Thousands of people with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder are set to benefit from swifter diagnosis using artificial intelligence.
Six English universities in the northern region of Yorkshire are working with the country’s National Health Service develop the technology, which will cut months off waiting times.
Despite treatments being available for people with ADHD, long waiting lists in the UK have led to many being forced to put their lives on hold while they wait to see a consultant.
The project, the brainchild of Professor Grigoris Antoniou at the University of Huddersfield, harnesses AI technology to fast-track help for those with an obvious diagnosis.
“There are long and growing waiting lists, as people wait to be diagnosed and treated, and this can result in adverse effects on their work, their social life and their family life,” said Professor Antoniou.
He said one reason for the lengthening waiting time is the shortage of specialist clinicians able to make a full diagnosis.
“So, we set out to use AI to provide help with decisions. The idea is that the AI technology will be able to identify the clear-cut cases. In many cases, the data itself more or less tells us whether it is a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’ for further treatment.
“The technology is fully embedded in a clinical pathway, which ensures there will always be a clinician who can override what the AI says.”
Data routinely collected prior to an ADHD diagnosis is fed into an AI algorithm and produces three outcomes – yes or no to further treatment or an unclear result that requires further assessment of the patient.
Professor Antoniou said two types of AI technology had been harnessed for the project.
“One is machine-learning-based. We took data from previous cases and trained a prediction model,” he said.
“The second method is knowledge-based. We worked with clinical experts and asked what their diagnosis would be if they are faced with this data. We then encoded this knowledge.”
Professor Antoniou is a globally acknowledged expert in AI and has already helped to develop its potential to predict suicide risk in mental health patients.
The AI solution to diagnosis was developed by Professor Antoniou with his collaborator Professor Marios Adamou, a consultant psychiatrist at South West Yorkshire NHS Trust and a visiting professor at the University of Huddersfield.
“It is the close interplay of AI and medical expertise that has made this development possible,” Professor Antoniou said.
“It is important to have such interdisciplinary collaborations between computer science and health science at Huddersfield.”
The technology could result in significant cost savings for the National Health Service.
The project is being backed by Grow MedTech, which provides specialist support for innovation in medical technology, involving a consortium that includes Leeds, York, Bradford, Sheffield Hallam and Leeds Beckett universities.
Its assistance will enable Professor Antoniou and his collaborators to explore the commercialisation of the product.
The work is taking place at the university’s Planning, Autonomy and Representation of Knowledge Research Centre under the leadership of Professor Antoniou with researchers Ilias Tachmazidis and Tianhua Chen.
The UK has an estimated 1.5 million adults with ADHD. In adults, it can cause emotional symptoms that include extreme irritability, low self-esteem and a sense of insecurity, trouble staying motivated and hypersensitivity to criticism. These problems can result in poor organisational skills, trouble starting and finishing projects, and chronic lateness.
The Royal College of Psychiatrists has also said that people with ADHD were more likely to be involved in criminal behaviour or become suicidal.
A little about CVRL
Founded in 1985 by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, Vice President and Ruler of Dubai, the Central Veterinary Research Laboratory (CVRL) is a government diagnostic centre that provides testing and research facilities to the UAE and neighbouring countries.
One of its main goals is to provide permanent treatment solutions for veterinary related diseases.
The taxidermy centre was established 12 years ago and is headed by Dr Ulrich Wernery.
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UPI facts
More than 2.2 million Indian tourists arrived in UAE in 2023
More than 3.5 million Indians reside in UAE
Indian tourists can make purchases in UAE using rupee accounts in India through QR-code-based UPI real-time payment systems
Indian residents in UAE can use their non-resident NRO and NRE accounts held in Indian banks linked to a UAE mobile number for UPI transactions
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The Bio
Favourite vegetable: “I really like the taste of the beetroot, the potatoes and the eggplant we are producing.”
Holiday destination: “I like Paris very much, it’s a city very close to my heart.”
Book: “Das Kapital, by Karl Marx. I am not a communist, but there are a lot of lessons for the capitalist system, if you let it get out of control, and humanity.”
Musician: “I like very much Fairuz, the Lebanese singer, and the other is Umm Kulthum. Fairuz is for listening to in the morning, Umm Kulthum for the night.”
Gothia Cup 2025
4,872 matches
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116 pitches
76 nations
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2 Kuwaiti teams
Omar Yabroudi's factfile
Born: October 20, 1989, Sharjah
Education: Bachelor of Science and Football, Liverpool John Moores University
2010: Accrington Stanley FC, internship
2010-2012: Crystal Palace, performance analyst with U-18 academy
2012-2015: Barnet FC, first-team performance analyst/head of recruitment
2015-2017: Nottingham Forest, head of recruitment
2018-present: Crystal Palace, player recruitment manager
Series information
Pakistan v Dubai
First Test, Dubai International Stadium
Sun Oct 6 to Thu Oct 11
Second Test, Zayed Stadium, Abu Dhabi
Tue Oct 16 to Sat Oct 20
Play starts at 10am each day
Teams
Pakistan
1 Mohammed Hafeez, 2 Imam-ul-Haq, 3 Azhar Ali, 4 Asad Shafiq, 5 Haris Sohail, 6 Babar Azam, 7 Sarfraz Ahmed, 8 Bilal Asif, 9 Yasir Shah, 10, Mohammed Abbas, 11 Wahab Riaz or Mir Hamza
Australia
1 Usman Khawaja, 2 Aaron Finch, 3 Shaun Marsh, 4 Mitchell Marsh, 5 Travis Head, 6 Marnus Labuschagne, 7 Tim Paine, 8 Mitchell Starc, 9 Peter Siddle, 10 Nathan Lyon, 11 Jon Holland
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Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Sole survivors
- Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
- George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
- Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
- Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
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Company Profile:
Name: The Protein Bakeshop
Date of start: 2013
Founders: Rashi Chowdhary and Saad Umerani
Based: Dubai
Size, number of employees: 12
Funding/investors: $400,000 (2018)
MATCH INFO
Barcelona 4 (Suarez 27', Vidal 32', Dembele 35', Messi 78')
Sevilla 0
Red cards: Ronald Araujo, Ousmane Dembele (Barcelona)
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
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1. Maiden Special Weight, Santa Anita Park, June 5, 2016
2. Allowance Optional Claiming, Santa Anita Park, June 24, 2016
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6. Pegasus World Cup, Gulfstream Park, January 28, 2017
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COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Kumulus Water
Started: 2021
Founders: Iheb Triki and Mohamed Ali Abid
Based: Tunisia
Sector: Water technology
Number of staff: 22
Investment raised: $4 million
