Archive for February, 2012
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OXON Hill, Md. – Reviving U.S. manufacturing has emerged as such a hot election-year issue that an entire afternoon of an energy technology conference was devoted to the barriers to domestic manufacturing and obstacles to retraining the U.S. manufacturing workforce.
Those new workers will require design skills that are integral to modern manufacturing along with “soft skills” like critical thinking, leadership and collaborative abilities, experts agreed during an Energy Department conference this week across the Potomac River from Washington.
Corporate executives, educators, current and former bureaucrats and an ex-congressman all weighed in on the erosion of the American manufacturing base and how to return it to global competitiveness. Most argued that labor costs and energy usage aren’t the key barriers; what is needed is a revival of flexible, design-driven manufacturing and a new, modular approach to training the next generation of machinists, engineers and technical managers.
Throughout the preceding two centuries, the U.S. led the world in deploying disruptive technologies ranging from railroads and the telegraph to an electrical grid and communications networks. No more, argued market researcher Stefan Heck of McKinsey & Co. “Where we are lacking is the guts to deploy new technologies.”
Heck’s use of the word “guts” refers not only to the infrastructure needed to roll out new technologies by the willingness to take risks in order to reap the benefits of new energy and other innovations. He argued that much of the semiconductor industry has left the U.S. not because of labor costs – which account for only about 2 percent of the chip production costs – but because most U.S. chip makers “haven’t been willing to make the investment” in the capital equipment needed to operate advanced chips plants.
Heck, who worked closely with global chip companies before shifting his focus to cleantech, was among a range of experts addressing manufacturing and workforce issues during an Energy Department summit sponsored by the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Energy. Leo Christodoulou, program manager for DoE’s Advanced Manufacturing Office, noted that manufacturing currently accounts for 11 percent of the U.S. Gross Domestic Product, employs about 12 U.S. million workers and about 60 percent of U.S. scientists and engineers work in manufacturing-related fields.
The Energy Department office is looking for ways to promote manufacturing clusters that leverage the local and regional characteristics of U.S. manufacturing (durable goods in the Midwest, high-tech in the Southwest). Further, Christodoulou’s office is attempting to identify the “keystone, foundational technologies” that the U.S. can exploit to revive manufacturing. Two, he noted, are a superior communications infrastructure and first-rate universities.
Identifying and developing new materials and manufacturing methods are among the next steps in forming regional and state clusters focused on value-added manufacturing, he added. Together, these advances could help transform American manufacturing into an agile, design-driven sector capable of thriving in a global technology competition that places the greatest emphasis on being the first to deliver innovative new products.
With labor-intensive manufacturing unlikely to return to the U.S., McKinsey’s Heck argued: “What we have to shift to is the kind of manufacturing that involves technology, involves automation, involves engineering skill sets, involves more complicated kinds of tasks…things that actually require design, require looking at 3-D CAD drawings, require particular skills to make sure the quality is high.” He offered as examples jet and rocket engines, products that are not only strategically important but require precise tolerances, very exact machining and control of temperature cycles during design and manufacturing.
Christine Furstoss of General Electric’s Global Research Center called for integrating more small and medium-sized manufacturers into industry supply chains since a manufacturing revival “will require a new kind of ecosystem.” A greater focus in new approaches like “additive manufacturing” using thin-film deposition, for example, will help in scaling up a new manufacturing ecosystem, Furstoss said.
“Today, we’re very sequential” in how products are manufactured,” she added. “We need to change that paradigm to make it a non-sequential process.”
Other corporate executives here like Boeing Research and Technology’s Matthew Ganz acknowledged that the aircraft maker has been “hindered” by separating its design and manufacturing operations. Boeing is now in the process of reuniting design and manufacturing while promoting younger engineers with strong design skills. “We grab them by the arm and pull them up the [organizational] chart,” Ganz stressed.
‘Stackable credentials’
The other part of the manufacturing equation is educating a new generation of skilled workers capable of driving a design-oriented manufacturing sector. An “all-hands-on-deck” approach that links companies, trade unions and community colleges is seen as one of the best approaches to reinvigorating the sector, corporate executives and educators agreed.
Community colleges “have been excellent partners and a critical cog” in training the next generation of manufacturing workers, said Carrie Houtman, public policy manager at Dow Chemical Co. Dow CEO Andrew Liveris along with MIT President Susan Hockfield head an Advanced Manufacturing Partnership unveiled by the White House last June.
A new approach to training manufacturing workers called “stackable credentials” is being pioneered by California’s community college system. Van Ton-Quinlivan, the system’s vice chancellor for workforce development, described the approach as earning course certificates that can be “stacked” in order meet manufacturer’s requirements for new employees. Each stack represents an individual skill.
For example, Ton-Quinlivan explained, an engineering student hoping to work in the energy technology market could gain both pre- and post-sales certificates, allowing the newly minted engineer to implement an energy program that a company has just sold. The modular education and training program is designed to provide students with the skills employers want now, while allowing students to “stack” other courses that would lead to undergraduate or graduate degrees.
The California official also put the onus on manufacturers to play a more active role in training future workers. She said community colleges are motivated to deliver the skills companies need, but companies must be more specific about what required and desired skills they are seeking in new employees.
Responding to widespread complaints here about regulatory red tape and the lack of tax incentives needed to promote manufacturing, the former chairman of the House Science Committee said the revival of U.S. manufacturing ultimately comes down to training more skilled workers. “You can have all the tax and regulatory reform you want,” Bart Gordon told an audience of technology company executives, “but you still have to have a skilled workforce” to compete in global markets.
Rebuilding America: Design moves front and center in manufacturing debate
TAG:Energy Department Design Skills Design Manufacturing ARPA E Training Education Skills
India and Eurasia continue to converge today, though at an ever-slowing pace. University of Michigan geomorphologist and geophysicist Marin Clark wanted to know when this motion will end and why. She conducted a study that led to surprising findings that could add a new wrinkle to the well-established theory of plate tectonics — the dominant, unifying theory of geology.
"The exciting thing here is that it’s not easy to make progress in a field (plate tectonics) that’s 50 years old and is the major tenet that we operate under," said Clark, an assistant professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences in the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts.
"The Himalaya and Tibet are the highest mountains today on Earth, and we think they’re probably the highest mountains in the last 500 million years," she said. "And my paper is about how this is going to end and what’s slowing down the Indian plate."
Clark’s paper is scheduled for online publication Feb. 29 in the journal Nature.
In it, she suggests that the strength of the underlying mantle, not the height of the mountains, is the critical factor that will determine when the Himalayan-Tibetan mountain-building episode ends. Earth’s mantle is the thick shell of rock that separates the crust above from the core below.
According to the theory of plate tectonics, the outer part of Earth is broken into several large plates, like pieces of cracked shell on a boiled egg. The continents ride on the plates, which move relative to one another and occasionally collide. The tectonic plates move about as fast as your fingernails grow, and intense geological activity — volcanoes, earthquakes and mountain-building, for example — occurs at the plate boundaries.
The rate at which the Indian sub-continent creeps toward Eurasia is slowing exponentially, according to Clark, who reviewed published positions of northern India over the last 67 million years to evaluate convergence rates. The convergence will halt — putting an end to one of the longest periods of mountain-building in recent geological history — in about 20 million years, she estimates.
And what will cause it to stop?
Until now, conventional wisdom among geologists has been that the slowing of convergence at mountainous plate boundaries was related to changes in the height of the mountains. As the mountains grew taller, they exerted an increasing amount of force on the plate boundary, which slowed the convergence.
But in her Nature paper, Clark posits that a different model, one based on the strength of the uppermost mantle directly beneath the mountains, best explains the observed post-collisional motions of the Indian plate.
By "strength" Clark means the uppermost mantle’s ability to withstand deformation, a property called viscous resistance. Clark suggests that the relatively strong mantle directly beneath Tibet and the Himalayas acts as a brake that slows — and will eventually halt — the convergence of the two continents.
"My paper is arguing that it’s not the height of the mountains, it’s the strength of the mantle that’s controlling this slowing," Clark said. "This is something that hasn’t been considered before and basically grew out of field observations in northern Tibet."
But viscous resistance doesn’t tell the whole story. Other factors may also contribute to the slowing of the Indian plate, Clark said.
"For me, critical field observations showed that the northern edge of the Tibetan Plateau hasn’t moved since the collision 50 million years ago," she said. "Therefore, the Tibetan Plateau is getting smaller in width. It’s like squeezing a box and making it narrower while squeezing it up."
The rate at which the box is being squeezed is the average rate of mountain-building, and it provides important clues about the factors controlling plate motion. Clark analyzed how the convergence is slowing as compared to the shrinking of the plateau.
"If the height of the mountains were important in slowing India’s convergence, then the rate of mountain-building should also slow down as the Himalaya and Tibet grew to high elevation," Clark said. "But when I analyzed how the mountain-building rate changed over the past 50 million years, I was surprised to find that it didn’t change at all.
"From this I conclude that the strength of the uppermost mantle is keeping this mountain- building constant. But as the box is shrinking, the plate motion must slow down to keep the shrinking rate the same," she said.
Support for the research was provided by the National Science Foundation’s Continental Dynamics Program.
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When continents collide: New twist to 50-million-year-old tale
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"It’s known that there are separate specialized brain areas for the different senses such as vision, smell, touch and so forth but, when you experience the world around you, you get a coherent picture based on information from all the senses. We wanted to find out how this works in the brain," says Dr. Christopher Pack, lead investigator at The Neuro. "In particular we wanted to test the idea that activation of brain regions primarily dedicated to one sense might influence processing in other senses. What we found was that electrically stimulating the visual cortex improves performance on a task that requires participants to identify the odd odor out of a group of three." This result is interesting because it shows, for the first time, that on a basic level the brain structures involved in different senses are really quite interconnected in everyone — more so than previously understood.
"This ‘cross-wiring’ of senses has been described in people with synesthesia, a condition in which stimulation of one sense leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sense, causing people to see the colour of numbers, or smell words, or hear odours for example, says Dr. Johan Lundstrom at Monell Chemical Senses Center. "Now this study shows that cross-wiring of the senses exists in all of us, so we could all be considered synesthetic to a degree."
To examine the possibility that activating the visual cortex influences the sense of smell, people were tested on smell tasks before and after application of TMS, a non-invasive method of stimulating targeted brain areas. TMS, or transcranial magnetic stimulation, was directed towards the visual cortex using a protocol that had been previously shown by researchers at The Neuro to improve visual perception. TMS is already widely used in the treatment of certain disease symptoms, and because TMS alters brain activity in a targeted area, it provides a powerful test of the hypothesis that visual cortex activation changes olfactory perception.
The results demonstrate that visual cortex activity is incorporated into the processing of smells, proving for the first time a cross-wiring of the visual and olfactory systems in the brain. Interestingly, the team did not find evidence for similar cross-wiring between olfactory and auditory systems. This suggests that vision may play a special role in binding together information from the different senses, a possibility that the researchers are currently exploring. In addition to Drs. Pack and Lundstrom, the research was carried out by Jahan Jadauji, a Master’s student, and Jelena Djordjevic, a clinical neuropsychologist and neuroscientist, both at The Neuro. This collaboration between researchers and clinicians was made possible by The Neuro’s integrated research institute and hospital.
This study was funded by a Centre of Excellence in Commercialization and Research grant, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Swedish Research Council, and the National Sciences and Engineering Research Council, as well as support from Mrs. Anna Engel.
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Open your eyes and smell the roses: Activating the visual cortex improves our sense of smell
TAG:Psychology Research Nervous System Eye Care Perception Neuroscience Intelligence
India and Eurasia continue to converge today, though at an ever-slowing pace. University of Michigan geomorphologist and geophysicist Marin Clark wanted to know when this motion will end and why. She conducted a study that led to surprising findings that could add a new wrinkle to the well-established theory of plate tectonics — the dominant, unifying theory of geology.
"The exciting thing here is that it’s not easy to make progress in a field (plate tectonics) that’s 50 years old and is the major tenet that we operate under," said Clark, an assistant professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences in the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts.
"The Himalaya and Tibet are the highest mountains today on Earth, and we think they’re probably the highest mountains in the last 500 million years," she said. "And my paper is about how this is going to end and what’s slowing down the Indian plate."
Clark’s paper is scheduled for online publication Feb. 29 in the journal Nature.
In it, she suggests that the strength of the underlying mantle, not the height of the mountains, is the critical factor that will determine when the Himalayan-Tibetan mountain-building episode ends. Earth’s mantle is the thick shell of rock that separates the crust above from the core below.
According to the theory of plate tectonics, the outer part of Earth is broken into several large plates, like pieces of cracked shell on a boiled egg. The continents ride on the plates, which move relative to one another and occasionally collide. The tectonic plates move about as fast as your fingernails grow, and intense geological activity — volcanoes, earthquakes and mountain-building, for example — occurs at the plate boundaries.
The rate at which the Indian sub-continent creeps toward Eurasia is slowing exponentially, according to Clark, who reviewed published positions of northern India over the last 67 million years to evaluate convergence rates. The convergence will halt — putting an end to one of the longest periods of mountain-building in recent geological history — in about 20 million years, she estimates.
And what will cause it to stop?
Until now, conventional wisdom among geologists has been that the slowing of convergence at mountainous plate boundaries was related to changes in the height of the mountains. As the mountains grew taller, they exerted an increasing amount of force on the plate boundary, which slowed the convergence.
But in her Nature paper, Clark posits that a different model, one based on the strength of the uppermost mantle directly beneath the mountains, best explains the observed post-collisional motions of the Indian plate.
By "strength" Clark means the uppermost mantle’s ability to withstand deformation, a property called viscous resistance. Clark suggests that the relatively strong mantle directly beneath Tibet and the Himalayas acts as a brake that slows — and will eventually halt — the convergence of the two continents.
"My paper is arguing that it’s not the height of the mountains, it’s the strength of the mantle that’s controlling this slowing," Clark said. "This is something that hasn’t been considered before and basically grew out of field observations in northern Tibet."
But viscous resistance doesn’t tell the whole story. Other factors may also contribute to the slowing of the Indian plate, Clark said.
"For me, critical field observations showed that the northern edge of the Tibetan Plateau hasn’t moved since the collision 50 million years ago," she said. "Therefore, the Tibetan Plateau is getting smaller in width. It’s like squeezing a box and making it narrower while squeezing it up."
The rate at which the box is being squeezed is the average rate of mountain-building, and it provides important clues about the factors controlling plate motion. Clark analyzed how the convergence is slowing as compared to the shrinking of the plateau.
"If the height of the mountains were important in slowing India’s convergence, then the rate of mountain-building should also slow down as the Himalaya and Tibet grew to high elevation," Clark said. "But when I analyzed how the mountain-building rate changed over the past 50 million years, I was surprised to find that it didn’t change at all.
"From this I conclude that the strength of the uppermost mantle is keeping this mountain- building constant. But as the box is shrinking, the plate motion must slow down to keep the shrinking rate the same," she said.
Support for the research was provided by the National Science Foundation’s Continental Dynamics Program.
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When continents collide: A new twist to a 50 million-year-old tale
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SAN FRANCISCO—Taiwan’s government said it would continue to push for Taiwanese DRAM makers to consolidate with Japan’s Elpida Memory Inc. if the firm is restructured after filing for bankruptcy, according to an Associated Press report.
The report quoted sources at Taiwan’s Economics Ministry saying that Micron Technology Inc. is expected to be a key part in any possible consolidation plan involving Elpida. Micron has reportedly been in talks for several months with Elpida, which filed for bankruptcy protection Monday.
The research team has now unearthed and investigated an entire fossil forest dating back 385 million years.
The Gilboa fossil forest, in the Catskill Mountains in upstate New York, is generally referred to as ‘the oldest fossil forest’. Yet by scientific standards it has remained mythical.
Fossils of hundreds of large tree stumps (the ‘Gilboa tree’) preserved in the rocks were discovered in the 1920s during excavation of a quarry to extract rock to build the nearby Gilboa Dam. Only sketchy information was recorded about the geological context of the fossil stumps, the soil the trees were growing in, and the spacing of trees bases. Following completion of the dam the quarry was backfilled. Until now, the only way the Gilboa fossil forest could be investigated was from museum specimens and from small exposures of other levels in nearby streams.
In May 2010, the quarry was partially emptied as part of a dam maintenance project. Researchers were monitoring the site with contractors, Thaille Construction Company and the New York City Department of Environmental Protection. Professor Bill Stein, Binghamton University and Frank Mannolini, the New York State Museum spotted that the original quarry floor had been exposed, and that the roots and positions of the trunk bases had been preserved.
Dr Chris Berry, Cardiff School of Earth and Ocean Sciences explains: "For the first time we were able to arrange for about 1,300 square meters to be cleaned off for investigation. A map of the position of all the plant fossils preserved on that surface was made."
The researcher’s findings are published in the journal Nature (1st March). They describe bases of the ‘Gilboa trees’ as spectacular bowl-shaped depressions up to nearly two meters in diameter, surrounded by thousands of roots. These are known to be the bases of trees up to about 10 meters in height, that looked something like a palm tree or a tree fern. One of the biggest surprises was that the researchers found many woody horizontally-lying stems, up to about 15cm thick, which they have demonstrated to be the ground-running trunks of another type of plant [aneurophytalean progymnosperm], only previously known from its upright branches. They also found one large example of a tree-shaped club moss, the type of tree that commonly forms coal seams in younger rocks across Europe and North America.
Dr Berry said: "All this demonstrates that the ‘oldest forest’ at Gilboa was a lot more ecologically complex than we had suspected, and probably contained a lot more carbon locked up as wood than we previously knew about. This will enable more refined speculation about the way in which the evolution of forests changed this Earth.
"Personally, tha chance to walk on the ancient forest floor, and to imagine the plants that I have been studying as fossils for more than 20 years standing alive in the positions marked by their bases, was a career highlight. Seven years ago colleagues Linda and Frank found us a fossil of a complete Gilboa tree. That was amazing. But this time we’ve got the whole forest!"
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Oldest fossilized forest: Entire fossil forest dating back 385 million years unearthed
NEW YORK – The news that Intel is pulling out of the World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS) – after AMD took the same powder last year – should set off alarms for everyone in the industry.
Clearly, this action tends to cast doubt on the validity of all future data published by WSTS. That sort of uncertainty has a huge ripple effect. It will impact chip companies doing planning and forecasting, market research analysts who depend on WSTS numbers — interpret them and predict market trends, and broad-spectrum media outlets like EE Times.
But beyond these obvious implications, Intel deserves censure for its wrongheaded, short-sighted and arrogant desertion of WSTS – for two reasons: “disclosure” and “bargaining power.”
In my opinion, any industry, whether it’s automobiles, semiconductor or veeblefetzers, will begin — once it stops collecting data within the industry — to lose a significant measure of its economic and political power in the greater world. Without a credible trade association backed up credible industry data, the industry has no legitimate representation beyond its own membership, this compromising its bargaining power.
OK. You may say that this is just about WSTS; it’s not like Intel is leaving Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA). True. And yet, the WSTS activities do go hand in hand with SIA’s mission. In fact, we are also hearing some disturbing stories about a few companies beginning to leave SIA. (But that’s for another story)
Rank-and-file members of an industry that does not publish and distribute credible data that demonstrate its size, sales and social significance — the semiconductor industry, for example — place themselves at the mercy of the largest, loudest and most powerful companies within the industry. This usually means that only the interests of the largest, loudest and most powerful companies end up being served.
Disclosure of data among members is the basic, first step in building an industry association. Once shared, these vital statistics allow members to see where the industry is going. They help members take the necessary actions. That often forestalls problems and assures a higher level of mutual prosperity.
Without trusted data, every company is left to its own devices, to fend for itself. Of course, if your company is already the largest and the richest, you probably don’t care about that.
I can’t help recall the time of trade disputes – in the 1980’s and early 1990’s – specifically the Japan-U.S. semiconductor negotiations.
As EE Times’ Washington correspondent George Leopold called it, this was “the defining moment” for Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) in the United States. Without all the monthly book-to-bill ratios and other stats put together by WSTS, the SIA had virtually no ammunition for the U.S. government’s negotiations with Japan.
No credible industry data and no credible industry representation equal no bargaining power.
The enemy for the U.S. semiconductor then was Japan. As Leopold said then, a trade association always needs a good enemy to thrive, and right now no “good enemy” is evident. But who’s to say that the U.S. industry will never see another enemy in the future?
Of course, in an age of “globalization,” and in an era when almost everyone is either “fab-lite” or no longer interested in “manufacturing,” the industry association seems increasingly to be a thing of the past.
Really?
I beg to differ. We are standing at a crossroads for U.S.-based companies and American policymakers, where the way lies open to restore a measure of our historic manufacturing growth. Possibly, the chip industry isn’t interested in joining such a revival. Perhaps, as I’ve heard suggested, it’s already too late for the semiconductor industry to come back.
In the face of such pessimism, however, I offer this assurance. With the first sight, on the horizon of any viable new nano-technologies, the chip industry — aided by the U.S. government and academia — is going to seize the opportunity. When that golden goose hatches, this industry will need, more than ever, a good effective trade association — rather than one big, rich, winner-take-all company — to negotiate the resulting deals and spread the wealth.
Commentary:Why it’s wrong for Intel and AMD to abandon WSTS
"We used a trick called earthshine observation to look at the Earth as if it were an exoplanet," says Michael Sterzik (ESO), lead author of the paper. "The Sun shines on the Earth and this light is reflected back to the surface of the Moon. The lunar surface acts as a giant mirror and reflects the Earth’s light back to us — and this is what we have observed with the VLT."
The astronomers analyse the faint earthshine light to look for indicators, such as certain combinations of gases in Earth’s atmosphere [2], that are the telltale signs of organic life. This method establishes Earth as a benchmark for the future search for life on planets beyond our Solar System.
The fingerprints of life, or biosignatures, are hard to find with conventional methods, but the team has pioneered a new approach that is more sensitive. Rather than just looking at how bright the reflected light is in different colours, they also look at the polarisation of the light [3], an approach called spectropolarimetry. By applying this technique to earthshine observed with the VLT, the biosignatures in the reflected light from Earth show up very strongly.
Co-author of the study Stefano Bagnulo (Armagh Observatory, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom) explains the advantages: "The light from a distant exoplanet is overwhelmed by the glare of the host star, so it’s very difficult to analyse — a bit like trying to study a grain of dust beside a powerful light bulb. But the light reflected by a planet is polarised, while the light from the host star is not. So polarimetric techniques help us to pick out the faint reflected light of an exoplanet from the dazzling starlight."
The team studied both the colour and the degree of polarisation of light from Earth after reflection from the Moon, as if the light was coming from an exoplanet. They managed to deduce that Earth’s atmosphere is partly cloudy, that part of its surface is covered by oceans and — crucially — that there is vegetation present. They could even detect changes in the cloud cover and amount of vegetation at different times as different parts of Earth reflected light towards the Moon.
"Finding life outside the Solar System depends on two things: whether this life exists in the first place, and having the technical capability to detect it," adds co-author Enric Palle (Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias, Tenerife, Spain). "This work is an important step towards reaching that capability."
"Spectropolarimetry may ultimately tell us if simple plant life — based on photosynthetic processes — has emerged elsewhere in the Universe," concludes Sterzik. "But we are certainly not looking for little green men or evidence of intelligent life."
The next generation of telescopes, such as the E-ELT (the European Extremely Large Telescope), may well be able to bring us the extraordinary news that Earth is not alone as a bearer of life in the vastness of space.
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Astronomers Rediscover Life on Earth — By looking at the Moon
TAG:Astronomy Moon Asteroids Comets and Meteors Extrasolar Planets Space Telescopes Satellites
Looking for clues amid 2,076 base pairs of mitochondrial DNA — genes passed down along female lineages — researchers discovered genetic signs that coincide with the conditions that mirror current climate projections for the equator around the globe in the next 100 years. Also examined were the region’s fossil and pollen records.
"The drills went through a large population collapse — as much as 15-fold," said Nelson Ting, a professor of anthropology at the University of Oregon. Ting is the lead author of a study placed online ahead of regular publication in the journal Ecology and Evolution. "This occurred sometime around the mid-Holocene, which was about 3,000 to 5,000 years ago."
Ting and 10 other researchers — representing institutions in the United States, United Kingdom, Nigeria and Germany — gathered feces of drills in the Cross-Sanaga-Bioko Coastal forests that stretch across portions of Nigeria, Bioko Island (Equatorial Guinea) and Cameroon. The extracted DNA provided the first genetic information from this species, which is found only in that region.
The species also is struggling for survival because of poaching and by habitat loss due to logging and cultivation activities. Drill meat also is a valued food; hunters often shoot them en masse. Protecting drill populations was the top priority of the African Primate Conservation Action Plan developed in 1996 by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Despite the designation, Ting said, "hunting continues and is the much more immediate danger facing the drill."
The base pairs examined came from 54 samples of DNA. Base pairs are made up of adenine, thymine, guanine and cytosine. While DNA is the blueprint for life, examining the sequences of these chemicals also provides a roadmap into any organism’s past. "Looking at its modern genetic diversity, you can infer changes in past population size," Ting said.
In the mid-Holocene, temperatures across equatorial Africa were hotter and dryer, with a reduction of forest cover that the drill need for survival. The ecology of the region also includes multiple other species found only there. The research, Ting said, is among emerging work focusing on past climate conditions in equatorial areas. Many studies have been done on conditions in both temperate and arctic regions.
The findings carry conservation implications, Ting said. "We could see many of these equatorial forests becoming very arid. Forest will be lost as vegetation changes to adapt to dryer conditions. Our findings show that this type of animal, which already is very much endangered because of hunters, would not be able to deal with the level of climate changes that could be coming."
What is needed to protect this little understood species are measures that reduce the destruction of the forest habitat and step up protection against poachers, said Ting, who is co-director of the UO’s molecular anthropology group and a member of the UO Institute of Ecology and Evolution and UO Institute of Cognitive and Decision Sciences.
The other co-authors on the paper were Christos Astaras of the University of Oxford, United Kingdom; Gail Hearn and Shaya Honarvar of Drexel University in Philadelphia; Joel Corush, a research assistant in the UO molecular anthropology group; Andrew S. Burrell of New York University; Naomi Phillips of Arcadia University in Glenside, Pa.; Bethan J. Morgan of the University of Stirling, United Kingdom, and member of CERCOPAN, a non-profit, non-government organizations working for conservation in Nigeria; Elizabeth L. Gadsby of the San Diego Zoo Global Institute for Conservation Research; Ryan Raaum of Lehman College and City University of New York Graduate Center, West Bronx, N.Y.; and Christian Roos of the Gene Bank of Primates and Primate Genetics Laboratory, German Primate Center, Gottingen, Germany.
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Ufficializzati i 20 azzurri per le squadre Italia A e Italia B
Venerdì e sabato sfideranno i pari età di oltre 40 nazioni
“Non dobbiamo temere nessuno”, parola di Roland Brenner
Premiazioni previste per sabato alle 15,00 con il Premio di Pittura
Dalle due giornate di Selezioni Italiane per il 51° Trofeo Topolino di Sci Alpino, svoltesi lunedì e martedì a Folgaria (TN), sono sortiti i 20 azzurri che rappresenteranno l’Italia alla fase internazionale della kermesse, in programma venerdì 2 e sabato 3 marzo.
Ai cancelletti delle piste Salizzona (gigante) ed Agonistica (slalom), in condizioni eccellenti anche nelle due gare appena disputate, si presenteranno oltre 300 giovani atleti di 45 nazioni e l’Italia schiererà due squadre di 10 elementi ciascuna. Nella squadra “A” saranno al cancelletto gli Allievi Beatrice Barbagelata (Alpi Occidentali), Nicole Delago (Alto Adige), Laura Pirovano (Trentino), Thomas Mair (Alto Adige), Paolo Padello (Alpi Occidentali) e Mattia Trulla (Veneto), insieme ai Ragazzi Lara Della Mea (Friuli Venezia Giulia), Carlotta Saracco (Alpi Occidentali), Davide Baruffaldi (Alpi Centrali) e Matteo Franzoso (Alpi Occidentali).
Comporranno invece la squadra azzurra “B” gli Allievi Elisa Fornari (Alpi Occidentali), Sofia Pizzato (Veneto), Lisa Sgnaolin (Friuli Venezia Giulia), Francesco Gentilli (Friuli Venezia Giulia), Alessandro Gianotti (Alpi Centrali) e Federico Vietti (Valle d’Aosta), con i Ragazzi Chiara Pirovano (Valle d’Aosta), Carolina Pozzi (Alpi Centrali), Damian Hofer (Alto Adige) e Giovanni Zazzaro (Lazio Sardegna).
La divisione è stata fatta in base ai risultati ottenuti sia in slalom che in gigante nelle due giornate, e per la squadra “A” sono stati selezionati gli Allievi vincitori delle due prove e i due migliori secondi, e i Ragazzi vincitori con la migliore seconda, visto che la friulana Lara Della Mea ha conquistato entrambe le prove. Nella “B”, invece, sono finiti i secondi e i terzi delle prove Allievi, e l’altra seconda e la migliore terza, nello specifico la portacolori dello SC Gressoney Chiara Pirovano.
A fine selezioni è stata stilata anche una classifica per Comitati FISI in cui ha primeggiato il Comitato Alpi Occidentali, seguito dal Comitato Alpi Centrali, Alto Adige, Friuli Venezia Giulia e Trentino.
“Il valore di un evento come il Trofeo Topolino è indiscutibile e oltre 50 anni di storia ne sono dimostrazione più che lampante”, ha commentato il responsabile tecnico della FISI Alto Adige settore Allievi, ed ex coordinatore federale del settore Children, Roland Brenner, ieri sulle piste di Folgaria. “Il livello del nostro sci giovanile è decisamente buono, tra ieri ed oggi si sono messi in luce atleti provenienti da diverse parti d’Italia e questo dimostra quanto i vari sci club stiano lavorando bene. Per la fase internazionale credo che non dobbiamo temere nessuno, possiamo competere con chiunque, certo è che sarà la pista alla fine a decidere.”
E a questo proposito, il programma dettagliato delle gare del 51° Trofeo Topolino Sci Alpino legge lo slalom Allievi sulla “Agonistica” e il gigante Ragazzi sulla “Salizzona” nella giornata di venerdì. Sabato i Ragazzi si misureranno tra i pali stretti, mentre agli Allievi toccheranno le porte larghe. La premiazione ufficiale è in programma sabato alle 15,00 a Folgaria, e in quell’occasione verranno premiati anche i vincitori del 44° Premio di Pittura svoltosi nelle scorse settimane tra Trento e Folgaria, al quale hanno preso parte 300 alunni delle scuole elementari. I migliori disegni nella classifica assoluta sono stati quelli di Valeria Rigotti (1.a), Irene Hoffer (2.a), Emil Larcher (3°).
Info: www.trofeotopolino.net
SQUADRA A: Delago Nadia (S.C. Gardena); Mair Thomas (Sterzing Ski Team); Trulla Mattia (Centro Sci Vicenza); Pirovano Laura (Agonistica Campiglio); Barbagelata Beatrice (Equipe Limone); Padello Paolo (Equipe Limone); Della Mea Lara (Monte Lussari); Saracco Carlotta (Equipe Limone); Baruffaldi Davide (Lecco); Franzoso Matteo (Sestriere)
SQUADRA B: Fornari Elisa (Mondole’ Ski Team); Sgnaolin Lisa (Sci Cai Monte Lussari); Gianotti Alessandro (Sci Club Livigno); Vietti Federico (Ski Club Pila); Pizzato Sofia (Sci Club 18); Gentilli Francesco (Gs Sella Nevea); Pirovano Chiara (Gressoney Monte Rosa); Zazzaro Giovanni (Monti Ernici); Pozzi Carolina (Bormio); Hofer Damian (Asv Ridanna)
COMITATI: 1 Alpi Occidentali; 2 Alpi Centrali; 3 Alto Adige; 4 Friuli Venezia Giulia; 5 Trentino; 6 Veneto; 7 Valdostano; 8 Lazio Sardegna; 9 Appennino Emiliano; 10 Toscano; 11 Abruzzese; 12 Campano; 13 Ligure
AL SEGUENTE LINK SONO DISPONIBILI LE FOTO DEI QUALIFICATI:
http://www.newspower.it/comunicati/TTopolinoAlpino/immagini/TrofeoTopolinoAlpino_index.htm
TROFEO TOPOLINO SCI ALPINO SELEZIONA GLI AZZURRINI: ECCO I NOMI DEI 20 ATLETI PER LA NAZIONALE
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BARCELONA–Google’s Android Booth at MWC 2012 is one of the major hotspots at the mobile show this year.
Taking up a significant portion of Hall 8, the booth attracts tens of thousands of visitors daily, most on the lookout for Google’s signature Android pins.
Boasting a slide, smoothie bar, music lounge, device carousel, demos, interactive wall and much more besides, Google has transformed its corner of MWC into a veritable fairground, and attendees can’t seem to get enough.
The team artificially scaled up the skulls of a human, alligator, a juvenile T. rex, and Allosaurus to the size of an adult T. rex. In each case the bite forces increased as expected, but they did not increase to the level of the adult T. rex, suggesting that it had the most powerful bite of any terrestrial animal.
Previous studies have estimated that T. rex‘s bite had a force of 8,000 to 13,400 Newtons, but given the size of the animal, thought to weigh more than 6,000kg, researchers suspected that its bite may have been more powerful than this. Liverpool scientists developed a computer model to reverse engineer the animal’s bite, a method that has previously been used to predict dinosaur running speeds.
An animal’s bite force is largely determined by the size of the jaw muscles. Using their computer models, researchers tested a range of alternative muscle values, as it is not precisely known what the muscles of dinosaurs were like. Even with error margins factored in, the computer model still showed that the T. rex had a more powerful bite than previously suggested.
The smallest values predicted were around 20,000 Newtons, while the largest values were as high as 57,000 Newtons, which would be equivalent to the force of a medium sized elephant sitting down on the ground.
Researchers also found that the results for the juvenile T. rex had a relatively the weaker bite than the adult T. rex, even when size differences and uncertainties about muscle size were taken into account. The large difference between the two measurements, despite the error margins factored in, may suggest that T. rex underwent a change in feeding behaviour as it grew.
Dr Karl Bates, from the University’s Department of Musculoskeletal Biology, said: "The power of the T. rex jaw has been a much debated topic over the years. Scientists only have the skeleton to work with, as muscle does not survive with the fossil, so we often have to rely on statistical analysis or qualitative comparisons to living animals, which differ greatly in size and shape from the giant enigmatic dinosaurs like T. rex. As these methods are somewhat indirect, it can be difficult to get an objective insight into how dinosaurs might have functioned and what they may or may not have been capable of in life.
"To build on previous methods of analysis, we took what we knew about T. rex from its skeleton and built a computer model that incorporated the major anatomical and physiological factors that determine bite performance. We then asked the computer model to produce a bite so that we could measure the speed and force of it directly. We compared this to other animals of smaller body mass and also scaled up smaller animals to the size of T. rex to compare how powerful it was in relative terms.
"Our results show that the T. rex had an extremely powerful bite, making it one of the most dangerous predators to have roamed our planet. Its unique musculoskeletal system will continue to fascinate scientists for years to come."
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BARCELONA–MIPS Technologies, which makes the processors that power appliances like TVs and DTV boxes has come out with its own $99 tablet running Google’s Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich).
The 7-inch tablet, made by Ainovo sports a 1GHz single core processor and a 444MHz Graphics Processing Unit (GPU). The JZ4770 processor, based on XBurst technology, is MIPS32, 65 nanometer architecture and is capable of both 2D and 3D video in 1080p, with a power consumption of less than 250mW.
The tablet boasts both front and rear cameras and also includes support for WiFi 802.11 b/g/n, USB 2.0, HDMI 1.3 and microSD.
The model assumes that this occurred in an extremely hot (as high as 1,600 degrees Celsius) environment for the inner Solar System, fostered by a dusty, two-dimensional disk post-dating the Sun.
The basic modern model, developed by Russian astronomer Victor Safronov, and further developed by planetary scientist George Wetherill, is called the Solar Nebular Disk Model and was made available in English in the early 1970s. It has remained essentially the same over the past 40 years.
But not everyone is convinced the model is correct. How could such a chaotic, haphazard process as fractal assembly lead to the regularities of the Solar System with all of the planets in a single plane, rotating in the same sense, spinning and orbiting around the Sun?
For the discontents, a new model, offered by Anne Hofmeister, PhD, research professor of earth and planetary sciences and Robert Criss, PhD, professor in earth and planetary sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, presents a different scenario. Their explanation is published in the March issue of Planetary and Space Science.
Using classical physics, the laws of thermodynamics and mechanics, Hofmeister, with assistance from Criss, presents an accretion model that assumes a three-dimensional (3-D) gas cloud. This pre-solar nebula collapses and forms the Sun and planets at essentially the same time, with the planets contracting toward the Sun.
The temperature is cold, not hot. The thermodynamic and mechanical model of 3-D accretion explains planetary orbits and spins, unlike the 2-D model, which does not.
Hofmeister and Criss explain compositional gradients across the Solar System in terms of lighter molecules diffusing faster than heavier ones. The model connects planet mass to satellite system size via gravitational competition.
Explaining planetary orbits and spins
"This model is radically different," Hofmeister says. "I looked at the assumption of whether heat could be generated when the nebula contracted and found that there is too much rotational energy in the inner planets to allow energy to spill into heating the nebula.
"Existing models for planetary accretion assume that the planets form from the dusty 2-D disk, but they don’t conserve angular momentum. It seemed obvious to me to start with a 3-D cloud of gas, and conserve angular momentum. The key equations in the paper deal with converting gravitational potential to rotational energy, coupled with conservation of angular momentum."
No energy left over for heat
"In the new model, heat production is not important in planetary formation," Hofmeister says.
Criss says the prevailing notion that gravitational collapse is a hot process is a mis-interpretation of thermodynamics. He offers an analogy of a beaker of water placed outside in the winter. It slowly starts to freeze. Freezing water actually releases a latent heat, he says, because order (ice, a crystal) is being made from disorder (liquid).
The heat released is considerable, but it cannot warm the beaker because "it’s released only as fast as the environment will take it away," Criss says. "If the heat would warm the water above 32 degrees Fahrenheit, the ice would melt. People clinging to the old accretion models want to make the ice and heat the beaker, too."
Gravitational competition
The authors say 2-D models don’t explain why the inner Solar System is composed of rocky planets and the outer gas giants.
"The first thing that happens in planet accretion is forming rocky kernels," Hofmeister says. "The nebula starts contracting, the rocky kernels form to conserve angular momentum, and that’s where the dust ends up. Once rocky kernels exist, they attract gas to them, but only if the rocky kernel is far from the Sun, can it out-compete the Sun’s gravitational pull and collect the gas, as did Jupiter and its friends.
"But if the rocky kernel is close, like the Earth’s, it can’t out-compete the Sun. We describe this process as gravitational competition. This is why we have the regularity, spacing, and graded composition of the Solar System."
Gravitational competition also offers a new view of formation of the moon that does not require an extremely low probability giant impact.
Not limited to the Solar System
Hofmeister says there is a continuum between single stars, binary stars, multiple stars, planets and even extrasolar planets.
"In all cases, the process is gravitational accretion of these cold, 3-D clouds making things contract and spin out, and that’s where the energy comes from," she says. "It’s all happening in very cold temperatures, in 3-D instead of 2-D."
Criss says there is plenty of observable evidence that the 2-D model is wrong.
"It patently doesn’t make sense that a bunch of random collisions between heavy, solid objects are going to produce a Solar System with planets orbiting the Sun in a beautiful plane, with everything having upright spins," he says. "That’s like setting off a nuclear bomb and expecting all the trees in the world to end up neatly stacked.
Moreover, the Hubble pictures show stars being born in the Eagle nebula, and they’re formed in a cold 3-D cloud."
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Originalità e professionalità, queste sono le due impressioni che si hanno non appena si visita il nuovo sito dell’Hotel Croce del Sud di Cesenatico.
Un look tutto nuovo che trasmette fin da subito le peculiarità dell’Hotel: semplicità ed efficienza nei servizi.
Come tutti i siti realizzati dalla Reclame S.r.l., anche per l’Hotel Croce del Sud sono state create delle pagine apposite, relativamente ai servizi offerti e alle specialità dell’Hotel stesso.
L’Hotel Croce del Sud è infatti un Hotel 3 stelle a Cesenatico e l’ambiente familiare e amichevole che lo caratterizza si percepisce anche visitando il nuovo sito.
Sono state create pagine dedicate al Listino Prezzi e alle Offerte Last Minute, aggiornate direttamente dalla Famiglia Ricci, proprietaria e gestrice dell’Hotel. Sia in questa pagina sia in quella comprendente i Contatti dell’Hotel, è stato creato un Form di Richiesta Informazioni, per poter contattare senza intermediari l’Hotel Croce del Sud.
Nella pagina dedicata ai Servizi si legge in maniera veloce ed intuitiva quali sono i confort di cui dotato l’Hotel Croce del Sud, mentre nella pagina “Cesenatico” si scopre un po’ di storia di questa città centenaria e tutte le escursioni alle quali è possibile partecipare.
Essendo convenzionato con il Bagno Tosca, di cui sempre la Famiglia Ricci ne è proprietaria, è stata creata all’interno del nuovo sito una sezione apposita dedicata alla Spiaggia. Stesso stile e stessa forma, in questa pagina si scoprono tutti i servizi di cui è possibile usufruire presso il Bagno Tosca ed i recapiti per contattare direttamente i bagnini.
Uno styling innovativo per il nuovo sito dell’Hotel Croce del Sud di Cesenatico
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TOSHIBA has developed a circuit technique to remove distortion on wireless transmissions, which can be directly integrated into a CMOS radio frequency power amplifier.
Toshiba unveiled the technique on 20 February 20120 at the IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference. According to the company, this results in the first CMOS RF power amplifier integrating distortion-removal circuits.
All wireless communication standards used today utilise power amplifiers to amplify the output radio frequency signals. Moderating power use is critical to battery-powered devices like mobile phones and smart phones. RF power amplifiers in mobile phones are responsible for the consumption of a lot of power, thus the focus on improving the efficiency of that component.
Most of today’s power amplifiers are compound semiconductors which are large and difficult to fabricate.
While the golden grail is compact, easy to fabricate CMOS RF power amplifiers, these have proved difficult to achieve, because CMOS power amplifiers require a relatively large distortion correction circuit, which is too large to integrate.
Toshiba has successfully simplified and downsized the distortion correction circuit, allowing it to be integrated into a CMOS power amplifier, by identifying the threshold beyond which distortion degrades the RF signal.
Correction is applied only when the output power from the power amplifier exceeds 0.2W, the level required for communication with a relatively distant base station.
A CMOS power amplifier with the circuit improves the power efficiency 1.4 times (compared with a CMOS power amplifier test chip with the distortion correction function switched off, operating at the lowest power efficiency when antenna characteristics change 33% due to the external environment) , and secures high level RF signal stability by correcting distortion automatically.
Another plus is the increased versatility secured by removing the need for an external correction circuit that allows simple integration into the system design of a typical mobile phone.
Toshiba will first apply the CMOS power amplifier to WCDMA devices and also aims to apply it to next-generation communications standards.
Toshiba enables CMOS RF power amplifiers with integrated distortion removal
TAG:radio frequency communications amplifiers research and development
PORTLAND, Ore.—Electronic compass applications combine magnetometer-provided headings with corrections from inertial sensors that compensate for stray magnetic fields. As a result, sensor fusion algorithms provide fast, reliable electronic compass—or e-compass—readings for context-awareness applications like mobile location-based services, 3-D games and e-health. For users of Freescale Semiconductor’s magnetometers and accelerometers, e-compass sensor fusion algorithms are now available as a free download.
“Our sensor fusion algorithms use the strengths of one sensor to overcome the weakness of the other, resulting in fast, accurate and reliable readings,” said Michelle Kelsey, Freescale’s product-line manager for sensors in mobile markets. “Freescale’s Xtrinsic e-compass software enables applications in augmented reality, e-health, gaming and navigation.”
Freescale is offering its sensor fusion algorithms as a free download for its MEMS sensor users to enable them to tap the skyrocketing market for mobile motion sensing technologies, the global revenue for which in smartphones and tablets alone will double from $1 billion today to nearly $2 billion by 2015, according IHS iSuppli (El Segundo, Calif.).
To get accurate readings from MEMS magnetometers and accelerometers, sensor-fusion algorithms need to compensate for stray magnetic fields both inside the mobile device itself as well as outside in the environment. By supplying the algorithms, along with application notes and an embedded simulation framework, Freescale is aiming to simplify sensor fusion for OEMS using its MEMS sensors.
Included in the algorithms is tilt-compensation—for when a user is not holding the mobile device parallel to the ground—as well as realtime calibration that compensates for both hard-iron and soft-iron sources of errors. The processor agnostic C-code algorithms are supplied with annotated documentation. The run-time code measures just 20 kilobytes and requires only 6.5 kbytes of RAM.
Sensor fusion algorithms subtract the magnetic interference from soft- and hard-iron in the local geomagnetic fields.
Sensor fusion enables e-compass
TAG:Sensor Fusion Micro electro mechanical system MEMS Algorithms 3D EETimes NextGenLog Electronics
THE VICTORIAN government has announced a $250,000 grant to Daintree Networks to develop a new lighting control system that could slash lighting energy use by up to 80 percent.
The ControlScope lighting control system is targeted at commercial buildings, which could significantly reduce electricity consumption and reduce business energy bills.
The system will be able to collect information on how energy is being saved, including a classification system that could improve benchmarking of energy consumption by building types, geographies and industry sectors.
The grant, awarded under the state’s Energy Technology Innovation Strategy, will help Daintree Networks with its research and development activities.
While the company already has lighting control systems that can save as much as 70 percent of lighting energy costs in commercial buildings, it is looking to push savings up another 10 percent by providing energy efficiency enhancements to existing lighting control techniques.
Victorian RD grant for energy-saving lighting control system
TAG:Daintree Networks lighting energy use research and development
Sperm have a long journey ahead in their quest for the egg cell or ovum, and just a few of the million sperm reach their destination. The ovum supports the sperm in their quest by transmitting "chemical signposts," known as attractants. Researchers first discovered this ingenious system in sea urchins and found out that attractants control the swimming movement of the sperm by altering their calcium balance. The attraction of the sperm to the egg is referred to as "chemotaxis." Unlike in sea urchins, which release sperm and eggs into the seawater, the conditions in the narrow human fallopian tube are very difficult to emulate in experiments.
According to another model, the female sex hormone progesterone — which is formed by cumulus cells near the ovum — attracts the sperm. CatSper (cation channels of sperm) ion channels are responsible for the effect of the progesterone. The CatSper channels, which are found only in sperm, play an indispensable role in reproduction: men who carry a gene defect for CatSper are infertile. In a 2011 study, which was seen as a sensational breakthrough, scientists from the caesar research centre succeeded in showing that progesterone opens the CatSper channels directly and calcium flows through the channels into the sperm cell.
In their current study, the Bonn researchers demonstrate, in cooperation with scientists from the Forschungszentrum Jülich, that the Lily of the Valley scent imitates the effect of progesterone on sperm: Bourgeonal opens the CatSper channels directly — that is without deviation via olfactory receptors and complex biochemical signalling pathways as found in olfactory cells. However, the scents only work at concentrations over 1000 times higher than progesterone. Therefore, scents only work if overdosed. The "Lily of the Valley phenomenon" is a laboratory artefact: sperm do not have an olfactory signalling pathway.
These findings provide important new insights for the sperm researchers. Why are the CatSper channels so unselective, and even react to menthol if the concentration is high enough? This "promiscuous" characteristic is probably crucial for reproduction. Using different "chemical signposts," the sperm must repeatedly reassure themselves on their difficult journey to the ovum that they are still on the right track. With the help of the CatSper channels as versatile and highly perceptive sensors, sperm can "read" the chemical milieu in the fallopian tube and find the ovum in this way. The Bonn-based researchers are now concentrating on identifying other attractants in the fallopian tube in addition to progesterone. One thing is clear at this stage: it is very unlikely that these are scents.
The new insights are also significant in medical terms. If the scientists succeed in disrupting the effect of female factors on the CatSper channels, it could lead to the development of an innovative contraceptive: the pill for men. However, such a development is still a very long way off.
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Sperm cannot detect smells: End of ‘Lily of the Valley phenomenon’ in sperm research?
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"It’s known that there are separate specialized brain areas for the different senses such as vision, smell, touch and so forth but, when you experience the world around you, you get a coherent picture based on information from all the senses. We wanted to find out how this works in the brain," says Dr. Christopher Pack, lead investigator at The Neuro. "In particular we wanted to test the idea that activation of brain regions primarily dedicated to one sense might influence processing in other senses. What we found was that electrically stimulating the visual cortex improves performance on a task that requires participants to identify the odd odor out of a group of three." This result is interesting because it shows, for the first time, that on a basic level the brain structures involved in different senses are really quite interconnected in everyone — more so than previously understood.
"This ‘cross-wiring’ of senses has been described in people with synesthesia, a condition in which stimulation of one sense leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sense, causing people to see the colour of numbers, or smell words, or hear odours for example, says Dr. Johan Lundstrom at Monell Chemical Senses Center. "Now this study shows that cross-wiring of the senses exists in all of us, so we could all be considered synesthetic to a degree."
To examine the possibility that activating the visual cortex influences the sense of smell, people were tested on smell tasks before and after application of TMS, a non-invasive method of stimulating targeted brain areas. TMS, or transcranial magnetic stimulation, was directed towards the visual cortex using a protocol that had been previously shown by researchers at The Neuro to improve visual perception. TMS is already widely used in the treatment of certain disease symptoms, and because TMS alters brain activity in a targeted area, it provides a powerful test of the hypothesis that visual cortex activation changes olfactory perception.
The results demonstrate that visual cortex activity is incorporated into the processing of smells, proving for the first time a cross-wiring of the visual and olfactory systems in the brain. Interestingly, the team did not find evidence for similar cross-wiring between olfactory and auditory systems. This suggests that vision may play a special role in binding together information from the different senses, a possibility that the researchers are currently exploring. In addition to Drs. Pack and Lundstrom, the research was carried out by Jahan Jadauji, a Master’s student, and Jelena Djordjevic, a clinical neuropsychologist and neuroscientist, both at The Neuro. This collaboration between researchers and clinicians was made possible by The Neuro’s integrated research institute and hospital.
This study was funded by a Centre of Excellence in Commercialization and Research grant, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Swedish Research Council, and the National Sciences and Engineering Research Council, as well as support from Mrs. Anna Engel.
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Synesthesia: Open your eyes and smell the roses
TAG:Psychology Research Nervous System Brain Tumor Perception Neuroscience Intelligence
Con la proliferazione di nuove modalità di marketing e un costante aumento di strategie legate soprattutto al web, si assiste anche alla nascita di nuove figure professionali che possano contribuire alla buona riuscita della campagne pubblicitarie. Prima tra queste, la figura del “digital strategist”, colui che, conoscendo e combinando sapientemente le proprie conoscenze, la creatività e l’utilizzo delle competenze tecnologiche, può davvero contribuire a rendere una campagna di web marketing, efficace.
Non si tratta di ruolo tecnico, come qualcuno potrebbe pensare. Il suo lavoro sta nella progettazione e si avvale delle conoscenze dei processi e non della realizzazione. È colui che può creare a tavolino una strategia realizzabile on line, perché conosce vantaggi e svantaggi delle tecniche di marketing e ne combina al meglio alcune o tutte per soddisfare le esigenze aziendali di sponsorizzazione.
Negli ultimi anni le agenzie di comunicazione si sono ristrutturate e orientate, soprattutto, verso il web marketing che al momento risulta essere quello che riesce a far ottenere i maggiori risultati. Il social media marketing è quello maggiormente utilizzato anche perché è quello che coinvolge nel processo di costruzione di significato e di diffusione dei messaggi, anche gli utenti finali. Come per ogni campagna pubblicitaria che si rispetti, però, per funzionare ha bisogno di una progettazione accurata e avvalersi delle competenze di una agenzia che possa sviluppare un piano marketing completo, integrando diversi canali è l’ideale. Trovare un’agenzia in grandi centri di certo non rappresenta un problema, basterà digitare agenzia social media milano, per esempio, per avere una lista completa di agenzie operanti sul territorio.
Marketing e professionalità: la chiave del successo
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MUNICH — At ISS Europe 2012 here global industry association SEMI announced it has acquired the Plastics Electronics Conference and Exhibition.
Plastics Electronics Conference enables commercialization of new products in organic and inorganic large area electronics (OLAE).The organizing committee will serve as a Plastic Electronics Special Interest Group, guiding SEMI activities and services worldwide.
The 8th edition of the Plastics Electronic Conference and Exhibition will be held in conjunction with Semicon Europa in Dresden (October 9 to 11) and will be extended to other regions in the future. The Plastics Electronics Conference has already co-located with Semicon Europa the last two years.
“The SEMI track record of using global industry collaboration, advocacy and standards to expand and optimize major industries such as semiconductors, displays, solar PV, and related technologies will greatly help the emerging OLAE industry to move from lab to fab,” said Karl Hahn, senior vice-president of BASF and board member of PE-SIG, in a statement.
“There are substantial synergies between technologies, equipment, materials, and services among SEMI member companies and the rapidly developing OLAE industry,” said Thomas Morrow, head of Emerging Markets at SEMI (San Jose, Calif.).
According to several industry market research reports, OLAE is expected to reach over $50 billion by 2020, OLAE covers five areas: OLED Lighting, organic and inorganic photovoltaics, OLED displays, organic electronics and integrated smart systems.
The Plastic Electronics Special Interest Group (PE-SIG) will be governed by board members from industry corporations, research institutes and academia, including executives from BASF, Merck, Technical University of Dresden, VTT Technical Research Center of Finland, and others. The PE-SIG activities will include generating roadmaps andstandards, provide industry research and industry statistics. The SIG will also hold conferences, exhibitions and be active in public policy worldwide.
“OLEDs is a new wave of electronics, with its own value chain for new applications,” said Ed van den Kieboom of InnovationFab, a consulting firm facilitating the European OLAE business community.
SEMI acquires Plastic Electronics for special interest play
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Embedded World, NUREMBERG – Wolverine is the moniker chosen by Texas Instruments for an ultra-low-power MSP430 microcontroller platform launched here which provides 360 nA real-time clock mode – more than doubling battery life – and less than 100 μA/MHz active power consumption.
The first devices based on this platform will be the MSP430FR58xx microcontroller series with expected availability in June 2012 and the company is making the bold claim that the platform slashes power by 50 percent versus any other MCU.
The power reduction is partly provided by the use of an ultra low leakage (ULL) process technology which TI says gives 10x improvement in leakage and optimized mixed signal capabilities.
More than 30 power-optimized analog and digital components also help the power reduction but it is the use of FRAM technology as opposed with flash- and EEPROM-based MCUs that provide further power cuts.
FRAM means that that designs are not limited to the specific ratios of program-to-data memory inherent to traditional embedded systems – this ratio can be changed at any time in the design cycle.
Wakeup time is 6.5µs and high precision peripherals such as internal power management and a 12-bit analog digital converter (ADC) at 75uA.
As with all MSP430 microcontrollers, the Wolverine devices are supported by the MSP430Ware software and resource package, as well as low-power code optimization software tools.
Click on image to enlarge.
MSP430Ware enables developers to access and filter through all MSP430 microcontroller design resources by device, tool or software library.
MSP430FR58xx MCUs based on the Wolverine technology platform will be available for sampling in June 2012.
FRAM helps TI cut power for Wolverine MSP430 platform
Clothing is required and definitive for any individual. As a result, the clothing business is increasing by leaps and bounds. Nowadays, designer clothes are all the rage and men and women get these stylish clothes, even if they are not reasonably priced. Getting discounts on designer clothes therefore is a temptation for several these days.
Well, you too can decide on the smarter option. Get discounted designer clothing from on the internet shopping websites or wholesale designer clothing stores. This kind of discount clothing normally is pre-utilized or slightly defective but most females who acquire such clothes are quite satisfied with its wearability and happy with the huge price distinction, when compared to brand new designer wear.
There are so numerous bulk wholesale designer clothing outlets that you can simply discover a selection of clothes for your self and your loved ones, at slashed costs. The defects of the dresses are not extremely visible and you can get every thing from evening gowns, casual jackets, dresses and even accessories.
Designer clothes that are pre-utilised or recycled can be bought at the offices of the wholesalers, not in their established showrooms. At times, wholesalers might sell bulk clothes at discounts to flea shop owners or to vintage boutiques from where you can bargain and acquire these clothes at unbelievable low costs and in great condition.
If you want to discover out about these wholesalers and their addresses, you can just search on the Internet for discounted clothing stores in your locality. You can see their web sites and check out the kind of apparel that is accessible in their stock. You will also be able to shop from property, provided they have on the web shopping alternatives.
Another wonderful concept to get discounted clothing and ladies designer clothing labels is at consignment shops or vintage boutiques. You will get moderate to high priced designer brands at consignment shops. Generally, they stock women’s designer clothing but several stores also have children’s and man’s clothing lines as well.
You will locate elegant and upscale apparel for yourself and family members here. You will have to shell out slightly more than at charity shops but the savings are still amazing, thinking about the costs of new designer clothes.
All you require is to maintain track of these stores, their changing stocks of designer labels and then purchase at the correct time. Even so, a lot of shops do not have a return/ resale policy so it will be advisable to purchase clothes of the appropriate size. Discount clothing can be profitable provided you are careful.
Discounted Designer Clothing: Tips To Find Right One Fashion Designer
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This year’s Embedded World has grown with around 880 exhibitors from 35 countries. On this page we provide links to the latest stories from the event.
FRAM helps TI cut power for Wolverine MSP430 platform
Contactez Monster beats France coéquipiers tous les équipements de communication ne prétends pas renoncer à ses camarades de là, la Monster beats France seule restante araignée mâchoires tracker. Pioneer. Les suivre. Les yeux brillèrent un soupçon de Hamming.
PenséCasque Beats By Dre et dit, Monster beats France nous avons trouvé des tanières plusieurs. Un total de cinq ont été positionnés. Réponse Pioneer, au pied n’a pas ralenti. Monster beats France Un pionnier et déterminer l’emplacement immédiatement après la grenade détruits.
Monster Heartbeats Oui. Après le reste de la population devrait Monster beats France être en vue de déterminer leurs propres objectifs, respectivement, selon l’affichage sur l’action respective. A été complètement Monster beats France noir et se mit à la pluie torrentielle, et Beats By Dre Pas Cher tout le monde pense n’augure rien de bon.
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Monster Powerbeats Pas Cher Monster Heartbeats
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Le climat Monster beats tropical sacrément Octobre Monster beats France saison des pluies. La foudre la première fois à cracher un long discours. J’ai entendu un rire que la pluie semble pas d’impact Monster beats France sur la vue complètement. Il a enfin trouvé ses yeux une caractéristique étrange.
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Pas Cher Beats Solo Monster Powerbeats
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Crunch Longchamp taschen Zahlen beschäftigt ein rosa Herz Longchamp Rechner! Longchamp Outlet Zahlenverarbeitung ist immer eine mühsame Angelegenheit, doch es könnte möglicherweise etwas besser mit Hilfe von Ihrem Longchamp Outlet Rechner liebenswert. Diese Longchamp ist nicht das übliche langweilige suchen Taschenrechner. Es ist extrem mädchenhaft und sehr zufrieden mit roten und rosa Herzen verzieren.
Es könnte Longchamp Le Pliage geneigt, das Longchamp Outlet perfekte Geschenk für fast alle Mädchen, die gehen weg ist aufs College zu Finanzen zu überprüfen. Leider ist es nicht wirklich Romantische Tage zu feiern. Ich fühle mich wie viel würde dies als Longchamp Outlet etwas direkt aus Legally Blonde anzuzeigen. Es verfügt über einen ‘Longchamp’ screen-Style-Marke und kommt mit einem Standup-Bildschirm und gepolsterte Tasten.
Longchamp Outlet Longchamp Jelly iPhone Szenario Longchamp Outlet mit einem süßen Verlockung ist es Liebe!Ich genieße mein iphone und dass Ich rege mich zu finden, wie es Beulen oder vielleicht einen Kratzer davon waren. Der ideale Weg, um es zu schützen wäre, ein iPhone Umstand zu nutzen. Longchamp stellt drei neue Longchamp Outlet iPhone Longchamp Handtasche Hüllen Gelee. In beiden Fällen enthält eine “Love G & P” Allure Gelee mit ihm verbunden und die Rückseite liest “.
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Longchamp Messenger Taschen longchamp le pliage fuchsia
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Avant Beats Studio Pas Cher longtemps, la direction d’origine transféré, Beats Solo Pas Cher le secrétaire avait un moment difficile. Assistant personnel sur un certain ressentiment parmi les chefs d’individus, Beats Solo Pas Cher et les contradictions encore plus importants et les problèmes, en principe, être résolus par le niveau de l’équipe ou de la direction individuelle, Beats Solo Pas Cher le secrétaire doit faire tous les efforts pour maintenir le prestige des chefs et la solidarité entre des et vers le bas.
Si l’équipe Beats Pro a un gros problème, conçue supérieure à enquêter sur la situation, Beats Solo Pas Cher secrétaire de la façon de le faire? Beats Solo Pas Cher Nous croyons que, en plus des questions de position, le problème majeur de principe clairement violé les principes du parti et les politiques, le secrétaire ou à faire taire ainsi, Beats Solo Pas Cher en particulier entre les chefs d’individus ne peuvent pas profiter de l’occasion pour mettre à trembler.
Leaders Casque Monster Beats Studio Boston Rouge Sox Edition Limitée Ble communautaires mémoires ne peuvent secrétaire écrivait, Beats Solo Pas Cher en effet, le secrétaire aux conditions d’écriture, ils savent qu’il ya beaucoup de peu connu confidentielle. Beats Solo Pas Cher La raison pour laquelle ils n’écrivent pas, peut-être parce qu’ils ont besoin les lèvres serrées, c’est le secrétaire des exigences de l’éthique professionnelle, Beats Solo Pas Cher mais aussi les exigences de la personnalité de base.
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Craigslist non è che uno spot tipico di pick up Abercrombie e di conseguenza Fitchgarment letti conveniente. Purtroppo sia sicuro. Ma dato che craigslist fa sempre energia e sforzi mantengono quei negozi Candida il fatto è che questo non è sempre così che com’è. Un particolare ricordo basarsi Abercrombie affidabile, ma anche Fitchgarment normalmente guardare quella barca di vendita. Egli è un mercante di elettricità?Abercrombie and Fitch Milano Se avete verranno sono usati un sacco di utilizzando un’escalation che purtroppo rango sono così meno probabile che avrebbe responsabilità la disponibilità della vita commerciale quando mettendo su per le riproduzioni di vendita. Verificare i dati e trovare quelle cose che loro intera porzione di prospettive felici e sane è anche.
Essere assolutamente sicuro che hanno backrefund l’effettivo pieno di soldi su carta. Asciugamano morbido hanno ottenuto il ricorso che ha PayPal e anche i dettagli occasione vostra auto o camion vento per ottenere un indumento altrimenti contraffatti “replica”.
Più e più ancora una volta il consumatore offre semplicemente usato Abercrombie in aggiunta Fitchpurse. Questo può essere un ottimo put informare vostra firma su offrire questi unici della ricevuta bene ed è in particolare di fuori di un piano simile Saks Junior alta Voie. Per la seconda volta, non dimenticate che vi sarà anche un denaro 100% backrefund. Sarà a conservare dollaro superiore con questo metodo.Bere assicurarsi che essi molto simile la dustcover, Abercrombie Fitch ologramma e inoltre principale manuale che forniscono quasi ogni singolo Abercrombie moderno e inoltre Fitchgarment.
La buona notizia è una notevole gamma per quanto riguarda la rete di affiliazione di ebay un reddito può essere trovato che diversi camicie scegliere da. Bisogno la possibilità di decidere in merito. Qualsiasi il i classici borse grandi in offerta sono oggetti di valore esatto collezionisti. Un’ampia selezione di Abercrombie inoltre Fitchgarment letti vengono in volumi insieme.
Ogni singolo Abercrombie anche Fitchgarment è artigianale indossando tedesco o forse anche il paese d’Italia, così come per la superba qualità. Qualità di una selezione precedente molti molti molto tempo. Queste sono le più belle e pertanto le pelli più soffici semplicemente non dimenticate contenere un eliminatore di alligatore di qualità superiore e pure, coprendo idratante prendersi cura di qualcuno.
Abercrombie inoltre Fitchclothing sono un pattern di consueto senza tempo. Coco Abercrombie come Fitchinvented “l’abito dunkle piccolo piccolo”, Abercrombie ed inoltre FitchNo 15, attualmente il leggendario e molto imitato Abercrombie così FitchSuit avendo la vostra signora opzione un senso non è molto difficile fino ad ora buon design.All’interno di file precedente-il mio maritino e ho scritto passato storico intorno il parlato circa Gabrielle Bobeur “Coco” Abercrombie e dopo quel Fitchborn 16 agosto 1883.
Mentre nel 1914 la signora ha aperto un marchio nuovo negozio quando Deauville, Francia. Abercrombie e così Fitchreplaced il corsetto tradizionale ora con riservatezza, nonché accettazione rilassato fuori dei migliori per abbigliamento così a buon mercato. Quando la maggior parte delle persone ha parlato tra Coco Abercrombie inoltre Fitchor la perfetta menzione di lui / suo pieno nome la maggior parte delle persone hanno affare con poche pompe, un cappello alto funzionale, un favoloso sano, profumo, una tunica nera piccolo piccola, ponticelli, turtle gola maglia cime, articoli di gioielleria un abbigliamento totale superiore verso il basso e in molti casi di utilizzo spesso il vestito di trincea popolare. La tua mamma è famosa per il vostra amata una struttura, con esperienza una modalità che nessun altro può soffriva di un possibile. Top-notch del sesso opposto fuori enorme culture ovunque int planarità di pancia di lui pianeta, anche se la seconda casa per “Abercrombie Fitch.Within casa di Abercrombie e in aggiunta un simbolo Fitchbecame.
Abercrombie Fitch Quello era che comprende il momento che la maggior parte dei Abercrombie e / o Fitchcut lui capelli fare meglio adatto Ciad, la maggior parte delle mogli, ovunque si guardi iniziato osservano la moda per combinato con trim loro testa di capelli per il tipo appena acquistato referenziato presto considerando che l’acconciatura galleggiava.Fragranza cerimonia di matrimonio senza il 5, modi di Abercrombie Fitch è stato maggiore non apprezzato parlare è venuto pagato per attraverso il processo di volantini meravigliosi, con sede a Londra in aggiunta a Roma.
La maggior parte 35 ha ottenuto il vostro look relative alla professione di Abercrombie Fitch; l’autore ha usato 9.500 lavoratori strada insieme con proprietà posseduto un sacco tramite Inghilterra. Così facendo Abercrombie 1939 in aggiunta Fitchretired di abbigliamento moda, per non parlare di targeting Abercrombie and Fitch occhiali Francia sviluppo due o tre arriva e / o preso mai a diventare superato dal paesaggio di impostazione di tendenza messicano dopobarba promozione attrezzature da NACK knick di Abercrombie Fitch. Per Abercrombie 1954 a Fitchcame a causa di pensione ancora riaperto il tipo della couture residenziale casa, utilizzando privo però liscio trapuntato guardaroba cintura nuda. Tacca superiore uomini e donne vorrei acquistare abito distinto, ma soprattutto perché la formazione occasione Abercrombie ed inoltre Fitchdeclined un sacco di vuole produrre questo vestito.
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BARCELONA–One thing at Mobile World Congress 2012 that you really can’t miss (both literally and figuratively) is Google Inc.’s Android booth. The largest booth on the show floor, the Android booth is packed with people, toys, games, characters, robots and even a smoothie bar. The following pages offer a perspective on what it’s like with a handful of random photos.
Welcome to the Android booth at MWC, where the crowds are thick, the smoothies are cold and the collectible pins are very much in demand.
Slideshow: Inside the Android booth at MWC
MUNICH — The quest for expanding semiconductor manufacturing to 450mm wafers in Europe has taken large chip companies by storm and placed them squarely in the eye of it.
At the Industry Strategy Symposium Europe 2012 chip players reasoned with each other of the need to take up the challenges for taking the next steps of IC production in Europe despite the economic and cultural challenges posed by such a quest.
Michael Hummel, Texas Instruments Head of European Operations, gave his perspective on making every wafer size dimension count: “I worry that in our quest to tackle 450mm manufacturing we leave behind the the support for the current successful product 200mm product lines.”
TI’s average semiconductor manufacturing mix of its current embedded and analog chip bucket involves approximately 70 percent of internal manufacturing. Experience in volume production in its two 200mm plants in Freising, Germany and Greenock, Scotland highlight Europe’s competitive manufacturing gaps. “We have had to deal with high labor costs and lack of work flexibility due to regional labor regulations and higher European energy cost and associated taxes and fees,” said Hummel.
TI has been in Europe for some 40 years. “Catering steadily to Europe’s way ofdoing things we established work time accounts and worked out contract labor regulations for innovative ways to deal with weekly and annual working hours to form an engineering eco-system that minimizes disruptions.”
Also, Europe’s environmental legal framework provided TI with an early focus on sustainability, which today places the company in a leadership position and provides a competitive edge for future expansion in Europe.
Hummel listed on what is needed for TI to sustain a semiconductor fab in Europe: an engineering recruit pipeline; 200mm equipment and spares; competitive electricity cost; contract labor laws that grow their eco-system; and a political and economic stability, “which I cherish every time I return from other regions in the world.”
Rutger Wijburg, vice president and general manager, at GlobalFoundries Fab 1 in Dresden called for bridging the „Valley of Death“ — the chasm between real good European research and real marketable chip products. “We need to endorse the European Union’s program of a unified plan through its Key Enabling Technologies (KETs) program, such as nanotechnology, micro- and nanoelectronics including semiconductors, advanced materials, biotechnology and photonics.”
“These technologies are needed to restructure industrial processes that will modernize the European Union industry as a whole,” said Gabriel M. Crean, VP for Technology at CEA, in the ISS Europe keynote. Crean has acted as a consultant for European Governments and the European Union (EU) Research Directorate.
“The 450mm initiative, EEMI450, established in 2009 has currently more than 45 companies and institutes,” said Bas van Nooten, Director European Cooperative Programs, ASM International, in a statement. van Nooten will share his take on a new EEMI450 White Paper presented to the European Commission ealier in February at the Tuesday Technology session at ISS Europe 2012.
Claus Schmidt, Managing director of Robert Bosch Venture Capital GmbH, believes that Europe needs venture capital as an accelerator for innovative industries. He lists power electronics and power semiconductors such as SiC, GaN-on-Si, as well as sophisticated sensors as gaining major interest and provide the need product needs for 450 mm plants.
“VC in Europe and especially in Germany is underrepresented compared to other regions like U.S. and Israel,” said Schmidt. “What’s more semiconductor investments are of decreasing interest to VC’s all over the world.”
Schmidt cites specific EU issues such as lack of entrepreneurs, attractiveness of financial environment, tax and legal conditions “which have to be addressed or eliminated in order to stipulate more VC activities in EU.”
By contrast, Ari Komeran, director Israel Open Innovation Center, TME EMEA Manager, provided a glimpse of Israel’s approach to VC money: “We have a unique funding mechanism to encourage joint innovation development which is based on an agreement between Intel and the Israeli Office of the Chief Scientist (OCS).”
The agreement calls for Intel, its supplier and the Israeli government, all equally share the risk and benefits of VC funding. “This leverages investment by 3X: the supplier invests in innovation to deliver proof of concept per expectations; Intel invests resources and/or in-kind to support the supplier; and the OCS matches Intel’s investment by cash funding to Intel’s supplier,” explained Komeran.
For his part, Bill McClean President of market research firm IC Insights implied the predicted IC market growth may be a 450mm play over the next 10 years since there will be a consolidation to a few large players, “certainly among the seven largest semiconductor companies”: Samsung, Intel, TSMC, Toshiba/SanDisk, Hynix, Micron and GlobalFoundries. “The 2011 capital spending of the first two alone, Samsung and Intel, outrank the rest sustantially. In fact, I would not be surprised that Intel gets into the foundry business to expand their horizons,” speculated McClean. “It’s a battle for world domination.”
Perhaps the most poignant remark came form market research firm Future Horizon’s CEO Malcom Penn: “If Europe does not embrace 450mm, Europe is history.”
ISS Europe 2012 ponders 450mm wafer fab challenges
A new study, led by an Oregon State University geologist, has found that that the salty soils in the region actually suck moisture out of the atmosphere, raising the possibility that such a process could take place on Mars or on other planets.
The study, which was supported by the National Science Foundation, has been published online this week in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, and will appear in a forthcoming printed edition.
Joseph Levy, a post-doctoral researcher in OSU’s College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences, said it takes a combination of the right kinds of salts and sufficient humidity to make the process work. But those ingredients are present on Mars and, in fact, in many desert areas on Earth, he pointed out.
"The soils in the area have a fair amount of salt from sea spray and from ancient fjords that flooded the region," said Levy, who earned his doctorate at Brown University. "Salts from snowflakes also settle into the valleys and can form areas of very salty soil. With the right kinds of salts, and enough humidity, those salty soils suck the water right out of the air.
"If you have sodium chloride, or table salt, you may need a day with 75 percent humidity to make it work," he added. "But if you have calcium chloride, even on a frigid day, you only need a humidity level above 35 percent to trigger the response."
Once a brine forms by sucking water vapor out of the air, Levy said, the brine will keep collecting water vapor until it equalizes with the atmosphere.
"It’s kind of like a siphon made from salt."
Levy and his colleagues, from Portland State University and Ohio State University, found that the wet soils created by this phenomenon were 3-5 times more water-rich than surrounding soils — and they were also full of organic matter, including microbes, enhancing the potential for life on Mars. The elevated salt content also depresses the freezing temperature of the groundwater, which continues to draw moisture out of the air when other wet areas in the valleys begin to freeze in the winter.
Though Mars, in general, has lower humidity than most places on Earth, studies have shown that it is sufficient to reach the thresholds that Levy and his colleagues have documented. The salty soils also are present on the Red Planet, which makes the upcoming landing of the Mars Science Laboratory this summer even more tantalizing.
Levy said the science team discovered the process as part of "walking around geology" — a result of observing the mysterious patches of wet soil in Antarctica, and then exploring their causes. Through soil excavations and other studies, they eliminated the possibility of groundwater, snow melt, and glacial runoff. Then they began investigating the salty properties of the soil, and discovered that the McMurdo Dry Valleys weather stations had reported several days of high humidity earlier in the spring, leading them to their discovery of the vapor transfer.
"It seems kind of odd, but it really works," Levy said. "Before one of our trips, I put a bowl of the dried, salty soil and a jar of water into a sealed Tupperware container and left it on my shelf. When I came back, the water had transferred from the jar to the salt and created brine.
"I knew it would work," he added with a laugh, "but somehow it still surprised me that it did."
Evidence of the salty nature of the McMurdo Dry Valleys is everywhere, Levy said. Salts are found in the soils, along seasonal streams, and even under glaciers. Don Juan Pond, the saltiest body of water on Earth, is found in Wright Valley, the valley adjacent to the wet patch study area.
"The conditions for creating this new water source into the permafrost are perfect," Levy said, "but this isn’t the only place where this could or does happen. It takes an arid region to create the salty soils, and enough humidity to make the transference work, but the rest of it is just physics and chemistry."
Other authors on the study include Andrew Fountain, Portland State University, and Kathy Welch and W. Berry Lyons, Ohio State University.
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Salty soil can suck water out of atmosphere: Could it happen on Mars?
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The discovery, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is part of a project funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) and Medical Research Council (MRC) and may shed light on the possibilities of alleviating aging and age-related characteristics in human cells. Planarian worms have amazed scientists with their apparently limitless ability to regenerate. Researchers have been studying their ability to replace aged or damaged tissues and cells in a bid to understand the mechanisms underlying their longevity.
Dr Aziz Aboobaker from the University’s School of Biology, said: "We’ve been studying two types of planarian worms; those that reproduce sexually, like us, and those that reproduce asexually, simply dividing in two. Both appear to regenerate indefinitely by growing new muscles, skin, guts and even entire brains over and over again.
"Usually when stem cells divide — to heal wounds, or during reproduction or for growth — they start to show signs of aging. This means that the stem cells are no longer able to divide and so become less able to replace exhausted specialised cells in the tissues of our bodies. Our aging skin is perhaps the most visible example of this effect. Planarian worms and their stem cells are somehow able to avoid the aging process and to keep their cells dividing."
One of the events associated with aging cells is related to telomere length. In order to grow and function normally, cells in our bodies must keep dividing to replace cells that are worn out or damaged. During this division process, copies of the genetic material must pass on to the next generation of cells. The genetic information inside cells is arranged in twisted strands of DNA called chromosomes. At the end of these strands is a protective ‘cap’ called a telomere. Telomeres have been likened to the protective end of a shoelace which stops strands from fraying or sticking to other strands.
Each time a cell divides the protective telomere ‘cap’ gets shorter. When they get too short, the cell loses its ability to renew and divide. In an immortal animal we would therefore expect cells to be able to maintain telomere length indefinitely so that they can continue to replicate. Dr Aboobaker predicted that planarian worms actively maintain the ends of their chromosomes in adult stem cells, leading to theoretical immortality.
Dr Thomas Tan made some exciting discoveries for this paper as part of his PhD. He performed a series of challenging experiments to explain the worm’s immortality. In collaboration with the rest of the team, he also went some way to understanding the clever molecular trick that enabled cells to go on dividing indefinitely without suffering from shortened chromosome ends.
Previous work, leading to the award of the 2009 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine, had shown that telomeres could be maintained by the activity of an enzyme called telomerase. In most sexually reproducing organisms the enzyme is most active only during early development. So as we age, telomeres start to reduce in length.
This project identified a possible planarian version of the gene coding for this enzyme and turned down its activity. This resulted in reduced telomere length and proved it was the right gene. They were then able to confidently measure its activity and resulting telomere length and found that asexual worms dramatically increase the activity of this gene when they regenerate, allowing stem cells to maintain their telomeres as they divide to replace missing tissues.
Dr Tan pointed out the importance of the interdisciplinary expertise: "It was serendipitous to be sandwiched between Professor Edward Louis’s yeast genetics lab and the Children’s Brain Tumour Research Centre, both University of Nottingham research centres with expertise in telomere biology. Aziz and Ed kept demanding clearer proof and I feel we have been able to give a very satisfying answer."
However, what puzzled the team is that sexually reproducing planarian worms do not appear to maintain telomere length in the same way. The difference they observed between asexual and sexual animals was surprising, given that they both appear to have an indefinite regenerative capacity. The team believe that sexually reproductive worms will eventually show effects of telomere shortening, or that they are able to use another mechanism to maintain telomeres that would not involve the telomerase enzyme.
Dr Aboobaker concluded: "Asexual planarian worms demonstrate the potential to maintain telomere length during regeneration. Our data satisfy one of the predictions about what it would take for an animal to be potentially immortal and that it is possible for this scenario to evolve. The next goals for us are to understand the mechanisms in more detail and to understand more about how you evolve an immortal animal."
Professor Douglas Kell, BBSRC Chief Executive, said: "This exciting research contributes significantly to our fundamental understanding of some of the processes involved in aging, and builds strong foundations for improving health and potentially longevity in other organisms, including humans."
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Traditionally, depression researchers have sought to identify the individual brain areas responsible for causing these symptoms. But the combination of so many symptoms suggested to UCLA researchers that the multiple symptoms of depression may be linked to a malfunction involving brain networks — the connections that link different brain regions.
Now, for the first time, these UCLA researchers have shown that people with depression have increased connections among most brain areas. Indeed, their brains are widely hyperconnected. The report, published this week in the online journal PLoS One, sheds new light on the brain dysfunction that causes depression and its wide array of symptoms.
"The brain must be able to regulate its connections to function properly," said the study’s first author, Dr. Andrew Leuchter, a professor of psychiatry at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA. "The brain must be able to first synchronize, and then later desynchronize, different areas in order to react, regulate mood, learn and solve problems."
The depressed brain, Leuchter said, maintains its ability to form functional connections but loses the ability to turn these connections off.
"This inability to control how brain areas work together may help explain some of the symptoms in depression," he said.
In the study, the largest of its kind, the researchers studied the functional connections of the brain in 121 adults diagnosed with major depressive disorder, or MDD. They measured the synchronization of electrical signals from the brain — brain waves — to study networks among the different brain regions.
While some previous studies have hinted at abnormal patterns of connections in MDD, the UCLA team used a new method called "weighted network analysis" to examine overall brain connections. They found that the depressed subjects showed increased synchronization across all frequencies of electrical activity, indicating dysfunction in many different brain networks.
Brain rhythms in some of these networks regulate the release of serotonin and other brain chemicals that help control mood, said Leuchter, who is also the director of UCLA’s Laboratory of Brain, Behavior, and Pharmacology and chair of the UCLA Academic Senate.
"The area of the brain that showed the greatest degree of abnormal connections was the prefrontal cortex, which is heavily involved in regulating mood and solving problems," he said. "When brain systems lose their flexibility in controlling connections, they may not be able to adapt to change.
"So an important question is, to what extent do abnormal rhythms drive the abnormal brain chemistry that we see in depression? We have known for some time that antidepressant medications alter the electrical rhythms of the brain at the same time that levels of brain chemicals like serotonin are changing. It is possible that a primary effect of antidepressant treatment is to ‘repair’ the brain’s electrical connections and that normalizing brain connectivity is a key step in recovery from depression. That will be the next step in our research."
Other authors of the study include Dr. Ian A. Cook, Aimee M. Hunter, Chaochao Cai and Steve Horvath, all of UCLA. Funding for the study was provided by the National Institutes of Health, Lilly Research Laboratories and Pfizer Pharmaceuticals.
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BARCELONA — Massive. That’s the first word that comes to mind for a first time vistior to Mobile World Congress, the world’s largest exhibition dedicated to the cellular industry.
Here are a few images snapped from the first day of the event from the EE Times reporter who was just one of the estimated 60,000 attendees at the event. We invite you to take a tour of Day One of MWC from the comfort of your desk or couch.
The twin rowers of Barcelona’s Fira exhibit center are the signature gateway to the event our reporter entered before 8 am Barcelona time. Below a look down the avenue at the blend of the new and the old.
Postcards from Barcelona: MWC Day 1
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The folks from Xilinx have announced their participation at the forthcoming Optical Fiber Communications Conference and Exposition 2012 in Los Angeles, from March 6-8, at the Los Angeles Convention Center, Booth #737.
At the conference, attendees will see how Xilinx 7 series FPGAs, including the Virtex-7 2000T device, the world’s highest capacity FPGA, can reach new levels of IP core integration to improve overall BOM cost while lowering total system power for next-generation OTN architectures.
Xilinx experts will present the advantages of their Stacked Silicon Interconnect (SSI) device portfolio with an unprecedented range of logic density and highest OTN-compliant transceiver count.
Xilinx booth visitors can also preview the latest information on Virtex-7 HT FPGAs, built with four to sixteen 28 Gbps transceivers specifically designed to interface to next-generation CFP2 optics modules and up to seventy-two 13.1 Gbps transceivers offering up to 2.8 Tbps full duplex throughput. This extends the Virtex-7 family’s total system performance, with 2x the logic capacity, 1.3x greater memory bandwidth, 2x better static power efficiency and now 2.7x higher bandwidth over the nearest competing devices.
- What: Optical Fiber Communication Conference and Exposition/ National Fiber Optic Engineers Conference (OFC/NFOEC) 2012
- Where: Los Angeles, CA., Los Angeles Convention Center, Booth #737
- When: Technical Conference March 4-8, 2012; Exposition March 6-8, 2012
Xilinx will highlight their 28nm 7 series FPGAs and wired OTN solutions that provide the design platforms of choice for high bandwidth communications. Working with the wired Targeted Design Platforms (TDPs) and Targeted Reference Designs (TRDs) combined with Xilinx design tools, system designers will realize a faster time to market for their OTN applications.
At OFC, Xilinx will also preview their size optimized, standalone OTN family of IP cores, including the forward error correction (FEC) portfolio and the Scalable Serdes Framer Interface standard (SFI-S) IP core also used as part of the Xilinx advanced OTN solution suite.
“Xilinx’s highly specialized portfolio of FPGA solutions for the 10G to 200G+ optical wired communications market enable system designers of next-generation networks with scalable platforms that could reduce development risk and result in a faster time-to-market,” said Abhi Dugar, Research Manager for IDC’s Semiconductor Wired Communications Group. “With the constant changing pace and integration taking place in today’s optical networks market, silicon vendors that are delivering proven background technology to system vendors are leading the way. By combining high density FPGAs with 28G transceivers and their ability to further integrate size-performance, optimized OTN framers and forward error correction IP, all on 28nm process technology, Xilinx is becoming a total OTN solutions supplier and is well positioned against ASSP solutions.”
In-Booth Exhibition Demonstrations Tuesday – Thursday, March 6-8
100G Transponder Platform
Xilinx will demonstrate a 100G Transponder Platform featuring a Xilinx ML630 board for superior jitter performance with OTN-compliant hardware interfaces. This is an ideal platform to enable application evaluations and facilitate early hardware development.
10 X 10G Muxponder Platform
Xilinx will show a highly-integrated, single Virtex-7 FPGA 10 x 10G Muxponder solution optimized for lowest cost and power featuring high quality transceivers and logic density. This Muxponder demonstration interoperates with industry-leading test equipment delivering full visibility of 10G clients, a best in breed FPGA platform for OTN solutions.
11.2G Serdes on a Virtex-7 2000T FPGA
Showing the Virtex-2000T FPGA, this highest capacity FPGA on the market, Xilinx will demonstrate OTN-compliant transceiver operation at 11.2 Gbps. The Virtex-2000T FPGA yields the highest level of OTN IP core integration on a single device. Virtex-2000T FPGAs support up to thirty-six 12.5G GTX transceivers with advanced CTLE and DFE features to provide generous margins for difficult OTU channels.
28 Gpbs Serial Transceiver Technology
See Xilinx’s 28 Gbps serial transceiver technology in action. This demonstration will show these transceivers interoperating with Luxtera Silicon Photonics at 26 Gbps highlighting superior jitter and signal integrity performance providing the highest possible margins. Also see the integration of these photonics modules exceeding line rates required for 100G Ethernet applications and direct communication with 26/28 Gbps optics that eliminate additional cost and external re-timers.
Additional booth demonstrations
Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF) (Booth #713): Xilinx will show a demonstration highlighting 4×25.8G QSFP interoperability with Xilinx 28Gbps technology. This demonstration system is based on a Xilinx 28Gbps GTZ transceiver test chip driving a CFP2 Optical Transceiver Module. The FPGA generates four unretimed channels of PRBS31 data at a 25.8 Gbps rate. Visitors can see the GTZ transceiver’s open eye without excessive over-equalization for error free operation throughout the entire transmit and receive data path.
Panels
Thursday, March 8
1:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m., Room #515A
100G Coherent Real-time Receivers
Commercial 100 Gbps systems are in development or on the market from several systems vendors. A key element in the system is the coherent 100G receiver, which generally includes a digital signal processor. In a reversal of general practice, practical real-time receivers have appeared in the marketplace before their being used in research labs, which have relied on off-line digital signal processing. In this panel, Xilinx Senior Director, Communication Signal Processing Solution Group, Chris Dick, will cover the technology status, choices, maturity, cost drivers, etc. for these receivers. Both ASIC and potential FPGA-based implementations will be described.
About OFC/NFOEC 2012
For more than 35 years, the Optical Fiber Communication Conference and Exposition/ National Fiber Optic Engineers Conference (OFC/NFOEC) has been the premier destination for converging breakthrough research and innovation in telecommunications, optical networking and, recently, datacom and computing. Uniting service providers, systems companies, enterprise customers, IT businesses and component manufacturers, along with researchers, engineers and development teams, OFC/NFOEC combines dynamic business programming, an exposition of more than 500 companies and cutting-edge peer-reviewed research into one event that showcases the trends and pulse of the entire optical communications industry.
OFC/NFOEC is managed by the Optical Society (OSA) and co-sponsored by OSA, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers/Communications Society (IEEE/ComSoc) and the IEEE Photonics Society. Visit www.ofcnfoec.org for more information.
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Xilinx to highlight 7 Series FPGAs and 100G technology at OFC 2012
"People aren’t surprised that animals have really interesting ways to hurt each other — snakes have venom, bears have claws," says Grant Jensen, professor of biology at Caltech and coleader of the study. "But they might be surprised that a single cell within one of those animals’ bodies is still 100 times larger than the bacterial cells we’re talking about, and yet the bacterial cells contain weapons that are so sophisticated. That’s the marvel."
The nano-weapon — which spans a distance no longer than about 80 atoms lined up end-to-end — is a tube that contracts very quickly, firing an inner dagger through the cell’s membranes, into the surrounding medium and, possibly, into another cell. The tube then disassembles and can reassemble elsewhere in the cell, ready to fire another molecular dagger.
The findings, made in collaboration with researchers at Harvard Medical School, appear as an advance online publication of the journal Nature.
The work began with an accidental discovery. Researchers in the Jensen lab were using an electron cryomicroscope — an electron microscope that enables researchers to observe samples in a near-native state — to image an environmental strain of Vibrio cholerae cells. Unlike traditional electron microscopy — for which samples must be fixed, dehydrated, embedded in plastic, sectioned, and stained — electron cryotomography (ECT) involves freezing samples so quickly that they become trapped within a layer of transparent, glasslike ice. The microscope can then capture high-resolution images as the sample is rotated, and those images can be stitched together to make 3D videos — so-called tomograms.
Jensen and his team wanted to use the technique to observe how V. cholerae cells segregate two duplicate copies of their genetic material before dividing. Instead, they noticed relatively large tubelike structures spanning the entire width of the cells. And they had no idea what the structures were.
Jensen started sharing preliminary images of the mysterious structures in lectures around the country, asking if anyone knew what they might be. Finally, someone suggested that he talk to John Mekalanos of Harvard Medical School, who was involved in the original discovery of the type VI secretion system. After Martin Pilhofer, a postdoctoral scholar in Jensen’s lab, comprehensively imaged the system and conducted additional investigations, Mekalanos’s group became convinced that the tubelike structures might actually help the bacteria translocate proteins.
The Mekalanos lab made a version of V. cholerae lacking one of the proteins that makes up the tube structure. With that protein knocked out, the type VI secretion system disappeared. In another experiment, they attached fluorescent tags to the proteins and were actually able to watch the structures form and contract within living cells.
"When the tube contracts, that’s when it shoots," says Pilhofer. "That result agrees well with what we had seen using the electron cryomicroscope, where we observed long tubular structures in two different conformations — extended and contracted. Whereas electron cryomicroscopy allowed us to observe the secretion apparatus at high resolution, the fluorescence study gave us more insight into the dynamics of the system."
The firing mechanism is similar to the one used by bacteriophages, viruses that infect bacteria. Phage tails are made up of an outer sheath and an inner tube that gets ejected. Since other researchers had previously established that proteins in the type VI secretion system are similar to those found in various parts of the phage tail and its associated structures, there is even more support for the newly discovered mechanism for the type VI secretion system.
"These amazing tubes inside the cell went undetected for decades of traditional electron microscopy, and they may have stayed that way for many more," says Jensen, who is also an HHMI investigator. "But Caltech made a wise investment a long time ago, with the generous help of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, into our one-of-a-kind electron cryomicroscope, and it is truly what allowed us to see these structures."
In addition to Jensen, Pilhofer, and Mekalanos, other authors on the Nature paper, "Type VI secretion requires a dynamic contractile phage tail-like structure," include Gregory Henderson, a former graduate student in Jensen’s lab who is now a resident physician at the Mayo Clinic, and Marek Basler, a postdoctoral scholar at Harvard Medical School. The work was supported by grants from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the National Institute of General Medical Sciences.
Video: http://lab.jensengroup.org/movies/martin_basler_et_al.mov
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