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title: ""The FluSense platform processes a low-cost microphone array and…"
date: 2020-03-20
source: facebook
type: Archer T. Ships shared a link.
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# "The FluSense platform processes a low-cost microphone array and…

*March 20, 2020 · Facebook*

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[https://neurosciencenews.com/artificial-intelligence-pandemic-15951/](https://neurosciencenews.com/artificial-intelligence-pandemic-15951/){target="_blank"}
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\"The FluSense platform processes a low-cost microphone array and thermal imaging data with a Raspberry Pi and neural computing engine. It stores no personally identifiable information, such as speech data or distinguishing images. In Rahman's Mosaic Lab, where computer scientists develop sensors to observe human health and behavior, the researchers first developed a lab-based cough model. Then they trained the deep neural network classifier to draw bounding boxes on thermal images representing people, and then to count them. "Our main goal was to build predictive models at the population level, not the individual level," Rahman says.\
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They placed the FluSense devices, encased in a rectangular box about the size of a large dictionary, in four healthcare waiting rooms at UMass's University Health Services clinic.\
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From December 2018 to July 2019, the FluSense platform collected and analyzed more than 350,000 thermal images and 21 million non-speech audio samples from the public waiting areas.\
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The researchers found that FluSense was able to accurately predict daily illness rates at the university clinic. Multiple and complementary sets of FluSense signals "strongly correlated" with laboratory-based testing for flu-like illnesses and influenza itself.\"
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