Ken Shimura passed away due to corona pneumonia

Ken Shimura, a famous Japanese comedian died after being infected by COVID-19.

According to the media, Ken was hospitalized because of corona viral pneumonia. As its mortality rate is said to up to 10%, we were anxious about his prognosis. Now, the worst scenario is realized, unfortunately.

Ken was 70 yo. He was not young, but healthy before the infection. He was going to play a protagonist of a cinema movie for the first time. If he had not been infected by COVID-19, he would have been alive now.

Also, Ken delivered smiley acts every day for several decades to many Japanese. His symbolic comical acts were mimicked by many children.

I pray for Ken’s peaceful afterlife. And we have to continue to fight against this deadly virus.

AI image diagnosis is promised

Technology in medical science is very rapidly developing. Especially, AI solution is one of the most promised region.

Recently, some cases were reported in which an AI diagnosis was superior to doctor's. It is uncertain whether the machine will overwhelm human doctors completely. But, as far as limited to the issue of image diagnosis, we should properly rely on AI support.

Inverse: A NEW A.I. SYSTEM COULD MAKE SURE WE NEVER MISDIAGNOSE CANCER AGAIN

Because pattern recognition is a core element of image diagnosis. Radiologists are familiar to make a diagnosis with one snapshot. But they are not only trained to evaluate each image with a digital scale but also accustomed to distinguish some unnatural beings in a film. Their sense is similar to an instinct.

On the other hand, AI can learn something from massive number of films which were tagged as normal or abnormal. These tags are basically reliable because they had been investigated by physicians previously. Thus, AI can experience astronomical numbers of cases before facing a real patient.

Therefore, AI's sense is similar to those skilled radiologists have acquired. It does not matter whether it should be called a sense or not. It is certain that this learning process is quite rational.

Also in psychiatry, research for improving the quality of AI diagnosis is ongoing. But it will be much more tough, in my opinion. It is because each case are hardly tagged to "correct diagnosis."

A critical bug is found in Windows

Microsoft released an information of a critical bug. through the bug, a hacker could compromise the Windows PC.

Independent: MAJOR WINDOWS BUG IS LETTING HACKERS ATTACK USERS, SAYS MICROSOFT

According to Microsoft, it has started addressing this issue. But, the actual influence of the bug remains uncertain.

In recent, the share of Windows PC in the market is decreasing, not only due to rise of Mac but also the spread of smartphone. Nonetheless, when a critical bug is found in Windows, the social impact will be still high.

Air pollution reduced due to COVID-19

Accumulating evidence suggests the level of air pollution was reduced significantly in these days.

It is no doubt that the outcome is thankful to corona virus pandemic followed by the lockdown in several cities such as London and New York.  But not only urban areas but also some rural areas were given clearer air recently. It may be partially because the fact that many factories are crippled due to shortage of workers.

Evening Express: Air pollution falls as UK goes into coronavirus lockdown

Air pollution is one of the biggest problems of environmental issues. Dirty sky is estimated to take 40,000 people's life in the UK. In this sense, it is more awful than COVID-19.

Researchers say the influence of cleaned sky will not be able to be calculated exactly because many people died by COVID-19. Many victims are elder so that they might be dead by other reasons even if not infected with COVID-19.

Nonetheless, this phenomenon tells us many things. First, air pollution is without doubt caused by human activity. Second, it is reversible, and the effect of stopping activities will be gained soon.

Some regions have started to restrict air polluting activities such as driving a car in city. It is possible that temporal suspension of industrial activity such as "no NO2 week" will be a political practice in the future after overcoming the pandemic.

Loss of smell is an early symptom of COVID-19 infection

A latest study suggests a way of quick diagnosis of COVID-19.

According to the researchers, loss of smell may be a fastest symptom after you are infected by corona virus newly developed. The abnormal sense of smell emerges before the you have dry cough and fatigue, main symptoms the virus inflicts. Loss of taste also can be a hint.

Time: Why Losing Your Sense of Smell Could Be a Symptom of COVID-19

Though I did not know, it is not rare a kind of viral infection cause anosmia. Also, there are several elements the change of smell can tell us about our health status, as I wrote in the past.

My past entry: AI smells your disease
My past entry: Smell diagnosis, is it no more fantasy?

At present, PCR method is used to diagnose COVID-19 infection. But its sensitivity is only 70%. Thus, a negative result hardly guarantees your safety. It is ironic that such a primitive sense of smell is superior to a latest technology.

After all, walking is good

There are several hypotheses to improve your health status. Thousands of methods have been developed. Most of them, however, are biased or unrealistic, unfortunately.

I have to say that walking is good practice to promote your health. It is highly trustworthy, at least compared to other numerous ways. In a recent study, the effect of walking is promised regardless of your exercise level.

The guardian: Higher step counts could lower risk of early death, study finds

As the author mentioned, this study is not free from the possibility of reverse causality. Thus, it is possible that only people can walk many steps will receive the benefit of walking. Walking harder will expand your life has not been proven, theoretically.

Nonetheless, I shall say, walking is not bad. Different from other type of exercises, walking is universal, and easy to be done for most people. The more you walk, the more you become healthy, with only little exceptions.

In recent days, many people are hesitating to walk out because of afraid of corona virus. It is no good in sense of primary health care. I recommend you to go out in fresh air.

Emoji will be an evidence?

I am a forensic psychiatrist. I am often summoned to a court as an expert witness. Making a presentation to explain the defendant's psychiatric diagnosis to the judges and lay judges is an important part of my work.

There are several kind of expert witnesses in court. Among them, forensic linguist has a role to interpret the document subjected of the conflict. According to the article below, the subjects of his or her investigation is now expanded to Japanese emoji.

The Conversation: Forensic linguists explore how emojis can be used as evidence in court

Emoji was Japan original culture, and now has been spread all over the world. Apple's latest iPhone has introduced a system to create emoji referring your face.

Many people send emojis with their smartphone. Their memorandum includes several emojis. Thus, it is possible that they are picked up in an evidence in court. Indeed, I sometimes see documents with emojis in court document. So I have to estimate how the author feels when using the emoji.