| Another Perspective on Today's Strong Housing Numbers Posted: 19 May 2015 09:59 AM PDT Following today's better than expected housing numbers (See Housing Starts and Permits Surge Most in Seven Years) Doug Short at Advisor Perspectives pinged me with these comments. Mish – I started tracking these for the first time today – complete historical data. These are two of the noisiest series of all time.
Take a look at the charts, especially the population-adjusted versions. You'll see why you need at least a 3-month moving average to get an idea of the real trend direction and slope. And check out where the latest data points put us relative to the total series.
Starts: New Residential Housing Starts Surge in April
Permits: New Residential Building Permits Rise 10.1% in April
Bottom line: take the April data with a grain of salt … maybe a tablespoon full. Privately Owned Housing Starts  click on any chart for sharper imageHousing Starts as Percent of Population The above from Doug Short Here is a chart and comment I posted yesterday in Home Builders Optimistic Despite Decline in Traffic; Housing Market Index Declines. NAHB Housing Market Index If you ask the builders, sales conditions are very good with a score of 59. Sales expectations rose to an excellent score of 64. Meanwhile, actual lookers score a very poor 39. Average it all together and you get the totally useless chart above. Housing Market Index ComponentsYesterday afternoon I asked the NAHB for the subcomponent data. Here is a chart I put together today from that data.  Note the actual traffic of prospective buyers vs. sales expectations six months out. Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com |
| Robots on Verge of Replacing Human Anesthesiologists Posted: 19 May 2015 06:59 AM PDT Those in medical school pondering career specialties need consider which fields may soon vanish to robots. Anesthesiology is one field in the robotic spotlight. Please consider this Washington Post headline quote: "We are Convinced the Machine can do Better than Human Anesthesiologists". I wrote recently about Sedasys, a machine that automates anesthesia. It's a first-of-its-kind device in the United States. Only four hospitals use it for now. It's restricted to colonoscopies in healthy patients.
But Sedasys, in development for 15 years, is no longer on the true cutting edge of what's possible with automated anesthesia.
A machine with the clunky name of iControl-RP is. It's an experimental device that pushes the boundaries of how much responsibility is turned over to technology. It monitors brain wave activity. And it's even been tested on children.
One of the reasons that Sedasys was approved by U.S. health regulators is that it's a conservative leap forward. The device is innovative, but it doesn't decide alone how much anesthesia to give to a patient.
It's an open-loop system. The initial dose is pre-determined based on a patient's weight and age. And Sedasys only reduces or stops drug delivery if it detects problems. Only a doctor or nurse can up the dose. That gave regulators a level of comfort.
But the iControl-RP makes its own decisions. It is a closed-loop system.
This new device, being tested by University of British Columbia researchers, monitors a patient's brain wave activity along with traditional health markers, such as blood oxygen levels, to determine how much anesthesia to deliver.
"We are convinced the machine can do better than human anesthesiologists," said Mark Ansermino, one of the machine's co-developers, who works as director of pediatric anesthesia research at the university's medical school in Vancouver.
Sedasys dips its toes into what's possible. The iControl-RP dives right in.
Anesthesia is tricky. It's often compared to flying a plane – keeping a patient hovering in just the right plane of consciousness. It's called depth of hypnosis. Surgeons don't want patients writhing on the table. And patients don't want to be aware of the operation. Of course, no one wants patients to die, a distinct possibility if too much of an anesthesia drug is delivered.
The iControl-RP aims to thread that needle by using an EEG to scan a patient's brain waves to make sure the sedation is adequate. And it looks at heart and breathing rates and blood oxygen levels to make sure the patient is not slipping too deeply into sleep. The machine's algorithm makes all the medical decisions that a doctor usually does.
Ansermino said anesthesiologists are not very good at maintaining just the right amount of sedation. This is especially important in children, where studies show that deep sedation can have negative longterm cognitive impacts on infants and toddlers.
The iControl-RP team says it has struggled to find a corporate backer for its project. Ansermino, the anesthesiologist in Vancouver, thinks he knows why.
"Most big companies view this as too risky," he said.
But, he said, a device like this was inevitable.
"I think eventually this will happen," Ansermino said, "whether we like it or not." Anesthesiology Robots Coming Like It or Not I side with Ansermino. These devices will happen, like it or not. Look for approval in Canada first, then Europe. The US will then be forced to catch up. Meet iControl-RP Your New Anesthesiologist The iControl-RP, which fully automates anesthesia for operations, stands on the right. On the left are traditional anesthesia monitors that would be used by a human doctor. UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA PHOTO Clinical Trials in Canada iControl-RP is in Clinical Trials in Canada. The study is currently recruiting participants. It's increasingly important to choose your career wisely. Healthcare in general may be a good choice, but select fields in healthcare will go to robots. Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com |
| Housing Starts and Permits Surge Most in Seven Years Posted: 19 May 2015 06:03 AM PDT In one of the few economic bright spots recently, housing starts surged beating Bloomberg Consensus Estimates. Highlights
There were hardly any indications before today, but the spring housing surge is here. Today's housing starts & permits report is one of the very strongest on record with starts soaring 20.2 percent in April to a much higher-than-expected annual rate of 1.135 million with permits up 10.1 percent to a much higher-than-expected 1.143 million. Both readings easily top the Econoday high-end forecast of 1.120 million for each. The gain for starts is the best in 7-1/2 years with the gain in permits the best in 7 years. Today's report is an eye-opener and will re-establish expectations for building strength in housing, a sector held down badly in the first quarter by severe weather.
Recent History Of This Indicator
Housing starts & permits have been some of the most disappointing data on the calendar, underscoring how weak the new home market really is. Excuses were abundant during the heavy weather of the first quarter but those excuses won't apply to the latest report which is for April. Both starts and permits are expected to show big gains from depressed levels. Housing Starts Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com |
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