#efficient data collection

[marketxcel]

Benefits of Using an Online B2B Panel for Surveys

This blog will explore the advantages of using an online B2B panel for surveys and how it can empower companies with valuable data for better decision-making.

[nardacci-does-reblogs]

Not run by AI, but the WasteShark is a type of robot designed to collect floating trash from around coastal & inland waters, it's really cool. It has a roomba-esque autonomous mode & you can also pilot it from shore with remote control: https://www.ranmarine.io/products/wasteshark-3/

So there is at least 1 type of litter-cleaning waterbot out there! Here's a video too https://youtu.be/ldCK1DovLzU

[einnosyssecsgem]

SECS/GEM on Canon MPA 600 Super Aligner Through the EIGEMBox

In the dynamic world of semiconductor manufacturing, ensuring that legacy equipment can keep up with modern communication standards is essential for maintaining productivity and efficiency. The Canon MPA 600 Super Aligner, a widely used piece of equipment in semiconductor fabs, often lacks the native SECS/GEM capabilities required for seamless integration into contemporary manufacturing systems. Enter EIGEMBox, a patented, plug-and-play solution that brings SECS/GEM compliance to legacy equipment without the need for extensive hardware or software installations.

In this blog, we will explore the benefits of using EIGEMBox to enable SECS/GEM on the Canon MPA 600 Super Aligner and how this can revolutionize your manufacturing process.

What is SECS/GEM?

SECS/GEM (SEMI Equipment Communications Standard/Generic Equipment Model) is a set of protocols developed by SEMI (Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International) to standardize communication between semiconductor manufacturing equipment and host systems. These protocols are critical for enabling automation, real-time data collection, and equipment control, which are essential for the efficiency and productivity of modern semiconductor fabs.

The Importance of SECS/GEM Compliance SECS/GEM compliance offers several significant benefits for semiconductor manufacturing: Automation: SECS/GEM protocols enable the automation of equipment operations, reducing the need for manual intervention and minimizing the risk of human error. This leads to higher throughput and more consistent production quality.

Data Collection and Analysis: SECS/GEM allows for real-time data collection from equipment, which can be analyzed to monitor performance, optimize processes, and predict maintenance needs. This data-driven approach helps in making informed decisions that improve overall efficiency.

Equipment Control: With SECS/GEM, equipment can be controlled remotely by the host system, allowing for better coordination and scheduling of manufacturing tasks. This ensures optimal utilization of resources and reduces downtime.

Interoperability: SECS/GEM provides a standardized communication framework, ensuring that equipment from different vendors can work together seamlessly. This interoperability is crucial for maintaining a cohesive and efficient manufacturing environment.

Challenges with Legacy Equipment

While SECS/GEM offers numerous advantages, many legacy equipment like the Canon MPA 600 Super Aligner lack native SECS/GEM capabilities. Upgrading these machines to meet modern standards can be a complex and costly process, often requiring significant hardware and software modifications. This is where EIGEMBox comes into play.

Introducing EIGEMBox

EIGEMBox is an innovative, patented solution designed to bring SECS/GEM capabilities to legacy equipment without the need for additional hardware or software installations. This plug-and-play device makes it easy to upgrade older machines, ensuring they can communicate effectively with modern control systems and integrate seamlessly into automated manufacturing environments.

Key Features of EIGEMBox

Plug-and-Play Convenience: EIGEMBox is designed for easy installation and operation. Simply connect the device to your legacy equipment, and it starts working immediately, without the need for extensive configuration or setup.

No Hardware or Software Installation Required: Unlike traditional SECS/GEM integration solutions that often require complex hardware and software installations, EIGEMBox eliminates these hassles. This makes it a cost-effective and time-saving solution for upgrading your equipment.

Patented Technology: EIGEMBox utilizes patented technology to ensure reliable and efficient communication between your legacy equipment and modern control systems. This guarantees seamless integration and improved operational efficiency.

Enhanced Data Exchange: With EIGEMBox, your legacy equipment can exchange data in real-time with control systems, enabling better monitoring, analysis, and optimization of manufacturing processes.

Benefits of Using EIGEMBox with Canon MPA 600 Super Aligner

Upgrading the Canon MPA 600 Super Aligner with EIGEMBox offers several significant benefits:

Extended Equipment Life: By enabling SECS/GEM compliance, EIGEMBox extends the operational life of the Canon MPA 600 Super Aligner, allowing you to maximize your investment in this equipment.

Improved Efficiency: Enhanced communication and control capabilities lead to better coordination of manufacturing tasks, increased throughput, and reduced downtime. This results in the overall improved efficiency of your manufacturing process.

Cost Savings: EIGEMBox eliminates the need for costly hardware and software upgrades, providing a more affordable solution for integrating SECS/GEM protocols into your manufacturing processes.

Seamless Integration: EIGEMBox ensures that your Canon MPA 600 Super Aligner can communicate effectively with modern control systems, enabling a smoother and more efficient manufacturing operation.

Case Study: Successful Integration of EIGEMBox with Canon MPA 600 Super Aligner

One of our clients, a leading semiconductor manufacturer, faced challenges in integrating SECS/GEM protocols into their Canon MPA 600 Super Aligner. After implementing EIGEMBox, they experienced a significant improvement in production efficiency. The plug-and-play nature of EIGEMBox allowed for a quick and hassle-free integration process, resulting in a 20% increase in equipment utilization and a 15% reduction in downtime. The client was able to extend the life of their existing equipment while achieving substantial cost savings. How to Get Started with EIGEMBox Ready to revolutionize your semiconductor manufacturing processes with EIGEMBox? Here’s how you can get started:

Contact Us: Reach out to our team for a consultation. We’ll assess your current equipment and provide tailored recommendations for integrating EIGEMBox into your manufacturing environment.

Easy Installation: Once you’ve decided to move forward, our team will guide you through the simple installation process. No need for extensive configuration or setup – just plug it in and start reaping the benefits.

Ongoing Support: Our commitment to your success doesn’t end with installation. We offer comprehensive support to ensure that your EIGEMBox operates seamlessly and delivers the desired improvements in efficiency and productivity.

Contact Us Today! Don’t let outdated equipment hold back your semiconductor manufacturing operations. With EIGEMBox, you can achieve modern communication and control capabilities without the need for costly hardware or software installations. Contact us today to learn more about how EIGEMBox can transform your Canon MPA 600 Super Aligner and drive your manufacturing processes forward.

[powersafeautomation]

The Crucial Role of Stop Time Distance Meters in Ensuring Machine Safety and Efficiency

Stop time distance meters play a pivotal role in determining a machine’s stop time, thereby contributing significantly to the safety and efficiency of industrial operations. These meters offer accurate and reliable results, making them indispensable tools in various industrial settings. Value and Importance Investing in stop time distance meters is of paramount importance for businesses…

[globosetechnologysolution]

Simplifying OCR Data Collection: A Comprehensive Guide -

Globose Technology Solutions, we are committed to providing state-of-the-art OCR solutions to meet the specific needs of our customers. Contact us today to learn more about how OCR can transform your data collection workflow.

[deepikadpblog]

Mastering Efficiency: Navigating the power of Workflow Form Generator

In today's fast-paced business environment, efficiency and productivity are key to success. Workflow generators play a pivotal role in achieving these goals by streamlining, managing, and automating complex tasks and processes. Acting as digital assistants, these tools help organizations create, organize, and execute tasks seamlessly. 

This blog article explores the transformative capabilities of workflow generators, highlighting their importance in simplifying workflows, ensuring consistency, fostering collaboration, adapting to scalability, enforcing compliance, and providing visibility into processes. The article also outlines the step-by-step process of creating forms using a workflow generator, emphasizing the significance of both custom and predefined forms. 

Ultimately, workflow form generator is presented as a strategic imperative for organizations seeking to excel in today's dynamic business landscape.

Read more Agami blogs

Start Your Agami Journey: Schedule Today!

#Workflow generators #WorkflowFormGenerator #Efficiency and productivity #Streamlining processes #Task automation #Simplifying workflows #Custom forms #Predefined forms #Task creation #Drag-and-drop interface #Task management #Data collection #Competitive advantage #Scalability #AgamiTechnologies 

[retailor]

Website : https://www.retailor.az

Address : Binəqədi, Azerbaijan

Retailor LLC specializes in Retail Audit, Retail Census, and Team Outsourcing services across Central Asia and the Caucasus. With over 15 years of experience in FMCG and Project Management, and 10 years in Retail Audit management, Retailor stands out for its in-depth knowledge of the retail market and advanced data collection and reporting tools. The company is committed to connecting retail execution with strategy, ensuring reliable and actionable data for partners like Coca-Cola, Unilever, and Colgate-Palmolive.

Linkedin : https://www.linkedin.com/company/retailor-llc/

Keywords: project management in retail retail business intelligence retail market research retail technology solutions retail market analysis retail strategy consulting retail execution management retail business operations retail audit services retail census solutions team outsourcing for retail retail strategy implementation fmcg market insights advanced retail data collection retail reporting technology retail execution optimization retail data accuracy retail partner support retail market efficiency retail audit management comprehensive retail audits data driven retail insights outsourced retail team expertise retail strategy implementation solutions cutting edge fmcg market analysis efficient project management in retail innovations in retail data collection technology driven retail reporting optimizing retail execution strategies data accuracy in retail analytics partner support for retail success enhancing retail market efficiency tailored retail technology solutions streamlined retail business operations effective retail audit management strategic retail consulting services in depth retail market research business intelligence for retail success proactive retail execution management retail audit and analysis strategic insights for retail growth professional retail team outsourcing retail strategy implementation tactics comprehensive fmcg market insights proven project management in retail cutting edge retail data solutions optimal retail execution strategies accuracy in retail data analytics partner support for retail excellence streamlining retail market efficiency efficient retail business operations expert retail audit management targeted retail audit and analysis

[nnctales]

Construction Automation: Types, Benefits and Future Outlook

Introduction In recent years, the construction industry has lagged behind manufacturing in adopting automation technologies. However, the current landscape presents an opportune moment for change. The construction sector’s trajectory towards a digital transformation is now marked by the increasing integration of automated technologies. From streamlining digital design and analysis processes to…

[electronalytics]

Battery-operated Remote Terminal Units Market Research, Size, Share, Analysis, Overview and Regional Outlook Study 2017 – 2032

The market for Remote Terminal Units (RTUs) that are battery-operated allows them to function in isolated or off-grid regions where access to a reliable power supply is restricted. RTUs are electronic devices used to monitor and manage remote equipment and processes in many different industries, such as oil and gas, water and wastewater management, power distribution, and telecommunications. Here is a summary of the market for battery-operated RTUs, including information on demand:

Market Overview: Due to a number of circumstances, the market for battery-operated RTUs has been expanding. The need for battery-operated RTUs has been fueled by the necessity for remote monitoring and control capabilities in various industries, particularly in places with weak power infrastructure. These devices enable efficient monitoring and control of remote assets without the requirement for a continual external power source thanks to their dependable and autonomous operation.

Demand Drivers:

1. Real-time monitoring and control of assets: situated in remote or isolating locations are necessary in many businesses. Without the requirement for a sizable power infrastructure or reliance on cable connections, battery-operated RTUs allow for effective data gathering, monitoring, and control of these assets.

2. Applications Off-Grid: In off-grid applications where access to a dependable power supply is restricted or nonexistent, battery-operated RTUs are widely used. Examples include remote water pumping stations in rural areas, environmental monitoring stations, remote weather monitoring stations, and remote oil and gas wellheads.

3. Emergency and Temporary Installations: Whereas immediate deployment is necessary, battery-powered RTUs are also used in emergency and temporary installations. When catastrophe recovery, building projects, or temporary infrastructure installations are taking place, these machines can instantly provide remote monitoring and control capabilities.

4. Environmental Monitoring: Data collection from remote weather stations, air quality sensors, and water quality sensors are all important aspects of environmental monitoring that battery-operated RTUs play a key role in. Continuous monitoring is made possible in remote or environmentally delicate locations by these equipment.

5. IoT Connectivity: The need for battery-operated RTUs has increased as the Internet of Things (IoT) is becoming more widely used in a variety of businesses. These devices are essential parts of IoT networks because they provide seamless data transmission, communication, and control between remote assets and central management systems.

Here are some of the key benefits for Stakeholders:

Remote Monitoring and Control

Flexibility and Mobility

Cost-Effective Deployment

Resilience to Power Outages

Integration with IoT and Smart Grids

Increased Data Accessibility

Environmental Monitoring and Compliance

Rapid Deployment for Emergency Response

Redundancy and Reliability

Scalability and Future-Proofing

We recommend referring our Stringent datalytics firm, industry publications, and websites that specialize in providing market reports. These sources often offer comprehensive analysis, market trends, growth forecasts, competitive landscape, and other valuable insights into this market.

By visiting our website or contacting us directly, you can explore the availability of specific reports related to this market. These reports often require a purchase or subscription, but we provide comprehensive and in-depth information that can be valuable for businesses, investors, and individuals interested in this market.

“Remember to look for recent reports to ensure you have the most current and relevant information.”

Click Here, To Get Free Sample Report: https://stringentdatalytics.com/sample-request/battery-operated-remote-terminal-units-market/10333/

Market Segmentations:

Global Battery-operated Remote Terminal Units Market: By Company • SIEMENS • SENECA • Omniflex • King Pigeon Communication Co.,Limited • Servelec Group • TEKBOX • Micro Sensor Co., Ltd. • Hitachi Group • Remsdaq Ltd Global Battery-operated Remote Terminal Units Market: By Type • GPRS • GSM • Modular • Others Global Battery-operated Remote Terminal Units Market: By Application • Power Industry • Government and Utilities • Industrial Global Battery-operated Remote Terminal Units Market: Regional Analysis The regional analysis of the global Battery-operated Remote Terminal Units market provides insights into the market's performance across different regions of the world. The analysis is based on recent and future trends and includes market forecast for the prediction period. The countries covered in the regional analysis of the Battery-operated Remote Terminal Units market report are as follows: North America: The North America region includes the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. The U.S. is the largest market for Battery-operated Remote Terminal Units in this region, followed by Canada and Mexico. The market growth in this region is primarily driven by the presence of key market players and the increasing demand for the product. Europe: The Europe region includes Germany, France, U.K., Russia, Italy, Spain, Turkey, Netherlands, Switzerland, Belgium, and Rest of Europe. Germany is the largest market for Battery-operated Remote Terminal Units in this region, followed by the U.K. and France. The market growth in this region is driven by the increasing demand for the product in the automotive and aerospace sectors. Asia-Pacific: TheAsia-Pacific region includes Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, China, Japan, India, South Korea, and Rest of Asia-Pacific. China is the largest market for Battery-operated Remote Terminal Units in this region, followed by Japan and India. The market growth in this region is driven by the increasing adoption of the product in various end-use industries, such as automotive, aerospace, and construction. Middle East and Africa: The Middle East and Africa region includes Saudi Arabia, U.A.E, South Africa, Egypt, Israel, and Rest of Middle East and Africa. The market growth in this region is driven by the increasing demand for the product in the aerospace and defense sectors. South America: The South America region includes Argentina, Brazil, and Rest of South America. Brazil is the largest market for Battery-operated Remote Terminal Units in this region, followed by Argentina. The market growth in this region is primarily driven by the increasing demand for the product in the automotive sector.

Visit Report Page for More Details: https://stringentdatalytics.com/reports/battery-operated-remote-terminal-units-market/10333/

Reasons to Purchase Battery-operated Remote Terminal Units Market Report:

• To obtain insights into industry trends and dynamics, including market size, growth rates, and important factors and difficulties. This study offers insightful information on these topics.

• To identify important participants and rivals: This research studies can assist companies in identifying key participants and rivals in their sector, along with their market share, business plans, and strengths and weaknesses.

• To comprehend consumer behaviour: these research studies can offer insightful information about customer behaviour, including preferences, spending patterns, and demographics.

• To assess market opportunities: These research studies can aid companies in assessing market chances, such as prospective new goods or services, fresh markets, and new trends.

In general, market research studies offer companies and organisations useful data that can aid in making decisions and maintaining competitiveness in their industry. They can offer a strong basis for decision-making, strategy formulation, and company planning.

About US:

Stringent Datalytics offers both custom and syndicated market research reports. Custom market research reports are tailored to a specific client's needs and requirements. These reports provide unique insights into a particular industry or market segment and can help businesses make informed decisions about their strategies and operations.

Syndicated market research reports, on the other hand, are pre-existing reports that are available for purchase by multiple clients. These reports are often produced on a regular basis, such as annually or quarterly, and cover a broad range of industries and market segments. Syndicated reports provide clients with insights into industry trends, market sizes, and competitive landscapes. By offering both custom and syndicated reports, Stringent Datalytics can provide clients with a range of market research solutions that can be customized to their specific needs

Contact US:

Stringent Datalytics

Contact No -  +1 346 666 6655

Email Id -  sales@stringentdatalytics.com

Web - https://stringentdatalytics.com/

[heritageposts]

The Grayzone has obtained slides from a confidential Israel lobby presentation based on data from Republican pollster Frank Luntz. They contain talking points for politicians and public figures seeking to justify Israel’s assault on the Gaza Strip. Two prominent pro-Israel lobby groups are holding private briefings in New York City to coach elected officials and well-known figures on how to influence public opinion in favor of the Israeli military’s rampage in Gaza, The Grayzone can reveal. These PR sessions, convened by the UJA-Federation and Jewish Community Relations Council, rely on data collected by Frank Luntz, a veteran Republican pollster and pundit. [...] The Luntz-tested presentations on the war in Gaza urge politicians to avoid trumpeting America’s supposedly shared democratic values with Israel, and focus instead on deploying “The Language of War with Hamas.” According to this framing, they must deploy incendiary language painting Hamas as a “brutal and savage…organization of hate” which has “raped women,” while insisting Israel is engaged in “a war for humanity.” [...] Luntz’s Gaza war presentation puts his poll-tested tactics back in the Israel lobby’s hands, urging pro-Israel public figures to stay on the attack with incendiary language and shocking allegations against their enemies. In one focus group, Luntz asked participants to state which alleged act by Hamas on October 7 “bothers you more.” After being presented with a laundry list of alleged atrocities, a majority declared that they were most upset by the claim that Hamas “raped civilians” – 19 percent more than those who expressed outrage that Hamas supposedly “exterminated civilians.” Data like this apparently influenced the Israeli government to launch an obsessive but still unsuccessful campaign to prove that Hamas carried out sexual assault on a systematic basis on October 7. Initiated at Israel’s United Nations mission in December 2023 with speeches by neoliberal tech oligarch Sheryl Sandberg and former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, a recipient of hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations and speaking fees from Israel lobby organizations, Tel Aviv’s propaganda blitz has yet to produce a single self-identified victim of sexual assault by Hamas. A March 5 report by UN Special Representative on Sexual Violence Pramila Patten did not contain one direct testimony of sexual assault on October 7. What’s more, Patten’s team said they found “no digital evidence specifically depicting acts of sexual violence.”

They also advice to use different language for Democrat and Republican voters, which inadvertently provides one of the most succinct explanation of the difference between the two genocidal parties that I've ever come across:

To make their arguments stick, Luntz recommends pro-Israel forces avoid the exterminationist language favored by Israeli officials who have called, for example, to “erase” the population of Gaza, and to instead advocate for “an efficient, effective approach” to eliminating Hamas. At the same time, veteran pollster acknowledges that Republican voters prefer phrases which imply maximalist violence, like “eradicate” and “obliterate,” while sanitized terms like “neutralize” appeal more to Democrats. Republican presidential candidates Nikki Haley and Donald Trump have showcased similar focus-grouped rhetoric with their calls to “finish them” and “finish the problem” in Gaza.

One of the slides, illustrating what language to use:

There are several more slides in the article. I recommend reading the whole thing, start to finish. One more thing I'd like to highlight though:

Luntz acknowledges Israel’s mounting PR problems in a slide identifying the most powerful tactics employed by Palestine solidarity activists. “Israelis attacking Israel is the second most potent weapon against Israel,” the visual display reads beside a photo of a protest by Jewish Voices for Peace, a US-based Jewish organization dedicated to ending Israel’s occupation of Palestine. “The most potent” tactic in mobilizing opposition to Israel’s assault on Gaza, according to Luntz, “is the visual destruction of Gaza and the human toll.” The slide inadvertently acknowledges the cruelty of Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, displaying a bombed out apartment building with clearly anguished women and children fleeing in the foreground. But Luntz assures his audience, “It ‘looks like a genocide’ even though the damage has nothing to do with the definition.” According to this logic, the American public can become more tolerant of copiously documented crimes against humanity if they are simply told not to believe their lying eyes.

. . . full article on GZ (6 Mar 2024)

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Epic Systems, a lethal health record monopolist

Epic Systems makes the dominant electronic health record (EHR) system in America; if you're a doctor, chances are you are required to use it, and for every hour a doctor spends with a patient, they have to spend two hours doing clinically useless bureaucratic data-entry on an Epic EHR.

How could a product so manifestly unfit for purpose be the absolute market leader? Simple: as Robert Kuttner describes in an excellent feature in The American Prospect, Epic may be a clinical disaster, but it's a profit-generating miracle:

https://prospect.org/health/2024-10-01-epic-dystopia/

At the core of Epic's value proposition is "upcoding," a form of billing fraud that is beloved of hospital administrators, including the "nonprofit" hospitals that generate vast fortunes that are somehow not characterized as profits. Here's a particularly egregious form of upcoding: back in 2020, the Poudre Valley Hospital in Ft Collins, CO locked all its doors except the ER entrance. Every patient entering the hospital, including those receiving absolutely routine care, was therefore processed as an "emergency."

In April 2020, Caitlin Wells Salerno – a pregnant biologist – drove to Poudre Valley with normal labor pains. She walked herself up to obstetrics, declining the offer of a wheelchair, stopping only to snap a cheeky selfie. Nevertheless, the hospital recorded her normal, uncomplicated birth as a Level 5 emergency – comparable to a major heart-attack – and whacked her with a $2755 bill for emergency care:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/10/27/crossing-a-line/#zero-fucks-given

Upcoding has its origins in the Reagan revolution, when the market-worshipping cultists he'd put in charge of health care created the "Prospective Payment System," which paid a lump sum for care. The idea was to incentivize hospitals to provide efficient care, since they could keep the difference between whatever they spent getting you better and the set PPS amount that Medicare would reimburse them. Hospitals responded by inventing upcoding: a patient with controlled, long-term coronary disease who showed up with a broken leg would get coded for the coronary condition and the cast, and the hospital would pocket both lump sums:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/13/a-punch-in-the-guts/#hayek-pilled

The reason hospital administrators love Epic, and pay gigantic sums for systemwide software licenses, is directly connected to the two hours that doctors spent filling in Epic forms for every hour they spend treating patients. Epic collects all that extra information in order to identify potential sources of plausible upcodes, which allows hospitals to bill patients, insurers, and Medicare through the nose for routine care. Epic can automatically recode "diabetes with no complications" from a Hierarchical Condition Category code 19 (worth $894.40) as "diabetes with kidney failure," code 18 and 136, which gooses the reimbursement to $1273.60.

Epic snitches on doctors to their bosses, giving them a dashboard to track doctors' compliance with upcoding suggestions. One of Kuttner's doctor sources says her supervisor contacts her with questions like, "That appointment was a 2. Don’t you think it might be a 3?"

Robert Kuttner is the perfect journalist to unravel the Epic scam. As a journalist who wrote for The New England Journal of Medicine, he's got an insider's knowledge of the health industry, and plenty of sources among health professionals. As he tells it, Epic is a cultlike, insular company that employs 12.500 people in its hometown of Verona, WI.

The EHR industry's origins start with a GW Bush-era law called the HITECH Act, which was later folded into Obama's Recovery Act in 2009. Obama provided $27b to hospitals that installed EHR systems. These systems had to more than track patient outcomes – they also provided the data for pay-for-performance incentives. EHRs were already trying to do something very complicated – track health outcomes – but now they were also meant to underpin a cockamamie "incentives" program that was supposed to provide a carrot to the health industry so it would stop killing people and ripping off Medicare. EHRs devolved into obscenely complex spaghetti systems that doctors and nurses loathed on sight.

But there was one group that loved EHRs: hospital administrators and the private companies offering Medicare Advantage plans (which also benefited from upcoding patients in order to soak Uncle Sucker):

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8649706/

The spread of EHRs neatly tracks with a spike in upcharging: "from 2014 through 2019, the number of hospital stays billed at the highest severity level increased almost 20 percent…the number of stays billed at each of the other severity levels decreased":

https://oig.hhs.gov/oei/reports/OEI-02-18-00380.pdf

The purpose of a system is what it does. Epic's industry-dominating EHR is great at price-gouging, but it sucks as a clinical tool – it takes 18 keystrokes just to enter a prescription:

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2729481

Doctors need to see patients, but their bosses demand that they satisfy Epic's endless red tape. Doctors now routinely stay late after work and show up hours early, just to do paperwork. It's not enough. According to another one of Kuttner's sources, doctors routinely copy-and-paste earlier entries into the current one, a practice that generates rampant errors. Some just make up random numbers to fulfill Epic's nonsensical requirements: the same source told Kuttner that when prompted to enter a pain score for his TB patients, he just enters "zero."

Don't worry, Epic has a solution: AI. They've rolled out an "ambient listening" tool that attempts to transcribe everything the doctor and patient say during an exam and then bash it into a visit report. Not only is this prone to the customary mistakes that make AI unsuited to high-stakes, error-sensitive applications, it also represents a profound misunderstanding of the purpose of clinical notes.

The very exercise of organizing your thoughts and reflections about an event – such as a medical exam – into a coherent report makes you apply rigor and perspective to events that otherwise arrive as a series of fleeting impressions and reactions. That's why blogging is such an effective practice:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/09/the-memex-method/

The answer to doctors not having time to reflect and organize good notes is to give them more time – not more AI. As another doctor told Kuttner: "Ambient listening is a solution to a self-created problem of requiring too much data entry by clinicians."

EHRs are one of those especially hellish public-private partnerships. Health care doctrine from Reagan to Obama insisted that the system just needed to be exposed to market forces and incentives. EHRs are designed to allow hospitals to win as many of these incentives as possible. Epic's clinical care modules do this by bombarding doctors with low-quality diagnostic suggestions with "little to do with a patient’s actual condition and risks," leading to "alert fatigue," so doctors miss the important alerts in the storm of nonsense elbow-jostling:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5058605/

Clinicians who actually want to improve the quality of care in their facilities end up recording data manually and keying it into spreadsheets, because they can't get Epic to give them the data they need. Meanwhile, an army of high-priced consultants stand ready to give clinicians advise on getting Epic to do what they need, but can't seem to deliver.

Ironically, one of the benefits that Epic touts is its interoperability: hospitals that buy Epic systems can interconnect those with other Epic systems, and there's a large ecosystem of aftermarket add-ons that work with Epic. But Epic is a product, not a protocol, so its much-touted interop exists entirely on its terms, and at its sufferance. If Epic chooses, a doctor using its products can send files to a doctor using a rival product. But Epic can also veto that activity – and its veto extends to deciding whether a hospital can export their patient records to a competing service and get off Epic altogether.

One major selling point for Epic is its capacity to export "anonymized" data for medical research. Very large patient data-sets like Epic's are reasonably believed to contain many potential medical insights, so medical researchers are very excited at the prospect of interrogating that data.

But Epic's approach – anonymizing files containing the most sensitive information imaginable, about millions of people, and then releasing them to third parties – is a nightmare. "De-identified" data-sets are notoriously vulnerable to "re-identification" and the threat of re-identification only increases every time there's another release or breach, which can used to reveal the identities of people in anonymized records. For example, if you have a database of all the prescribing at a given hospital – a numeric identifier representing the patient, and the time and date when they saw a doctor and got a scrip. At any time in the future, a big location-data breach – say, from Uber or a transit system – can show you which people went back and forth to the hospital at the times that line up with those doctor's appointments, unmasking the person who got abortion meds, cancer meds, psychiatric meds or other sensitive prescriptions.

The fact that anonymized data can – will! – be re-identified doesn't mean we have to give up on the prospect of gleaning insight from medical records. In the UK, the eminent doctor Ben Goldacre and colleagues built an incredible effective, privacy-preserving "trusted research environment" (TRE) to operate on millions of NHS records across a decentralized system of hospitals and trusts without ever moving the data off their own servers:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/08/the-fire-of-orodruin/#are-we-the-baddies

The TRE is an open source, transparent server that accepts complex research questions in the form of database queries. These queries are posted to a public server for peer-review and revision, and when they're ready, the TRE sends them to each of the databases where the records are held. Those databases transmit responses to the TRE, which then publishes them. This has been unimaginably successful: the prototype of the TRE launched during the lockdown generated sixty papers in Nature in a matter of months.

Monopolies are inefficient, and Epic's outmoded and dangerous approach to research, along with the roadblocks it puts in the way of clinical excellence, epitomizes the problems with monopoly. America's health care industry is a dumpster fire from top to bottom – from Medicare Advantage to hospital cartels – and allowing Epic to dominate the EHR market has somehow, incredibly, made that system even worse.

Naturally, Kuttner finishes out his article with some antitrust analysis, sketching out how the Sherman Act could be brought to bear on Epic. Something has to be done. Epic's software is one of the many reasons that MDs are leaving the medical profession in droves.

Epic epitomizes the long-standing class war between doctors who want to take care of their patients and hospital executives who want to make a buck off of those patients.

Tor Books as just published two new, free LITTLE BROTHER stories: VIGILANT, about creepy surveillance in distance education; and SPILL, about oil pipelines and indigenous landback.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/02/upcoded-to-death/#thanks-obama

Image: Flying Logos (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Over_$1,000,000_dollars_in_USD_$100_bill_stacks.png

CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

[probablyasocialecologist]

A new paper from researchers at Microsoft and Carnegie Mellon University finds that as humans increasingly rely on generative AI in their work, they use less critical thinking, which can “result in the deterioration of cognitive faculties that ought to be preserved.” “[A] key irony of automation is that by mechanising routine tasks and leaving exception-handling to the human user, you deprive the user of the routine opportunities to practice their judgement and strengthen their cognitive musculature, leaving them atrophied and unprepared when the exceptions do arise,” the researchers wrote. 

[...]

“The data shows a shift in cognitive effort as knowledge workers increasingly move from task execution to oversight when using GenAI,” the researchers wrote. “Surprisingly, while AI can improve efficiency, it may also reduce critical engagement, particularly in routine or lower-stakes tasks in which users simply rely on AI, raising concerns about long-term reliance and diminished independent problem-solving.” The researchers also found that “users with access to GenAI tools produce a less diverse set of outcomes for the same task, compared to those without. This tendency for convergence reflects a lack of personal, contextualised, critical and reflective judgement of AI output and thus can be interpreted as a deterioration of critical thinking.”

[...]

So, does this mean AI is making us dumb, is inherently bad, and should be abolished to save humanity's collective intelligence from being atrophied? That’s an understandable response to evidence suggesting that AI tools are reducing critical thinking among nurses, teachers, and commodity traders, but the researchers’ perspective is not that simple.

10 February 2025

[jcmarchi]

How Business Leaders Can Achieve Their Goals in Both AI and Sustainability

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/how-business-leaders-can-achieve-their-goals-in-both-ai-and-sustainability/

How Business Leaders Can Achieve Their Goals in Both AI and Sustainability

For companies, balancing AI adoption and environmental impact is an imperative. According to the World Economic Forum (WEF), the power needed to support AI’s growth is doubling every 100 days. By 2028, AI’s energy consumption could exceed the total power used by Iceland in 2021. AI can be a double-edged sword: while it can significantly advance environmental initiatives, it can be equally detrimental if used carelessly.  

There’s no universal blueprint for sustainable AI use—each organization’s approach must align with its unique circumstances. Instead, integrating AI and furthering eco-friendly objectives requires a certain attitude.

Think about the lines that form outside Apple stores on product launch days: early adopters proudly displaying the latest gadgets as status symbols. That mindset won’t work here. Companies shouldn’t rush to adopt flashy AI tools simply to be seen as trendsetters. Instead, they should focus on purposeful AI implementation that supports long-term sustainability goals.

Here are some strategies to consider.  

Automate with an eye toward energy savings

Some leaders might frown on employees taking shortcuts, but I never do. At Jotform, I encourage employees to continually look for faster ways to accomplish their busywork, as long as the quality of their output doesn’t falter. Automation is the heart of our business and central to our culture. If there’s an automated tool that can handle a tedious, manual task, then I say: go for it.

As it happens, automating tasks using AI tools can also further your sustainability goals. As the WEF notes, optimizing scheduling for energy savings, i.e., shifting AI workloads to correspond with times of lower energy demand, is an impactful tactic for leveraging AI and lowering your carbon footprint.

Let’s say you’ve chosen an AI tool to automate regular security scans to protect your data. Programming those tasks overnight is an easy way to become more energy efficient. General energy consumption tends to decrease during the evenings, and energy grids get a breather and can run more efficiently. As an incidental benefit, your energy costs often drop, too. 

Or, if you’re in a geographic region with warm weather and generous AC usage, you can shift energy-demanding projects to cooler months, when energy grids are less strained. Importantly, these shifts require forethought but require almost no additional effort. They can amount to significant energy conservation. 

Choose foundational models

Imagine you’re in the kitchen of a Michelin-starred restaurant. The chefs have all been trained in culinary schools and high-caliber restaurants. Together, the team can execute all types of dishes and innovate new ones. If someone wants to put together an incredible meal, they don’t have to train an entirely new team of chefs—they can use this one, leveraging their existing expertise and providing tailored guidance. 

In AI, that’s the idea of a foundational model: an advanced program that has already been trained on huge amounts of data. If someone needed a certain AI tool, they could start with this foundational model rather than building a model from scratch.

Writing for Harvard Business Review, Christina Shim, chief sustainability officer at IBM, explains why opting for foundational models is an energy-efficient approach. As opposed to creating a new model, “foundation models can be custom-tuned for specific purposes in a fraction of the time, with a fraction of the data, and a fraction of the energy costs.”

Shim notes that the size of a foundational model can also make an impact—most come with either 3, 8, or 20 billion parameters. Per IBM research, smaller models trained on specific and relevant data can perform just as well as the larger ones, but faster and consume less energy. Bigger isn’t always better. As Salesforce put it, opting for the biggest, most powerful model for specific enterprise needs is like “using a semi-truck to go get groceries or pick up a single passenger”—in other words, completely unnecessary.  

Larger models do, however, come with heftier price tags. Taking the time to choose a model that’s scaled to your objective is a worthwhile investment that can ultimately save financial and ecological resources.

Opt for open-source software

Another crucial choice at the beginning of any AI journey is whether to opt for open-source software. Open-source options might not solve every problem, but in many cases, they can provide an energy- and cost-effective solution that draws upon the wisdom of countless experts. You can focus on improving an existing solution (and sharing the results), rather than taxing the energy grids to reinvent the wheel each time. As Shim notes, open-source software enjoys the benefit of collective improvement—with more eyes on the problem, the resulting product is better, and the energy demand in the development phase is distributed among the users. 

Good software is worth the money but it needs to fit your needs and budget—an increasingly relevant consideration during times of inflation. In many cases, an open-source solution is available for free or at a fraction of the cost. 

Implement automation to enhance system efficiency

Finally, AI-powered automation tools can save energy insofar as they help to boost system efficiency. They can do this directly, by slashing hours needed to perform tedious tasks. For example, if you’re conducting research, tools like ChatGPT can eliminate hours of sitting in front of a monitor screen by identifying and synthesizing key information in seconds. 

AI tools can also play a role in the systems-planning stage. Take Salesforce: their data center infrastructure team uses AI to predict and anticipate their customers’ usage patterns, then automatically scales the volume of servers required. This allows them to tailor the way their data center infrastructure is used and avoid wasting excess energy. Likewise, the software company uses AI to make decisions to reduce its carbon footprint by analyzing millions of data points from the supply chain, business travel, real estate, and more. 

AI can perform like a sustainability consultant, ideally saving more energy than required to perform the corresponding analyses and tasks. In that sense, AI can be a single-edged sword, delivering more benefits than any associated drawbacks. 

[carriondell]

mechanic reader who fawns over boothill's machine body with torrents of praise worthy of the sappiest romance novels—but doesn't even consider the man attached to all those gorgeous wires and fine pistons and elegant hydrolics and ooh, what an efficient system of dynamic pseudo-muscle memory!! you're so honoured to work with this beauty, to innovate upon it, even!

boothill, meanwhile, is fighting for his life to be acknowledged.

exhibit A:

he's laying on a metal slab in your lab, half of his chest popped open, your fingers fiddling inside with the tubes that feed into a fuel tank. you acquired top-grade Neutrinoil(TM) and you simply HAD to deep-clean and upgrade his plumbing. so he has to watch and bear it while you're straddling him, hands in his guts, cooing about how perfectly efficient he's about to be, how much energy he'll have, how that "awesome new engine's gonna exploit every last drop, not an inkling wasted, and this beautiful machine will run for ages."

"if ya like it so much, why not drop by my ship later? i could show ya a trick or two. put that new energy to use."

you perk up with excitement, and for a glimmering instant he thinks he's got it in the bag, until you gleefully announce, "oh, no, let's do it in my workshop! i'll hook you up to the scanners first, i must collect as much data as possible!! wait, is it a physical trick or should i also plug in the peri-mental data receptors?"

[reasonsforhope]

"When a severe water shortage hit the Indian city of Kozhikode in the state of Kerala, a group of engineers turned to science fiction to keep the taps running.

Like everyone else in the city, engineering student Swapnil Shrivastav received a ration of two buckets of water a day collected from India’s arsenal of small water towers.

It was a ‘watershed’ moment for Shrivastav, who according to the BBC had won a student competition four years earlier on the subject of tackling water scarcity, and armed with a hypothetical template from the original Star Wars films, Shrivastav and two partners set to work harvesting water from the humid air.

“One element of inspiration was from Star Wars where there’s an air-to-water device. I thought why don’t we give it a try? It was more of a curiosity project,” he told the BBC.

According to ‘Wookiepedia’ a ‘moisture vaporator’ is a device used on moisture farms to capture water from a dry planet’s atmosphere, like Tatooine, where protagonist Luke Skywalker grew up.

This fictional device functions according to Star Wars lore by coaxing moisture from the air by means of refrigerated condensers, which generate low-energy ionization fields. Captured water is then pumped or gravity-directed into a storage cistern that adjusts its pH levels. Vaporators are capable of collecting 1.5 liters of water per day.

Pictured: Moisture vaporators on the largely abandoned Star Wars film set of Mos Espa, in Tunisia

If science fiction authors could come up with the particulars of such a device, Shrivastav must have felt his had a good chance of succeeding. He and colleagues Govinda Balaji and Venkatesh Raja founded Uravu Labs, a Bangalore-based startup in 2019.

Their initial offering is a machine that converts air to water using a liquid desiccant. Absorbing moisture from the air, sunlight or renewable energy heats the desiccant to around 100°F which releases the captured moisture into a chamber where it’s condensed into drinking water.

The whole process takes 12 hours but can produce a staggering 2,000 liters, or about 500 gallons of drinking-quality water per day. [Note: that IS staggering! That's huge!!] Uravu has since had to adjust course due to the cost of manufacturing and running the machines—it’s just too high for civic use with current materials technology.

“We had to shift to commercial consumption applications as they were ready to pay us and it’s a sustainability driver for them,” Shrivastav explained. This pivot has so far been enough to keep the start-up afloat, and they produce water for 40 different hospitality clients.

Looking ahead, Shrivastav, Raja, and Balaji are planning to investigate whether the desiccant can be made more efficient; can it work at a lower temperature to reduce running costs, or is there another material altogether that might prove more cost-effective?

They’re also looking at running their device attached to data centers in a pilot project that would see them utilize the waste heat coming off the centers to heat the desiccant."

-via Good News Network, May 30, 2024

[batboyblog]

Things the Biden-Harris Administration Did This Week #28

July 19-26 2024

The EPA announced the award of $4.3 billion in Climate Pollution Reduction Grants. The grants support community-driven solutions to fight climate change, and accelerate America’s clean energy transition. The grants will go to 25 projects across 30 states, and one tribal community. When combined the projects will reduce greenhouse gas pollution by as much as 971 million metric tons of CO2, roughly the output of 5 million American homes over 25 years. Major projects include $396 million for Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection as it tries to curb greenhouse gas emissions from industrial production, and $500 million for transportation and freight decarbonization at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.

The Biden-Harris Administration announced a plan to phase out the federal government's use of single use plastics. The plan calls for the federal government to stop using single use plastics in food service operations, events, and packaging by 2027, and from all federal operations by 2035. The US government is the single largest employer in the country and the world’s largest purchaser of goods and services. Its move away from plastics will redefine the global market.

The White House hosted a summit on super pollutants with the goals of better measuring them and dramatically reducing them. Roughly half of today's climate change is caused by so called super pollutants, methane, hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), and nitrous oxide (N2O). Public-private partnerships between NOAA and United Airlines, The State Department and NASA, and the non-profit Carbon Mapper Coalition will all help collect important data on these pollutants. While private firms announced with the White House plans that by early next year will reduce overall U.S. industrial emissions of nitrous oxide by over 50% from 2020 numbers. The summit also highlighted the EPA's new rule to reduce methane from oil and gas by 80%.

The EPA announced $325 million in grants for climate justice. The Community Change Grants Program, powered by President Biden's Inflation Reduction Act will ultimately bring $2 billion dollars to disadvantaged communities and help them combat climate change. Some of the projects funded in this first round of grant were: $20 million for Midwest Tribal Energy Resources Association, which will help weatherize and energy efficiency upgrade homes for 35 tribes in Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, $14 million to install onsite wastewater treatment systems throughout 17 Black Belt counties in Alabama, and $14 million to urban forestry, expanding tree canopy in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.

The Department of Interior approved 3 new solar projects on public land. The 3 projects, two in Nevada and one in Arizona, once finished could generate enough to power 2 million homes. This comes on top of DoI already having beaten its goal of 25 gigawatts of clean energy projects by the end of 2025, in April 2024. This is all part of President Biden’s goal of creating a carbon pollution-free power sector by 2035. 

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen pledged $667 million to global Pandemic Fund. The fund set up in 2022 seeks to support Pandemic prevention, and readiness in low income nations who can't do it on their own. At the G20 meeting Yellen pushed other nations of the 20 largest economies to double their pledges to the $2 billion dollar fund. Yellen highlighted the importance of the fund by saying "President Biden and I believe that a fully-resourced Pandemic Fund will enable us to better prevent, prepare for, and respond to pandemics – protecting Americans and people around the world from the devastating human and economic costs of infectious disease threats,"

The Departments of the Interior and Commerce today announced a $240 million investment in tribal fisheries in the Pacific Northwest. This is in line with an Executive Order President Biden signed in 2023 during the White House Tribal Nations Summit to mpower Tribal sovereignty and self-determination. An initial $54 million for hatchery maintenance and modernization will be made available for 27 tribes in Alaska, Washington, Oregon, and Idaho. The rest will be invested in longer term fishery projects in the coming years.

The IRS announced that thanks to funding from President Biden's Inflation Reduction Act, it'll be able to digitize much of its operations. This means tax payers will be able to retrieve all their tax related information from one source, including Wage & Income, Account, Record of Account, and Return transcripts, using on-line Individual Online Account.

The IRS also announced that New Jersey will be joining the direct file program in 2025. The direct file program ran as a pilot in 12 states in 2024, allowing tax-payers in those states to file simple tax returns using a free online filing tool directly with the IRS. In 2024 140,000 Americans were able to file this way, they collectively saved $5.6 million in tax preparation fees, claiming $90 million in returns. The average American spends $270 and 13 hours filing their taxes. More than a million people in New Jersey alone will qualify for direct file next year. Oregon opted to join last month. Republicans in Congress lead by Congressmen Adrian Smith of Nebraska and Chuck Edwards of North Carolina have put forward legislation to do away with direct file.

Bonus: American law enforcement arrested co-founder of the Sinaloa Cartel, Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada. El Mayo co-founded the cartel in the 1980s along side Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán. Since El Chapo's incarceration in the United States in 2019, El Mayo has been sole head of the Sinaloa Cartel. Authorities also arrested El Chapo's son, Joaquin Guzman Lopez. The Sinaloa Cartel has been a major player in the cross border drug trade, and has often used extreme violence to further their aims.