I know are very down-to-earth and approachable people and I'm not sure where you got your extremely negative opinion on them.
So when your doctor asks for your family history he is just doing small talk? No, he is checking for genetic factors in regards to current or future illnesses.
The idea behind their statistics is to compare two groups, group A with autism and group B without autism. This allows them to not worry about WHY there are difference but allows them to show WHERE these differences are found (in their NMR samples). By demonstrating that there is a very low likelihood that these differences in the two groups appeared by chance they have shown that there likely is a difference that can be shown. If they are correct, this can point other biologists to areas of interest to investigate.
Yeah! Somebody needs to stand up to these experts! In all seriousness though, the article only says that in the future this MIGHT lead to a way to diagnose autism. It's highly likely that by then they will have thought of your genius observation with eating different foods? Do you have ANY clue how medical tests are developed and controlled? Doctors are very well aware of false positives etc and do keep those in mind. The idea is that a test has overall statistical benefit to give a large degree of certainty to most. I know it's cool to debunk fake science but this is merely an experimental result, nobody ever claimed this is the holy grail of diagnosing autism.
To be fair, he could have meant it economically and that would make some sense too. The US has little to no industry left and primarily produces knowledge/intellectual property. In order to keep up with other countries it makes sense to focus on "technical superiority" (even though that ship might have sailed a while ago...)
It all depends on who you call an expert. A scientifically renown professor doesn't really compare to a "crop circle expert"... Also nobody ever said that bumbebees can't fly, more that they hadn't figured out how.
In the end it all boils down to using this data for advertising (what else could you use this data for to make money as a company?). I don't think it's an exciting development at all, rather it's a pretty boring topic to me: finding out whom to best sell different products to. I just cannot get excited about a problem that doesn't really do anything productive / create anything of true value. Personally I don't have any problems figuring out how to spend my money and actually dislike the idea of being advertised to specifically. In the end we have to realize that no wealth is created by these technologies: there is only so much money to go around for people to buy products. All these advertisement datasets help is finding new ways to get people to spend their money on the "right" thing for them but it doesn't actually create cool new products or give people more money to buy products. Maybe I'm overlooking some exciting key aspect to these datasets (social analysis maybe?) but Im not yet convinced that this is not yet another bubble.
and text has to be pretty large for this to function adequately. Tracking progress through a text, sure - but the current state is that we can't tell EXACTLY where the user is looking (the size of the red dot in the video is extremely misleading). We can narrow it down to about the size of a quarter on the screen. Likely not enough for "on the fly translations" of single words but definitely enough for some simpler things (like tracking which ads you're looking at).
You are getting the parties confused here. The guy making the statement was an idiot, but the guy who took him up on an obviously idiotic and ridiculous claim is the douchebag.
Let me emphasize here that the law-student who's now suing is actively trying to bankrupt some guy who made a dumb statement... Did he seriously believe that the guy would put up $1 million? No, he knew he was exaggerating but is now trying to cash in.
Let's also keep in mind that this is a murder case in which the lawyer tried to prove his client's innocence. This student's trying to profit from a murder case is disgusting.
Even better, require no human verification but automated image analysis. Yes it will require some major research effort but we are at a stage where it's possible to detect anomalies on such images. If something suspicious gets flagged a personal search can be performed.
(There are issues with this approach: imagine being a person that always sets off the scanner for instance...)
Undoubtedly there are many issue with the peer review process but it's not an old-boys network as you claim. Every respectable journal or conference blinds all reviews so the reviewers don't know whose papers they are reviewing.
Of course there are terrible conferences like this one (and many other commentators have mentioned this) since anybody can create a conference.
Also, to say that all CS research is done by developers shows a lack of understanding what most true research in CS is.
I'd like to invite you to go ahead an take the MCAT (medical school admissions test), it is all core science. In order to get into medical school you need to complete your pre-medical requirements - again, all core sciences.
I'm not sure which journals your friend subscribes to but the big ones have research articles and not how-to guides.
I think a big confusion stems from the distinction between magazines and peer-reviewed journals.
If anything, today's doctors need to know more science than ever before and medical schools are adapting to this.
In any case, the treatment guidelines that are published rely on core-science and studies. When trying to decide if to vaccinate your children these treatment guidelines are already designed to maximize benefits for most people.
You, as a consumer certainly can and should try to understand the reasoning behind the treatments offered and you can easily go ahead and read all the peer reviewed journal-articles published on the topic to get an accurate picture. But then again, you will not be able to understand every important detail and have to rely on the judgment of experts in the field to make your call. This is what PEER-REVIEW is for and that's the biggest difference between mechanics and doctors. Doctors base their information on publications that were critically reviewed and approved (also by regulatory agencies) to be beneficial to you.
Don't believe this man! After paying him almost $1 for his services the account "Anonymous Coward" he gave me still posts with a score of zero.
Don't be fooled by Slashdot karma farming!
Textbook publishers artificially change problems and sometimes even just problem numbering that students then get assigned as homework. Having that latest copy is essential to the students for mostly this reason...
You have a good point there and I agree that negative reviews also can be quite useful. However I feel like this was less of a real book review but more of a bashing of a book the author deemed especially silly. Many of/.'s book reviews are well researched and full of good information but this was simply a humor-piece, trying to only make fun of the book... (thus the placement in the idle section)
The "review" did not give me any useful information whatsoever, I was expecting at least some interesting insight or real argument but what I found was just unnecessary bashing of this one book.
Please keep stuff like this without substance off the front page, there are plenty of articles and topics out there that deserve that spot.
This is the idea behind nurse practitioners / physician's assistants. They can handle probably about two thirds of the cases you'd see a doctor for. The great advantage however comes to the minority of people who actually have some underlying disease that is causing the symptoms. Years of medical school and the art of differential diagnosis can't be duplicated on websites - it's important that someone who gets the whole picture sees you in order to diagnose you.
Personally, I think you should be able to chose yourself: if you want to take the risk of diagnosing yourself that's fine. But please be aware that often things aren't as simple as they seem.
A doctor I know once said about his work: "My work as a general practitioner is very repetitive but you still have to be on your feet at all times. The whole day you see simple cases that anyone could diagnose but you have to be very careful to not miss that one case a day that looks like all the others but really needs your help."
The problem here is in the numbers. While it's true that only a subset of people will benefit thrombolytics for stroke such as tPA, approaches like these would increase the number of people that actually receive them. Stroke is the third leading cause of death in the US and with that many people even an improvement of 0.1% in efficiency would save many many lives. Now thrombolytics are dangerous, that is a fact, but they can also work extremely well against ischemic stroke (blood clots in the brain). However, they become less and less useful as time goes on and brain tissue dies, thus their ratio of advantage VS risk decreases rapidly over time.
Currently, thrombolytics are given in the hospital once a stroke is confirmed. This is often only done in higher level facilites. EMS issues a stroke alert and drives to the closest hospital that has the capability of treating stroke. Now if they could handle stroke with thrombolytics at any small hospital (by getting the opinion of a remote expert) delays by transfering patients to a stroke center / rerouting by EMS could be avoided.
I agree that there are many more useful clinical scenarios for this, but simply due to the very large number of affected people (and the relatively few hospitals equipped to handle strokes well), this could benefit many!
Actually stopping to enslave these workers would create more jobs. If you dont have one person doing 12 hour shifts 7 days a week you need to hire two to do 8 hour days, 5 days a week. (roughly)
The only issue is that now the consumer has to pay more for their purchases, though one could argue that in turn management benefits could be reduced to make things a bit more fair.
The idea behind minimum wage is that that's the minimum price of a person working for one hour and doesn't depend on what work they do.
Why is the work of a high-school student or college kid worth less when compared to other relatively unskilled labor?
I don't think the motivation for building this had anything to do with compensation or payment. Socialized medicine really just means to provide equal care to all. (and in Western states this means excellent care - check life expectancy statistics!)
Having highly motivated peers is amazing in that courses are more challenging and also rewarding.
However for me the biggest benefit of a top-school really is having access to the amazing research going on. It is incredibly easy to be part of great projects and this is what you cannot find everywhere.
Slashdot Mirror
Nobody ever mentioned or should care about motivation for this. What counts is the collected data and the benefits we as a society get from understanding extreme weather like that in order to better predict it in the future. I don't care if the scientists do it for fun or because they love people or money (hint: it's not the money in science!) but I do care about the results. Frankly most scientists I know are very down-to-earth and approachable people and I'm not sure where you got your extremely negative opinion on them.
Phase I clinical trials are healthy subjects only, you are thinking of phases II and III of clinical trials.
So when your doctor asks for your family history he is just doing small talk? No, he is checking for genetic factors in regards to current or future illnesses.
The idea behind their statistics is to compare two groups, group A with autism and group B without autism. This allows them to not worry about WHY there are difference but allows them to show WHERE these differences are found (in their NMR samples). By demonstrating that there is a very low likelihood that these differences in the two groups appeared by chance they have shown that there likely is a difference that can be shown. If they are correct, this can point other biologists to areas of interest to investigate.
Yeah! Somebody needs to stand up to these experts! In all seriousness though, the article only says that in the future this MIGHT lead to a way to diagnose autism. It's highly likely that by then they will have thought of your genius observation with eating different foods? Do you have ANY clue how medical tests are developed and controlled? Doctors are very well aware of false positives etc and do keep those in mind. The idea is that a test has overall statistical benefit to give a large degree of certainty to most. I know it's cool to debunk fake science but this is merely an experimental result, nobody ever claimed this is the holy grail of diagnosing autism.
To be fair, he could have meant it economically and that would make some sense too. The US has little to no industry left and primarily produces knowledge/intellectual property. In order to keep up with other countries it makes sense to focus on "technical superiority" (even though that ship might have sailed a while ago...)
It all depends on who you call an expert. A scientifically renown professor doesn't really compare to a "crop circle expert"... Also nobody ever said that bumbebees can't fly, more that they hadn't figured out how.
In the end it all boils down to using this data for advertising (what else could you use this data for to make money as a company?). I don't think it's an exciting development at all, rather it's a pretty boring topic to me: finding out whom to best sell different products to. I just cannot get excited about a problem that doesn't really do anything productive / create anything of true value. Personally I don't have any problems figuring out how to spend my money and actually dislike the idea of being advertised to specifically. In the end we have to realize that no wealth is created by these technologies: there is only so much money to go around for people to buy products. All these advertisement datasets help is finding new ways to get people to spend their money on the "right" thing for them but it doesn't actually create cool new products or give people more money to buy products. Maybe I'm overlooking some exciting key aspect to these datasets (social analysis maybe?) but Im not yet convinced that this is not yet another bubble.
and text has to be pretty large for this to function adequately. Tracking progress through a text, sure - but the current state is that we can't tell EXACTLY where the user is looking (the size of the red dot in the video is extremely misleading). We can narrow it down to about the size of a quarter on the screen. Likely not enough for "on the fly translations" of single words but definitely enough for some simpler things (like tracking which ads you're looking at).
You are getting the parties confused here. The guy making the statement was an idiot, but the guy who took him up on an obviously idiotic and ridiculous claim is the douchebag. Let me emphasize here that the law-student who's now suing is actively trying to bankrupt some guy who made a dumb statement... Did he seriously believe that the guy would put up $1 million? No, he knew he was exaggerating but is now trying to cash in. Let's also keep in mind that this is a murder case in which the lawyer tried to prove his client's innocence. This student's trying to profit from a murder case is disgusting.
Even better, require no human verification but automated image analysis. Yes it will require some major research effort but we are at a stage where it's possible to detect anomalies on such images. If something suspicious gets flagged a personal search can be performed. (There are issues with this approach: imagine being a person that always sets off the scanner for instance...)
Undoubtedly there are many issue with the peer review process but it's not an old-boys network as you claim. Every respectable journal or conference blinds all reviews so the reviewers don't know whose papers they are reviewing. Of course there are terrible conferences like this one (and many other commentators have mentioned this) since anybody can create a conference. Also, to say that all CS research is done by developers shows a lack of understanding what most true research in CS is.
I'd like to invite you to go ahead an take the MCAT (medical school admissions test), it is all core science. In order to get into medical school you need to complete your pre-medical requirements - again, all core sciences. I'm not sure which journals your friend subscribes to but the big ones have research articles and not how-to guides. I think a big confusion stems from the distinction between magazines and peer-reviewed journals. If anything, today's doctors need to know more science than ever before and medical schools are adapting to this. In any case, the treatment guidelines that are published rely on core-science and studies. When trying to decide if to vaccinate your children these treatment guidelines are already designed to maximize benefits for most people. You, as a consumer certainly can and should try to understand the reasoning behind the treatments offered and you can easily go ahead and read all the peer reviewed journal-articles published on the topic to get an accurate picture. But then again, you will not be able to understand every important detail and have to rely on the judgment of experts in the field to make your call. This is what PEER-REVIEW is for and that's the biggest difference between mechanics and doctors. Doctors base their information on publications that were critically reviewed and approved (also by regulatory agencies) to be beneficial to you.
The OP mentioned funding they receive. Likely this means they need to focus their efforts on students...
Don't believe this man! After paying him almost $1 for his services the account "Anonymous Coward" he gave me still posts with a score of zero. Don't be fooled by Slashdot karma farming!
Textbook publishers artificially change problems and sometimes even just problem numbering that students then get assigned as homework. Having that latest copy is essential to the students for mostly this reason...
You have a good point there and I agree that negative reviews also can be quite useful. However I feel like this was less of a real book review but more of a bashing of a book the author deemed especially silly. Many of /.'s book reviews are well researched and full of good information but this was simply a humor-piece, trying to only make fun of the book... (thus the placement in the idle section)
The "review" did not give me any useful information whatsoever, I was expecting at least some interesting insight or real argument but what I found was just unnecessary bashing of this one book. Please keep stuff like this without substance off the front page, there are plenty of articles and topics out there that deserve that spot.
This is the idea behind nurse practitioners / physician's assistants. They can handle probably about two thirds of the cases you'd see a doctor for. The great advantage however comes to the minority of people who actually have some underlying disease that is causing the symptoms. Years of medical school and the art of differential diagnosis can't be duplicated on websites - it's important that someone who gets the whole picture sees you in order to diagnose you. Personally, I think you should be able to chose yourself: if you want to take the risk of diagnosing yourself that's fine. But please be aware that often things aren't as simple as they seem. A doctor I know once said about his work: "My work as a general practitioner is very repetitive but you still have to be on your feet at all times. The whole day you see simple cases that anyone could diagnose but you have to be very careful to not miss that one case a day that looks like all the others but really needs your help."
The problem here is in the numbers. While it's true that only a subset of people will benefit thrombolytics for stroke such as tPA, approaches like these would increase the number of people that actually receive them. Stroke is the third leading cause of death in the US and with that many people even an improvement of 0.1% in efficiency would save many many lives. Now thrombolytics are dangerous, that is a fact, but they can also work extremely well against ischemic stroke (blood clots in the brain). However, they become less and less useful as time goes on and brain tissue dies, thus their ratio of advantage VS risk decreases rapidly over time. Currently, thrombolytics are given in the hospital once a stroke is confirmed. This is often only done in higher level facilites. EMS issues a stroke alert and drives to the closest hospital that has the capability of treating stroke. Now if they could handle stroke with thrombolytics at any small hospital (by getting the opinion of a remote expert) delays by transfering patients to a stroke center / rerouting by EMS could be avoided. I agree that there are many more useful clinical scenarios for this, but simply due to the very large number of affected people (and the relatively few hospitals equipped to handle strokes well), this could benefit many!
Actually stopping to enslave these workers would create more jobs. If you dont have one person doing 12 hour shifts 7 days a week you need to hire two to do 8 hour days, 5 days a week. (roughly) The only issue is that now the consumer has to pay more for their purchases, though one could argue that in turn management benefits could be reduced to make things a bit more fair.
The idea behind minimum wage is that that's the minimum price of a person working for one hour and doesn't depend on what work they do. Why is the work of a high-school student or college kid worth less when compared to other relatively unskilled labor?
I don't think the motivation for building this had anything to do with compensation or payment. Socialized medicine really just means to provide equal care to all. (and in Western states this means excellent care - check life expectancy statistics!)
I, for one, like turtles!
Having highly motivated peers is amazing in that courses are more challenging and also rewarding. However for me the biggest benefit of a top-school really is having access to the amazing research going on. It is incredibly easy to be part of great projects and this is what you cannot find everywhere.