Science in Industry
Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy
Light moves tiny devices
Fresh: Cell-ID based Mobile Forum for Community Environmental Awareness
Nanotouch
National Institute of Informatics [pdf]
The Engines of Our Ingenuity [iTunes]
ticTOCs Journal Tables of Contents service
The Year in Biomedicine
Spent Coffee Grounds as a Versatile Source of Green Energy
Cutty Sark's high-tech salvation
Science in Industry
"is a new venture started by a group of industrial scientists with the object of forming a reciprocal link between the academic and the industrial worlds. We hope to explain the basis of new technologies and show how and where they are being applied in industry, as well as look at the technology used in different areas of industry. We will also have occasional "A Week in the Life of..." articles based on real industrial experience. "
Read more at http://www.scienceinindustry.co.uk/
Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy
"The American Institute of Physics is pleased to announce its newest journal: the Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy (JRSE). To complement this online-only journal, AIP has developed a website with components that go beyond the standard journal webpage. Among these new components are the following: (i) a blog—in which insightful commentary on news, policy, and research related not just to the journal, but to renewable and sustainable energy in general, can be found, (ii) a list of top stories—culled from major newspapers, magazines, and websites, these stories cover the most important news happening in the field, and (iii) interviews (audio, video, and text) with researchers, newsmakers, and other persons of interest to the field of basic renewable and sustainable energy research. "
See it at http://jrse.aip.org/
Light moves tiny devices
Nov 28, 2008. "Engineers at Yale University in the US have shown that the force of light can be harnessed to drive nanomachines. The result could lead to all-optical mechanical devices made from nanometre-sized photonic circuits. The work successfully combines two important emerging fields of research, nanophotonics and nanomechanics, and could make it possible to create tiny optical and mechanical components on the same silicon chip. Although the force exerted by photons is too weak to be felt in everyday life, it can be greatly enhanced by concentrating light in nanosized photonic circuits."
Read more at http://nanotechweb.org/cws/article/tech/36815
Fresh: Cell-ID based Mobile Forum for Community Environmental Awareness
Eiman Kanjo &Peter Landshoff University of Cambridge. "This paper describes our mobile framework Fresh which engages the public in location sensitive experiences and in municipal monitoring of their environment, available both on users’ mobile phones, and online. This mobile forum is based on Cell-ID positioning and GPRS communications. It stores and receives information from a remote server which analyses and processes the scientific data received from a scalable mobile sensing framework called MobSens and makes it available to local communities through Fresh. Author Keywords Mobile sensing, environmental monitoring, pervasive computing, location based applications, Urban computing, Social Network."
Read more at http://www.escience.cam.ac.uk/eiman/FreshMobileForum.pdf
Nanotouch
"We argue that the key to touch-enabling very small devices is to use touch on the device backside. In order to study this, we have created the 2.4” prototype device shown below; we simulate screens smaller than that by masking the screen. In a user study, participants completed a pointing task successfully across all (2.4" to 0.3") display sizes when using a back-of device interface. The touchscreen-based control condition (enhanced with the shift technique), in contrast, failed for screen diagonals below 1 inch. A second study provides design guidelines for practitioners who want to design for back-of-device interaction"
Read more at http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/baudisch/projects/nanotouch/
National Institute of Informatics [pdf]
Informatics is a field that is gaining importance around the globe, and the National Institute of Informatics (NII) in Japan seeks "to advance integrated research and development activities in information-related fields, including networking, software, and content." First-time visitors should note that most of the materials in the site can be located in sections such as "Research", "Services", and "Education". Before delving into these areas, visitors may wish to take a look at the most recent issue of "NII Today" via the homepage. Afterwards, visitors should look over the "Research" area. Here they will find summaries of research projects, working papers, and information about their international partnerships. The "Services" area is well worth a look as it contains links to additional informatics databases that will be of use to scholars and students within the field. [KMG] Copyright Internet Scout, 1994-2008. Internet Scout (http://scout.wisc.edu/), located in the Computer Sciences Department of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, provides information about the Internet to the U.S. research and education community under a grant from the National Science Foundation, number NCR-9712163. The Government has certain rights in this material. Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of the entire Scout Report provided this paragraph, including the copyright notice, are preserved on all copies.
Read more at http://www.nii.ac.jp/index.shtml.en
The Engines of Our Ingenuity [iTunes]
This website is from the public radio program The Engines of Our Ingenuity, which has been airing on the radio from the University of Houston for 20 years. The radio show is about the human inventiveness that informs our culture and it's no wonder the program has been on the air for so long, as such a topic seems inexhaustible. Because the show is only available on 30 public radio stations, using the website may be the only way some fans can hear each episode. Visitors can find the latest episode next to "Click here for the newest Engines episode" on the homepage. From there visitors will be transported to a page that contains a transcript of the episode along with a link at the top of the page which will allow visitors to hear the episode by John Lienhard. Not only do visitors get a written version and an audio version, they also get photos pertaining to the topic, links to sites that provide further information on certain aspects of the topic, and in some cases, diagrams and charts further illustrating the episode's topic. There is also a link near the top of the homepage, "Click Here," which provides recent episodes of the radio show as podcasts. On the homepage the visitor can also find a list of all the stations that broadcast the show, by clicking on "Stations That Carry Engines" under "About the Radio Program," on the lower right side of the page. On the left side of the homepage there are links to "Engines Transcripts" and "Full Titles of Episodes, With Keywords." For the latter link, click on the number next to the episode to be taken to the audio version of the episode, as well as the transcript of it, and any accompanying links, graphs, photos, and diagrams. There are over 2000 episodes, so no visitor should be left wanting. [KMG] Copyright Internet Scout, 1994-2008. Internet Scout (http://scout.wisc.edu/), located in the Computer Sciences Department of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, provides information about the Internet to the U.S. research and education community under a grant from the National Science Foundation, number NCR-9712163. The Government has certain rights in this material. Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of the entire Scout Report provided this paragraph, including the copyright notice, are preserved on all copies.
Read more at http://www.uh.edu/engines/engines.htm
ticTOCs Journal Tables of Contents service
"where researchers keep up-to-date - ticTOCs is easy to use, and it's free. - Find 11,798 scholarly journal Table of Contents (TOCs) from 426 publishers. - View the latest TOC for each journal. - Link to the full text of 304,379 articles (where institutional or personal subscription allows). - Export TOC feeds to popular feedreaders. - Select and save journal titles to view future TOCs (Register to ensure your MyTOCs are permanently saved). - And more! "
Read more at http://www.tictocs.ac.uk/
The Year in Biomedicine
"By Emily Singer. Brain trauma among soldiers, a $5,000 genome, cellular switches, and insight into the brain's beauty."
Read more at http://www.technologyreview.com/biomedicine/21894/?nlid=1598
Spent Coffee Grounds as a Versatile Source of Green Energy
"Narasimharao Kondamudi, Susanta K. Mohapatra* and Mano Misra*. The production of energy from renewable and waste materials is an attractive alternative to the conventional agricultural feed stocks such as corn and soybean. This paper describes an approach to extract oil from spent coffee grounds and to further transesterify the processed oil to convert it into biodiesel. This process yields 10−15% oil depending on the coffee species (Arabica or Robusta). The biodiesel derived from the coffee grounds (100% conversion of oil to biodiesel) was found to be stable for more than 1 month under ambient conditions. It is projected that 340 million gallons of biodiesel can be produced from the waste coffee grounds around the world. The coffee grounds after oil extraction are ideal materials for garden fertilizer, feedstock for ethanol, and as fuel pellets. "
Read more at http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jf802487s?prevSearch=coffee+and+fuel&searchHistoryKey=
Cutty Sark's high-tech salvation
"Scientists are using sophisticated computer models to determine how to dismantle and reassemble the fire-damaged Cutty Sark ship. ... Professor Chris Bailey, director of the Computational Mechanics and Reliability Group at the University of Greenwich, explains how computer modelling was used within such a unique project: 'We are applying computer modelling technology to the problem of how to restore the Cutty Sark's rotting pieces, without bringing down the entire structure. With our software, we can take the ship apart - and put it back together again - and see if it collapses. So when engineers tackle the real thing, they know that they will be going about the job in the best possible way.’ "
Read more at http://www.scientific-computing.com/news/news_story.php?news_id=737