01-03-2021 The Asian Independent

www.theasianindependent.co.uk
NEWS
01-03-2021 to 15-03-2021
13
Google AI helping India
boost maternal health
New Delhi, Feb 27 (IANS)
Researchers from Google Research and
IIT Madras have designed an AI technology
that could provide an indication
of women who are at risk of dropping
out from the health information programme.
The technology has helped non-profit
organisation ARMMAN to personalise
interventions and retain women in
the health programmes, improving
maternal health outcomes.
Test results demonstrated that use of
AI technology was able to bring down
the risk of drop-offs by up to 32 per cent
for women at high risk of dropping out,
Google has announced.
ARMMAN runs mMitra, a free
mobile voice call service that sends
timely and targeted preventive care
information to expectant and new mothers.
"Adherence to such public health
programs is a big challenge but timely
intervention to retain people is beneficial
to improve maternal health outcomes,"
Google said.
The team is currently working
towards scaling this to more than
300,000 women in mMitra.
"We are excited to continue to support
ARMMAN as the project team
increases the reach of this technology to
over one million mothers and children
New York : Researchers have
shown that a combination of
deep brain stimulation (DBS)
and exercise has potential benefits
for treating ataxia.
Ataxia is a rare genetic neurodegenerative
disease characterized
by progressive irreversible
problems with movement.
Working with a mouse
model of the human condition,
the researchers discovered that
combining DBS targeted to the
cerebellum, a major motor center
in the brain, and exercise rescued
limb coordination and stepping.
"People with ataxia usually
have progressive problems with
in 2021," the tech giant said in a statement
on Saturday.
To support ARMMAN's growing
efforts, Google.org has committed
another $530,000 to scale the use of AI
'Brain stimulation & exercise can
restore movement in ataxia'
movement, including impaired
balance and coordination that
affect the person's ability to
walk, talk and use fine motor
skills," said researcher Lauren
Miterko from the Baylor College
of Medicine in the US.
"There are limited treatment
options for this condition, and
patients typically survive 15 to
20 years after symptoms first
appear," the researcher added.
In addition, the study, published
in the journal Nature
Communications, showed that
stimulating mice with earlystage
ataxia showed the most
dramatic improvements.
DBS currently is used to
relieve motor dysfunction in
Parkinson's disease and other
movement conditions, but its
value in treating ataxia has not
been extensively explored.
For the study, the researchers
worked with Car8, a mouse
model of hereditary ataxia to
investigate whether adjusting the
parameters of DBS and the stimulation
target location would
help increase the treatment's efficacy
for the condition.
"We first targeted the cerebellum,
because it's a primary
motor center in the brain and this
target location for DBS has seen
encouraging success for treating
motor problems that are associated
with other conditions, such
as a stroke," Miterko said.
"We systematically targeted
the cerebellum with different
frequencies of DBS and determined
whether there was an
optimal frequency that would
boost the efficacy of the treatment.
When we used a particular
frequency, 13 Hz, that was when
motor function improved in our
Car8 mice," the researcher
added.
New York : Researchers have
discovered a slimy strategy used
by bacteria to defeat antibiotics
and other drugs used to combat
infections afflicting people with
cystic fibrosis.
Cystic fibrosis is a life-threatening
disease that causes persistent
lung infections
and limits a person's
ability to
breathe over time.
A common
strain of bacteria,
Pseudomonas
aeruginosa, often
thrives in the lungs
of people with cystic
fibrosis, as well
as in wounds from
burns or diabetic
ulcers.
Once a P. aeruginosa infection
is established, it can be
incredibly difficult to cure,
despite repeated courses of
antibiotics, said the researchers,
including Laura Jennings, from
the University of Montana.
The research, published in the
for social good to reach underserved
women and children.
Google AI is helping Indian nonprofits
and universities solve big challenges
in the field of public health, conservation,
agriculture and education.
The company announced Google
Research India, an AI Lab in Bengaluru,
in 2019.
In 2020, Google announced AI for
journal Cell Reports, showed
that the stubborn germs living in
the lungs of cystic fibrosis
patients create a self-produced
carbohydrate slime.
And this slime makes the bacteria
more resistant to the antibiotics
prescribed by doctors, as
well as drugs that reduce the
thickness of mucus.
"We found the first direct evidence
that these carbohydrates
are produced at the sites of infection.
We showed that one of the
carbohydrates, called Pel, sticks
to extracellular DNA, which is
Social Good would support six projects
from NGOs and academic collaborations
to utilise the application of AI to
assist underserved communities that
have not traditionally benefited from the
prowess of AI.
With technical and scientific contributions
from Google Research and
Singapore Management University,
Wildlife Conservation Trust designed
AI models that help predict humanwildlife
conflict in Bramhapuri forest
division in Tadoba, Maharashtra.
These novel AI techniques provide
over 80 per cent accuracy in predicting
human-wildlife conflict in the
Bramhapuri forest division in the test
results.
This work is currently being fieldtested
in Chandrapur district, Madhya
Pradesh, to ensure safe deployment,
Google said.
In yet another example of AI, Google
said that creation tools in low-resource
languages suffer from very low accuracy,
adding barriers to content creation.
The team at AI4Bharat and IIT
Madras, with support from Google, has
developed state-of-the-art Natural
Language Understanding tools to develop
open-language models for two lowresource
languages (Konkani, Maithal),
making story-reading easier for more
than 70,000 children.
How bacteria defeat
cystic fibrosis drugs
abundant in the thick mucus
secretions prominent in cystic
fibrosis lungs," Jennings said.
"This interaction makes a
slimy protective layer around the
bacteria, making them harder to
kill. As such, it reduces the
pathogen's susceptibility to
antibiotics and drugs
aimed at reducing the
thickness of airway
mucus by digesting
DNA," she added.
The researcher
said the work supports
a hypothesis
that it's the carbohydrates
that group, or
aggregate, the bacteria
in cystic fibrosis
lungs.
The research also
suggests that the carbohydrate
Pel likely diminishes the efficacy
of the most commonly used
therapeutics for cystic fibrosis,
which are inhaled antibiotics and
a drug that breaks down the
thickness of the airway mucus,
making it easier to cough up.