Monthly Archives: January 2020

Neuroscience

Biocept Announces Validation and Availability of its Liquid Biopsy Platform for the Detection of Actionable Cancer Biomarkers in Cerebrospinal Fluid -…

Biocept's patented Target Selector technology enables new specimen type--cerebrospinal fluid (CSF)--to identify biomarkers that can aid physicians in making treatment decisions

SAN DIEGO, Jan. 14, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Biocept, Inc. (NASDAQ: BIOC), a leading commercial provider of liquid biopsy tests designed to provide physicians with clinically actionable information to improve the outcomes of patients diagnosed with cancer, announces thatits Target Selector assays are now available to physicians in order to evaluate the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of their patients for the presence of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) and biomarkers for patients with breast or lung cancer suspected of brain or central nervous system (CNS) metastases. The presence of tumor cells in CSF may be an indicator of brain metastases, which occurs when cancer has spread into the CNS. Up to 30% and 36% of patients diagnosed with breast and lung cancer, respectively, will develop brain metastases.

Biocept Logo (PRNewsFoto/Biocept, Inc.)

"Testing the CSF for cancer biomarkers in patients suspected to have brain metastases can be important, as the rapid confirmation and characterization of CNS involvement enables appropriate treatment selection in a timely manner," stated Santosh Kesari, MD, PhD, Chair and Professor, Department of Translational Neurosciences and Neurotherapeutics, Director of Neuro-oncology at the Pacific Neuroscience Institute and John Wayne Cancer Institute."Liquid biopsy tests offer the ability to analyze an additional specimen type, beyond blood, to help physicians identify biomarkers and hence inform clinical decision making."

"We are very pleased to make our Target Selector platform available for testing CSF, as a more rapid identification of molecular alterations in brain metastases can aid physicians in choosing the best treatment options for their patients with breast or lung cancer," said Michael W. Nall, Biocept's President and CEO. "Among the significant capabilities of our technology is its versatility, which enables applications in a variety of clinical situations and for use with multiple types of biofluids."

About CSF Testing

A medical procedure known as a spinal tap or lumbar puncture is typically done to collect CSF when cancer patients present with CNS symptoms, for example confusion or dementia. Over 200,000 of these procedures are performed annually in the U.S. Biocept'sTarget Selector testing provides an alternative and potentially more accurate means compared to cytology to evaluate CSF. For more information about Biocept's Target Selector testing, please contact Biocept Customer Services at 888.332.7729.

About Biocept

Biocept, Inc. is a molecular diagnostics company with commercialized assays for lung, breast, gastric, colorectal and prostate cancers, and melanoma. The Company uses its proprietary liquid biopsy technology to provide physicians with information for treating and monitoring patients diagnosed with cancer. The Company's patented Target Selector liquid biopsy technology platform captures and analyzes tumor-associated molecular markers in both CTCs and in plasma (ctDNA). With thousands of tests performed, the platform has demonstrated the ability to identify cancer mutations and alterations to inform physicians about a patient's disease and therapeutic options. For additional information, please visitwww.biocept.com.

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Forward-Looking Statements Disclaimer Statement

This release contains forward-looking statements that are based upon current expectations or beliefs, as well as a number of assumptions about future events. Although we believe that the expectations reflected in the forward-looking statements and the assumptions upon which they are based are reasonable, we can give no assurance that such expectations and assumptions will prove to have been correct. Forward-looking statements are generally identifiable by the use of words like "may," "will," "should," "could," "expect," "anticipate," "estimate," "believe," "intend," or "project" or the negative of these words or other variations on these words or comparable terminology. To the extent that statements in this release are not strictly historical, including without limitation statements as to our ability to improve the outcomes of patients diagnosed with cancer and the potential clinical utilityof our proprietary technology platform as applied to CSF, such statements are forward-looking, and are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The reader is cautioned not to put undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, as these statements are subject to numerous risk factors as set forth in our Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings. The effects of such risks and uncertainties could cause actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements contained in this release. We do not plan to update any such forward-looking statements and expressly disclaim any duty to update the information contained in this press release except as required by law. Readers are advised to review our filings with the SEC, which can be accessed over the Internet at the SEC's website located at http://www.sec.gov/.

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Investors:LHA Investor RelationsJody CainJcain@lhai.com310-691-7100

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Biocept Announces Validation and Availability of its Liquid Biopsy Platform for the Detection of Actionable Cancer Biomarkers in Cerebrospinal Fluid -...

Neuroscience

Testing hearing by looking at the eyes – Medical News Today

New research introduces an innovative hearing test that may help people who are unable to respond, such as babies or people who have had a stroke. The new test relies on measuring the dilation of an individual's pupils.

Traditional ways of testing a person's hearing include tuning fork tests, speaker distance examination, and pure-tone threshold tests. These tests involve reflexes, such as raising the hand or pressing a button on hearing a particular sound. From this, the specialist can determine how well a person can hear varying pitches and levels.

However, these methods require a response from the person who is having the hearing test. But how can experts assess the hearing of people who are unable to respond, such as adults with stroke, young people with developmental problems, or babies?

A team of researchers led by Avinash Singh Bala from the Institute of Neuroscience at the University of Oregon in Eugene came up with an alternative way of testing someone's hearing that does not require a direct response from them.

Bala and his colleagues started from the observation that barn owls dilate their pupils when they discern sounds. The researchers discovered this in their previous work, which they conducted almost two decades ago.

So, in this new study, the team hypothesized that the same would be true in humans.

The results of their experiments appear in the Journal of the Association for Research in Otolaryngology.

To test their hypothesis, the scientists used eye-tracking technology to examine the pupils of 31 adults, with an average age of 24 years old, who had no hearing loss.

The experimenters used an infrared video camera to monitor the participants' pupils as they were taking a standard hearing test. The test involved them pressing a button if they heard noises at the frequency of 1, 2, 4, and 8 kilohertz (kHz), respectively.

During the test, the participants also had to gaze at a computer screen.

A dot appeared on the screen, followed by tones at random delays, which prevented the participants from predicting when they would hear the sound.

"In this project, we randomized the timing of the tone's pulsing in relation to the dots, which also helped us avoid the expectation of a tone within a pattern," explains study co-author Terry T. Takahashi, a professor of biology and member of the Institute of Neuroscience.

When the participants saw the dot turning into a question mark on the screen, they had to indicate if they had heard the sound or not.

The researchers tracked the participants' pupil size for at least 1 second before the sound and 2 seconds after. The scientists excluded pupil dilation that can occur as a result of the cognitive effort that goes into pressing the button on demand.

The dilation of the participants' pupils matched their push-button response. Specifically, pupils started to dilate at about 0.25 of a second after the sound.

The fact that the pupil dilation was so quick enabled the researchers "to see and establish causality."

"What we found was that pupil dilation was as sensitive as the button-press method," Bala explains.

He continues: "We had presented early data analyses at conferences, and there was a lot of resistance to the idea that by using an involuntary response we could get results as good as button-press data."

"This study is a proof of concept that this is possible," he concludes.

"The first time we tested a human subject's pupil response was in 1999. We knew it could work, but we had to optimize the approach for capturing the detection of the quietest sounds."

Takahashi comments on the relevance and usefulness of the findings, saying, "A pupil dilation test is not as useful in adults who can communicate with the tester."

"The utility of the method is in testing people who can't tell us whether they heard a sound for example, babies."

Terry T. Takahashi

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Testing hearing by looking at the eyes - Medical News Today

Neuroscience

New helmet design can deal with sports’ twists and turns – UC Berkeley

Helmets are essential for athletes and outdoor adrenaline junkies, but not all helmets on the market today provide good protection. UC Berkeley neurologist Robert Knight came up with an improved design that will help protect all helmet-wearers from forces that twist and snap the head and could damage the brain. (UC Berkeley video by Roxanne Makasdjian and Stephen McNally)

As a neurologist, Robert Knight has seen what happens when the brain crashes around violently inside the skull. And hes aware of the often tragic consequences.

Throughout his 40 years as an academic researcher and medical doctor, the University of California, Berkeley, professor of psychology and neuroscience has known students and friends whose lives and careers were derailed by head injuries from bicycle and car crashes. Hes held in his hands brains destroyed by accidental blows to the head.

Not surprisingly, he cringes when he imagines his young grandchildren falling off a bike and hitting their heads.

So, Knight invented a better helmet one with more effective padding to dampen the effects of a direct hit, but more importantly, an innovative outer shell that rotates to absorb twisting forces that todays helmets dont protect against.

His design is flexible enough to provide protection for football and hockey players who receive the most severe and most frequent blows to the head as well as police, soldiers, snowboarders and anyone who wears a helmet or hard hat. And yes, cyclists, too.

Most people think that a concussion a bruise to the brain is the most dangerous type of trauma, but a twisting motion is just as bad, because it can tear brain fibers. While beefy linemen develop strong necks that can withstand a limited amount of torque, children and adolescents including most high school football players do not.

A direct linear impact to the head certainly is not good, but in addition, there are rotational forces that twist the brain. Its like in boxing, where one roundhouse punch comes in, the head turns, and they are out, Knight said. Thats because the brain is just not designed to take rotation; you end up with damage to critical connecting fibers in the brain.

Eight years ago, he founded a company, BrainGuard, to develop the new helmet design and attract interest from major helmet manufacturers. So far, he and his four-person team have produced prototype football, hockey, baseball, bike, motorcycle, sports utility and snow-sport helmets.

BrainGuards line includes improved helmets for baseball, cycling and hockey in addition to football. The company is developing prototypes for all sports as well as military, firefighting and construction. All incorporate a rotational shock absorber to reduce damage from torques to the head. (Photos courtesy of Robert Knight)

Because I am a neurologist, I would like to see something out there that improves the quality of life of people by diminishing traumatic brain injury and its resultant effects on the brain and emotional and cognitive and behavioral function, said Knight, former head of UC Berkeleys Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute. That is my hope.

UC Berkeleys head football equipment manager, Tim Feaster, first tried on the helmet a year ago, when he was assistant equipment manager with the Oakland Raiders, and subsequently helped Knight get it onto the heads of a couple of Cal players, who liked it, Feaster said.

I think the technology is incredibly fascinating, he said, adding that he would absolutely offer the football helmet to his team once its certified. I have never seen anything like it: an outer shell that moves over the inner shell was intriguing to me. It was so inventive, it made sense the way it moved. I thought they might actually have something here.

Feaster admitted that a players choice of helmet currently Cal football players can select from more than 15 styles from four manufacturers is often more about esthetics than safety. And concussion is the main concern.

But I am all for getting guys to at least try it, if I believe in it, he said. Any way that a new technology can at least limit the damage, I am all for it.

Knight quotes startling figures on the extent of traumatic brain injury (TBI) in the United States. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tracked 2.9 million Americans affected by TBI in 2014, primarily from falls and motor vehicle crashes. While most of the injuries were mild concussions, the total included 288,000 hospitalizations and 57,000 deaths. The World Health Organization estimates that TBI will be the leading cause of death and disability in the world this year.

Robert Knight, who normally studies basic brain functions like memory and treats patients with Alzheimers and Parkinsons disease, invented a new type of helmet in order to prevent brain injury from head trauma. (UC Berkeley photo by Stephen McNally)

Yet, these figures dont account for many sports-related concussions that dont result in an ER visit but force a player to sit out the rest of the game. The Brain Injury Research Institute estimates there were 135,000 sports-related concussions in individuals ages 5 to 18 between 2001 and 2005. While concussion symptoms headache, nausea, fatigue, confusion or memory problems, sleep disturbances and mood changes typically go away, the cumulative effect of repeated mild concussions could be grave.

Most people think that the inside of the skull is a nice smooth container, like an eggshell, holding the precious brain, he said. Its not true. The inside of the skull is filled with all kinds of bony ridges that can be quite destructive, similar to if I hit you in the arm, and you get a bruise. But if you bruise the brain, the blood kicks off a cascade of reactions that actually kill brain cells.

When bruising happens again and again, even without a concussion, a person can get chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a condition that has sparked controversy over the past decade and was the subject of the 2015 movie Concussion that starred Will Smith.

Especially in football linemen, CTE has led to an epidemic of early dementia, mood alterations and even suicide among retired professional players. In one study of 202 former football players whose brains were donated after death, 3 of 14, or 21% of those who had played only in high school, showed evidence of CTE. Of those who played football in college, 48 of 53, or 91%, had CTE. Of NFL (National Football League) players, 110 of 111 had CTE.

That is the big gorilla in the room for the NFL and the NHL (National Hockey League), Knight said.

The brain of a person who died from a brain hemorrhage after head trauma. (Photo courtesy of Robert Knight)

Yet, while contusions and blood clots in the brain are a big problem, equally damaging are the tears that occur when brain fibers are wrenched and twisted.

The brain operates by one cell sending on its connecting fiber through an axon to signal another cell, he said. When you get these complex twisting and rotational forces, you get compression, tension and shearing, and you can actually mechanically damage and tear your connecting fibers.

The best helmets today, including those used by the NFL, include padding that does a decent job absorbing energy from a direct head collision and preventing the full force of the hit from reaching the brain. But they dont account for hits that snap and rotate the head. The outer shell of Knights football helmet is able to rotate about an inch relative to the inside shell, which is strapped to the head; this absorbs the dangerous torque that can cause permanent brain damage. More spherical helmets, like those for bikes and snowboarders, could rotate about an inch and a half, absorbing even more rotational energy, he said.

To allow this helmet rotation, Knight places compact plastic struts between the inner and outer shell. The struts allow the outer shell to slide relative to the inner shell strapped to the head essentially a rotational shock absorber.

Knight and BrainGuard CTO Ram Gurumoorthy, who has a Berkeley Ph.D. in engineering, say that their design adds no extra weight or thickness to a football helmet, and that many helmet models today could be retrofitted by adding the new outer shell and struts. The design, which also includes a lighter, carbon-fiber face mask, can be adapted to any sport or recreation: climbing, off-road and all-terrain sports, as well as baseball, lacrosse, rugby and water polo, one of the most dangerous sports for concussions. The same inner shell with an interchangeable outer shell also works for industrial helmets and for firefighter and military helmets.

Knight and his BrainGuard team built a state-of-the-art testing machine to see how their new helmet design withstands direct and glancing blows to the head. (UC Berkeley photo by Stephen McNally)

The beauty of the helmet is that it is a modular platform, which means the innards the inside attached to the head remain the same or quite similar, and the outside shell alone can change, depending on the sport, Knight said.

BrainGuards football helmet passed the National Operating Committee on Standards for Athletic Equipment certification process in November, which now means that Knights company can offer it to high school, college and professional teams once a manufacturing system is set up. Its setting up a small manufacturing line to produce about 1,000 football helmets enough to test the design with a few high school and college teams and looking for investor money to pay for injection molds and manufacturing lines for bicycle, motorcycle and snow-sport helmets.

I want to emphasize that the football helmets on the market today are effective. What we are trying to do is make them more effective, Knight said.

One standard test of helmets it to drop a weight directly on the helmet to see how it absorbs the force of a direct impact. (UC Berkeley photo by Stephen McNally)

At their companys garage in an industrial park in Point Richmond, California, Knight and Gurumoorthy have built a state-of-the-art helmet testing machine to compare BrainGuard with commercial helmets. Knight says that the new design is 25 to 50 percent better than any on the market, in terms of damping rotational forces. Their design is particularly effective for frontal hits that contribute to CTE, which starts in the frontal lobe, Knight said.

Our helmet can reduce the rotational force by up to a half, but you dont eliminate it. This is not a panacea; we are reducing the influence of blows to the head, he said.

More effective means of reducing traumatic head injuries would be to ban tackle football for kids under age 13 many play in the Pop Warner Little Scholars Inc. leagues and to change the way older players use their heads during practice and play. Unless contact sports are banned, which is unlikely, a better helmet will at least reduce the number of concussions, the damage from repeated subconcussions and the chances of developing CTE.

Knights greatest fear is that better helmets would encourage more violent and dangerous behavior.

I am most worried that if you put out a better force-reduction helmet, people are not going to pay attention to other things they should be doing to reduce force to their heads, like reducing or eliminating helmet-to-helmet contact, he said. My dream is that someday, my 8-year-old granddaughter is going to be wearing a bike helmet that is well designed, so the one time she falls off her bike, she is going to get a dramatic decrease in the chance of her getting a serious brain injury.

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New helmet design can deal with sports' twists and turns - UC Berkeley

Human Behavior

Think Twice before Shouting Your Virtues Online Moral Grandstanding Is Toxic – GovExec.com

In an era of bitter partisanship, political infighting and ostracization of those with unpopular views, Americans actually agree on one thing: 85% say political discourse has gotten worse over the last several years, according to Pew Research.

The polarization plays out everywhere in society, from private holiday gatherings to very public conversations on social media, where debate is particularly toxic and aggressive.

For psychologists like myself, who study human behavior, this widespread nastiness is both a social problem and a research opportunity. My colleagues and I have zeroed in on one specific aspect that might help explain Americas dysfunctional discourse: moral grandstanding.

Moral grandstanding

The term may be unfamiliar, but most people have experienced moral grandstanding.

Examples of moral grandstanding include when a friend makes grand and extreme proclamations on Twitter about their deepest held values regarding climate change, for instance, and when a campaigning politician makes bold but clearly untrue ideological claims about immigration.

Philosophers coined the phrase to describe the abuse of so-called moral talk an umbrella term encompassing all conversations humans have about our politics, beliefs, values and morals.

Usually, people engage in moral talk to learn from, connect with or persuade someone else. They might say of their decision not to eat any animal products, for example, I am vegan for environmental and animal rights reasons.

Moral grandstanding occurs when people use moral talk, instead, to promote themselves or seek status. So a moral grandstander might say, I am vegan because it is the only moral decision. If you care about the planet, you cant eat animal products.

For moral grandstanders, conversation is a means to an end not a free exchange of ideas.

A desire for respect from our peers is normal in humans, as are the desires for safety, love and belonging. Social scientists have traced the evolutionary origins of status seeking to prehistoric times.

Moral grandstanding, however, is a special kind of status seeking. It implies that someone is using conversations about important or controversial topics solely to get attention or impress others.

Severed ties and broken relationships

Just because someone touts their virtues whether on Twitter or in conversation does not mean they are morally superior to everyone else.

In a recently published study conducted with a team of other psychologists and philosophers, we asked 6,000 Americans a series of questions about who and why they share their deepest moral and political beliefs with. People who reported sharing beliefs to gain respect, admiration or status were identified as grandstanders.

Almost everyone indicated they had some history of grandstanding, but only a few 2% to 5% indicated they primarily used their moral talk to promote themselves.

We found that moral grandstanders were more likely to experience discord in their personal lives. People who reported grandstanding more often also reported more experiences arguing with loved ones and severing ties with friends or family members over political or moral disagreements.

People who indicated using their deepest held beliefs to boost their own status in real life also reported more toxic social media behaviors, picking fights over politics on Facebook, for example, and berating strangers on Twitter for having the wrong opinions.

Philosophical accounts of grandstanding strongly suggest that moral grandstanders behave less morally than other people in other ways, too. They are more likely to rudely call others out for not being virtuous enough, systematically disparage entire groups of people and hijack important conversations to serve their own purposes.

When the natural human desire for respect leads people to seek status in situations when they would be better served by listening, it seems, this behavior can drive friends, family and communities apart.

Other reasons for discord

The rise of moral grandstanding isnt the only reason discourse in the United States has taken a turn for the worse.

Politics have grown extraordinarily polarized, which is both a cause and effect of social polarization. Politically active people feel more animosity and less trust toward the other side than they have in generations.

Social media itself seems to accelerate conflict, creating echo chambers of likeminded people that are galvanized against others and driving cycles of outrage that quickly escalate and stifle public participation in important conversations.

So ending moral grandstanding wont magically fix the public debate in the United States. But tamping it down would lead the country in a more productive direction.

How to handle moral grandstanding

Consider assessing your own conversation style, reflecting about what you say to others and why. When you enter into contentious territory with someone who differs in opinion, ask whether youre doing so because youre genuinely interested in communicating and connecting with your fellow human or are you just trying to score points?

Thinking honestly about your engagement on social media ground zero for moral grandstanding is particularly important.

Do you post controversial material just for likes and retweets? Do you share social media posts of people you disagree with just to publicly mock them? Do you find yourself trying to one-up the good deeds of someone else to make yourself look good to people whose respect you crave?

If so, then you may be a moral grandstander.

If not, you can still fight moral grandstanding by recognizing and dissuading these behaviors in others. Given that moral grandstanders crave status, respect and esteem from others, depriving them of the attention they seek is probably the best deterrent.

This post originally appeared atThe Conversation. Follow@ConversationUSon Twitter.

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Think Twice before Shouting Your Virtues Online Moral Grandstanding Is Toxic - GovExec.com

Human Behavior

Road safety: We need all hands on deck (opinion) – ThisisReno

Submitted by Kurt Thigpen

I wrote a previous op-ed on pedestrian safety in December, plainly advocating that we as a community need to behave better when walking, driving, and cycling to ensure one anothers safety.

Did I think this would change much? No. But one can hope to change mindsets one person at a time. I have started policing myself when driving and crossing the street, heeding my own advice.

However, I am incredibly devastated and deeply concerned that the pedestrian hit and runs, as well as fatalities, have only increased. After the student at Wooster High School was hit and killed, we had an outpouring of statements from city officials, as well as healthcare organizations like Renown, pleading for folks to slow down.

Let me just say this: we can all agree that the human behavior is something that needs to change to prevent these accidents. I also dont doubt the best intentions of our local officials and the agencies that have been created to reduce accidents and fatalities.

However, relying on people to behave themselves isnt going to get us to zero fatalities. Humans are fallible. Im afraid that that way of thinking just isnt going to cut it anymore. The system is not working.

I also need to emphasize that I am no expert on this subject. I am merely a concerned citizen. The incident at Wooster High hit close to home for me, as I have a family member that goes there. There are a lot of kids at that school and others that walk to and from school, as well as to other places during breaks. The Washoe County School District reported last week that there have been 25 incidents of students getting hit by cars, 23 of them happening when students were going to and from school. They also mentioned that theyre mapping the data but dont have a reason as to why this is happening.

These fatalities could easily have been you or me. Things are only getting worse. So, I have to ask myself, why hasnt there been more urgency in terms of response from agencies like RTC, NDOT and the City of Reno and City of Sparks? Weve seen statements of course, but where are the solutions? This crisis is a complex issue and my thought is that all key stakeholders need to get in one room to get our arms around this.

If changing human behavior on the road isnt going to cut it, its time we looked at changing our system. Perhaps we look outside our own borders for a solution? For example, Sweden implemented a Vision Zero initiative in the 90s that helped reduce fatalities dramatically over the years.

The approach that they took was not to treat the people as the problem, but the way the system has been engineered. This interview with a Swedish traffic safety strategist outlines perfectly solutions they implemented to change the system and local culture so that the system was safe for people to be in.

They include:

Will this cost money? Sure, but if it saves even one life these changes are more than necessary. These are long-term solutions that we need to be talking about now. We as a community must be proactive to prevent future fatalities and accidents.

Our city and county is growing rapidly, and we must work together to solve this public health crisis. I urge each of you to call your local council person to advocate for change. Every one of us deserves to be safe.

Submitted opinions do not represent the views of ThisisReno. Have something to say? Submit an opinion article here.

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Road safety: We need all hands on deck (opinion) - ThisisReno

Human Behavior

Global Eye Tracking Market Expected to Generate USD 1, 786 Million by 2025 with a CAGR of 26.1% – ResearchAndMarkets.com – Yahoo Finance

The "Eye Tracking Market by Offering (Hardware, Software, and Services), Tracking Type (Remote and Mobile), Application (Assistive Communication, Human Behavior & Market Research), Vertical, and Geography - Global Forecast to 2025" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

The eye tracking market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 26.1% from 2020 to 2025, to reach USD 1,786 million by 2025 from USD 560 million in 2020.

Rising adoption of eye tracking technology for personalized advertisements and consumer research and surging demand for eye tracking-based assistive communication devices drive market growth

The rising adoption of eye tracking technology for personalized advertisements and consumer research and surging demand for eye tracking-based assistive communication devices are key driving factors for the eye tracking market growth. However, the lack of technological standardization and the high cost of equipment are a few of the factors hindering the growth of the eye tracking market.

Assistive Communication application to dominate eye tracking market, in terms of size, during the forecast period

The eye tracking market, by application, is segmented into assistive communication, human behavior & market research, and others. The eye tracking market for the assistive communication application is expected to hold a dominant position during the forecast period. The need for effective assistive communication devices for physically impaired people and improvements in eye tracking technology drive the market for this segment.

Remote eye tracking segment to hold the largest share of eye tracking market from 2020 to 2025

In terms of market size, the remote eye tracking segment is expected to dominate the eye tracking market during the forecast period and is likely to witness significant growth in the said market during the forecast period. Remote eye tracking devices are easily configurable and are usually cheaper than mobile eye tracking devices. This is one of the key factors that has led to the dominating position of this segment in the eye tracking market. Healthcare & research labs, retail & advertisement, and automotive & transportation are a few of the major verticals, which are generating high demand for remote eye tracking devices.

APAC to witness the highest growth in the market during the forecast period

APAC is expected to witness the highest growth in the eye tracking market during the forecast period. Several untapped verticals and applications; and growing awareness about eye tracking technology are expected to contribute to the fast growth of the eye tracking market in the region. Consumer electronics and automotive verticals are expected to demonstrate higher growth compared with other verticals in the region.

Reasons to Buy This Report

Key Topics Covered:

1 Introduction

1.1 Study Objectives

1.2 Definition

1.3 Study Scope

1.4 Currency

1.5 Limitations

1.6 Stakeholders

2 Research Methodology

2.1 Research Data

2.2 Market Size Estimation

2.3 Market Breakdown and Data Triangulation

2.4 Assumptions for Research Study

3 Executive Summary

4 Premium Insights

4.1 Attractive Growth Opportunities in Eye Tracking Market

4.2 Market, By Tracking Type

4.3 Market in North America, By Country and Vertical

4.4 Market, By Application

4.5 Market, By Country (2020)

5 Market Overview

5.1 Introduction

5.2 Market Dynamics

5.3 Value Chain Analysis

5.4 Use Cases

6 Eye Tracking Market, By Offering

6.1 Introduction

6.2 Hardware

6.3 Software

6.4 Research and Consulting Services

7 Eye Tracking Market, By Tracking Type

7.1 Introduction

7.2 Remote Tracking

7.3 Mobile Tracking

8 Eye Tracking Market, By Mounting Type

8.1 Introduction

8.2 Head Mounted

8.3 Wheelchair Mounted

8.4 Table/Device Mounted

9 Eye Tracking Market, By Application

9.1 Introduction

9.2 Assistive Communication

9.3 Human Behaviour and Research

9.4 Other Applications

10 Eye Tracking Market, By Vertical

10.1 Introduction

10.2 Retail and Advertisement

10.3 Consumer Electronics

10.4 Healthcare and Research Labs

10.5 Government, Defense, and Aerospace

10.6 Automotive and Transportation

10.7 Other Verticals

11 Geographic Analysis

11.1 Introduction

11.2 North America

11.3 Europe

11.4 Automotive & Transportation Vertical isa Significant Contributor Towards Growth of Market in Germany

Story continues

11.5 APAC

11.6 RoW

12 Competitive Landscape

12.1 Overview

12.2 Market Ranking Analysis: Eye Tracking Market

12.3 Competitive Leadership Mapping

12.4 Competitive Benchmarking: Eye Tracking Market

12.5 Competitive Situations and Trends

13 Company Profiles

13.1 Key Players

13.1.1 Tobii

13.1.2 Seeing Machines

13.1.2.1 Business Overview

13.1.3 SR Research

13.1.4 EyeTech Digital Systems

13.1.5 Smart Eye

13.1.6 Eyetracking

13.1.7 PRS IN VIVO

13.1.8 LC Technologies

13.1.9 Ergoneers

13.1.10 ISCAN

13.2 Right-To-Win

13.3 Other Companies

13.3.1 Pupil Labs

13.3.2 Imotions

13.3.3 Gazepoint

13.3.4 Eyesee

13.3.5 Converus

13.3.6 Mirametrix

13.3.7 Alea Technologies

13.3.8 Lumen

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Global Eye Tracking Market Expected to Generate USD 1, 786 Million by 2025 with a CAGR of 26.1% - ResearchAndMarkets.com - Yahoo Finance

Human Behavior

Who’s Liable? The AV or the human driver? – Columbia University

New York, NYJanuary 14, 2020A recent decision by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) on the March 2018 Uber crash that killed a pedestrian in Arizona split the blame among Uber, the companys autonomous vehicle (AV), the safety driver in the vehicle, the victim, and the state of Arizona. With the advent of self-driving cars, the NTSB findings raise a number of questions about the uncertainty in todays legal liability system. In an accident involving an AV and a human driver, who is liable? If both are liable, how should the accident loss be apportioned between them?

AVs remove people from the hands-on task of driving and thus pose a complex challenge to todays accident tort law, which primarily punishes humans. Legal experts anticipate that, by programming driving algorithms, self-driving car manufacturers, including car designers, sensor vendors, software developers, car producers, and related parties who contribute to the design, manufacturing, and testing, will have a direct influence on traffic. While these algorithms make manufacturers indispensable actors, with their products liability potentially playing a critical role, policy makers have not yet devised a quantitative method to assign the loss between the self-driving car and the human driver.

To tackle this problem, researchers at Columbia Engineering and Columbia Law School have developed a joint fault-based liability rule that can be used to regulate both self-driving car manufacturers and human drivers. They propose a game-theoretic model that describes the strategic interactions among the law maker, the self-driving car manufacturer, the self-driving car, and human drivers, and examine how, as the market penetration of AVs increases, the liability rule should evolve.

Their findings are outlined in a new study to be presented on January 14 by Sharon Di, assistant professor of civil engineering and engineering mechanics, and Eric Talley, Isidor and Seville Sulzbacher Professor of Law, at the Transportation Research Boards 99th Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C.

While most current studies have focused on designing AVs driving algorithms in various scenarios to ensure traffic efficiency and safety, they have not explored human drivers behavioral adaptation to AVs. Di and Talley wondered about the moral hazard effect on humans, whether with exposure to more and more traffic encounters with AVs, people might be less inclined to exercise due care when faced with AVs on the road and drive in a more risky fashion.

Human drivers perceive AVs as intelligent agents with the ability to adapt to more aggressive and potentially dangerous human driving behavior, says Di, who is a member of Columbias Data Science Institute. We found that human drivers may take advantage of this technology by driving carelessly and taking more risks, because they know that self-driving cars would be designed to drive more conservatively.

The researchers used game theory to model a world with interacting players who try to select their own actions to optimize their own goals. The playerslaw makers, AV manufacturers, AVs, and human drivershave different goals in the transportation ecosystem. Law makers want to regulate traffic with improved efficiency and safety, self-driving car manufacturers are profit-driven, and both self-driving cars and human drivers interact on public roads and seek to select the best driving strategies. To capture the complex interaction among all the players, the researchers applied game theory methods to see which strategy each player settles on, so that others will not take advantage of his or her decisions.

The hierarchical game helped the team to understand the human drivers moral hazard (how much risk drivers might decide to take on), the AV manufacturers impact on traffic safety, and the law makers adaptation to the new transportation ecosystem. They tested the game and its algorithm on a set of numerical examples, offering insights into behavioral evolution of AVs and HVs as the AV penetration rate increases and as cost or environment parameters vary.

The team found that an optimally designed liability policy is critical to help prevent human drivers from developing moral hazard and to assist the AV manufacturer with a tradeoff between traffic safety and production costs. Government subsidies to AV manufacturers for the reduction of production costs would greatly encourage manufacturers to produce AVs that outperform human drivers substantially and improve overall traffic safety and efficiency. Moreover, if AV manufacturers are not regulated in terms of AV technology specifications or are not properly subsidized, AV manufacturers tend to be purely profit-oriented and destructive to the overall traffic system.

The tragic fatality in Arizona involving a self-driving automobile elicited tremendous attention from the public and policy makers about how to draw the lines of legal liability when AVs interact with human drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians, Talley adds. The emergence of AVs introduces a particularly thorny type of uncertainty into the status quo, and one that feeds back onto AV manufacturing and design. Legal liability for accidents between automobiles and pedestrians typically involves a complex calculus of comparative fault assessments for each of the aforementioned groups. The introduction of an autonomous vehicle can complicate matters further by adding other parties to the mix, such as the manufacturers of hardware and programmers of software. And insurance coverage distorts matters further by including third party stakeholders. We hope our analytical tools will assist AV policy-makers with their regulatory decisions, and in doing so, will help mitigate uncertainty in the existing regulatory environment around AV technologies.

Di and Talley are now looking at multiple AV manufacturers that target different global markets with different technological specifications, making the development of legal rules even more complex.

We know that human drivers will take more risks and develop moral hazard if they think their road environment has become safer, Di notes. Its clear that an optimal liability rule design is crucial to improve social welfare and road safety with advanced transportation technologies.

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Columbia EngineeringColumbia Engineering, based in New York City, is one of the top engineering schools in the U.S. and one of the oldest in the nation. Also known as The Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science, the School expands knowledge and advances technology through the pioneering research of its more than 220 faculty, while educating undergraduate and graduate students in a collaborative environment to become leaders informed by a firm foundation in engineering. The Schools faculty are at the center of the Universitys cross-disciplinary research, contributing to the Data Science Institute, Earth Institute, Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute, Precision Medicine Initiative, and the Columbia Nano Initiative. Guided by its strategic vision, Columbia Engineering for Humanity, the School aims to translate ideas into innovations that foster a sustainable, healthy, secure, connected, and creative humanity.

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Who's Liable? The AV or the human driver? - Columbia University

Human Behavior

BlackRock’s Larry Fink: Risks from climate change are bigger than the 2008 financial crisis with no Fed to save us – CNBC

BlackRock Chairman and CEO Larry Fink is warning that the financial risks of climate change are bigger than any crisis he's experienced in his career on Wall Street.

"We don't have a Federal Reserve to stabilize the world like in the five or six financial crises that occurred during my 40 years in finance," the head of the world's biggest money manager told CNBC's Andrew Ross Sorkin in an interview that aired Tuesday. Sorkin also wrote about the interview in Tuesday's New York Times.

"This is bigger," he argued, calling on investors and corporate America to help combat climate change. "It requires more planning. It requires more public-private connections together to solve these problems. And I do believe many of these problems could be solved, but the actions have to begin now."

Fink, whose BlackRock has nearly $7 trillion in assets under management, used his annual letter to the world's biggest companies to sound the alarm. "Climate change has become a defining factor in companies' long-term prospects. But awareness is rapidly changing, and I believe we are on the edge of a fundamental reshaping of finance."

BlackRock will put "sustainability at the center of our investment approach," he wrote from portfolio construction to launching new investment products that screen fossil fuels.

"For now over eight years, I've been writing CEO letters about 'long-termism,'" Fink told CNBC. "Nothing could be more 'long-termism' than climate change."

"I believe in the science. But I did not write it as an environmentalist. I wrote the letter as a capitalist," he said. "My job is, as a capitalist, to help prepare our clients for the redistribution of capital. And more importantly, through that is to provide them with an investment portfolio that will outperform."

Fink's comments come as business leaders, policymakers and investors prepare to travel to Davos, Switzerland, for the World Economic Forum next week. President Donald Trump, a skeptic that human behavior causes climate change, plans to attend this year after canceling last year because of the government shutdown.

"We need to have a conversation with every government in the world, including our government, to be better prepared for this," Fink told CNBC. "We need to be spending large sums of money on infrastructure to be more prepared for this."

However, Fink acknowledged, "If we are going to be fair and just, we need to also focus on this transition. Many people are going be left behind." He said governments need to have long-term plans to deal with the shift. "The climate change is going to require a huge energy transition. It's going be 40 or 50 years."

Fink, a Democrat, has a history of addressing social issues in his annual CEO letters. Two years ago, he called on companies to have a purpose beyond profits.

WATCH: The full interview of Fink

See the article here:
BlackRock's Larry Fink: Risks from climate change are bigger than the 2008 financial crisis with no Fed to save us - CNBC

Human Behavior

Americans trust Amazon and Google more than Oprah (and Trump) – ZDNet

Seriously?

I've heard it muttered that we're living in the era of America's last hurrah.

"Hurrah," I hear some of you cry.

I tend, though, to be sanguine about such prognostications. After all, in historical terms, the US is barely out of elementary school.

Yet I confess to wondering about some of my fellow citizens, especially their unseemly embrace of technology.

They worship it in decidedly unbiblical ways. They allow themselves to be blinded by its vacuous appeal to instant entertainment. They trust it to tell them what to buy, whom to vote for and even what to think. Isn't this a recipe for self-immolation?

As my latest evidence, may I point to a new survey from market research company Morning Consult. It decided to examine which brands Americans trust the most.

The company was rather committed to its task, claiming it conducted an average of 16,700 interviews on the subject of 2,000 brands. To be exact, that's 16,700 interviews per brand.

Within this morass of data, my eyes fell upon one particular table. It's a table that may make you finally, finally emigrate to Canada. You see, these were the responses to the question of how Americans' trust of prominent brands compares to their trust of institutions, public figures, and ideas.

I'm not sure about you, but there aren't many people I trust "a lot." There certainly aren't too many brands either. As for institutions, public figures, and ideas, well, I still hold out hope for cancer research, Justin Bieber and mockery. But certainly not for the tech industry.

Hark, then, at the almost complete vanquishing of the American mind by the tech industry. Thirty-nine percent of these surveyed Americans said they trusted Amazon "a lot" to do the right thing.

Might this be the time to ask if they're bonkers? If there's one thing Amazon is renowned for it's a penchant for the amoral quadrant of human behavior. These are the people who own Ring, the company that does deals with police forces in order to help those police forces get people's home surveillance footage for free.

Yet here are Americans saying they trust Amazon "a lot" more than, good grief, teachers. Or, sacrilege this, Oprah. Or, sound the apocalyptic bells, Tom Hanks.

Worse, they trust Google more than these icons of decency. 38 percent said they trusted Google "a lot" to do the same. Yes, the same Google which is being ordered to pay $1.49 billion by the EU for allegedly illegal advertising contracts.

America, what is wrong with you? (That was rhetorical, America. Please don't reply. The answer would be painful.)

In this survey, there were, indeed, only two institutions, public figures or ideas that were trusted "a lot" to do the right thing more than Amazon and Google: your primary doctor and the military.

That's another fine M*A*S*H you've gotten us into, America.

The state of the nation.

To give you even more (depressing) perspective, Oprah trailed Amazon by 12 points -- and Google by 11. Even the police are apparently more trustworthy than Oprah.

What about the president, I hear you chant? What about the government? What about religious leaders?

Well, while Amazon enjoyed a 39 percent score, Donald Trump managed a mere 20. Or a fulsome 20, depending on your political bent. Religious leaders mustered but a 15. The US government scored a piffling 7. (I cannot confirm it was seven for the House and zero for the Senate.)

We are here, though, to promulgate hope. May I tell you, then, that Donald Trump is trusted more than labels on food packaging. And that the US government is trusted more than Wall Street or Hollywood. Oh, and the media is trusted more than the US government. (Just.)

Reeling from this data, I lay down and turned to the full list of consumer brands. There was but one that was trusted ahead of Amazon and Google: the United States Postal Service.

Isn't that quaintly analog?

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Americans trust Amazon and Google more than Oprah (and Trump) - ZDNet

Human Behavior

Rent the Runway COO: ‘You can’t promise perfection’ – Business Insider

In 2019, Rent the Runway was given a $1 billion valuation after raising $125 million in its Series F funding round.And, the company is still hungry for growth.

Anushka Salinas, chief operating officer at Rent the Runway, spoke at Business Insider's IGNITION: Redefining Retail conference Tuesday about the rental company's ambitions to disrupt people's ideas around ownership.

"We have fundamentally disrupted a core human behavior," Salinas said. "We are one of the only companies out there that is telling you, telling our consumers, 'Buy less stuff' versus 'Consume more.' Twenty percent of what the global fashion industry produces every year gets thrown away."

Salinas addressed the supply-chain crisis the company faced in 2019, during which a shift to a new warehouse software system resulted in late deliveries and furious customers.

"It's only been 10 years," Salinas said. "When you're a disruptor like us, you're not going to get it right 100% of the time. You can't promise perfection if you're disrupting at the level that we are."

CEO Jennifer Hyman explained some of the changes the company was making to its systems in an email to customers. The company had told Business Insider in early July that it was doubling the size of its customer service team and making other updates to its customer experience following a flood of complaints.

"If we're going to get it wrong, which we have in the past, we always want to make sure we're always doing right by our customers, and sometimes that just means telling them exactly what's going on," Salinas said.

Watch IGNITION: Redefining Retail here.

Link:
Rent the Runway COO: 'You can't promise perfection' - Business Insider