First Brain MRI, 30 Years Ago

Heady Times: This Scientist Took The First Brain Selfie And Helped Revolutionize Medical Imaging
Early one October morning 30 years ago, GE scientist John Schenck was lying on a makeshift platform inside a GE lab in upstate New York. The itself lab was put together with special non-magnetic nails because surrounding his body was a large magnet, 30,000 times stronger than the Earth’s magnetic field. Standing at his side were a handful of colleagues and a nurse. They were there to peer inside Schenck’s head and take the first magnetic resonance scan (MRI) of the brain.

Schenck is one of the GE scientists whose work is featured in Breakthrough, the new six-part science TV series developed by GE and National Geographic Channel. The episode, titled Decoding the Brain and directed by Brett Rattner, aired last Sunday. ... " 

Includes more details and Video link of program

More on the MRI tag from GE.

GE Seeks Internet of Things Dominance

In Forbes: GE To Take On IBM In The Race For IOT Dominance
  
by Theo Priestley , 

General Electric announced yesterday the creation of a new unit with the aim to become the leader in the Industrial Internet of Things race. GE Digital will integrate GE’s Software Center, the expertise of GE’s global IT and commercial software teams, and the industrial security strength of Wurldtech. This new business model will be led by Bill Ruh, formerly GE’s Vice President and Global Technology Director and now newly appointed as Chief Digital Officer. ...  " 

GE, AI and Modeling Hospitals with Corvix

Fascinating work by GE in the use of artificial intelligence in a system called Corvix.   During the AI   explosion of the 80s we talked to GE about what I would call manufacturing maintenance AI.   It is good to see another large technology company playing seriously in this space.   We note further that this approach uses a simulation method called Agent Based Modeling, which we applied in supply chain and economic modeling.   Also specific future predictive analytic methods.  Their use in Corvix is broadly outlined below:

" ... Around the world, the health care system is rife with inefficiencies, and General Electric thinks it can help solve the problem using data. Only it’s not talking about bureaucrats looking at reports: GE has built an artificial intelligence system called Corvix that uses historical data to predict the future, including everything from how diseases will spread to the cities where hospitals will be needed the most.

It might sound futuristic, but the techniques behind Corvix have actually been around for a while. The platform uses agent-based modeling to build, essentially, a reasonable facsimile of some sort of complex system and then simulate its evolution over time. The “agents” represent the atomic units of those systems, such as individual people in the case of human populations or perhaps cells in the case of a biological simulation. They act according to a set of rules in any given situation, which is how the models are able to keep the simulations progressing... " 

Twenty Year Look at fMRI

A view of the only twenty year history of fMIRI scanning of the brain.