Computer Science / Engineering posts
- September 16, 2016
- 03:57 PM
- 153 views
The blur doesn't cut it: AI can identify people in blurred images
by Dr. Jekyll in Lunatic Laboratories
A trio of researchers has found off-the-shelf AI software can be used to identify people in blurred or pixilated images. The researchers have uploaded a paper describing the experiments they carried out with AI software identification of people or other items in blurred out images, what they found and reveal just how accurate they found it could be.
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Richard McPherson, Reza Shokri, & Vitaly Shmatikov. (2016) Defeating Image Obfuscation with Deep Learning. arXiv. arXiv: 1609.00408v2
- September 14, 2016
- 03:48 PM
- 182 views
Food waste could store solar and wind energy, or there's the obvious...
by Dr. Jekyll in Lunatic Laboratories
Saving up excess solar and wind energy for times when the sun is down or the air is still requires a storage device. Batteries get the most attention as a promising solution although pumped hydroelectric storage is currently used most often. Now researchers are advancing another potential approach using sugar alcohols—an abundant waste product of the food industry—mixed with carbon nanotubes.
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Zhang, H., Rindt, C., Smeulders, D., & Nedea, S. (2016) Nanoscale Heat Transfer in Carbon Nanotubes - Sugar Alcohol Composite as Heat Storage Materials. The Journal of Physical Chemistry C. DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpcc.6b05466
- September 10, 2016
- 03:09 PM
- 189 views
Social connectedness can increase suicide risk
by Dr. Jekyll in Lunatic Laboratories
Community characteristics play an important role in perpetuating teen suicide clusters and thwarting prevention efforts, according to a new study by sociologists who examined clusters in a single town. The study illustrates how the homogeneous culture and high degree of social connectedness of a community can increase suicide risk, particularly among teenagers.
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Mueller, A., & Abrutyn, S. (2016) Adolescents under Pressure: A New Durkheimian Framework for Understanding Adolescent Suicide in a Cohesive Community. American Sociological Review. DOI: 10.1177/0003122416663464
- September 10, 2016
- 05:55 AM
- 283 views
Quantum Information Encoded in Spinning Black Holes
by Ovidiu Racorean in United Academics
Spinning black holes are capable of complex quantum information processes encoded in the X-ray photons. ... Read more »
Ovidiu Racorean. (2016) Photonic Bell states creation around rotating black holes. ArXiv. arXiv: 1608.06822v1
- September 6, 2016
- 01:26 PM
- 213 views
Body heat as a power source
by Dr. Jekyll in Lunatic Laboratories
Electronics integrated into textiles are gaining in popularity: Systems like smartphone displays in a sleeve or sensors to detect physical performance in athletic wear have already been produced. The main problem with these systems tends to be the lack of a comfortable, equally wearable source of power. Chinese scientists are now aiming to obtain the necessary energy from body heat by introducing a flexible, wearable thermocell based on two different gel electrolytes.
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Yang, P., Liu, K., Chen, Q., Mo, X., Zhou, Y., Li, S., Feng, G., & Zhou, J. (2016) Wearable Thermocells Based on Gel Electrolytes for the Utilization of Body Heat. Angewandte Chemie International Edition. DOI: 10.1002/anie.201606314
- September 3, 2016
- 03:04 PM
- 246 views
The Genesis Project: New life on exoplanets
by Dr. Jekyll in Lunatic Laboratories
Can life be brought to celestial bodies outside our solar system, which are not permanently inhabitable? A new essay that has been published is trying to deal with this question. Over the last several years, the search for exoplanets has shown that very different types exist leading to new questions and a variety of possible answers.
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Claudius Gros. (2016) Developing Ecospheres on Transiently Habitable Planets: The Genesis Project. Astrophysics and Space Science. arXiv: 1608.06087v2
- September 2, 2016
- 11:48 AM
- 250 views
The Search for (Extra)Terrestrial Signals
by Rita dos Santos Silva in United Academics
What exactly are SETI signals?... Read more »
COCCONI, G., & MORRISON, P. (1959) Searching for Interstellar Communications. Nature, 184(4690), 844-846. DOI: 10.1038/184844a0
Carrigan Jr, R. (2006) Do potential SETI signals need to be decontaminated?. Acta Astronautica, 58(2), 112-117. DOI: 10.1016/j.actaastro.2005.05.004
- September 1, 2016
- 04:22 AM
- 231 views
Music from Your Brain
by The Neurocritic in The Neurocritic
The journal Brain has a new review on the history of converting the electroencephalogram (EEG) into sound (Lutters & Koehler, 2016). The translation of data into sound, known as sonification, has been applied to brain waves since the 1930s. In addition to early scientific and medical applications, sonification of the EEG has been used in the field of experimental music.In 1965, physicist Edmond Dewan and composer Alvin Lucier collaborated on Music for the Solo Performer:Sitting on a cha........ Read more »
Lutters, B., & Koehler, P. (2016) Brainwaves in concert: the 20th century sonification of the electroencephalogram. Brain. DOI: 10.1093/brain/aww207
- August 22, 2016
- 11:11 PM
- 219 views
Measuring altitude — with clocks?
by Jens Wilkinson in It Ain't Magic
Measuring altitude using atomic clocks seems like a crazy idea, but it’s already being done at RIKEN in Japan.... Read more »
Takano, T., Takamoto, M., Ushijima, I., Ohmae, N., Akatsuka, T., Yamaguchi, A., Kuroishi, Y., Munekane, H., Miyahara, B., & Katori, H. (2016) Geopotential measurements with synchronously linked optical lattice clocks. Nature Photonics. DOI: 10.1038/nphoton.2016.159
- August 20, 2016
- 05:45 PM
- 267 views
'I miss you so much': How Twitter is broadening the conversation on death and mourning
by Dr. Jekyll in Lunatic Laboratories
Death and mourning were largely considered private matters in the 20th century, with the public remembrances common in previous eras replaced by intimate gatherings behind closed doors in funeral parlors and family homes. But social media is redefining how people grieve, and Twitter in particular -- with its ephemeral mix of rapid-fire broadcast and personal expression -- is widening the conversation around death and mourning.
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Nina Lyn Cesare, & Jennifer Lynn Branstad. (2016) Dying and Mourning in the Twittersphere. American Sociological Association. info:/
- August 17, 2016
- 02:20 PM
- 274 views
Can cell phones make you feel less connected to your friends and family?
by Dr. Jekyll in Lunatic Laboratories
In this digital age, with phones at our fingertips, you would think that access to constant communication would make us feel closer to one another. But a new study shows that may not be the case. In fact, cell phone use might actually lead to feeling less socially connected, depending on your gender or cell phone habits.
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Lepp, A., Li, J., & Barkley, J. (2016) College students' cell phone use and attachment to parents and peers. Computers in Human Behavior, 401-408. DOI: 10.1016/j.chb.2016.07.021
- August 15, 2016
- 02:44 PM
- 305 views
Prostitution has gone online -- and pimps are thriving
by Dr. Jekyll in Lunatic Laboratories
With the sale of sex shifting online, today's pimps are avoiding police detection by using underground websites, social media, mobile apps and even by hiding their ads on mainstream sites such as Craigslist and Backpage. In a first-of-its-kind study, criminologists interviewed 71 pimps in Atlanta and Chicago to determine how their marketing decisions are influenced by police enforcement of online prostitution.
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Finn, M., & Stalans, L. (2016) How Targeted Enforcement Shapes Marketing Decisions of Pimps: Evidence of Displacement and Innovation. Victims , 1-22. DOI: 10.1080/15564886.2016.1187694
- August 4, 2016
- 02:07 PM
- 366 views
Biomimicry is a promising approach for driving innovation
by Dr. Jekyll in Lunatic Laboratories
A new case study shows that biomimicry, a relatively new field that seeks to emulate nature to find solutions to human problems, can potentially expand intellectual property, increase energy savings and accelerate product innovation.
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Emily Barbara Kennedy, & Thomas Andrew Marting. (2016) Biomimicry: Streamlining the Front End of Innovation for Environmentally Sustainable Products. Research-Technology Management. info:/10.1080/08956308.2016.1185342
- July 30, 2016
- 05:55 AM
- 425 views
5 things we learned this week | open-access science week 30, 2016
by TakFurTheKaffe in Tak Fur The Kaffe
Finding flight MH370, origins of human speech, declining penguin colonies, safe carbon storage, and stressed out reef sharks: Here are five of the latest scientific studies published open-access this week.... Read more »
Jansen, E., Coppini, G., & Pinardi, N. (2016) Drift simulation of MH370 debris using superensemble techniques. Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences, 16(7), 1623-1628. DOI: 10.5194/nhess-16-1623-2016
Lameira, A., Hardus, M., Mielke, A., Wich, S., & Shumaker, R. (2016) Vocal fold control beyond the species-specific repertoire in an orang-utan. Scientific Reports, 30315. DOI: 10.1038/srep30315
Cimino, M., Lynch, H., Saba, V., & Oliver, M. (2016) Projected asymmetric response of Adélie penguins to Antarctic climate change. Scientific Reports, 28785. DOI: 10.1038/srep28785
Kampman, N., Busch, A., Bertier, P., Snippe, J., Hangx, S., Pipich, V., Di, Z., Rother, G., Harrington, J., Evans, J.... (2016) Observational evidence confirms modelling of the long-term integrity of CO2-reservoir caprocks. Nature Communications, 12268. DOI: 10.1038/ncomms12268
Mourier, J., Maynard, J., Parravicini, V., Ballesta, L., Clua, E., Domeier, M., & Planes, S. (2016) Extreme Inverted Trophic Pyramid of Reef Sharks Supported by Spawning Groupers. Current Biology. DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2016.05.058
- July 21, 2016
- 03:01 PM
- 372 views
Artificial muscle for soft robotics: Low voltage, high hopes
by Dr. Jekyll in Lunatic Laboratories
Soft robots do a lot of things well but they're not exactly known for their speed. The artificial muscles that move soft robots, called actuators, tend to rely on hydraulics or pneumatics, which are slow to respond and difficult to store.
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Duduta, M., Wood, R., & Clarke, D. (2016) Multilayer Dielectric Elastomers for Fast, Programmable Actuation without Prestretch. Advanced Materials. DOI: 10.1002/adma.201601842
- July 18, 2016
- 03:20 PM
- 392 views
Secrets of the human brain unlocked
by Dr. Jekyll in Lunatic Laboratories
Human intelligence is being defined and measured for the first time ever. Researchers have been recently undertaken to quantify the brain's dynamic functions, and identify how different parts of the brain interact with each other at different times - namely, to discover how intellect works.
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Zhang, J., Cheng, W., Liu, Z., Zhang, K., Lei, X., Yao, Y., Becker, B., Liu, Y., Kendrick, K., Lu, G.... (2016) Neural, electrophysiological and anatomical basis of brain-network variability and its characteristic changes in mental disorders. Brain. DOI: 10.1093/brain/aww143
- July 16, 2016
- 04:06 PM
- 248 views
Blogs, Papers, Plagiarism and Bitcoin
by Neuroskeptic in Neuroskeptic_Discover
Retraction Watch reports on a strange case of alleged plagiarism.
In February 2016, F1000Research published a paper called How blockchain-timestamped protocols could improve the trustworthiness of medical science. The authors, Greg Irving and John Holden, demonstrated the use of the bitcoin blockchain as a way of publicly verifying the existence of a certain document at a certain point in time. This approach, they say, could be used to make preregistered research protocols more secure. A prob... Read more »
Irving G, & Holden J. (2016) How blockchain-timestamped protocols could improve the trustworthiness of medical science. F1000Research, 222. PMID: 27239273
- July 15, 2016
- 02:24 PM
- 422 views
Repeated stimulation treatment can restore movement to paralyzed muscles
by Dr. Jekyll in Lunatic Laboratories
Conducted at the BioMag laboratory at the Helsinki University Hospital, a new patient study could open a new opportunity to rehabilitate patients with spinal cord damage. In a new study which two patients with spinal cord injuries received a form of treatment that combined transcranial magnetic stimulation with simultaneous peripheral nerve stimulation given repeatedly for nearly six months.
... Read more »
Shulga, A., Lioumis, P., Zubareva, A., Brandstack, N., Kuusela, L., Kirveskari, E., Savolainen, S., Ylinen, A., & Mäkelä, J. (2016) Long-term paired associative stimulation can restore voluntary control over paralyzed muscles in incomplete chronic spinal cord injury patients. Spinal Cord Series and Cases, 16016. DOI: 10.1038/scsandc.2016.16
- July 14, 2016
- 03:58 PM
- 455 views
Organic computers are coming
by Dr. Jekyll in Lunatic Laboratories
Move over silicon, tomorrow's computers could be made of something completely different. A team of international researchers managed to find a molecule that, to their opinion, could give the impetus to the development of organic electronics.
... Read more »
Karpov, Y., Erdmann, T., Raguzin, I., Al-Hussein, M., Binner, M., Lappan, U., Stamm, M., Gerasimov, K., Beryozkina, T., Bakulev, V.... (2016) High Conductivity in Molecularly p-Doped Diketopyrrolopyrrole-Based Polymer: The Impact of a High Dopant Strength and Good Structural Order. Advanced Materials. DOI: 10.1002/adma.201506295
- July 13, 2016
- 01:00 AM
- 396 views
Another one bites the dust?
by Henkjan Honing in Music Matters
The music theory literature has been suggesting it for a long time: the idea that simultaneous sounding tones with frequency relationships that are low integer multiples, like 1:2 (octave) or 3:2 (a perfect fifth), are determinant of how listeners perceive consonance. It is an idea that is often related to the overtone structure of natural sounds (such as the voice or string instruments) suggesting that musical harmony is reflective or even a result of the acoustic structure that is found in nat........ Read more »
Honing, H., ten Cate, C., Peretz, I., & Trehub, S. (2015) Without it no music: cognition, biology and evolution of musicality. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 370(1664), 20140088-20140088. DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2014.0088
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