Machine learning goes with the flow [pdf press release]:
An artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm trained to listen to patients pass urine is able to identify abnormal flows and could be a useful and cost-effective means of monitoring and managing urology patients at home
The deep learning tool, Audioflow, performed almost as well as a specialist machine used in clinics, and achieves similar results to urology residents in assessing urinary flow. The current study focuses on sound created by urine in a soundproof environment, but the ambition is to create an app so patients can monitor themselves at home.
Uroflowmetry is an important tool for the assessment of patients with symptoms, but patients have to urinate into a machine during outpatient visits. They are asked to urinate into a funnel connected to the uroflowmeter which records information about flow. During the COVID-19 pandemic access to clinics has been restricted, and even where patients can attend, the test can take a long time with queues to use a single machine.
[...] "Our AI can outperform some non-experts and comes close to senior consultants," he continues. "But the real benefit is having the equivalent of a consultant in the bathroom with you, every time you go. We are now working towards the algorithm being able to work when there is background noise in the normal home environment and this will make the true difference for patients."
Audioflow will now be rolled out as a smartphone app via primary care physicians so it can be tested in the real world and learn from different datasets in different noise environments.
Soon you'll be able to get critiques from Alexa as you go to the bathroom.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by drussell on Tuesday July 05 2022, @05:55PM (3 children)
Ok, so this is apparently at least a reasonably well understood system of measuring something and acting upon results. Great.
Why then, other than being buzzwordy, does doing this apparently reasonably well understood thing somehow require "AI" to come up with an algorythm when the process is essentially already being used elsewhere?
Are the people implementing it "on a smartphone" just not knowledgeable enough to do it themselves? They instead went to the lengths to create an AI framework and "train it" to "figure out" how to do what others in the field apparently already know how to do?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 05 2022, @07:24PM (2 children)
I think the idea is that, since people don't have uroflowmeters at home, they can use this app to listen to them pee and it will estimate the flow from that, so no need to have to go in and stand in line at the uroflowmeter.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by drussell on Tuesday July 05 2022, @07:47PM (1 child)
Yes, I fully understand what they are doing.
I'm sure they're implementing it with something like using the microphones on the phone to analyze the urine stream flow...
The question is, why did they have to supposedly use some "AI" derived (more correctly machine-learned) algorithm to do this, or is the actual analysis really using some kind of ongoing machine-learning system to "learn" your pee sound habits during the deployed use in the actual user operation of this system?
It frequently seems like people are increasingly calling anything you could pretty much analyze in a spreadsheet with a couple macros or a quick python script "machine learning" and then the press release or media coverage or whatever calls it "artificial intelligence." Bollocks!
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday July 05 2022, @07:59PM
That's generally what Machine Learning is, though. "Artificial Intelligence"/Machine Learning as we know it, isn't like Science Fiction "Artificial Intelligence"/sentience/near sentience.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by bradley13 on Tuesday July 05 2022, @07:38PM (1 child)
A flowmeter is a trivial machine. If there are long lines, buy another one. Seriously, WTF? AI Listening to a tinkle will NOT be - cannot be - as accurate.
What a desperate application of AI. Seriously, WTF?
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Thursday July 07 2022, @11:33AM
Pee in a bottle. Even one headed for disposal anyway.
How long did it take?
How much did you get?
A quick calculation.
There's your uroflowmeter!
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 05 2022, @07:47PM (3 children)
I envy those who still have a flow - without a prosthetic, that is. Makes a body real nervous about breakdowns in the supply chain.
I finally went to the doctor when I could count to 300 while urinating. It has been catheter city ever since.
Geeks here might appreciate that AFAICT, this is what killed Bobby Fischer [wikipedia.org].
Ben Franklin was also notably afflicted.
As if anybody needed a phone to diagnose this!
(Score: 1) by anubi on Wednesday July 06 2022, @12:04AM (2 children)
Are catheters painful?
Seems with all the work we've done with blood vessels, we oughta have a method of bypassing urine, possibly using magnetic valves.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 06 2022, @12:55AM (1 child)
Not particularly, though it varies somewhat with fullness. It is not pleasant, but I'd have to say that sticking a covid test swab up your nose is a bit worse, though not by much. The annoying thing is having to carry a catheter kit whenever planning to be away from home for longer than two hours, which is why I haven't more than a dozen times in near five years now.
There are a number of surgical fixes devised for this, but I've not found one that does not list ED as a risk factor, and that would make my wife sad, so I stay with an adequate workaround. Also, I have not yet met a urologist who strikes me as particularly competent. I have had prior surgeries that had horrific (disabling) side effects, so I am not keen to brave another just now.
I expect most will find life with catheters is better than no life, so don't fear it too much if you are headed in that direction.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 07 2022, @06:15AM
I guess at least I can't feel enough down there to make using a catheter unpleasant. Small mercies. Have you tried looking at the more easier-to-use catheters for going out? I use the Hollister Advance plus - it has a bag attached and a pre-lube mechanism. Expensive but might get you out of the house more often.
I've also got some re-usable Cliny caths stashed away in case of supply chain disruptions. Yeah, people don't realize that they can be lethal for some of us.