Tech

As speech recognition systems become more commonplace it is increasingly important to ensure that the voice signal is as clear as possible before it is processed by a computer and acted upon. In business, it could make the difference in a profitable financial deal while in transportation it could mean a safe vehicle or aircraft maneuver.Mobile phone conversations and even the clandestine recording of speech for security and law enforcement purposes could benefit.

EVANSTON, Ill. --- Tweet this, Ashton Kutcher, Lady Gaga and Guy Kawasaki. You may have a ton of followers on Twitter but that doesn't necessarily mean you're among the most influential people in the Twitterverse. Instead, on various topics people with much lower profiles may have the most influence.

Fresh insight into how plants slow their growth in cold weather could help scientists develop crops suited to cooler environments.

Researchers have shown for the first time that a gene – known as Spatula – limits the growth of plants in cool temperatures, possibly helping them adjust to cool conditions.

Researchers at the University of Edinburgh, who took part in the study, believe that by manipulating the gene, they could produce the opposite effect – enabling development of crops that grow well in cold climates.

Numerous CCTV systems are in use in public places which have the capacity to gather large amounts of image material. For the time being, however, there are no effective ways to analyze the mass of video data automatically and recognize potential risk situations in advance. VTT is involved in an EU research project aimed at developing IT solutions to this end.

URBANA – In the search for the perfect crop for biofuel production, Miscanthus has become the darling to many. But in an effort to not be charmed by its enormous potential for biomass production, researchers at the University of Illinois are taking a careful look at the pros and cons of its behavior in the field.

A robot deceives an enemy soldier by creating a false trail and hiding so that it will not be caught. While this sounds like a scene from one of the Terminator movies, it's actually the scenario of an experiment conducted by researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology as part of what is believed to be the first detailed examination of robot deception.

It's no secret: the United States is in the thick of a "green trend." Increased awareness of and commitment to sustainability and improving the environment through reduced carbon emissions and energy use have led to more consumer demand for "green" products, including green construction. Even with the downturn in the housing market, a 2008 poll showed that 91 percent of registered voters nationwide would still pay more for a house if that meant a reduced impact on the environment.

A new study¹ looking at the effects of the 2006 Massachusetts Health Reform on access to care, health status and ethnic and socioeconomic disparities in healthcare, shows that the legislation has led to improvements in insurance coverage as well as a decline in financial barriers to care. However, to date, it has not increased people's access to a personal physician or improved their self-rated health. Neither has it reduced healthcare inequalities between ethnic or income groups.

Health and social services are facing a new challenge, as many illicit drug users get older and face chronic health problems and a reduced quality of life. That is one of the key findings of research published in the September issue of the Journal of Advanced Nursing.

UK researchers interviewed eleven people aged 49 to 61 in contact with voluntary sector drug treatment services.

Led by Dr. Ghanem, Henry Ford Hospital has performed more than a dozen TORS procedures since it was approved in January by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to remove malignant and benign tumors of the mouth, tongue, tonsils, and parts of the throat.

For the casual observer it is fascinating to watch the orderly and seemingly choreographed motion of hundreds or even thousands of fish, birds or insects. However, the formation and the manifold motion patterns of such flocks raise numerous questions fundamental to the understanding of complex systems. A team of physicists from Technische Universitaet Muenchen (TUM) and LMU Muenchen has developed a versatile biophysical model system that opens the door to studying these phenomena and their underlying principles.

If your summer travels have taken you across the Rocky Mountains, you've probably seen large swaths of reddish trees dotting otherwise green forests. While it may look like autumn has come early to the mountains, evergreen trees don't change color with the seasons. The red trees are dying, the result of attacks by mountain pine beetles.

BATON ROUGE – Gregory Stone, director of LSU's WAVCIS Program and also of the Coastal Studies Institute in the university's School of the Coast & Environment, disagrees with published estimates that more than 75 percent of the oil from the Deepwater Horizon incident has disappeared.

Stone recently participated in a three-hour flyover of the affected area in the Gulf, where he said that subsurface oil was easily visible from overhead.

"It's most definitely there," said Stone. "It's just a matter of time before it makes itself known again."

A portable, laser backpack for 3D mapping has been developed at the University of California, Berkeley, where it is being hailed as a breakthrough technology capable of producing fast, automatic and realistic 3D mapping of difficult interior environments.