Tech

New York, NY--June 11, 2020--Accelerating progress in neuroscience is helping us understand the big picture--how animals behave and which brain areas are involved in bringing about these behaviors--and also the small picture--how molecules, neurons, and synapses interact. But there is a huge gap of knowledge between these two scales, from the whole brain down to the neuron.

A team led by Christos Papadimitriou, the Donovan Family Professor of Computer Science at Columbia Engineering, proposes a new computational system to expand the understanding of the brain at an intermediate level, between neurons and cognitive phenomena such as language. The group, which includes computer scientists from Georgia Institute of Technology and a neuroscientist from the Graz University of Technology, has developed a brain architecture that is based on neuronal assemblies, and they demonstrate its use in the syntactic processing in the production of language; their model, published online June 9 in PNAS, is consistent with recent experimental results.

"For me, understanding the brain has always been a computational problem," says Papadimitriou, who became fascinated by the brain five years ago. "Because if it isn't, I don't know where to start."

He was spurred on by Columbia researcher and Nobel laureate Richard Axel, who recently noted, "We do not have a logic for the transformation of neural activity into thought and action." Papadimitriou wondered what would happen if he interpreted this "logic" as a programming language like Python: just as Python manipulates numbers, the brain's logic manipulates populations of neurons.

He and his team developed a computational system, the Assembly Calculus, that encompasses operations on assemblies, or large populations, of neurons that appear to be involved in cognitive processes such as imprinting memories, concepts, and words. In just the way Python programs can be compiled to machine code and execute, the Assembly Calculus can in principle be translated down to the language of neurons and synapses. The researchers were able to show, both analytically as well as through simulations, that the system is plausibly realizable at the level of neurons and synapses.

"So, we have finally articulated our theory about the nature of the 'logic' sought by Axel, and its supporting evidence," says Papadimitriou, who is also a member of the Data Science Institute. "Now comes the hard part, will neuroscientists take our theory seriously and try to find evidence that something like it takes place in the brain, or that it does not?"

With a new three-year grant from the National Science Foundation, the team is now working with experimental neuropsychologists at CUNY to carry out fMRI experiments in humans to check the predictions of their theory regarding language.

Consumers who use the Internet to learn about products are increasingly looking at online reviews to make purchasing decisions. The growing interest in online product reviews for legitimate promotion has been accompanied by a rise in fraudulent reviews; these are reviews placed by firms that artificially inflate ratings of their own products, or reviews by firms or third parties that give lower ratings to competitors' products. A new study sought to determine how consumers respond to potentially fraudulent reviews and how review portals (e.g., Amazon, Expedia, TripAdvisor, Yelp) can leverage this information to design better fraud-management policies and increase consumers' trust. It found that portals that include fraudulent reviews are more likely to boost buyers' trust.

The study, by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) and the University of Washington, is published in Information Systems Research.

"Consumers rely on the content of online reviews to make decisions about purchases, and about 15 to 30 percent of all online reviews are estimated to be fraudulent," explains Beibei Li, professor of information systems and management at CMU's Heinz College, who led the study. "But beyond creating algorithms that detect the initial fraud, researchers have not fully explored what review portals do once fraudulent reviews are detected."

Indeed, there is no consensus among firms regarding what to do with these types of reviews. Some review portals delete fraudulent reviews, others publicly acknowledge censoring fake reviews and sue firms suspected of posting them, and still others make the fraudulent reviews visible to the public with a notation that they may be fraudulent.

In this study, researchers sought to determine how review portals should display fraudulent information to increase consumers' trust in the platform. Specifically, they engaged in three exercises based on an experimental restaurant review portal they designed and implemented; a reservation system that used real data; and a behavior tracking system that determined amount of time consumers spent on each page, number of clicks, and number of restaurant pages visited. They also identified which restaurants were chosen by which consumers.

The study found that consumers tended to trust the information provided by platforms the most when the portal displayed fraudulent reviews along with nonfraudulent reviews, as opposed to the more common practice of censoring suspected fraudulent reviews. The impact of fraudulent reviews on consumers' decision-making process increased with their uncertainty about the initial evaluation of product quality: When consumers were very uncertain about a product, they treated fraudulent reviews as an important supplemental source of information for decision making.

The study also found that consumers weren't influenced by the content of fraudulent reviews: When they chose to use this information, they couldn't distinguish between different types of fraudulent information (e.g., malicious negative reviews or self-promotional positive reviews). This suggests that firms would benefit by using a method that incorporates the motivational differences between positive and negative fraudulent reviews to help consumers make decisions.

The researchers say their findings have practical implications for managers of review portals or platforms who wish to boost consumers' trust:

Platforms can increase consumers' trust by leaving potentially fraudulent reviews on their site with comments instead of censoring these reviews without comment.

Potentially fraudulent reviews are best displayed when managers use a decision method that decreases the burden to consumers.

Any decrease in trust a platform may face from admitting to users that there is fraud on its site is balanced by an increase in trust from consumers who already thought there was fraud and now see that something is being done to address it.

"Our study advances understanding of how consumers respond to fraudulent information online and furthers the state-of-the-art practice in the industry for handling fraudulent reviews," explains Michael D. Smith, professor of information technology and marketing at CMU's Heinz College, who coauthored the study. "It also can inform regulatory and policy discussions about the widespread incidence of fake information disseminated online."

The authors acknowledge limitations to their study: In their work, they used Amazon Mechanical Turk--a crowdsourcing marketplace that helps people and businesses outsource their work to a workforce that can do the tasks virtually--instead of observing actual consumers. And they analyzed only settings in which reviewers had no prior knowledge about the portal they were using.

Geriatrics is the field of health care focused on care for older adults. Experts suggest that our current geriatrics workforce needs better preparation to care for the 5.7 million people living with dementia in this country. To help meet this challenge, the Institute of Medicine has called for enhancing educational and training programs for improving the competence of the workforce, and to ensure that our workforce reaches the level needed to serve the growing population of older adults with dementia.

Despite these ongoing efforts, the shortage of geriatricians makes it difficult to meet these urgent educational needs. For this study, a team of researchers looked "outside the box" to learn more about whether creative solutions could offer valuable opportunities for addressing these issues. In this new study, the researchers outlined the results and outcomes of an undergraduate service-learning course that used music and filmmaking to teach person-centered approaches to dementia.

The course, which included music, filmmaking, and reflective writing components, focused on service at local dementia care settings and was conducted in collaboration with Music & Memory, a non-profit organization dedicated to bringing personalized music playlists to people living with dementia or other serious medical challenges.

The three-credit undergraduate service-learning course was developed and taught by a music professor over three consecutive semesters with 16 to 18 students each term.

The students worked in pairs at one of two dementia care settings. Students received initial classroom training on dementia, ethnomusicology (music anthropology), ethnographic fieldwork methods (the technical term for expert research based on studying people and culture), filmmaking basics, and creative aging.

A gerontologist social worker was invited to offer guest lectures each semester to train students in the basics of dementia care and dementia communication. Students also attended an initial orientation visit to their field site before filming. Over five to eight weeks, students completed six or seven three-hour visits to the dementia care settings, either assisted living facilities or adult day health centers. Their tasks for the semester were to create personalized music playlists for participating older adults and to document these experiences through short films.

During these visits, students worked with people living with dementia who had consented by proxy to participate. At the end of the semester, playlists developed for these participants were loaded onto iPods and given to the people with dementia to use with the help of staff and family members. The students took turns interacting with the people and filming the process.

Throughout the course, students wrote multiple essays, workshopped their films, and discussed their experiences as a group. At the end of the course, students shared their films with the people with dementia and their families, the dementia care facilities, and the local community through public and private screenings. If given permission by families, student films were also shared online. As their final assignment, each student wrote a reflective essay about the film and their experiences in the course.

Three major themes and one unexpected finding emerged in this study:

1. Music helps students connect with people with dementia in meaningful ways.

2. Filmmaking offers students the opportunity to share unique, person-centered stories about dementia and music that empowers the voices of people with dementia.

3. Reflective writing enables students to process new experiences and lessons learned.

According to the researchers, one way to build a larger geriatrics workforce could involve using resources found outside the realm of geriatrics and health sciences education. For example, arts and humanities approaches to the study of dementia have the potential to humanize the condition for potential geriatric trainees.

"By teaching students to view aging through creative, intercultural and interdisciplinary frames, we have the opportunity to shape a new generation of health care professionals, artists, and community members who will be motivated to collaboratively work towards addressing the needs of our rapidly aging populations," said lead author Jennie Gubner, PhD, from the University of Arizona and the Global Brain Health Institute. "Whether studying classical guitar, nursing, anthropology, public health, or business and marketing, everyone has something to offer to conversations about brain health and aging."

As one student put it: "I wish I could meet everyone by learning their favorite songs because it tells you so much about a person, more than any conversation ever will. I also realized how many misconceptions I had about those living with dementia. It does not define them, it is just a piece of who they are, just as we are all made of different pieces."

As the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic wanes in Europe, many countries are relaxing their lockdown rules, but the advice for non-essential workers is to continue working from home if possible. The important question when lockdown should be lifted for non-essential workers in the UK and elsewhere is answered in a new study in Frontiers in Public Health.

Here, scientists from the University of Oxford and the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology in Wallingford show that a gradual strategy with two discrete releases of subgroups of the quarantined population would be optimal for society as a whole to minimize deaths while protecting the economy.

"We find that ending quarantine for the entire population simultaneously is a high-risk strategy, and that a gradual re-integration approach would be more reliable," write the authors.

The researchers model the numbers of susceptible, exposed, infectious, and recovered (or deceased) persons in the UK, separately for those under lockdown and those working as normal. They derive the best strategy for releasing people from lockdown, requiring that the greatest number should be allowed to work as soon as possible (while maintaining social distancing), but without overwhelming the health services - estimated to happen when there are approximately 4 million infected people in the UK. The model was kept as simple as feasible, not only to make results easier to interpret, but also to allow it to be easily applied to other countries.

"Exactly what happens as lockdown eases can be hard to predict, as different people will respond in different ways. However, when a large enough group of people is considered, mathematical models like ours are able to represent the expected average behaviors across a large population. Most importantly, we are able to assume a wide range of "What if?" scenarios, such that we can explore a range of possible infection increases. Ongoing testing is then important to check that any disease increase does not surpass the predicted bounds," says Professor Michael Bonsall from the Mathematical Ecology Research Group at the University of Oxford, the study's lead author.

The researchers conclude that the optimal strategy would be to release approximately half the population 2-4 weeks from the end of an initial infection peak, and then wait another 3-4 months to allow for a potential second peak to pass before releasing everyone else. The optimal solution depends partly on the (poorly known) rate at which people sick with COVID-19 recover and the rate of viral transmission, but hardly on the death rate, the incubation period, or the effectiveness of lockdown measures. While the model itself does not prescribe which people should be released from lockdown first, the authors suggest that this should be the younger part of the population - known to be less susceptible to COVID-19 - provided that these are closely monitored with molecular tests, as they would be at increased risk.

"The take-home message for decision-makers is to act very cautiously, and to monitor any lockdown release very closely. Our model shows that second waves can occur very quickly if transmission rates end up higher than expected, or if more people relax their lockdown measures than expected. The delayed incubation period between infection and presenting symptoms means that we are constantly seeing the effect of the disease a few days late. Only by ramping up testing measures can we accurately get a sense of how the spread and control of disease is happening. This will allow us to respond quickly if an unmanageable second wave begins to appear," concludes Dr Thomas Rawson from the University of Oxford, the first author.

An international team led by scientists at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) has recently developed the world's first 3D artificial eye with capabilities better than existing bionic eyes and in some cases, even exceed those of the human eyes, bringing vision to humanoid robots and new hope to patients with visual impairment.

Scientists have spent decades trying to replicate the structure and clarity of a biological eye, but vision provided by existing prosthetic eyes - largely in the form of spectacles attached with external cables, are still in poor resolution with 2D flat image sensors. The Electrochemical Eye (EC-Eye) developed at HKUST, however, not only replicates the structure of a natural eye for the first time, but may actually offer sharper vision than a human eye in the future, with extra functions such as the ability to detect infrared radiation in darkness.

The key feature allowing such breakthroughs is a 3D artificial retina - made of an array of nanowire light sensors which mimic the photoreceptors in human retinas. Developed by Prof. FAN Zhiyong and Dr. GU Leilei from the Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering at HKUST, the team connected the nanowire light sensors to a bundle of liquid-metal wires serving as nerves behind the man-made hemispherical retina during the experiment, and successfully replicated the visual signal transmission to reflect what the eye sees onto the computer screen.

In the future, those nanowire light sensors could be directly connected to the nerves of the visually impaired patients. Unlike in a human eye where bundles of optic nerve fibers (for signal transmission) need to route through the retina via a pore - from the front side of the retina to the backside (thus creating a blind spot in human vision) before reaching the brain; the light sensors that now scatters across the entire man-made retina could each feed signals through its own liquid-metal wire at the back, thereby eliminating the blind spot issue as they do not have to route through a single spot.

Apart from that, as nanowires have even higher density than photoreceptors in human retina, the artificial retina can thus receive more light signals and potentially attain a higher image resolution than human retina - if the back contacts to individual nanowires are made in the future. With different materials used to boost the sensors' sensitivity and spectral range, the artificial eye may also achieve other functions such as night vision.

"I have always been a big fan of science fiction, and I believe many technologies featured in stories such as those of intergalactic travel, will one day become reality. However, regardless of image resolution, angle of views or user-friendliness, the current bionic eyes are still of no match to their natural human counterpart. A new technology to address these problems is in urgent need, and it gives me a strong motivation to start this unconventional project," said Prof. Fan, whose team has spent nine years to complete the current study from idea inception.

The team collaborated with the University of California, Berkeley on this project and their findings were recently published in the prestigious scientific journal Nature.

"In the next step, we plan to further improve the performance, stability and biocompatibility of our device. For prosthesis application, we look forward to collaborating with medical research experts who have the relevant expertise on optometry and ocular prosthesis," Prof. Fan added.

The working principle of the artificial eye involves an electrochemical process which is adopted from a type of solar cell. In principle, each photo sensor on the artificial retina can serve as a nanoscale solar cell. With further modification, the EC-Eye can be a self-powered image sensor, so there is no need for external power source nor circuitry when used for ocular prosthesis, which will be much more user-friendly as compared with the current technology.

Feedforward mechanisms used to control machines are much more accurate than feedback mechanisms, but they can be computationally hard. A new method has improved over conventional techniques and is set to be tried out on industrial robots and machine vision.

Most people will be familiar with 'feedback', where a machine such as a thermostat corrects itself after observing an error in performance: once the temperature exceeds a set point, the building's heating system is turned off, for example.

But feedback systems can be crude mechanisms of control: if the upper temperature limit is set too high, then room temperature can still begin to feel uncomfortable just before the heating is turned off. On the other hand, if the preferred temperature range is set very narrowly--perhaps just a few degrees apart--then the heating system will constantly be turned on and off as it bounces in and out of range, increasing wear and tear.

"Feedforward" control systems are less well known by the public, but they overcome these failings of feedback mechanisms by measuring changes in the overall system in which a given machine is operating in, and direct the machine to take these changes into account before they have a chance to have an undesired impact.

"For example, a baseball player attempting to catch a ball is engaged in feedfoward control," explains engineer Dailin Zhang. "As she tracks a ball's trajectory, she adjusts her movement in anticipation of where it will land."

As a result, feedforward is much more accurate than feedback. A thermostat using feedforward control might sense that a door has been opened and so turn on the heating system before the temperature in the home has a chance to drop.

But there are drawbacks: Feedforwards require good knowledge, or 'modeling', of the system in which they are operating. If the thermostat monitors the door to see if it is open but not the windows, then it has a bad 'model' of the house, and it will get too chilly.

The brains of humans and other animals often practice feedforward control as they are very good at whole-system modeling. But for machines, such modeling is computationally hard.

However, researchers with Huazhong University of Science and Technology and the University of California at Berkeley have developed a new feedforward method that improves on conventional feedforward techniques.

Normally, the parameters that are fed into such a technique are fixed (the possibility of a door or window opening, for example), but the new technique obtains such parameters from an uncertain environment to develop an updated model of the system in real time via a series of steps.

Tested on a simulation of a motor, the researchers found that the technique did indeed achieve better performance than the traditional feedforward compensation.

The researchers are themselves specialists in machine vision and improving the calibration of industrial robots, and next want to trial their technique on such real-world challenges.

Singapore, 10 June 2020 - Scientists from the SingHealth Duke-NUS Academic Medical Centre (AMC) have developed an interactive web-based atlas of the human immunome, or genes and proteins that make up the immune system. Known as EPIC (Extended Polydimensional Immunome Characterisation), the atlas hosts a comprehensive, expanding immune cell database ranging from cord blood to adult stages, and can be used by the scientific community worldwide to study the mechanisms of immunity. The team's efforts were recently published in the prestigious journal Nature Biotechnology.

The immune system is a complex network of cells and proteins and it protects the body against infection and disease. There has always been great interest to study the human immunome and how it works as it holds the key to understanding why individuals respond differently to viruses, therapies and vaccines. Insights into the human immunome enable the development of more effective treatment or new vaccines and therapies.

EPIC will play a role in augmenting or deepening these studies by providing a construct of the immune map and using artificial intelligence (AI) to stratify and analyse data sets, which scientists can access freely. For example, they can use EPIC to explore the whole architecture of the human immunome for different age groups, or analyse specific cell types particular to their specialty or research. EPIC can be used across the basic, translational and clinical research continuums.

Professor Salvatore Albani, Director of the SingHealth Duke-NUS Translational Immunology Institute and principal investigator of the study, said, "The study of the human immunome is akin to taking an MRI of the human body at the cellular level, enabling us to pinpoint what is right or wrong and what we can do to tackle disease. We hope that EPIC, used as a comprehensive dataset and analytical tool of the human immunome, will be able to help clinicians and scientists understand the mechanisms of immunity, predict clinical responses for precision medicine, and even play a part in identifying new vaccines and therapies."

Datasets available in EPIC can be mined to obtain detailed and complete information not only on individual cell subsets, but also on the evolution of the development and maturation of the immune system. This could help clinicians make informed decisions on the most suitable therapeutic choices and identify new targets for novel therapies that can match different immune systems.

EPIC could also speed up the process of finding vaccines. "When developing vaccines, scientists look at immune signatures that can predict the body's responsiveness to potential vaccines. EPIC can help to identify these signatures much faster, and accelerate the process of vaccine development," Prof Albani said. In fact, Prof Albani and his team are leveraging EPIC to join the global search for a suitable vaccine for COVID-19.

EPIC is currently used by clinician scientists and researchers to understand diseases such as arthritis, liver cancer and immunological deficiencies. Dr Yeo Joo Guan, Consultant, Division of Medicine, KK Women's and Children's Hospital, has been using EPIC to identify potential therapeutic targets and immune signatures associated with poorer clinical outcomes in auto-immune diseases such as Systemic Lupus Erythematosus.

"EPIC is very useful to clinician scientists who use immunological data for their research as it provides a large healthy cytometry dataset and the right tools to analyse them. Its built-in bio-informatics mechanisms allow for the data to be readily interrogated, even by researchers with little computational background. Another uniqueness of EPIC is its dynamic and interactive format of data presentation which enables researchers to look at data from different perspectives whenever new ideas arise," Dr Yeo said.

Commenting on the importance of the academic medicine partnership between SingHealth and Duke-NUS in advancing the science and practice of medicine, Professor Patrick Casey, Senior Vice Dean for Research at Duke-NUS, said, "The SingHealth Duke-NUS AMC partnership has consistently shown how the intersection of education, research and clinical practice plays a critical role in translating fundamental research into discoveries that ultimately benefit patient care and clinical outcomes. I am confident EPIC, a valuable contribution of the AMC, will be a key resource in the development of new treatment strategies against diseases."

Professor Wong Tien Yin, Deputy Group CEO (Research & Education), SingHealth said, "Translational research is a long-drawn process that can take up a lot of time and resources, and we are heartened that the SingHealth Duke-NUS AMC can play a part in facilitating this process for the scientific community through EPIC.  We look forward to see how EPIC, as an intelligent immune data and analytical tool, can help streamline and accelerate immunological studies and translational research, and pave the way for more clinical breakthroughs."

EPIC initially started out with only Asian phenotypes but has expanded over time to include immune cell datasets from regional and international sources, including the European Union and United States. It is designed as an open-source tool that is accessible to all researchers, which in turn, allows for anyone to contribute samples, data and new analysis tools.

Clara Selva Olid, professor at the UOC's Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences explained: "Informal learning and a culture of unconditional cooperation have given rise to a rapid and brilliant response from different healthcare bodies across the country." According to a recent study published in the Journal of Workplace Learning in which Clara Selva Olid participated, this informal knowledge exchange is much more valuable than it's often given credit for in working environments.

She said: "Learning within our workplace plays a very important role in developing, improving and bringing our skills up to speed. As a natural result of the long hours we spend at work, this is without a doubt one of the most beneficial contexts in which to develop our professional and personal skills." Traditionally, huge importance is placed on what people learn through formal education, which is organized and given specific objectives; academic years and terms, seminars and conferences would be typical examples. However, professionals also learn by exchanging experiences in an informal setting, for example over a cup of coffee or by observing how their colleagues work.

As such, this research, which was conducted alongside Carlota Riera from the University of Vic - Central University of Catalonia (UVic-UCC) and Miguel Sahagún from the University of Aguascalientes (Mexico), sought to shed light on the relationship between formal, informal and peer learning within a workplace setting. For this, the researchers conducted a nine-month ethnographic study with a team of gynaecologists from a hospital in Catalonia. The researchers were able to observe and analyse the daily routines and practices of the team's 44 members, comprised of doctors, nurses, midwives and administrative staff.

The value of informality

According to Selva, the results suggest that "in contrary to what many people and organizations may believe, the great value of learning is found, above all, in informal contexts and in interactions between people, more so than in formal learning activities. The less hierarchical the organization, the more and richer the learning opportunities, which also prove to be more equal, democratically speaking". Therefore, "an organizational culture that fosters dialogue and equal participation throughout its community boosts learning acquisition for individual members as well as for the group as a whole". Additionally, employees find learning more enriching when it occurs among peers, in other words, among people who identify with each other as equals.

Selva said: "Now that we have the results, we think it's necessary that current and future organizations highlight the importance of equality among their staff. Besides, bearing in mind the clear relationship established between equality and participation, it seems evident that promoting equal roles must be a goal for any organization that aspires to ignite complex learning the requires assimilating diverse knowledge quickly and efficiently."

In the case of hospitals, hierarchy and the scientific nature of knowledge have proven to be obstacles in this exchange. According to the UOC researchers, "a healthcare centre's organizational culture legitimizes some kinds of learning over others, often with more vocational than scientific interests. Promoting greater participation and a horizontal structure among medical professionals and nurses, for example, would greatly benefit organizations and enhance their learning capacity".

An emergency tackled as a team

This has been perfectly illustrated by the COVID-19 emergency. Selva said: "Teams were not prepared, from a formal training point of view, to tackle a health crisis such as this one. Within the space of a few hours, any kind of pyramidal and hierarchical structure that would normally make it more difficult for everyone to participate, became obsolete before this call to action. All professionals loaded with experience and knowledge have been essential players in transforming hospitals. Organizations have spontaneously facilitated the flow of learning and the participation of all staff members to find the most appropriate solutions in a way that is not mediated hierarchically, but rather is driven by a common and shared objective. This is the kind of learning you carry with you forever, and the hope is that some of this information remains embedded within the very fabric of organizational cultures."

For the first time, FLEET researchers at UNSW, Sydney show the synthesis of ultra-thin graphitic materials at room temperature using organic fuels (which can be as simple as basic alcohols such as ethanol).

Graphitic materials, such as graphene, are ultra-thin sheets of carbon compounds that are sought after materials with great promises for battery storage, solar cells, touch panels and even more recently fillers for polymers.

These researchers were able to synthesize ultra-thin carbon-based materials on the surface of liquid metals at room temperature electrochemically. Before this report, others had shown electro-formation of such carbon-based materials only by transferring sheets onto the electrodes or electrode exfoliation of naturally-occurring carbon crystals from mines.

"Using gallium liquid metal, we could catalytically break down the fuels and form carbon-carbon bonds (the base of graphitic sheets) from organic fuels at room temperature. The ultra-smooth surface of liquid metals could then template atomically-thin carbon based sheets. Removal of these sheets was easy as they do not stick to the liquid metal surface," suggested Prof Kalantar-Zadeh, the lead of this project and the Director of the Centre for Advanced Solid and Liquid based Electronics and Optics (CASLEO) at UNSW.

"It is simple. Why has room temperature electro-synthesis of two-dimensional graphitic materials not been achieved before? We cannot offer a definitive answer. Perhaps disregarding ultra-catalysts such as liquid metals and too much emphasis on solid electrodes which are inherently not smooth." added Dr Mohannad Mayyas the first author of the paper.

An article written by an international team of scientists was published recently in Marine Pollution Bulletin magazine. The team included representatives of the Russian Academy of Sciences Shirshov Institute of Oceanology Atlantic Department, the Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University, and the Institute of Baltic Sea Research (Warnemunde, Germany). The article was aimed at studying Curonian spit beaches pollution with macro and microplastic. The pollution from both Russian and Lithuanian parts was studied.

Alexander Kileso, junior researcher at Shirshov Institute of Oceanology said:

"We found out that there are some large quantities of macro wastes in the water, but it is located in several isolated spots while being spread around the beach area. The microplastic is being dragged in the area by sea storms. And the process of storms dragging wastes to and out the beach repeats itself constantly. But only in case if there are no people to step in and clean the wastes".

But the fact that people live nearby the beach also proofs to have a significant impact on the environment. For example, this is the main reason of pollution around Klaipeda (Lithuania). Klaipeda is a large port city, so active industrial activity there causes massive pollution.

The situation with microplastic is a bit different. According to the analysis of data gathered on the territory under study - an area between Zelenogradsk and Klaipeda, there is an amount of microplastic evenly distributed all over the area, so it is background pollution we observe here.

Alexander Kileso added:

"We studied sand in several parts of the Curonian Spit and in the central and back parts of the beach and we have seen the same result everywhere - 50-120 particles of microplastic (sizing up to 2 millimeters) per one kilogram of sand".

The research was financed by both the Russian Foundation for Science and by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research as a part of an international ecology-saving project. According to the scientist, this research is a fine example of cooperation not only between staff members of the IKBFU and the Russian Academy of Sciences but also between scientists on the international level. The research presented a good opportunity to test new technologies of sample gathering and microplastic analysis, which will scientists to develop new measures of cleaning beaches.

Australian researchers have demonstrated the strong potential for a new type of flexible, recyclable electrodes to be used in creating cheaper solar cells, touchscreens, wearable 'e-skins' and next-generation responsive windows.

These materials, made using a simple, cost-effective fabrication processes, could replace traditional transparent conductive oxides such as indium tin oxide (ITO), which is a necessary component of almost all thin-film solar cells, laptop screens and smartphone displays, but which is steadily rising in price due its scarcity, and is inherently limited by its brittle nature.

In addition to cheaper, high-efficiency photovoltaic solar cells, computer displays and smartphone touch screens, household energy bills could be slashed in the long-term, with the electrodes potentially able to be used in manufacturing smart windows, which can electrically shift colour and become opaque or transparent.

Contributing author Dr Eser Akinoglu of the ARC Centre of Excellence in Exciton Science said: "The performance of the material is excellent, the transmission of above 90% and high electrical conductivity rivals the ITO benchmark."

Looking ahead to the potential commercial application of the research, he added: "In principle, you should be able to integrate this technology into industrial roll-to-roll printing."

Achieved using a technique called nanosphere lithography, a deposition method which involves evaporating the desired combination of materials into a nanoscale pattern, researchers from The University of Queensland and the ARC Centre of Excellence in Exciton Science have published their findings in the journal Advanced Functional Materials.

The dielectric/metal/dielectric (D/M/D) nanomesh electrodes produced through this approach boasted precisely controlled perforation size, wire width and uniform hole distribution, yielding high transmittance, low sheet resistance (which minimises loss of voltage) and outstanding flexural endurance.

Lead author Dr. Tengfei Qiu of the University of Queensland said: "We offered a strategy to make the shadow area of the metallic nanomesh highly transparent, by integrating D/M/D structures to the nanomesh system. The nanomesh transparent films with D/M/D layered structure have not been studied before. The simple and cost-effective nanosphere lithography technique can be applied to fabricate diverse layered nanomesh materials."

And, in the case of certain flexible electrochromic applications, the electrodes even demonstrated the capacity to be recycled, enhancing the mechanism's credentials as a possible sustainable alternative to more established manufacturing materials and processes.

Dr Akinoglu said of this recyclable characteristic: "It means that if you make a device like an electrochromic window, which may deteriorate in functionality after its life-span, you can take it apart, flush rinse the electrodes, and reuse them for another device."

One of the next steps for researchers is to explore the potential shown in this study to create similar results at a larger scale, with a long-term view to achieving similar outcomes in a commercially viable capacity.

"You want to get the transparency higher, you want to get sheet resistance lower and you want to get the endurance for mechanical stress and flexibility higher," Dr Akinoglu said.

"And you want to be able to fabricate it on a large-scale area, at a low cost."

Senior author Prof. Lianzhou Wang added: "This work will inspire the design of transparent conductive films with novel functions such as flexibility and recyclability, providing an excellent platform for next generation eco-friendly optoelectronics."

The regional C-N-H2O coupling cycle is a strong coupling process that occurs between physicochemical process and biogeochemical processes in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems through hydrological flux, and it is closely related and intercoupled biogeochemical processes.

The primary focus of C, N, and H2O cycles from a point scale to a slope scale is on C, N, and H2O exchange flux, biophysical soil-vegetation-atmosphere processes, hydrological C and N processes (surface flow, interflow and seepage flow) and morphological transformation slope processes.

At a watershed scale, the C, N and H2O cycle is the basic unit and the basic subsystem of regional coupled C-N-H2O cycling research, we were attentive to the dynamic mechanisms of C and N exchange and their biogeochemical processes, resulting in the riverine-watershed transport of these elements.

The regional coupled C-N-H2O cycle is a continuum which is composed of atmosphere, terrestrial, freshwater, estuarine and marine systems, defined as the flow of material and energy from several river basin subsystems and the physical connection between water, gas and aerosol flux, emphasis on the interaction of elements at a regional scale(Figure 1).

The regional C-N-H2O coupling cycle involves regional C-N-H2O transport and transformation processes, regional biogeochemical C-N-H2O processes, C and N interactions at the terrestrial-atmosphere interface, and interactions of C and N exchange at the terrestrial-freshwater interface (Figure 2).

The process of carbon transport and transformation includes the transportation of various forms of carbon from the upstream to the downstream, and the transformation between particulate, dissolved and gaseous states.

The loss of N is a continuous dynamic process that occurs in watersheds under four interactional types: the soil erosion process, the rainfall-runoff process, the surface solute dissolution process and the solute infiltration process.

Biogeochemical processes include the temporary storage of vegetation biomass(algae growth and mortality, deposition and decomposition), C, N and P exchanges between sediment and water, organic compound mineralization, adsorption/desorption of mineralized P particulates and denitrification processes, which can all contribute to the persistence of sediment, C and nutrients in lakes and reservoirs.

C and N interactions at the terrestrial-atmosphere interface: Changes of regional N and S deposition have an impact on the C, N emission and export of watersheds, rivers to estuaries and marine environments. Additionally, the influence of N deposition on terrestrial C sources and sinks differ.

Interactions of C and N exchange at the terrestrial-freshwater interface: Elements input from land to freshwater ecosystem have an impact on terrestrial and aquatic ecosystem under the combined action of coupled cycle. Nutrient cycles from river networks to seas further increase differences between the reactivity, loss process and flux of nutrient elements on the terrestrial-water interface, while these cycles also impact interface and transport factors associated with the terrestrial-water C cycle, which constitute the theoretical principles behind the region-scale C-N-H2O coupling cycle (Figure 2).

Climate change, such as CO2 increase and N input, impacts the regional C-N-H2O coupling cycle by driving nutrient cycling, primary productivity, microbial activity and abiotic processes.

With the increase of greenhouse gas CO2 concentration, the Nr deposition caused by artificial atmospheric N emission changes the production of watershed system and produces environmental effects (water acidification, eutrophication, water pollution, etc.), improves the CO2 absorption and N2O emission of water body, affects the N cycle at the land-water interface, and accelerates the C-N coupling cycle in the aquatic ecosystem (Figure 3).

As we move into the future, studying the C-N-H2O coupling cycles of regional ecosystems will increasingly emphasize the human-environment relationship as being the core research, coupled with soil, hydrology, atmosphere and other factors, accentuating natural geographical processes under the influence of anthropogenic activities.

In the future, regional research methods will emphasize the integration of "sky-ground-air integration" and we must further strengthen our understanding of the impact of atmospheric N deposition on regional C-N-H2O coupling cycles.

Topological metamaterials are applied as a novel platform to explore and study extraordinary effects. Instead of using natural materials, researchers artificially arrange the constituents of a topological metamaterial in a regular structure. Such an arrangement is analogous to a solid state in which the atoms form a crystal lattice. Usually, these platforms are used to simulate particular properties of solids in order to make them amenable to experimental investigation.

Physicists at Julius-Maximilians-Universität (JMU) Würzburg in Bavaria, Germany, perform research on those topological metamaterials, a central scheme of the Würzburg-Dresden Cluster of Excellence ct.qmat - Complexity and Topology in Quantum Matter.

Novel topological phenomena

A related motif of solid state research in Würzburg is the discovery and characterization of novel topological phenomena. This concerns the study of topological insulators, which are insulating in the bulk, but feature conducting surface states. Scientists worldwide engage in intensive research on these materials as they exhibit compelling physical phenomena. One day, this research may lead to advances in semiconductor technology or in other fields.

The JMU researchers report on their newest results in the journal Nature Physics. Topological insulators are usually considered as isolated (Hermitian) systems. In contrast, scientists can tweak topological metamaterials such as to study the implications of energy exchange with the environment. These interactions influence the behaviour of the system from the outside, as would be the case for friction. This way, they experimentally verified the non-Hermitian skin effect (NHSE) previously predicted in theory.

All states localize at the edge

The NHSE involves that, in contrast to a common topological insulator, not only a small fraction but all states of the material appear at its edge, i.e. are localized there. This is described by Tobias Helbig and Tobias Hofmann, the joint first authors of the publication. They are both PhD students in the research group of Professor Ronny Thomale, head of the JMU Chair of Theoretical Physics I.

"Our research shows, among other things, that the physical principles known from isolated solid state systems need to be fundamentally modified in the non-Hermitian case," the PhD students explain. The new findings would not yet have a direct application. However, they do have the potential to improve highly sensitive optical detectors, as an example.

Electric circuits as a center of innovation in basic research

The experiments leading to the new results were conducted with the group of Dr. Tobias Kießling and the JMU Chair of Experimental Physics III. Additional contributions and ideas have been brought forward by Professor Alexander Szameit from the University of Rostock. JMU Physicists cooperate with Szameit's team on the topic of topological photonics within the cluster of excellence ct.qmat.

In order to demonstrate the non-Hermitian skin effect experimentally, the JMU team has used electric circuits with periodically arranged elements. Due to their resemblance to the crystal structure of a solid, such artificially arranged experimental settings are classified as a metamaterial.

Applications of topological matter in sight

Prospectively, the research team wants to investigate the interplay between topological states and non-Hermitian physics further. One key question will be to which extent the topological protection of states remains intact when interactions with the environment are present.

In the long term, the team intends to progress towards quantum hybrid circuits in which they plan to embed superconducting or other quantum mechanical circuit elements. Such circuits offer a versatile platform for the discovery of novel phenomena.

„We aim to transfer the insights from topological circuits to other metamaterial platforms in the pursuit of potential applications", Professor Thomale sums up. This includes optical setups such as photonic waveguides. There, topologically protected states in non-Hermitian systems could prove relevant in the enhancement of signal processing and detectors as well as in the construction of a photonic quantum computer. Eventually, the ultimate scheme in the research on topological metamaterials is the reconnection of novel effects to actual solid states.

Extreme space weather events can significantly impact systems such as satellites, communications systems, power distribution and aviation. They are driven by solar activity which is known to have an irregular but roughly 11 year cycle. By devising a new, regular 'sun clock', researchers have found that the switch on and off of periods of high solar activity is quite sharp, and are able to determine the switch on/off times. Their analysis shows that whilst extreme events can happen at any time, they are much less likely to occur in the quiet interval.

The clock will help scientists to determine more precisely when the risk for solar storms is highest and help to plan the impacts of space weather on our space infrastructure, important since the next switch on of activity may be imminent as solar activity moves from its current minimum.

Published in Geophysical Research Letters by a team led by the University of Warwick, the sun clock uses the daily sunspot number record available since 1818 to map solar activity over 18 solar cycles to a standardised 11 year cycle or 'clock'. No two solar cycles are the same, but using a mathematical technique known as the Hilbert transform, the researchers were able to standardise the solar activity cycle for the first time.

The clock revealed that the transitions between quiet and active periods in solar activity are sharp. Once the clock is constructed from sunspot observations it can be used to order observations of solar activity and space weather. These include occurrence of solar flares seen in X-ray by the GOES satellites and F10.7 solar radio flux that tracks solar coronal activity. These are all drivers of space weather on the Earth, for which the longest record is the aa index based on magnetic field measurements in the UK and Australia going back over 150 years. All these observations show the same sharp switch on and switch off times of activity.

Once past switch on/off times are obtained from the clock, the occurrence rate of extreme events when the sun is active or quiet can be calculated.

Lead author Professor Sandra Chapman, of the University of Warwick's Centre for Fusion, Space and Astrophysics, said: "Scientists spend their lives trying to read the book of nature. Sometimes we create a new way to transform the data and what appeared to be messy and complicated is suddenly beautifully simple. In this instance, our sun clock method showed clear 'switch on' and 'switch off' times demarcating quiet and active intervals for space weather for the first time.

"Large events can happen at any time, but are much more likely around solar maximum. By cleanly ordering the observations we find that in 150 years of geomagnetic activity at earth, only a few percent occur during these quiet conditions.

"The ability to estimate the risk of a future solar superstorm occurring is vital for space and ground-based technologies that are particularly sensitive to space weather, such as satellites, communications system, power distribution and aviation.

"If you have a system sensitive to space weather you need to know how likely a big event is, and it is useful to know when we are in a quiet period as it allows maintenance and other activities that make systems temporarily more fragile."

The research was co-authored by Scott Mcintosh of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, Robert Leamon of the University of Maryland and NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and Nick Watkins of the University of Warwick and London School of Economics and Political Science.

Robert Leamon said: "The Hilbert transform is a really powerful technique across all of science. Sandra suggested it to me on a completely different project - this really is a serendipitous chain of events - because of her work in lab fusion plasmas, and when we applied it to sunspots, we saw it tied to the sharp switch-on of activity that we'd seen elsewhere. Sandra then saw the switch-off looking at the aa index."

Scott Mcintosh said: "We foresee that the door that this innovative work opens will lead to development of meaningful climatologies for solar activity and improved predictability that will result from that."

Molecular dynamics simulations (MD) have become an ubiquitous tool in modern life sciences. In these simulations, the interactions between atoms and molecules and their resulting spatial movements are iteratively calculated and analyzed. Scientists are currently trying to gain access to biologically relevant length and time scales using this approach in order to describe molecular processes such as protein folding and protein-drug binding, which are crucial for, for example modern drug development. A team led by Dr. Steffen Wolf and Prof. Dr. Gerhard Stock from the Biomolecular Dynamics group at the Institute of Physics of the University of Freiburg has now succeeded in predicting the dynamics of binding and unbinding processes on a time scale of seconds to half a minute in pharmacologically relevant test systems. The results have been presented in the current issue of the journal Nature Communications.

Due to the need to perform atomistic simulations with a temporal resolution of femtoseconds (10-15 s), researchers are not yet able to explicitly calculate processes that take a few or more seconds, such as the binding and release of drugs to and from their respective target protein. One possible approach to speed up simulations is coarse-graining of the overall system dynamics, which is a domain of non-equilibrium statistical mechanics. To achieve this coarse-graining, slow processes such as protein-ligand diffusion and fast processes like protein vibrations or water fluctuations must exhibit a clear time scale separation. Only then can scientists use the Langevin equation, a stochastic differential equation that describes the dynamics along the relevant slow degrees of freedom - that is, the number of independent possibilities of movement -- of a physical system. Using this equation, they represent the dynamics of the system along a reaction coordinate such as the distance of the ligand from its binding site. All other, faster movements are considered as friction.

In order to achieve this necessary simplification of system dynamics, the Freiburg physicists have developed the dissipation-corrected targeted MD (dcTMD) using computational resources from the HPC cluster BinAC at the University of Tübingen. By applying a constraining force to actively pull a microscopic system along a coordinate of interest, the required work can be broken down into free energy and friction fields of the process. In the current publication, the researchers have shown that these dcTMD fields can be used as input for a simulation of the Langevin equation along the pulling coordinate. As a result, the researchers have been able to greatly reduce the required computational power. A simulation time of one millisecond can thus be achieved within a few hours on a single computing core of a standard desktop computer. In addition, Langevin fields, explains Stock, do not change their structure at higher temperatures, unlike to atomistically described proteins. "Therefore, high-temperature simulations can produce accelerated dynamics. We can use this acceleration to extrapolate the dynamics at a lower temperature of interest, where the fields are derived from targeted MD simulations."

The Freiburg scientists used the dissociation of sodium chloride and two protein-ligand complexes as test systems. In these they succeeded in predicting the dynamics of binding and unbinding processes on a time scale of seconds to half a minute. "While the Langevin fields were only generated from unbinding simulations, they were able to predict both unbinding and binding kinetics within a factor 20 and dissociation constants within a factor 4, which is within the best achievable results compared to other prediction methods," explains Wolf. At the same time, the new dcTMD approach requires only one tenth of the computing power of other prediction methods. "Last but not least, the determination of friction profiles provides insights into molecular processes that are not revealed by free energy," say the Freiburg physicists. "We found that in all the systems investigated, the formation of a hydration shell from water molecules seems to be the main source of friction. This enables us to deduce new rules for the design of drugs with desired binding and diffusion kinetics."