Tech

PHILADELPHIA--Implementing measures to ensure radiation therapy protocols are followed not only decreases deviations, but it can also improve overall survival in cancer patients, Thomas Jefferson University Hospital researchers suggest in a study presented during a plenary session at the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) 54th Annual Meeting in Boston.

OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Oct. 29, 2012 — The U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Oak Ridge National Laboratory launched a new era of scientific supercomputing today with Titan, a system capable of churning through more than 20,000 trillion calculations each second—or 20 petaflops—by employing a family of processors called graphic processing units first created for computer gaming. Titan will be 10 times more powerful than ORNL's last world-leading system, Jaguar, while overcoming power and space limitations inherent in the previous generation of high-performance computers.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Employees who are more satisfied with their pay report lower levels of work-family conflict, a study by a University of Illinois labor and employment relations professor shows.

A worker's actual salary is as important as pay satisfaction in determining a worker's happiness, according to the research by professor Amit Kramer.

A research team led by The University of Texas at Austin, and including engineering and environmental testing firms URS and Aerodyne Research, is conducting a major field study to measure methane emissions from natural gas production, about which little empirical data exist.

A new study shows that jumping can be much more complicated than it might seem. In research that could extend the range of future rescue and exploration robots, scientists have found that hopping robots could dramatically reduce the amount of energy they use by adopting a unique two-part "stutter jump."

Forget about crackly lines and blurry webcams, by combining robotics, video and a host of other sensor and display technologies, European scientists can now virtually 'beam' you to locations on the other side of the globe. It may sound like science fiction but this new approach can make it feel like you are really 'there'.

Teleconferences, video conferencing and web exchanges may be the norm for most multinational businesses, but nobody really likes it; meeting people face-to-face is serious and everything else isn't.

Research shows newly developed solar powered cells may soon outperform conventional photovoltaic technology. Scientists from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) have demonstrated the first solar cell with external quantum efficiency (EQE) exceeding 100 percent for photons with energies in the solar range. (The EQE is the percentage of photons that get converted into electrons within the device.) The researchers will present their findings at the AVS 59th International Symposium and Exhibition, held Oct. 28 — Nov. 2, in Tampa, Fla.

Scientific research has provided us with a fundamental understanding of how light (via photons) and electricity (via electrons) move within and between materials at the micrometer or nanometer levels, making possible a wide variety of miniature devices such as transistors, optical sensors and microelectromechanical systems (MEMS). However, man's knowledge of micro- and nanoscale heat flow is rudimentary at best.

Photovoltaic cell efficiency may soon get a big boost, thanks to next-generation antireflection coatings crafted from nanomaterials capable of cutting down on the amount of light reflected away from a cell's surface.

This press release is available in Spanish.

U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) research confirms that the time-tested practice of amending crop soils with manure also can help restore soils on damaged post-mining landscapes.

A new study by Northwestern University researchers has revealed that public DNS services could actually slow down users' web-surfing experience. As a result, researchers have developed a solution to help avoid such an impact: a tool called namehelp that could speed web performance by 40 percent.

Leipzig. Researchers from Germany and Slovakia have pointed out that the chemical triclosan is one of those particularly harmful substances for the ecological status of rivers that are still not sufficiently monitored. With extensive monitoring conducted in the Elbe river basin that was more comprehensive than standard monitoring procedures, concentrations of the chemical at numerous test sites exceeded the predicted no-effect concentration (PNEC) for algal communities up to a factor of twelve.

MIAMI, FL – OCTOBER 25, 2012 – A study confirmed no differences in various measures of heart damage, according to cardiac magnetic resonance (MRI) imaging, in patients receiving the anti-clotting medication abxicimab directly into the heart (intracoronary) compared to those receiving it intravenously (IV). The results of the AIDA STEMI MRI sub-study were presented today the 24th annual Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT) scientific symposium.

An electronic nose used to detect the presence of molecules in the breath of a patient could be used to diagnose obstructive sleep apnoea. A new study in the European Respiratory Journal, could make the diagnosis of the condition quick and inexpensive compared to current methods.

Studies of electron beam quality in laser plasma accelerators include novel tests for slice-energy spread.

Wim Leemans of Berkeley Lab's Accelerator and Fusion Research Division heads LOASIS, the Laser and Optical Accelerator Systems Integrated Studies, an oasis indeed for students pursuing graduate studies in laser plasma acceleration (LPA). Among the most promising applications of future table-top accelerators are new kinds of light sources, in which their electron beams power free electron lasers.