Tech

A team of researchers from the University of Granada (UGR) has created a system with Artificial Intelligence techniques which notifies elderly people or people with special needs of the forgetting of certain everyday tasks. This system uses sensors distributed in the environment in order to detect their actions and mobile devices which remind them, for example, to take their keys before they leave home.

Chemists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have issued a new certified reference material—a standardized sample backed by NIST—for determining the concentrations of vitamins, minerals and other nutrients in infant and adult nutritional formula and similar products. The new Standard Reference Material (SRM 1849) for Infant/Adult Nutritional Formula, represents a significant improvement over the now discontinued SRM 1846, Infant Formula, which had been offered since 1996.

The research team, which includes collaborators from the University of Maryland, has found a simple method of sandwiching organic molecules between silicon and metal, two materials fundamental to electronic components. By doing so, the team may have overcome one of the principal obstacles in creating switches made from individual molecules, which represent perhaps the ultimate in miniaturization for the electronics industry.

To help scientists in fields ranging from forensics to quantum communications, researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have developed a new, highly sensitive, low-cost technique for measuring light in the near-infrared range. The technique can measure the spectrum of the specific wavelengths of near infrared light used widely in telecommunications as well as the very weak infrared light at single-photon levels given off by fragile biomaterials and nanomaterials. They described their results in Optics Express.

Acetylene, widely used in decades past for welding and illumination, is now also valuable as a starting point for synthesizing a range of chemicals used in plastics and explosives. In addition, the problem of transporting the volatile chemical may have been solved in principle by a team of scientists working at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). A NIST research team has figured out why a recently discovered material can safely store at low pressure up to 100 times as much acetylene as can be done with conventional methods.

Airline travelers are used to being instructed to turn off computers and cell phones during takeoffs and landings as a precaution against interfering with the plane’s navigational equipment, but outside sources of high-energy interference can be even more dangerous.

New research on the effects of blast waves could lead to an enhanced understanding of head injuries and improved military helmet design. This is being done using numerical hydrodynamic computer simulations. Lawrence Livermore scientists Willy Moss and Michael King, along with University of Rochester colleague Eric Blackman, have discovered that nonlethal blasts can induce enough skull flexure to generate potentially damaging loads in the brain, even without direct head impact.

A novel electronic sensor array for more rapid, accurate and cost-efficient testing of DNA for disease diagnosis and biological research has been developed by scientists at Singapore's Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (IBN).

In a recent Journal of the American Chemical Society, IBN scientists reported that based on laboratory results, their Nanogap Sensor Array has shown "excellent" sensitivity at detecting trace amounts of DNA.

Researchers in Singapore are reporting development of a new electronic sensor that shows promise as a faster, less expensive, and more practical alternative than tests now used to detect DNA. Such tests are done for criminal investigation, disease diagnosis, and other purposes. The new lab-on-a-chip test could lead to wider, more convenient use of DNA testing, the researchers say. Their study is scheduled for the Sept. 2 issue of the Journal of the American Chemical Society, a weekly publication.

A North Carolina State University researcher has devised a new technology that really does not stink. In fact, it could be the key to eliminating foul odors and air pollutants emitted by industrial chicken rendering facilities and – ultimately – large-scale swine feedlots.

Computer scientists in Taiwan have devised a neural network program that can successfully classify a computerized music file based on its beat and tempo. The system could be a boon for music archivists with large numbers of untagged recordings and for users searching through mislabeled mp3 libraries. Details of tests on ballroom dancing music are reported this month in the International Journal of Intelligent Information and Database Systems.

Researchers are arranging little LEGO pieces shaped like pegs to re-create microscopic activity taking place inside lab-on-a-chip devices at a scale they can more easily observe.

These lab-on-a-chip devices, also known as microfluidic arrays, are commonly used to sort tiny samples by size, shape or composition, but the minuscule forces work at such a small magnitude, they are difficult to measure. To solve this small problem, the Johns Hopkins engineers decided to think big.

Researchers have developed a new technology that helps Parkinson's patients overcome a tendancy to speak too quietly by playing a recording of ambient sound, which resembles the noisy chatter of a restaurant full of patrons.

"People with Parkinson's disease commonly have voice and speech problems," said Jessica Huber, an associate professor in Purdue's Department of Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences. "At some point in their disease they will have some form of voice or speech disorder that generally occurs a little later in the disease."

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- It takes just seconds for tall buildings to collapse during powerful earthquakes. Knowing precisely what's happening in those seconds can help engineers design buildings that are less prone to sustaining that kind of damage.

But the nature of collapse is not well understood. It hasn't been well-studied experimentally because testing full-scale buildings on shake tables is a massive, expensive and risky undertaking.

Researchers at INSERM (France) have engineered a chimeric protein that increases cell survival, migration and proliferation to improve stem cell engraftment. The results, which appear in the Experimental Biology and Medicine, show that TAT-Tpr-Met, a cell permeable form of the hepatocyte growth factor receptor can increase the number of hepatic stem cells integrated into the liver of the mouse.