Millionths of a second can cost millions of dollars: A new way to track network delays

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Computer scientists have developed an inexpensive solution for diagnosing networking delays in data center networks as short as tens of millionths of seconds—delays that can lead to multi-million dollar losses for investment banks running automatic stock trading systems. Similar delays can delay parallel processing in high performance cluster computing applications run by Fortune 500 companies and universities.

University of California, San Diego and Purdue University computer scientists presented this work on August 20, 2009 at SIGCOMM, the premier networking conference.

Toward more smudge resistant smart phone touchscreens

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WASHINGTON, Aug. 19, 2009 — Scientists have discovered the secret to easing one of the great frustrations of the millions who use smart phones, portable media players and other devices with touch- screens: Reducing their tendency to smudge and cutting glare from sunlight. In a report today at the 238th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society, they describe development of a test for performance of such smudge- and reflection-resistant coatings and its use to determine how to improve that performance.

Robot's gentle touch aids delicate cancer surgery

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Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore and Washington DC (August 21, 2009) – New, delicate surgery techniques to hunt for tumours could benefit from a lighter touch – but from a robot, rather than from a human hand. Canadian researchers have created a touchy-feely robot that detects tougher tumour tissue in half the time, and with 40% more accuracy than a human. The technique also minimises tissue damage.

Wearable Artificial Kidney may mean goodbye to dialysis machines

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Researchers are developing a Wearable Artificial Kidney for dialysis patients, reports an upcoming paper in the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (CJASN). "Our vision of a technological breakthrough has materialized in the form of a Wearable Artificial Kidney, which provides continuous dialysis 24 hours a day, seven days a week," comments Victor Gura, MD (David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA).

Sometimes you want your semiconductor to act more like a magnet

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Scientists are working to coax semiconductors to be more than conveyors of cell phone data. The goal is to have them actually perform some functions like magnets, such as data recording and electronic control. So far most of those effects could only be achieved at very cold temperatures: minus 260 degrees Celsius or more than 400 below zero Fahrenheit, likely too cold for most computer users.

NASA researcher nets first measure of Africa's coastal forests

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Impoverished fishermen along the coast of tropical African countries like Mozambique and Madagascar may have only a few more years to eke out a profit from one of their nations' biggest agricultural exports. Within a few decades, they may no longer have a livelihood at all.

That's because swampy mangrove forests – essential breeding grounds for fish and shellfish in these countries – are being destroyed by worsening pollution, encroaching real estate development, and deforestation necessary to sustain large-scale commercial shrimp farming.

Don't sack the manager

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Experts at The University of Nottingham and Loughborough University have produced research which proves that Premier League clubs who have long-term managers are more successful than those who change their managers on a frequent basis.

The study, which uses data from the inception of the Premier League in 1992 until 2004, focuses on the short-term and long-term impact of manager change in the top flight of English football.

The research has been produced alongside academics from the University of Sheffield and UWE in Bristol.

Harvard study reveals taxing job-based health benefits would hit working families hardest

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CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – As the debate over health care reform continues to unfold in town hall meetings and on Capitol Hill, a new study by two Harvard researchers has found that taxing job-based health benefits would heavily penalize insured, working families.

Majority of US hospitals will have smoke-free campuses by end of year

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WASHINGTON DC, Aug. 20, 2009—While hospital buildings are often smoke-free, a new study finds that by February 2008, 45 percent of US hospitals had adopted "smoke-free campus" policies, meaning that all the property owned or leased by the hospital, both indoors and outdoors, was smoke-free and there were no designated smoking areas on those properties.

Less than 50 percent of women with abnormal paps receive follow-up care: study

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TORONTO, Ont., August 20, 2009 — Less than half of Ontario women with abnormal Pap tests receive recommended and potentially life-saving follow-up care, according to a new women's health study by researchers at St. Michael's Hospital and the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES). What's more, low-income women are less likely to be screened for cancer compared to their high-income counterparts.