Engineering posts
- March 12, 2010
- 12:00 PM
- 71 views
The (empirical) rule of 8%
by Pablo Artal in Optics confidential
Some advice on how to deal with students and postdocs...... Read more »
Perez, G., Archer, S., & Artal, P. (2009) Optical Characterization of Bangerter Foils. Investigative Ophthalmology , 51(1), 609-613. DOI: 10.1167/iovs.09-3726
- March 4, 2010
- 06:43 PM
- 57 views
Will the Moon mess up a moon-base?
by Emma in we are all in the gutter
If we want to build a permanent base on the Moon – and the question of whether we ever will (or even should) remains very open – we need to have some idea of the effect the lunar environmental conditions will have on our equipment. There’s no point going to all [...]... Read more »
T. W. Murphy, Jr., E. G. Adelberger, J. B. R. Battat, C. D. Hoyle, R. J. McMillan, E. L. Michelsen, R. Samad, C. W. Stubbs, & H. E. Swanson. (2010) Long-term degradation of optical devices on the moon. Icarus. arXiv: 1003.0713v1
- February 26, 2010
- 05:11 AM
- 74 views
Certain death: Not risky. Uncertain death: risky.
by Jan Husdal in Supply Chain Risk Research & Literature Review
If you know for sure that things will go wrong, there really is no risk. If you don’t know for sure that things will go wrong, then there is a risk. That’s the basic assumption in a paper I just read. It may sound like a bold statement, but technically speaking, it is a true [ ... ]... Read more »
AVEN, T. (2009) Identification of safety and security critical systems and activities. Reliability Engineering , 94(2), 404-411. DOI: 10.1016/j.ress.2008.04.001
- February 20, 2010
- 11:32 AM
- 49 views
Risk Analysis of Critical Infrastructures
by Jan Husdal in Supply Chain Risk Research & Literature Review
The vulnerability of critical infrastructures is a recurring theme on this blog, and today’s article has been on my mind for a while. What I like about Critical infrastructures at risk: A need for a new conceptual approach and extended analytical tool by Wolfgang Kröger is how it couples critical infrastructures, showing how one is [ ... ]... Read more »
KROGER, W. (2008) Critical infrastructures at risk: A need for a new conceptual approach and extended analytical tools☆. Reliability Engineering , 93(12), 1781-1787. DOI: 10.1016/j.ress.2008.03.005
- February 18, 2010
- 07:00 AM
- 91 views
Chromatic aberration of the eye: to correct or not to correct?
by Pablo Artal in Optics confidential
The human eye suffers of a very large chromatic aberration. This means that when a red object is in focus, a blue one at the same distance will be clearly out of focus. Why we are not yet routinely correcting this defect to improve vision? You will find here some new experiments, results and explanations...... Read more »
Artal, P., Manzanera, S., Piers, P., & Weeber, H. (2010) Visual effect of the combined correction of spherical and longitudinal chromatic aberrations. Optics Express, 18(2), 1637. DOI: 10.1364/OE.18.001637
- February 9, 2010
- 02:40 PM
- 95 views
Mobile Phones' Impact on Health
by amiya in Physiology physics woven fine
Mobile phones have drastically transformed our lives. Also known as cellular phones or cell phones, these gadgets not only incorporate a phone, as the name suggests, but also a lot of other technologically advanced features. They include a camera, a sound recorder cum music system, a Bluetooth device and many more depending on the model and the maker of the phone. They are called mobile phones since they can be used while on the move.A mobile phone maintains a two way (transmit and receive) comm........ Read more »
Gary W. Arendash, Juan Sanchez-Ramos, Takashi Mori, Malgorzata Mamcar, Xiaoyang Lin, Melissa Runfeldt, Li Wang, Guixin Zhang, Vasyl Sava, Jun Tan.... (2010) Electromagnetic Field Treatment Protects Against and Reverses Cognitive Impairment in Alzheimer's Disease Mice . Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, 191-210. info:/
- January 31, 2010
- 08:55 PM
- 102 views
Un-Natural Disasters
by Bryan in In Terra Veritas
Sergio Mora published a paper in the Journal of the Geological Society (here subscription is required for full text*). This was published back in December 2009, but it took on new (and rather unfortunate) significance in Haiti recently. It is really an excellent paper, he presented something similar as the keynote speaker at the 1st North American Landslide Conference in Vail, CO 2007. My summary doesn't do the paper justice, so I strongly suggest anyone reading this post find a copy of this art........ Read more »
Mora, S. (2009) Disasters are not natural: risk management, a tool for development. Geological Society, London, Engineering Geology Special Publications, 22(1), 101-112. DOI: 10.1144/EGSP22.7
- January 15, 2010
- 08:11 AM
- 195 views
Bio2RDF: Large Scale, Distributed Biological Knowledge Discovery
by Duncan Hull in O'Really?
Michel Dumontier was visiting the EBI this week, here’s the details of his seminar Bio2RDF and Beyond! Large Scale, Distributed Biological Knowledge Discovery (slides embedded below) for anyone interested who missed it:
Abstract: The Bio2RDF.org [1] project aims to transform silos of bioinformatics data into a distributed platform for biological knowledge discovery. Initial work focused on [...]... Read more »
BELLEAU, F., NOLIN, M., TOURIGNY, N., RIGAULT, P., & MORISSETTE, J. (2008) Bio2RDF: Towards a mashup to build bioinformatics knowledge systems. Journal of Biomedical Informatics, 41(5), 706-716. DOI: 10.1016/j.jbi.2008.03.004
- January 8, 2010
- 09:10 PM
- 160 views
Mechanistic Insights into Supported Lipid Bilayer Formation
by Michael Long in Phased
Kuchnir Fygenson (University of California, Santa Barbara) and coworkers have gained physical insights relevant towards rendering planar lipid bilayers more useful for practical biological and engineering applications. This news feature was written on January 8, 2010.... Read more »
Weirich, K. L., Israelachvili, J. N., & Fygenson, D. K. (2010) Bilayer Edges Catalyze Supported Lipid Bilayer Formation. Biophysical Journal, 98(1), 85-92. DOI: 10.1016/j.bpj.2009.09.050
- December 30, 2009
- 06:45 AM
- 177 views
2010, the year when 20/10 vision was promised
by Pablo Artal in Optics confidential
The promise of perfect "20/10" vision for everybody appeared to be a real possibility in the early 2000's. 2010 is already here and your doctor cannot offer you yet supervision...... Read more »
Santamaria, Artal, Bescos. (1987) Determination of the point spread function of human eyes using a hybrid optical-digital method. J.Opt.Soc.Am.A., 1109. info:/
- December 23, 2009
- 08:11 AM
- 200 views
bacteria towing santa's wagon?
by 96well in Reportergene
Bacteria swim in water solution with a random movement resembling brownian motion. Imagine they while impacting randomly on a micro-gear. They will transfer some energy to the gear, but due to random movements the resultant will not provide any directed motion. However, you should remember from physics101 that a principle for the conservation of the force does NOT exist: imagine each tooth of the gear as a lever arm, and do design gears with asymmetric teeth. In this way, bacteria impacting on o........ Read more »
Sokolov, A., Apodaca, M., Grzybowski, B., & Aranson, I. (2009) Swimming bacteria power microscopic gears. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0913015107
- December 22, 2009
- 10:00 PM
- 191 views
Switchable DNA nanostructures for Energy and Data Storage
by Olexandr Isayev in isayev.info
The Brookhaven team, has been refining techniques to use strands of artificial DNA as a highly specific kind of Velcro or glue to link up nanoparticles. Such DNA-based self-assembly holds promise for the rational design of a range of new materials for applications in molecular separation, electronics, energy conversion, and other fields. But none of these structures has had the ability to change in a programmable manner in response to molecular stimuli — until now. “Now we’re u........ Read more »
Maye, M., Kumara, M., Nykypanchuk, D., Sherman, W., & Gang, O. (2009) Switching binary states of nanoparticle superlattices and dimer clusters by DNA strands. Nature Nanotechnology. DOI: 10.1038/nnano.2009.378
- December 13, 2009
- 04:00 PM
- 206 views
Science and politics... and scientists turned politicians
by Pablo Artal in Optics confidential
Some examples and some advice on scientists becoming politicians...... Read more »
Binocular adaptive optics visual simulator. (2009) Binocular adaptive optics visual simulator. Optics Letters. info:/
- December 10, 2009
- 01:21 PM
- 250 views
Blood: Clot, Flow and Slip
by Arunn in Unruled Notebook
By 2020 seventy percent of the heart patients of the World, a study suggests, would be in India. The cause seems genetic. The gene that codes the enzyme called PON1 is defective in Indians and predisposes them to heart ailments and diabetes. Coupled with degenerating lifestyle – eating habits – leads to such a dire [...]... Read more »
Kaoui, B., Biros, G., & Misbah, C. (2009) Why Do Red Blood Cells Have Asymmetric Shapes Even in a Symmetric Flow?. Physical Review Letters, 103(18). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.103.188101
- December 5, 2009
- 10:34 AM
- 282 views
Quantifying Research Quality using Article Level Metrics
by Arunn in Unruled Notebook
Quantifying research quality is a buzz-activity in academia for the last two decades. The irony is lost in the paper work. For reasons best left out in this essay, this activity has come to stay in our academics. One such quantifying-quality measure (QQM) evolved recently is the Impact Factor (IF) of journals [1] that publish [...]
Related posts:Research Result Drenching and indulging in such droplets from the ocean of...
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Neylon, C., & Wu, S. (2009) Article-Level Metrics and the Evolution of Scientific Impact. PLoS Biology, 7(11). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.1000242
- November 27, 2009
- 02:49 AM
- 287 views
Road Vulnerability
by Jan Husdal in Supply Chain Risk Research & Literature Review
Today we are going back in time, to one of the seminal articles in road vulnerability that has laid the groundwork for many researchers, and has been cited by not few authors since it was first published. It is a conceptual paper that provides the basis for why road vulnerability needs to be a more important issue than it usually is considered as. It is also the first paper to develop a framework for measuring road vulnerability.... Read more »
Berdica, K. (2002) An introduction to road vulnerability: what has been done, is done and should be done. Transport Policy, 9(2), 117-127. DOI: 10.1016/S0967-070X(02)00011-2
- November 18, 2009
- 12:19 PM
- 280 views
Why do Toucans have large bill
by Arunn in Unruled Notebook
What can one do with the nose? If one were Cleopatra of Egypt, she could rule Rome. If one were the unfortunate Sphinx of Egypt, his form minus the nose could become the wonderment of the World. If one were Tycho Brahe, he could remove the nose, for polishing amidst a heated debate or duel, [...]... Read more »
Tattersall, G., Andrade, D., & Abe, A. (2009) Heat Exchange from the Toucan Bill Reveals a Controllable Vascular Thermal Radiator. Science, 325(5939), 468-470. DOI: 10.1126/science.1175553
- November 16, 2009
- 08:42 AM
- 325 views
A Tale of a Microprocessor, RISC and a Few Loops of miRNA
by AmiyaSarkar in Physiology physics woven fine
The word ‘microprocessor’ is generally used to designate VLSI and SLSI (Very/Super Large Scale Integrated circuits) devices which accept, decode and execute instructions presented in binary coded forms. They may be called the heart of the computer. RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computer), on the other hand, is a type of microprocessor architecture that uses a simplified, yet highly-optimized set of instructions to deliver good performance. However, like ‘cell’ and ‘nucleus’, they too........ Read more »
Saumet, A., & Lecellier, C. (2006) Anti-viral RNA silencing: do we look like plants ?. Retrovirology, 3(1), 3. DOI: 10.1186/1742-4690-3-3
- November 12, 2009
- 12:10 AM
- 224 views
A call for new technological minds for the genome sequencing instrument fields
by Keith Robison in Omics! Omics!
There's a great article in the current Nature Biotechnology (alas, you'll need a subscription to read the full text) titled "The challenges of sequencing by synthesis" as this post detailing the challenges around the current crop of sequencing-by-synthesis instruments. The paper was written by a number of the PIs on grants for $1K genome technology.While there is one short section on the problem of sample preparation, the heart of the paper can be found in the other headings: surface chemistryf........ Read more »
Fuller CW, Middendorf LR, Benner SA, Church GM, Harris T, Huang X, Jovanovich SB, Nelson JR, Schloss JA, Schwartz DC.... (2009) The challenges of sequencing by synthesis. Nature biotechnology, 27(11), 1013-23. PMID: 19898456
- November 10, 2009
- 07:30 PM
- 244 views
Road Redux
by Roberta Kwok in Journal Watch Online
Ancient Chinese road construction method preserves cliff ecosystems
... Read more »
Cao, S., Ye, H., & Zhan, Y. (2009) Cliff roads: An ecological conservation technique for road construction in mountainous regions of China. Landscape and Urban Planning. DOI: 10.1016/j.landurbplan.2009.10.007
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