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The Club PUBlication  09/30/2019

9/30/2019

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SCIENCE 561434222

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Alzheimer's researchers rethink approach to the disease
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Scientists are exploring multiple ways of attacking a disease now considered too complex for a one-size-fits-all solution. 

By LAURAN NEERGAARD Associated Press
 
SEPTEMBER 26, 2019 — 12:15PM
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​MARK CORNELISON – ASSOCIATED PRESSAlzheimer’s specialist Donna Wilcock said, “There are a lot of changes that happen in the aging brain.”
When researchers at the University of Kentucky compare brains donated from people who died with dementia, very rarely do they find one that bears only Alzheimer’s trademark plaques and tangles — no other damage.

Contrary to popular perception, “there are a lot of changes that happen in the aging brain that lead to dementia,” said Donna Wilcock, an Alzheimer’s specialist.

For years researchers have been guided by one leading theory — that getting rid of a buildup of a sticky protein called amyloid would ease the mind-robbing disease. Yet drug after drug has failed. They might clear out the gunk, but they’re not stopping Alzheimer’s.

With more money — the government had a record $2.4 billion to spend on such research this year — scientists are rethinking Alzheimer’s and exploring multiple ways of attacking a disease now considered too complex for a one-size-fits-all solution.

‘Sort of a missing link’
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No one knows what causes Alzheimer’s but amyloid deposits were an obvious first suspect, easy to spot in brain tissue. But it starts building up 20 years before any memory loss, and by itself is not enough to cause degeneration.
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MARK CORNELISON, ASSOCIATED PRESS This Aug. 14, 2019 photo provided by the University of Kentucky shows Donna Wilcock, of the Sanders-Brown Center on Aging in her lab in Lexington, Ky. She says that contrary to popular perception, "there are a lot of changes that happen in the aging brain that lead to dementia in addition to plaques and tangles."
Sometime after plaques appear, another protein named tau starts forming tangles inside neurons, heralding cell death. Yet autopsies show that some people die with large amounts of plaques and tangles, but escape dementia.
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Something else must play a role. One possible culprit: The brain’s immune cells, called microglia. Neurons are the brain’s rock stars, the nerve cells that transmit information. Microglia are cells long regarded as the neurons’ support staff. But “it’s becoming clear they’re much more active and play a much more significant role,” said Dr. Richard Hodes, director of the National Institute on Aging.
One of its jobs is to gobble toxic proteins and cellular debris. Recently, a mutation in a gene called TREM2 was found to weaken microglia and increase the risk of Alzheimer’s. Dr. David Holtzman at Washington University in St. Louis said his team found more tau tangles clustered around amyloid plaques when people harbored TREM2 mutations. Normal microglia seem to restrict amyloid plaques, which limits damage to surrounding tissue — damage that can make it easier for tau to take hold, he said.

While it was known that amyloid buildup drives tau tangles, “we never had a good clue as to how it is doing that,” Holtzman said. The new findings “would argue that these cells are sort of a missing link.”


Is it germs? Is it inflammation?


The idea that infections earlier in life could set the stage for Alzheimer’s has simmered on the edge of mainstream medicine, but is getting new attention. Both the germ that causes gum disease and strains of herpes viruses have been found in Alzheimer’s-affected brain tissue.


Dr. Todd Golde of the University of Florida cautioned that the germs’ presence doesn’t mean they caused dementia — they could be a consequence of it.


A U.S. study found certain herpes viruses affected the behavior of Alzheimer’s-related genes. “Maybe these are just opportunistic pathogens that have space to spring up in the brains of people affected with Alzheimer’s disease,” said Benjamin Readhead of Arizona State University. But, “it looks at least plausible that some of these pathogens are capable of acting as accelerants of disease.”


One key commonality among emerging theories is how aggressively the brain’s immune system defends itself — and thus how inflamed it becomes. When inflammation is too strong, or doesn’t go away, it’s like friendly fire that harms cells. Remember how some people have lots of plaques and tangles but no dementia? Massachusetts General researchers found that strikingly little inflammation surrounded the gunky buildup in the resilient brains — but the Alzheimer’s-affected brains harbored a lot.


A handful of drugs are being explored to tamp down inflammation’s damaging side without quashing its good effects. The goal is to restore the balance of a healthy brain’s environment, Wilcock said, so microglia “can perform their essential functions without damaging surrounding tissue.”


“Now we have an opportunity, a real opportunity, to expand and try all these avenues,” said Alzheimer’s Association chief science officer Maria Carrillo.
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The Club PUBlication 09/23/2019

9/23/2019

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Walgreens, Wing team for drone deliveries
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By TOM MURPHY Associated Press
PictureWing via Associated Press This photo shows a Wing delivery drone test which is part of the company’s partnership with Walgreens.

Walgreens and a Google affiliate are testing drone deliveries that can put drugstore products on customer doorsteps minutes after being ordered.
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Snacks like Goldfish Crackers or gummy bears as well as aspirin for sick kids will be delivered starting next month in Christiansburg, Va., by a 10-pound drone flying as fast as 70 miles per hour, the companies said Thursday.

100 items that includes individual consumer goods and packages of products to help with things like coughs and colds, but not prescriptions. They will place their order through a Wing app and then get delivery anywhere from five to 10 minutes afterward.

A drone capable of making a 12-mile round trip will fly to the delivery site, hover and use a winch system to lower the package to the ground and leave it there. The drone will be run by Wing Aviation LLC, a subsidiary of Google parent Alphabet Inc.

“We’re taking a 10-pound aircraft to move a 3-pound package through the sky,” Wing CEO James Ryan Burgess said. “It’s very light, very efficient.”

Drone deliveries in the United States are still largely in early testing. Google announced in April that Wing received federal approval to make commercial drone deliveries. It marked the first time a company has gotten a federal drone delivery certification.

Online retail giant Amazon said in June that it plans to use self-piloted drones to deliver packages to shoppers’ homes in the coming months.

United Parcel Service Inc. also said in July that it was setting up a subsidiary to expand its drone deliveries, which are limited to transporting medical samples at a group of hospitals in Raleigh, N.C.

Burgess told reporters Thursday that Wing and Walgreens had no time frame for how long this test would take or when consumers might expect widespread drone use.
“I think we still have a ways to go before it’s the norm in our transportation network,” he said.

Walgreens and Wing picked Christiansburg for their test because Wing has been working with nearby Virginia Tech on drone deliveries.
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The test comes as Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc., which is based in Deerfield, Ill., and chief rival CVS Health Corp. also work to expand same-day deliveries of prescriptions and other products on the ground.

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The Club PUBlication  09/13/2019

9/16/2019

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​BUSINESS 560260802
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Owatonna's Bushel Boy building $35 million facility to increase tomato businessThe company broke ground on a new Mason City, Iowa, facility and is expanding its Owatonna greenhouses. 
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By  Kristen Leigh Painter Star Tribune
 
SEPTEMBER 14, 2019 — 10:55A
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Volatility in the produce market will make indoor agriculture “increasingly feasible,” said Bushel Boy President Steve Irland.

​Bushel Boy Farms sees the future of food production as volatile and risky, which is why it is bullish on greenhouse agriculture.


The Owatonna-based grower of year-round tomatoes in Minnesota is expanding with a new 50-acre greenhouse and campus in Mason City, Iowa.

Last week, the company broke ground on the $35 million facility that will increase its production by 50% and allow it to maintain a more consistent crop of tomatoes throughout the year.

Bushel Boy grows all of its tomatoes in a highly controlled greenhouse in Owatonna. The company is also expanding that facility with a 4.5-acre greenhouse dedicated to research and development.

“If you look at volatility across the produce market — from transportation [costs], access to water, immigration issues and climate change — we believe it will become increasingly feasible to grow produce in those controlled environments,” said Steve Irland, president of Bushel Boy Farms.

Together, the Mason City and Owatonna expansions will immediately increase Bushel Boy’s production capacity from 20 million pounds annually to 30 million pounds per year. It will also give it the option to experiment with other types of produce, including cucumbers, peppers and strawberries.

The company is part of a growing national movement of indoor agriculture. Between 2007 and 2017, the square footage of tomatoes grown under protection in the U.S. grew 45%, according to the U.S. Agriculture Department’s National Agricultural Statistics Service.

In the last five years, Minnesota’s indoor tomato square-footage increased 43%, according to the USDA. Other Minnesota food companies, such as Medford, Minn.-based Revol Greens, grow other crops indoors. Revol — which was started by Jay Johnson, who was also the founder of Bushel Boy — grows salad greens in a climate-controlled greenhouse. That company is in the midst of its own 7.5-acre greenhouse expansion.

Of Bushel Boy’s 50 acres in Iowa, the company will first build a 16.5-acre greenhouse. As demand grows, the company has space to add two more greenhouses on the site.
“We want to smooth out our ability to supply our customers consistently,” said Irland. “Because of crop rotation and the limited space we’ve had up until now, it’s been difficult to keep business consistent 365 days a year. This investment will make that much more achievable.”

Max Maddaus, the produce director for Woodbury-based Kowalski’s Markets, said he “couldn’t be more excited about the expansion” for both Bushel Boy and Revol.

“From our perspective as a company, any opportunity we ever have to be able to purchase and offer to our customers something that’s grown locally, we jump on it,” Maddaus said. “There’s a big shift in what some local companies are doing in the indoor-growing arena, with so many benefits to the local consumer who are now able to get a variety of local, high-quality produce year-round.”

Founded in 1990, Bushel Boy started growing fresh, vine-ripened tomatoes in Minnesota through the harsh winter months that it then sold to Minnesota grocery stores, reducing long-distance transportation.

Most tomatoes bought in Minnesota supermarkets during the cool-weather seasons come from farms much farther away. They are picked green, trucked to distribution centers and gassed with ethylene to speed up their ripening.

Because its distribution zone is close to home, Bushel Boy can pick their tomatoes red and get them on store shelves that same day.

In November 2018, Shakopee-based Rahr Corp., known for its malting business, quietly bought Bushel Boy.

“They saw a great future in controlled-market agriculture, which is something Rahr brings a tremendous amount of experience to,” Irland said. “When Rahr turns barley into malt, they have to control the process indoors through four distinct phases.”

Rahr believes growing crops indoors will become increasingly attractive as the volatile climate and social conditions drive up the costs associated with existing outdoor food systems.
Bushel Boy’s methods are “a real blend of science and traditional agriculture,” he said, and “Rahr is familiar with the ups and downs of that.”

The Owatonna expansion will wrap up in December with production starting in February, while the new construction in Mason City won’t be completed until next fall.
The company’s greenhouse footprint will grow from 28 to 48 acres, with the potential to add an additional 33 acres of production at the Iowa facility in the future. The Mason City operation will employ about 50 full-time workers.

In addition to the physical expansion, Rahr has brought a greater emphasis on sustainability to Bushel Boy, capturing rainwater, converting carbon dioxide from its natural gas boilers into carbon dioxide to feed the plants and moving toward an LED lighting system, which is not only more energy efficient, but offers a light spectrum more suitable for growing tomatoes.

The company has no intent to expand its geographic reach beyond the nine Midwest states where it currently distributes. Instead, it wants to better saturate the local market.

“We have every intention of being the pre-eminent greenhouse-growing produce company in the Upper Midwest,” Irland said.
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Kristen Leigh Painter covers the food industry for the Star Tribune. She previously covered growth and development for the paper. Prior to that, Painter was a business reporter at the Denver Post, covering airlines and aerospace. She frequently writes about sustainable food production, consumer food trends and airlines.


[email protected] 612.673.4767 KristenPainter
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The Club PUBlication  09/09/2019

9/9/2019

1 Comment

 
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NATIONAL 5

AI-powered cameras become new tool against mass shootings58770842
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By IVAN MORENO Associated Press
 
AUGUST 30, 2019 — 3:05PM
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Paul Hildreth peered at a display of dozens of images from security cameras surveying his Atlanta school district and settled on one showing a woman in a bright yellow shirt walking a hallway.

A mouse click instructed the artificial intelligence-equipped system to find other images of the woman, and it immediately stitched them into a video narrative of where she was currently, where she had been and where she was going.
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There was no threat, but Hildreth's demonstration showed what's possible with AI-powered cameras. If a gunman were in one of his schools, the cameras could quickly identify the shooter's location and movements, allowing police to end the threat as soon as possible, said Hildreth, emergency operations coordinator for the Fulton County School District.

AI is transforming surveillance cameras from passive sentries into active observers that can identify people, suspicious behavior and guns, amassing large amounts of data that help them learn over time to recognize mannerisms, gait and dress. If the cameras have a previously captured image of someone who is banned from a building, the system can immediately alert officials if the person returns.

At a time when the threat of a mass shooting is ever-present, schools are among the most enthusiastic adopters of the technology, known as real-time video analytics or intelligent video, even as civil liberties groups warn about a threat to privacy. Police, retailers, stadiums and Fortune 500 companies are also using intelligent video.

"What we're really looking for are those things that help us to identify things either before they occur or maybe right as they occur so that we can react a little faster," Hildreth said.

A year after an expelled student killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, Broward County installed cameras from Canada-based Avigilon throughout the district in February. Hildreth's Atlanta district will spend $16.5 million to put the cameras in its roughly 100 buildings in coming years.

In Greeley, Colorado, the school district has used Avigilon cameras for about five years, and the technology has advanced rapidly, said John Tait, security manager for Weld County School District 6
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Upcoming upgrades include the ability to identify guns and read people's expressions, a capability not currently part of Avigilon's systems.

"It's almost kind of scary," Tait said. "It will look at the expressions on people's faces and their mannerisms and be able to tell if they look violent."

Retailers can spot shoplifters in real time and alert security or warn of a potential shoplifter. One company, Athena-Security, has cameras that spot when someone has a weapon. And in a bid to help retailers, it recently expanded its capabilities to help identify big spenders when they visit a store.

It's unknown how many schools have AI-equipped cameras because it's not being tracked. But Michael Dorn, executive director of Safe Havens International , a nonprofit that advises schools on security, said "quite a few" use Avigilon and Sweden-based Axis Communications equipment "and the feedback has been very good."

Schools are the largest market for video surveillance systems in the U.S., estimated at $450 million in 2018, according to London-based IHS Markit, a data and information services company. The overall market for real-time video analytics was estimated at $3.2 billion worldwide in 2018 — and it's anticipated to grow to more than $9 billion by 2023, according to one estimate .

AI cameras have already been tested by some companies to evaluate consumers' facial expressions to determine if they're having a pleasant or unpleasant shopping experience and improve customer service, according to the Center for Democracy and Technology, a Washington nonprofit that advocates for privacy protections. Policy counsel Joseph Jerome said companies may someday use the cameras to estimate someone's age, which might be useful for liquor stores, or facial-expression analysis to aid in job interviews .

Police in New York, New Orleans and Atlanta all use cameras with AI. In Hartford, Connecticut, the police network of 500 cameras includes some AI-equipped units that can, for example, search hours of video to find people wearing certain clothes or search for places where a suspicious vehicle was seen.

The power of the systems has sparked privacy concerns.

"The issue is personal autonomy and whether you'll be able to go around walking in the public square or a shopping mall without tens, hundreds, thousands of people, companies and entities learning things about you," Jerome said.

"People haven't really caught up to how broad and deep the technology can now go," said Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst at the American Civil Liberties Union who published a research paper in June about how the cameras are being used. "When I explain it, people are pretty amazed and spooked."

When it comes to the potential for stemming violence that may be less of an issue. Shannon Flounnory, executive director for safety and security for the Fulton County School District, said no privacy concerns have been heard there.

"The events of Parkland kind of changed the game," he said. "We have not had any arguments or any pushback right now."

ZeroEyes, a Philadelphia-based company, began testing gun-detection software last winter at Rancocas Valley Regional High School in New Jersey, which became a client. Since the company began selling their product this month, it said it's signed up another four schools — in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Tennessee and Florida.

The company also brought on a government agency in New York that it says it can't name. Co-founder Rob Huberty said ZeroEyes will be marketing the product to "stadiums, shopping malls — anywhere with a potential for a mass shooting."

Even supporters of these systems acknowledge the technology is not going to prevent all mass shootings — especially considering how quickly damage is done. But supporters argue they can at least help reduce the number of casualties by giving people more time to seek shelter and providing first responders with information sooner.

"This is just one thing that's going to help everybody do their job better," Huberty said.
Both ZeroEyes and Austin-based Athena-Security claim their systems can detect weapons with more than 90 percent accuracy but acknowledge their products haven't been tested in a real-life scenario. And both systems are unable to detect weapons if they're covered — a limitation the companies say they are working to overcome.

Stanley, with the ACLU, said there's reason to be skeptical about their capabilities because AI is still "pretty unreliable at recognizing the complexities of human life."
Facial recognition is not infallible, and a study last year from Wake Forest University found that some facial-recognition software interprets black faces as appearing angrier than white faces.

But the seemingly endless cycle of mass shootings is compelling consumers to see technology — untested though it may be — as a possible solution to an intractable problem.

After a gunman killed 51 people in attacks at two mosques in New Zealand in March, Athena-Security installed gun-detection cameras at one of the mosques in June. Fahad A.B. Al-Ameri, a Qatari businessman with no affiliation to the mosque, paid for them because "all people should be secure going to their houses of worship," he said.

Of the 50 clients Athena-Security has, about a fourth are schools, said company co-founder Chris Ciabarra.
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"It's a matter of saving lives," he said.
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The Club PUBlication  09/02/2019

9/2/2019

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​BUSINESS 558729032
Money manager going all in with robots with quant
ByJustina Lee Bloomberg News
 
AUGUST 30, 2019 — 11:13PM
A $7.5 billion money manager with roots almost as old as quant investing itself is going all-in with machine learning.

Millburn Ridgefield Corp. placed robots at the very heart of its open systematic strategies after a six-year experiment. Now, the New York firm is raising cash for a new computer-powered strategy trading single-name stocks.

Millburn is banking on artificial intelligence as it moves away from its 1970s-era tradition in trend following, which typically uses futures contracts to surf the momentum of assets. Co-CEO Barry Goodman said statistical-learning programs scanning a broader set of data can figure out the nervous system connecting markets. That’s how the firm plans to beat the increasingly crowded world of quantitative investing.

Systematic traders of all stripes are investing in machines designed to improve without explicit human instruction in order to get ahead of the pack.

Millburn’s new equity fund will use machine learning to decipher signals from exchange-traded funds in order to make long bets on the underlying securities such as members of the S&P 500 and MSCI World. The algorithm, for example, might discover that momentum trades work best during seasonal shifts in volatility — something often buried in masses of data.

“Figuring this out is not trivial, and not something humans could do,” Goodman said.

The Ai buzzword encompasses a wide range of techniques. To skeptics, it all remains untested, complex and prone to humanlike pitfalls. But that is not stopping a herd of money managers betting computers will uncover patterns undetected by the human eye. JPMorgan Chase’s asset management arm is planning a strategy to invest in statistical-arbitrage hedge funds powered by machines that learn. Berkeley, Calif.-based Voleon Group, which depends on the technology for trading, has seen assets in its hedge fund double to $5.1 billion in the year through June 1.

Millburn hasn’t given up entirely on trend following despite its pursuit of systematic strategies with a more macro and cross-asset tilt. But with more and more cash chasing the same quant strategies, Goodman reckons it’s time to shake things up.

“Positions began to look more similar across various trading firms and we had what from time-to-time could be pretty significant crowding,” he said. “This meant less diversification for investors and potentially higher volatility.”


Lee works for Bloomberg News.
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