With the rapid increase in the number of people infected with coronavirus, Japan is short of medical workers. Tokyo will use robots to attend to coronavirus patients
The Tokyo Metropolitan Government unveiled two robots at the Apa Hotel & Resort in the capital’s Sumida ward. The Apa Hotel is one of five hotels in Tokyo that the metropolitan government
A Pepper humanoid robot, manufactured by SoftBank Group Corp., and a cleaning robot called Whiz are seen during a press preview at a hotel of APA Group. This is done
Pepper,
2 . Delivering life-saving drugs directly to the brain in a safe and effective way is a challenge for medical providers. One key reason: the blood-brain barrier, which protects the brain from tissue-specific drug delivery. Methods such as an injection or a pill aren't as precise or immediate as doctors might prefer, and ensuring delivery right to the brain often requires invasive, risky techniques.
A team of engineers from Washington University in St. Louis has developed a new nano-particle generation-delivery method that could someday vastly improve drug delivery to the brain, making it as simple as a sniff.
“This would be a nano-particle nasal spray, and the delivery system could allow medicine to reach the brain within 30 minutes to one hour,” said Ramesh Raliya, research scientist at the School of Engineering & Applied Science.
“The blood-brain barrier protects the brain from foreign substances in the blood that may injure the brain,” Raliya said. “But when we need to deliver something there, getting through that barrier is difficult and invasive. Our non-invasive technique can deliver drugs via nano-particles, so there's less risk and better response times.”
The novel approach is based on aerosol science and engineering principles that allow the generation of mono-disperse nano-particles, which can deposit on upper regions of the nasal cavity via spread. The nano-particles were tagged with markers, allowing the researchers to track their movement.
Next, researchers exposed locusts' antenna to the aerosol, and observed the nano-particles travel from the antennas up through the olfactory nerve, which is used to sense the smell. Due to their tiny size, the nano-particles passed through the brain-blood barrier, reaching the brain and spreading all over it in a matter of minutes.
The team tested the concept in locusts because the blood-brain barriers in the insects and humans have similarities. “The shortest and possibly the easiest path to the brain is through your nose,” said Barani Raman, associate professor of biomedical engineering. “Your nose, the olfactory bulb and then olfactory cortex: two steps and you've reached the cortex.”
To determine whether or not the foreign nano-particles disrupted normal brain function, Saha examined the physiology response of olfactory neurons in the locusts before and after the nano-particle delivery and found no noticeable change in the electro-physiological responses was detected.
This is only a beginning of a set of studies that can be performed to make nano-particle-based drug delivery approaches more principled, Raman said. The next phase of research involves fusing the gold nano-particles with various medicines, and using ultrasound to target a more precise dose to specific areas of the brain, which would be especially beneficial in brain-tumor cases.
1. This passage is mainly about ________.| A．a novel method of drug delivery | B．a challenge facing medical staff |
| C．a new medicine treating brain disease | D．a technique to improve doctor's ability |
| A．Doctors prefer using methods like an injection to treat diseases. |
| B．Locusts were tagged with markers to track their movement. |
| C．The blood-brain barrier lowers the effectiveness of a pill. |
| D．The medicine could reach the brain within half an hour. |
| A．human and locusts have similar structures that protect brain from foreign substances |
| B．the delivery process consists of the olfactory bulb and the olfactory cortex |
| C．locusts have changeable electrophysiological responses to nanoparticles |
| D．The shortest and possibly the safest path to the brain is through human's noses |
| A．A lung cancer patient who needs operation immediately |
| B．A college student who majors in medical technology |
| C．A senior doctor who is about to retire |
| D．A high school teacher who is teaching biology |
| A. anxiety B. prepared C. abnormally D. plastic E. benefits F. engaged G. ensure H. quality I. guidelines J. entirely |
Cosmetic Surgery in London
Cosmetic surgery is a medical discipline focused on enhancing the aesthetic and social appeal of patients by changing the shape and proportion of their body parts. Unlike
Despite that, the medical community strongly believes that cosmetic surgery is capable of providing a host of valuable
In the United Kingdom, cosmetic surgery has become increasingly popular with the general public, even if the numbers pale considerably when compared against the United States. In 2016, 30,750 Britons
Please note that this website was created to provide readers with a general description of cosmetic surgery in London and the whole country in general. While we make every effort to
4 . Patient data: we need a better approach
Any fair-minded assessment of the dangers of the deal between Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) and Deep-Mind must start by acknowledging that both sides mean well. Deep-Mind is one of the leading artificial intelligence (AI) companies in the world. The potential of this work applied to healthcare is very great, but it could also lead to further concentration of power in the tech giants. It is against that background that the information commissioner, Elizabeth Denham, has issued her judgment against the Royal Free hospital under the NHS, which handed over to Deep-Mind the records of 1.6 million patients in 2015. This is on the basis of a vague agreement which took far too little account of the patient’s rights and their expectations of privacy.
Deep-Mind has almost apologized. The NHS has modified its ways. Further arrangements and there maybe many between the NHS and Deep-Mind will be carefully inspected to ensure that all necessary permissions have been asked of patients and all unnecessary data has been cleaned. There are lessons to learn about the informed patient agreement. But privacy is not the only angle in this case and not even the most important. Ms Denham chose to concentrate the blame on the NHS, since under existing law it “controlled” the data and Deep-Mind merely “processed” it. But this difference misses the point that it is processing and collection, not the more possession of bis, that gives the data value.
The great question is who should benefit from the analysis of all the data that our lives now generate. Privacy law builds on the concept of damage to an individual from identifiable knowledge about them. That misses the way the economy works. The data of an individual there gains its value only when it is compared with the data of countless millions more.
The use of privacy law to restrict the tech giants in this instance feels slightly improper. This practice does not address the real worry. It is not enough to say that the algorithms Deep-Mind develops will benefit patients and save lives. What matters is that they will belong to a private monopoly (垄断) which developed then using public resources. If software promises to save lives as drugs now can, big data may be expected to behave as a big medical company has done. We are still at the beginning of this revolution. A long struggle will be needed to avoid a future troublesome. Ms Denham’s report is a welcome start.
1. The agreement between the NHS and Deep-Mind________.| A．put both sides into a dangerous situation |
| B．judged the power of Royal Free hospital |
| C．failed to pay attention to patient’s rights |
| D．caused conflicts among tech giants |
| A．careful assessment | B．sincere apologies |
| C．necessary adjustments | D．empty promises |
| A．All unnecessary date should be inspected. |
| B．The value of data comes from the processing of it. |
| C．It is more valuable to collect user’s data. |
| D．Leaking patient’s data is worse than selling it. |
| A．the violating behavior of big medical companies |
| B．the ineffective enforcement of privacy law |
| C．the centralization of big data by tech giants |
| D．the revolution in the big data industry |
Ellie is a psychologist, and a good one at that. Smile in a certain way, and she knows precisely what your smile means. She listens to what you say, processes every word, works out the meaning of your pitch, your tone, your posture, everything. She is at the top of her game but, according to a new study, her greatest advantage is that she is not human.
When faced with tough or potentially embarrassing questions, people often do not tell doctors what they need to hear. Yet the researchers behind Ellie, led by Jonathan Gratch at the Institute for Creative Technologies, in Los Angeles, suspected from their years of monitoring human interactions with computers that people might be more willing to talk if presented with an avatar, that is, a virtual figure. To test this idea, they put 239 people in front of Ellie to have a chat with her about their lives. Half were told (truthfully) they would be interacting with an artificially intelligent virtual human (AIVH); the others were told (falsely) that Ellie was a bit like a puppet, and was having her strings pulled remotely by a person.
Dr Gratch and his colleagues report that, though every participant interacted with the same avatar, their experiences differed markedly based on what they believed they were dealing with. Those who thought Ellie was under the control of a human operator reported greater fear of disclosing personal information, and said they managed more carefully what they expressed during the session, than did those who believed they were simply interacting with a computer.
6 . China’s domestically developed, long-acting experimental AIDS drug is undergoing a final review by the China Food and Drug Administration, the last stage in the approval process.
Different from traditional oral drugs that require daily use, but it’s a heavy burden for patients to take medicine every day for years. As a result, long-acting drugs are the future direction in developing innovative AIDS medicine. For Chinese patients, the number of oral drugs available in the domestic market is very limited, so there is an urgent need for drugs to solve the problem of drug resistance.
Zhao Yan, a treatment specialist at the National Center for AIDS said seven or eight oral drugs for AIDS are currently provided to patients for free. “The injection solution could give an alternative to patients ... if it could be included in the country’s health insurance system,” she said.
“Now very few patients are using drugs from the health insurance system, both because no differentiated drugs are provided and because the procedure is more complex and could harm their privacy,” she said. “New drugs will be broadly used only if the system can embrace more varieties of drugs.”
Albuvirtide went into the research and development stage in 2002 and entered phase three of clinical trials—a step to assure safety and effectiveness before market approval—in 2014. Phase three is the last round of clinical trials for new drug tests in China. If the drug can pass the reviews of the country’s drug watchdog, usually at least two rounds, it can then enter the market. The time needed for the review ranges from months to years.
Clinical trials showed that the new drug performs even better than the oral drugs being used. Most of the oral drugs for AIDS being used in China are generic drugs developed in the 1970s and „80s that are not so efficient. In terms of safety and effectiveness, evidence so far showed that Albuvirtide is better than most second-line drugs—drugs used when first-line standard drugs fail—in developed countries because of lower toxicity (毒性) and fewer side effects.
Worldwide, a number of long-acting AIDS drug are in development. None has been approved for sale. Only Albuvirtide and a few in the United States have entered phase three of clinical trials.
1. Albuvirtide is ________.| A．a China-developed long-acting oral AIDS drug |
| B．undergoing a clinical test on dogs to assure its safety |
| C．more efficient than other AIDS drugs and has fewer side effects |
| D．the only AIDS drug that has entered the last round of clinical trials |
| A．it’s a new drug and they are not resistant to it |
| B．it is one of the most effective first-line drugs |
| C．it has been included in the health insurance system |
| D．they can keep their privacy by being injected once a week |
| A．The research and development of Albuvirtide began in 2002. |
| B．There are usually three phases in the clinical trial for a new drug. |
| C．Albuvirtide is now in the stage of carrying out clinical trials. |
| D．The time needed for review varies from drug to drug. |
| A．Albuvirtide can spare patients from taking oral drugs every day |
| B．the health insurance system has room for further improvement |
| C．most AIDS drugs being used now were developed in last century |
| D．China is leading the whole world in the field of AIDS research |
Leeches as Medical Treatment
Leeches are small wormlike creatures that live in water and suck the blood of animals and humans. In the past, though, leeches were commonly used in medicine. Then advances in science led to other kinds of treatments, and leeches disappeared from the sick room. Now, however, they are making a comeback.
The use of leeches in medicine goes back at least 2,500 years. Doctors used them to treat the sick in ancient Egypt, India, Persia, and Greece. It was believed in those days that taking blood from patients helped to bring their bodies back into balance. This belief and the practice of draining blood with leeches continued through the ages.
Another use of leeches has been investigated by a team of German doctors who study the ability of leeches to reduce pain. Their patients suffer from arthritis, a painful joint disease that often affects knees, shoulders, or fingers. When the German doctors put leeches on the arthritic knees of their patients, almost all of them felt immediate relief from the pain. Most of the patients continued to be pain-free for over a month and some for as long as six months.
Leeches have also proved indirectly useful in treating patients with heart and blood diseases. Since the 1880s, researchers have understood that certain chemicals in. leeches prevent blood from clotting or becoming hard. Many people with heart or blood problems live with a serious risk of the formation of blood clots, which can travel through the blood to the heart or brain and cause death. In the 1950s, a scientist identified the chemical in a leech that prevents clotting. Later studies led to experiments with the chemical and the development of a drug that thins the blood of patients who are at risk for blood clots.
Though doctors today do not view the use of leeches as the all-purpose treatment it once was, they now see that for certain problems, this ancient remedy may be valid after all.
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8 . Placebos（安慰剂）Prove Powerful
Many doctors know the story of “Mr. Wright”. In 1957 he was diagnosed with cancer, and given only days to live. He had tumours（肿瘤）the size of oranges. He heard that scientists had discovered a new medication, Krebiozen, that was
Two months later, Wright read medical reports that the medication was fake. His condition immediately got worse again. “Don’t
This story has been
Placebos are “lies that
| A．vague | B．unique | C．effective | D．impossible |
| A．astonished | B．disappointed | C．exhausted | D．experienced |
| A．expanded | B．melted | C．accumulated | D．moved |
| A．take down | B．look for | C．make out | D．care about |
| A．Actually | B．Moreover | C．Meanwhile | D．Consequently |
| A．beneficial | B．popular | C．worthless | D．available |
| A．studied | B．ignored | C．invented | D．spread |
| A．struggles | B．promises | C．rights | D．beliefs |
| A．achieved | B．neglected | C．emphasized | D．mixed |
| A．brain | B．doctor | C．body | D．process |
| A．advises | B．expects | C．instructs | D．forbids |
| A．heal | B．hurt | C．exist | D．fade |
| A．optimistic | B．careful | C．peculiar | D．anxious |
| A．point | B．opposite | C．time | D．adventure |
| A．relation | B．strength | C．being | D．mind |
