Latest news with #Lehman
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Health
- Yahoo
Clairity receives FDA OK for breast cancer risk prediction tool
This story was originally published on MedTech Dive. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily MedTech Dive newsletter. The Food and Drug Administration has authorized the first artificial intelligence tool to predict patients' five-year breast cancer risk from a routine mammogram. Boston-based startup Clairity developed the tool, called Clairity Breast. The company plans to launch the risk assessment feature by the end of the year, according to a Monday announcement. 'We're doing something radically different than what I've done my whole career in the area of computer-aided detection and diagnosis of breast cancer,' Connie Lehman, founder of Clairity and a diagnostic radiologist at Mass General Brigham, said in an interview. AI has been used to detect breast cancer for decades; the first computer-aided detection system for breast cancer was approved in 1998, Lehman said. However, most of these tools are used to detect cancer, not predict future risk. 'What we're doing here is doing something humans can't do,' Lehman said. 'It's extracting subtle cues in the mammogram that the human eye can't see, the human brain can't process.' About 2.3 million new cases of breast cancer were diagnosed worldwide in 2022, according to the latest data from the World Health Organization. Current risk models factor in age and family history, but most people diagnosed have no family history. Lehman, who has focused most of her career on better ways to detect breast cancer early, expects the new approach will 'expand the net out to more women who truly are at high risk, and until now we haven't been able to identify.' Clairity Breast was developed using Hologic's 2D screening mammography systems. It would be used as part of a patient's routine mammogram. The company was careful to train its AI models on a diverse group of patients, Lehman said, as historically, breast cancer risk prediction models were built on data from predominantly white women. Clairity plans to launch the predictive tool starting with select centers and expanding access later this year, Lehman said. The company last year hired Jeffrey Luber as CEO to help lead the market launch. Luber is the former CEO of testing firms Binx Health and Exact Sciences. Clairity received a $1 million investment from the Breast Cancer Research Foundation in January. Recommended Reading Nvidia's David Niewolny on the future of AI in medical devices
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Iowa crops are days ahead of schedule, with admirable conditions
A field in Polk County is cultivated prior to planting corn. Aaron Lehman said his organic farming operation runs on a different calendar than conventional row crop farmers. (Photo contributed by Aaron Lehman) Farmers in Iowa had a productive week as warmer and drier conditions allowed plenty of time for in-the-field activities, including finishing up planting and beginning to spray emerged corn and soybeans. Nearly 80% of soybeans have emerged across the state, which is 10 days ahead of last year's crop and four days ahead of average pace. Corn acres across the state are 87% emerged, putting the crop nearly a week ahead of last year and one day ahead of the five-year average. Organic farmers like Aaron Lehman, who farms in northern Polk County, had a slightly slower start to the planting season than conventional neighbors. On Friday, Lehman said he hoped to finish planting his soybeans and to replant the sections of corn that 'didn't emerge very evenly' due to an above-average dump of rain that hit central Iowa during the previous reporting period. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX He said with organic farming, and a need to use seeds without synthetic coatings, he has to wait for warmer soil temperatures before he can plant and roll down his cover crops. 'So I'm on a little bit of a different calendar than some of my neighbors, but in general, field progress is pretty strong,' Lehman, who is also president of Iowa Farmers Union, said. Across the state, corn and soybean conditions rated 84% and 81%, respectively, good to excellent. Lehman said farmers in his area were concerned the rain would lead to some overripe hay, but the Monday report shows 83% of hay rated good or excellent. Temperatures across the state were slightly below normal, with an average of 62 degrees Fahrenheit during the May 26 through June 1 reporting period. According to State Climatologist Justin Glisan, smoke from the Canadian wildfires reduced solar radiation in the state, and caused a copper colored sun on several days. The lingering wildfire haze is expected to clear from the state by midweek. State forecasts call for several inches of precipitation across the state. The state average for precipitation during the reporting period was two-tenths of an inch, but soil moisture conditions dropped only slightly from the previous report, with 70% of topsoil conditions and 65% of subsoil conditions rated adequate. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
The Wire
27-05-2025
- Business
- The Wire
Has India Really Become the Fourth-Largest Economy? Five Reasons to Ask
India has become the fourth-largest economy in the world, as per the NITI Aayog CEO, B.V.R. Subrahmanyam. He clarified that this is based on projections for 2025-26 made by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in its World Economic Outlook, which says that India's nominal GDP is projected to rise to USD 4,187.017 billion, surpassing Japan's estimated USD 4,186.431 billion. If this is correct, then it is something to be happy about, even if India will be ahead by USD 0.586 billion, 0.014% of GDP. Forget that India's per capita income is one-thirteenth of Japan's in nominal dollars; several other factors also need to be taken into account. First, why is the IMF projection being used? The IMF is not a data-gathering agency. It uses government data and tweaks it. So, errors in government data are also in the IMF data. Since Indian GDP data has big errors, as pointed out in this article, how reliable is this projection? Basing the claim on the IMF projection is an attempt to gain credibility and avoid the criticism that Indian GDP data is erroneous. Second , the world economy is passing through huge uncertainty since the victory of US President Donald Trump in November 2024. More so since he threatened to levy stiff protectionist tariffs soon after taking over as President. This threatens both inflation, due to supply disruptions, and recession, due to a decline in exports. Uncertainty and stock market turmoil have impacted currencies, gold prices, interest rates, investments and growth prospects. So, which economy would be impacted by how much is unclear. Thus, projecting growth rates is fraught. A projected 0.014% difference in GDP can easily turn out to be incorrect. In the past, too, IMF projections have proved to be incorrect. For instance, the IMF stuck to its projection for positive growth in 2008, during the global financial crisis, till the Lehman moment in September 2008. By then, the world economy had entered recession. It was then said that the experts were behind the curve. Again, the IMF has decided not to factor in the likely impact of President Trump's threat of tariffs and the possibility of a tariff war. This is possibly so as not to spook the markets by giving negative news. But, then, IMF projections are not realistic and cannot be relied upon. Third, GDP for a given year is estimated using various databases for each of its components, and the data becomes final with a lag. There are the first advance estimate and second advance estimate based on partial data available during the year. Next, the revised estimate is announced after the year closes, and finally, after another gap, the final estimate is announced. So, finality about the GDP comes two years later. For example, in the latest GDP data announced on February 28, 2025, the data was given for the second advance estimate for 2024-25 (the running year), revised estimate for 2023-24 (previous year) and final estimate for 2022-23 (two years earlier). So, only in 2027 would it be clear if India surpassed Japan's GDP in 2025. Fourth, the Indian economy has gone through four shocks since 2016-17 when demonetisation was announced. There was GST in 2017, the NBFC crisis in 2018 and a sudden lockdown in 2020. Given that GDP estimation is also based on projection from the previous year and using a benchmark from the reference year in the past, a shock would foul up this method. It is likely to lead to an overestimation of GDP. For instance, in 2016-17, demonetisation caused markets to be empty, fruits and vegetables to rot in the fields, industries to close down, and yet, official data showed an above 8% growth for the year, instead of a negative growth. A recent article points out that prior to 2016-17, the 'discrepancy' in GDP was small, but subsequently it has become large and unstable, swinging from positive to negative. It is also pointed out that officially, the 'production side approach' to measuring GDP is taken as the more reliable one. But it also has big errors due to the nature of the shocks experienced. Finally, the shocks have led to errors in the methodology used to measure the different components of GDP. Every sector of the economy has a private and a public component. The public sector is entirely organised. The private sector has an organised and an unorganised component. The data for the latter comes with a delay. In fact, for most of the quarterly GDP estimates, only limited organised sector data are available. So, estimates for the unorganised component of a sector are generated using the organised sector as a proxy. Effectively, India's official GDP is largely estimated using the organised sector data. This was possibly alright till the shock of demonetisation and subsequent shocks. But since demonetisation, the unorganised sector, which was badly impacted, has been declining. The other three shocks also damaged this sector. Evidence for this decline has come from trade, leather goods, pressure cookers, luggage, etc. The organised component has been growing at the expense of the unorganised component. Effectively, the declining unorganised sector is proxied by the growing organised sector. Agriculture is a large part of the unorganised sector, and its data comes routinely during every crop season. But, experts have been questioning the correctness of the official data. A corollary of the decline of the unorganised sector is the aggravation of unemployment in India. If this sector were growing at anywhere like 6% per annum, the problem would not persist. The organised sector is getting increasingly automated and generates little employment. So, when it grows at the expense of the unorganised sector, it creates unemployment. In brief, there is a need to reassess the claim that India's GDP is growing fast and will cross that of Japan in 2025. Arun Kumar is a retired professor of economics at JNU. He is the author of 'Indian Economy's Greatest Crisis: Impact of the Coronavirus and the Road Ahead'. 2020.
USA Today
14-05-2025
- Sport
- USA Today
Son of former world No. 1 golfer gets through U.S. Open local qualifying
Son of former world No. 1 golfer gets through U.S. Open local qualifying Between the time Thomas Lehman posted his 2-under 70 in a U.S. Open local qualifier at Classic Club in Palm Desert and the time he teed off in a playoff at the event, he had time to eat a hamburger lunch and wonder if he would even make the playoff. 'I thought on 18 I was 1 under and I figured a birdie would either get me in or there would be a playoff,' Lehman said. 'I ended up being right." Lehman, the son of 1996 British Open champion, 1996 PGA Tour Player of the year and former No. 1-ranked Tom Lehman, did make a three-for-one playoff for the fifth and final berth out of the Classic Club qualifier. With a birdie on the second playoff hole, the par-5 ninth, Lehman advanced to final qualifying for the second time in five attempts. Lehman, 29, lives in Arizona, but was at Classic Club in Palm Desert because all the local qualifiers in Arizona were filled by the time he registered. So instead, he picked a familiar course to play. 'I played here in college (at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo) and I have good memories here,' Lehman said. 'So I figured I would come back here.' Lehman's 70 was two shots off the co-medalists score of 68 by Casey Adams of Olympia, Washington, and Benjamin Lein of Diamond Bar, who insists he's not really a competitive golfer anymore. Having stepped away from competition for the last four years, playing mostly U.S. Open local qualifiers, Lein now has a company representing other athletes. 'The gusts definitely got up, probably 20 mph at the end,' said Lein, who played in the next-to-last group of the day. "It was still pretty windy (in the morning) when I teed off. It was probably 10 of 15 mph.' Lein raced out to the lead Monday with a 31 on the front nine including an eagle on the par-5 ninth, three birdies and one bogey. He then made eight consecutive pars on the back nine, closing with a bogey on the par-5 18th that dropped him into a tie with Adams. Adams' day was much calmer, with no bogeys and four birdies, two on each nine. Also getting through to final qualifying Monday were amateur Eddie Zhang of Sarasota, California, and Joey Herrera of Fillmore, who each shot 69. In the playoff for the fifth spot as well as the two alternate spots from the 75-player field, Lehman punched his second shot on the par-4 eighth through the wind and just over the green, but he made his 4 to match David Gazzolo of Riverside and David Bradshaw of Harper's Ferry, West Virginia. On the second playoff hole, Lehman was the only player to find the green in two shots, with Gazzolo going over the green into a lake and Bradshaw coming up short of the putting surface near the lake. Lehman two-putted from about 20 feet for his birdie, then watched as Bradshaw missed a 12 footer for birdie that put Lehman through to the next stage. Only three desert golfers were in the Classic Club field, led by Chris Evans of Mountain View Country Club with a 74. Blake Schmitt of Ironwood Country Club shot 78, while Arvo Voip of The Springs Club shot an 81. Sectional qualifying will be held June 2 at 10 courses across the country. The U.S. Open will be played June 12-15 at Oakmont Country Club outside of Pittsburgh.
Winnipeg Free Press
13-05-2025
- Winnipeg Free Press
Missing child in northern Alberta likely fell asleep in field, RCMP says
It took the efforts of 200 local volunteers, a helicopter, drones and ATVs to track down a missing two-year-old boy in the pitch-black night of Alberta's Peace Country. And in the end, it's likely the toddler had simply dozed off after wandering out into a field. 'I'm guessing the kid just fell asleep,' RCMP Const. Lucas Lehman said Tuesday. A sweeping night-long search was triggered Sunday night when RCMP in Fairview, Alta., were called by the toddler's family after they had searched the property for him. The child had likely left the home without either parent knowing, Lehman said, and the couple likely believed their child was with the other parent. The call prompted a search for the missing boy, bringing out more than 200 volunteers in Clear Hills County, a Mennonite community more than 100 kilometres north of Grande Prairie, Alta., Lehman said. 'Everyone kind of knows everybody in those farming communities up there,' he said. Volunteers waded through dark Prairie fields in a line, moving across the property like a radar in hopes of having one person track down the child. Lehman said they didn't expect a toddler to travel too far. 'There's no doubt in my mind that probably 10 people probably passed this kid,' Lehman said. Winnipeg Jets Game Days On Winnipeg Jets game days, hockey writers Mike McIntyre and Ken Wiebe send news, notes and quotes from the morning skate, as well as injury updates and lineup decisions. Arrives a few hours prior to puck drop. The area is primarily made up of farmland with some trees. Most houses have dugouts — small, excavated water reservoirs — on their properties. 'There was a dugout right in front of the house, too, which obviously made us pretty nervous,' Lehman said. Police first scanned the dugout with a boat and then pumped the entire reservoir dry, he said. The search ended shortly after sunrise Monday when a Grande Prairie Technical Search and Rescue helicopter spotted the child about one kilometre from the home. He was found to be in good health and was reunited with his family. 'It's pretty remarkable,' Lehman said. 'Everyone's praying and everything like that, and to find a child here, everyone has a smile on their face after that.' This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 13, 2025.
