Importing the National Provider Database, Part I

By Jacob Flanders in tutorials on

Hello, I'm Jacob. I perform technology and strategy consulting, including data analytics and machine learning. I blog about various projects I'm working on. If this topic is interesting or relevant to your organization let's talk - hello at jacob dot vi Each practicing doctor…

OMG Space Is Awesome (dot com) !!

By Jacob Flanders on

If you hadn't already heard, I am currently taking some time off from the rat race and spending the winter back on St Thomas.  During this time, I will be exploring some intellectual pursuits that fell to the wayside over the past few years (like this blog!).  I…

Publicly Available Mammography Datasets

By Jacob Flanders in Machine Learning in Cancer Care on

In order to build a machine learning model to help us with mammography-based diagnosis[1] we will need data to train our models. Thankfully, there are a number of data sets publicly available. University of South Florida Digital Database for Screening Mammography [http://marathon.csee.usf.edu/Mammography/Database.html]…

Is Machine Learning Just Another Fad?

By Jacob Flanders in Machine Learning in Cancer Care on

According to Mattermark, No. AI Is The New New Thing (And It's Taking Over) [https://mattermark.com/ai-new-new-thing-taking/] This editorial presents an interesting look at the ecosystem of machine learning startups, across all industries. Some choice quotes: > 2013’s Big Data is 2016’s Machine Learning (ML)…

Machine Learning in Cancer Care

By Jacob Flanders in Machine Learning in Cancer Care on

Machine Learning (ML) is a technique to train computers to identify patterns instead of explicitly telling them what those patterns are. If you want to teach a machine-learning system to recognize a cat, you don't tell it to look for whiskers, ears, fur, and eyes. Instead, you show…