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Target ALS and Modality.AI Collaborate in Multimodal Study of ALS

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Direct-to-participant study to reach 150 people living with ALS, with 2 participants already enrolled.

NEW YORK, Sept. 26, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — In a first-of-a-kind collaboration, Target ALS, a foundation breaking down barriers to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) research to find effective treatments, and Modality.AI, whose platform measures what patients say and do in conversation with the virtual guide Tina, in-clinic and remotely, are conducting a study to evaluate the potential of this unique audiovisual platform to detect even the smallest changes in disease symptoms over time in ALS patients. A subset of 5 international sites, part of the Target ALS Global Natural History Study, is now recruiting 150 ALS and 50 healthy control participants and will deploy Modality.AI’s innovative digital health platform, including at locations in Spanish-speaking countries, over the next 3 years.

Participants will engage in twice-monthly Modality sessions over a period of 16-18 months, utilizing the platform’s self-directed assessment accessible on personal devices. Tina, a virtual guide, provides consistent engagement while capturing speech and facial biomarkers.

Results from this pioneering study will be made available to the research community on the Target ALS Data Engine.

Study Details
Participants will be consented in the clinic and then asked to complete twice-monthly Modality sessions at home. Sessions include a reading passage, spontaneous speech, activities of daily living such as brushing their hair and washing their face, and various cognitive tasks such as word recall and sequential movements. Modality works through a web browser, so no app installation or account creation is required. 

Modality’s Platform Offers Unique Advantages

The assessment is self-directed and takes place on a participant’s own device (computer, tablet, or phone), making it accessible in the convenience of their home. For trial sponsors, this minimizes the need for in-clinic assessment and the time and cost of shipping devices.The introduction of Tina, a virtual guide, encourages engagement through a welcoming interface for capturing the patient’s speech and facial biomarkers in a comfortable setting in just a few minutes. Tina provides consistent guidance, eliminating variance between clinicians, a confounding variable in studies.Modality’s cloud-based platform utilizes AI and multimodal signal processing to extract speech and facial measures from participants’ video in real time for immediate verification and analysis.The Patient Report of Problems™ (PROP™) allows trial participants to describe specific problems and symptoms in their own words. This study marks the first use of the PROP in a multilingual multicenter ALS Study.

Improving Study Participation, Retention, and Participant Diversity 
Advances in digital health technologies (DHTs) allow patients to participate in clinical research studies in the privacy and comfort of their own homes, rather than traveling to an investigator’s site.

Most DHT-based studies rely on continuous monitoring of patients or require patients to record activities in an electronic diary regularly. Modality’s approach is a brief speech and movement assessment led by a virtual guide, assuring privacy for participants and those around them.  Target ALS and Modality adhere to recognized privacy standards with data being used for research purposes only.

A well-known trial challenge is that access to trial sites is a significant burden for many. Giving patients the option to participate from home increases the likelihood of joining a study, reduces drop-out rates, and increases adherence to the study protocol. By reaching a wider range of patients, underrepresented groups are more readily included, which helps ensure that treatments can be effective over the widest possible population.

“We are delighted to participate in what is the first clinical study of Modality’s self-directed remote monitoring of speech and motor function with Target ALS,” said Modality.AI CEO, David Suendermann-Oeft. “Speech, language, video, and other multimodal analysis technologies may revolutionize remote neurological assessments. We look forward to this collaboration and our work together leading to more efficient clinical trials and, in turn, faster and more efficient drug discovery.”

“Modality.AI’s technology is at the forefront of digital health technologies being evaluated for the utility of predicting and tracking disease progression in ALS patients,” said Amy Easton, Senior Director of Scientific Programs at Target ALS. “These technologies are being developed to allow clinicians, patients, and caregivers to measure disease symptoms in a more sensitive and reliable manner than standard clinical assessments, and in the future, may even replace clinical outcome assessments used to evaluate novel treatments for ALS.”

To learn more about participating in this study click here.

About Target ALS

Founded in 2013, Target ALS is a 501(c)(3) medical research foundation breaking down barriers to Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) research to find effective treatments. The organization has revolutionized ALS research through their landmark Innovation Ecosystem model, fostering unprecedented collaborations between academia and the pharma and biotech industry, providing no-strings-attached access to critical research tools, and acting as a hub of communication and networking for the worldwide scientific community. Driven by impatient optimism, deliberate disruption, and radical collaboration, Target ALS aims to transform ALS into a manageable disease, realizing a world where Everyone Lives. For more information, visit www.targetals.org

About Modality.AI
Modality.AI has developed the first conversational AI platform to accurately and objectively measure, analyze and track participant data through facial, speech, and movement patterns. The Modality platform utilizes a virtual guide, Tina, to remotely administer clinical trial assessments. The company is led by a team of world-class scientists, clinicians, technologists, and serial entrepreneurs.  Modality’s platform has shown validation through numerous peer-reviewed publications (https://modality.ai/publications), and is being used by leading research institutions, biotech firms, and top-10 pharmaceutical companies in observational studies and clinical trials. For additional information, please visit modality.ai

Contact
Stephanie Ishoo
stephanie.ishoo@targetals.org

David Fox
david.fox@modality.ai

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SOURCE Target ALS

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Earth’s pulse monitored: a review highlights remote sensing time series progress

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As urbanization accelerates and environmental dynamics shift, the need for accurate and timely terrestrial monitoring has never been more urgent. A review has introduced a novel approach to remote sensing time series analysis, integrating multi-source data to enable near real-time monitoring. This innovative methodology promises to transform environmental conservation and urban planning by providing unprecedented insights into terrestrial changes and offering a more precise understanding of environmental dynamics.

GUANGZHOU, China, Dec. 22, 2024 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ — An international team of researchers from South China Normal University, the University of Connecticut, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences has made a significant breakthrough in remote sensing. Their review, published (DOI: 10.34133/remotesensing.0285) in the Journal of Remote Sensing on December 11, 2024, addresses key challenges in remote sensing, such as incomplete data and noise interference. The team’s new time series analysis technique leverages advanced data reconstruction and fusion methods, significantly enhancing the precision and efficiency of remote sensing for monitoring environmental changes.

The research team has developed an advanced time series analysis technique that combines deep learning algorithms with traditional remote sensing methods to integrate data from various remote sensing sources. This innovative approach allows for the extraction of subtle patterns from large, complex datasets, which is crucial for monitoring critical environmental parameters such as land use and vegetation health. Unlike conventional techniques that struggle with incomplete or noisy data, this new methodology offers enhanced accuracy and more reliable insights into terrestrial dynamics, paving the way for more effective environmental monitoring.

Central to the study’s success is the integration of Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) networks and Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) to address the challenges posed by missing or noisy data. The LSTM networks capture temporal trends over time, while the GANs generate synthetic data that mimics real-world observations to fill gaps and correct for atmospheric distortions. This dual approach has resulted in a cleaner, more accurate time series dataset, which was validated against independent ground truth measurements. The researchers demonstrated significant improvements in key vegetation indices, such as the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), setting a new benchmark in the field of remote sensing.

Experts in the field have lauded the study’s potential to revolutionize remote sensing applications. They see the method as a transformative tool for enhancing high-resolution monitoring and extending its coverage, particularly in agricultural surveillance, urban planning, and environmental management. “This method represents a crucial advancement in our ability to monitor environmental changes,” says Professor Fu. “As it evolves, it could play a key role in addressing climate change and other global challenges.”

The methodology’s future applications are vast, especially in global environmental monitoring and supporting sustainable development goals. By integrating multi-temporal data from Landsat and Sentinel-2 satellites, the team has created a framework for accurate and continuous terrestrial analysis. As computational power advances and algorithms improve, this technology is expected to become a vital tool for natural resource management, disaster response, and climate change mitigation. In the years to come, it could provide critical data to help policymakers address pressing environmental issues on a global scale.

References

DOI

10.34133/remotesensing.0285

Oiginal Source URL

https://doi.org/10.34133/remotesensing.0285

Funding information

This work was supported by the National Nature Science Foundation of China (grant numbers 42425001 and 42071399).

About Journal of Remote Sensing

The Journal of Remote Sensing, an online-only Open Access journal published in association with AIR-CAS, promotes the theory, science, and technology of remote sensing, as well as interdisciplinary research within earth and information science.

Media Contact

George Hua, Chuanlink Innovations, 1 8656606278, TranSpread1@gmail.com, http://chuanlink-innovations.com/

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SOURCE Journal of Remote Sensing

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ZINZINO AB (PUBL.): ENTERS INTO AGREEMENT TO PROVIDE DIP FINANCING TO ZURVITA INITIATING CHAPTER 11 PROCESS

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GOTHENBURG, Sweden, Dec. 22, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — Zinzino has in a press release dated 20240617 announced that a letter of intent to acquire 100% of the shares in the North American direct selling company Zurvita Inc. “Zurvita or the Company” was signed. Since then, Zinzino has negotiated with the owners of Zurvita Inc. and instead concluded that the purchase of Zurvita’s assets in a Chapter 11 proceeding for the Company is in Zinzino’s best interest.

Zinzino is providing a debtor-in-possession (DIP) financing to Zurvita, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings on the 20th December 2024. By entering as a financier in Zurvita’s Chapter 11 with loans totaling USD 4.5 million, Zinzino simultaneously makes an offer to acquire the company’s assets via a so-called stalking horse bid. If the bid is accepted, the DIP loan will be converted into part of a debt-settled purchase price, which will be determined after Zurvita has completed the sale process that is subject to higher and better offers in accordance with the applicable terms of Chapter 11. Other bidders have the right to submit bids for Zurvita during the process and if another bid is accepted, Zinzino’s loan will be repaid and certain of its costs associated with the process will be reimbursed. 

Zurvita is a direct selling health company with operations in the United States, Canada and Mexico. The brand portfolio offers a range of innovative health and wellness products. The business has total annual sales of approximately USD 30 million with good gross margins. A potential transaction with Zinzino is expected to add growth through the synergies arising from the joint networks, combined with Zinzino’s test-based product concept. The profitability of the Company will thus be able to develop well by utilizing Zinzino’s existing technical platform and organization.

A visionary mindset, tech first perspective, test-based nutrition at the cellular level and a strong position to capitalize on current trends will form the basis of the new partnership. Following the acquisitions of VMA Life in 2020, Enhanzz in 2022, the strategic partnership with ACN and the recently completed asset acquisition of Xelliss, Zinzino has been looking for further strong investments to maintain its sustainable, profitable growth, strengthen its distribution power, expand into new markets and leverage the product portfolio in new consumer areas.

– “Individualized advice and tailored solutions are the future, and not just in health and wellness,” says Dag Bergheim Pettersen, CEO of Zinzino. “Together, we have years of combined industry experience and everything it takes to drive the modern, personalized shopping experience through direct sales”. Jay Shafer, CEO and co-founder of Zurvita, states “After considering multiple options for the company and under the guidance of our attorneys and third-party advisors, we feel this presents the best opportunity to continue Zurvita’s mission, deliver the highest quality products, and provide continuity for our staff and consultants. We are excited to see what the future holds for Zurvita.” 

For more information:
Dag Bergheim Pettersen CEO Zinzino +47 (0) 932 25 700, www.zinzino.com

Pictures for publication free of charge:
marketing@zinzino.com

Certified Adviser:
Carnegie Investment Bank AB (publ.)

Zinzino AB (publ.) is obliged to publish this information in compliance with current EU regulations governing market abuse. The information was provided by the above contact person for publication at 20.00 on the 21st of December 2024.

This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com

https://news.cision.com/zinzino/r/zinzino-ab–publ–enters-into-agreement-to-provide-dip-financing-to-zurvita-initiating-chapter-11-pr,c4086040

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Meet With Culture: Exquisite Craftsmanship of Traditional Chinese Architecture

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BEIJING, Dec. 22, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — The Temple of Agriculture in Beijing played a significant role during the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties. Over nearly 600 years, 25 emperors personally visited or sent ministers to perform spring farming ceremonies and offer sacrifices to Shennong, the god of agriculture.

 

Built in 1420 during the Yongle reign, the temple’s predecessor was the Temple of Mountains and Rivers in Nanjing. When Emperor Zhu Di moved the Ming capital to Beijing, he constructed a larger temple inspired by the Nanjing temple, which gradually evolved into the Temple of Agriculture.

The Taisui Hall, the largest building complex in the temple, now serves as a major exhibition hall of the Beijing Ancient Architecture Museum, showcasing models of classical Chinese buildings and demonstrating the solemnity of royal architecture.

Ancient Chinese architecture is predominantly wooden-structured, chosen for its availability, versatility, and earthquake resistance. Artisans developed sophisticated techniques in material selection and construction. The wooden framework consists of columns, beams, girders, and purlins, with innovative structural forms like lifting-beam and piercing-bracket structures.

A unique architectural element is the dougong (bracket sets), which supports weight and connects beam frames with column walls. Mortise-tenon joints were invented to create elastic frameworks by connecting different components.

While discussing the Temple of Agriculture, it’s worth noting another remarkable example of architectural hierarchy which could be found in the Temple of Heaven. The hierarchy of architectural designs reflected social stratification, with eave structures like the triple-layered eaves of the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvest representing the highest-level architectural design.

Over centuries, the Temple of Agriculture has transformed from an imperial garden to a public park and a museum for historical architecture, now standing as a significant cultural landmark that symbolizes China’s agricultural civilization and architectural heritage along Beijing’s Central Axis.

Quickly join Alexandre to study and explore the traditional Chinese architecture.
https://youtu.be/YpA03WiZ9Wc

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SOURCE China International Communications Group

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