Technology
press releases.

Technology25 Oct 2023

A bold plan to 3D print artificial coral reef

Inspired by the remarkable durability of ancient Roman construction materials in seawater, a University of Texas at Arlington civil engineering researcher is attempting to duplicate Roman concrete by developing 3D-printed materials to restore damaged or dying coral reefs. Warda Ashraf, associate professor in the Department of Civil Engineering, will lead a multidisciplinary team, funded by a $2 million National Science Foundation (NSF) grant, that aims to build 3D-printed artificial reefs. The team’s project is titled “Carbon Sequestration and Coastal Resilience Through 3D Printed Reefs” ...

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Technology25 Oct 2023

Can AI grasp related concepts after learning only one?

Humans have the ability to learn a new concept and then immediately use it to understand related uses of that concept—once children know how to “skip,” they understand what it means to “skip twice around the room” or “skip with your hands up.” But are machines capable of this type of thinking? In the late 1980s, Jerry Fodor and Zenon Pylyshyn, philosophers and cognitive scientists, posited that artificial neural networks—the engines that drive artificial intelligence and machine learning— are not capable of making these connections, known as “compositional generalizations.” However, in the decades ...

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Technology25 Oct 2023

UK air pollution regulations will reduce deaths, but do little to protect ecosystems

Existing air pollution regulations will reduce thousands of premature adult deaths in the UK, but even the most effective technically feasible actions, which will save thousands more lives, will do little to protect the country’s sensitive ecosystems, find UCL researchers. The new research, published in GeoHealth, found that existing air pollution regulations could avoid 6,751 early deaths amongst adults in the UK by 2030 compared to if no regulations existed. That estimate nearly doubles to 13,269 avoided adult premature deaths if all possible technically feasible measures are employed to reduce air pollution immediately. However, existing regulations don’t ...

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Technology25 Oct 2023

Closing digital skills gap could spur global economic growth by $11.5 trillion

This significant lack of expertise means firms are not fully embracing the automation revolution, costing businesses valuable time and money. Intelligent Automation: Bridging the Gap between Business and Academia delves into how companies and universities can use intelligent automation to address the challenges preventing the workforce from prospering amid the Fourth Industrial Revolution. (NEW YORK – October 16, 2023) The economic benefits of intelligent automation are vast, potentially totaling trillions of dollars in economic growth, according to research in a new book. Businesses and organizations ...

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Technology25 Oct 2023

KERI's thermoelectric technology, key to space probes, attracting German attention

Drs. SuDong Park, Byungki Ryu, and Jaywan Chung of the Korea Electrotechnology Research Institute (KERI) developed a new thermoelectric efficiency formalism and a high-efficiency multistage thermoelectric power generator module. This innovation can boost nuclear battery performance, crucial for space probes, and has attracted attention from the German Aerospace Research Institute. A Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator (RTG), known as a thermoelectric-based nuclear battery, is a dependable power ...

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Technology24 Oct 2023

Deep learning solves long-standing challenges in identification of nanoparticle shape

Innovation Center of NanoMedicine (iCONM; Center Director: Kazunori Kataoka; Location: Kawasaki, Japan) has announced with The University of Tokyo that a group led by Prof. Takanori Ichiki, Research Director of iCONM (Professor, Department of Materials Engineering, Graduate School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo), proposed a new property evaluation method of nanoparticles’ shape anisotropy that solves long-standing issues in nanoparticle evaluation that date back to Einstein's time. The paper, titled " Analysis of Brownian motion trajectories of non-spherical nanoparticles ...

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Technology24 Oct 2023

Adding crushed rock to farmland pulls carbon out of the air

Adding crushed volcanic rock to cropland could play a key role in removing carbon from the air. In a field study, scientists at the University of California, Davis, and Cornell University found the technology stored carbon in the soil even during an extreme drought in California. The study was published in the journal Environmental Research Communications. Rain captures carbon dioxide from the air as it falls and reacts with volcanic rock to lock up carbon. The process, called rock weathering, can take millions of years ...

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Technology23 Oct 2023

New UCF project is harnessing virtual reality to teach quantum computing

ORLANDO, Oct. 23, 2023 – Researchers from the University of Central Florida, University of Texas at Dallas and Vanderbilt University have received a three-year, $927,203 grant for advancing future quantum education by using virtual reality (VR) and machine learning to identify and address misconceptions regarding quantum information science (QIS). The U.S. National Science Foundation-funded project started in August 2023 and leverages QubitVR, a quantum-education VR application previously developed ...

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Technology20 Oct 2023

Antimicrobial peptides modulate lung injury by altering the intestinal microbiota

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – Lung development in the fetus occurs at low oxygen tension in the womb, but after a very premature birth, the partly developed lungs of the tiny infants experience far greater oxygen tensions even without the prolonged supplemental oxygen that is often required. This can produce well-known disastrous effects on the structure and function of the neonatal lung, causing the serious lung condition of bronchopulmonary dysplasia in high-risk premature infants. Using a neonatal mouse model, researchers ...

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Technology20 Oct 2023

An algorithm predicts the academic performance of distance education students

A team from the University of Cordoba has designed a model, based on fuzzy logic, that predicts the performance of online education students, dividing them into 4 categories and helping professors give more personalized assistance to each student, tailored to their situations Distance education has democratized access to knowledge, overcoming problems of time and space. The flexibility and accessibility of this type of system has increased the number of people educated via online platforms. However, due to its large ...

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Technology20 Oct 2023

A review of energy supply for biomachine hybrid robots

Bio-machine hybrid robots (BHRs) represent a new generation of micro-aerial vehicles that be controlled by building an interface between biological and artificial systems. In contrast to conventional bionic robots, they are free of complex mechanical structures, and due to the direct adoption of the animal body, they have superior moving characteristics and lower energy demand. Thus, the BHRs can be applied in many important scenarios, such as urban and wilderness rescue operations, environmental monitoring and hazardous area surveys. To accomplish long mission endurance, the energy supply ...

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Technology20 Oct 2023

Partnership looks to the stars to improve cybersecurity

A new partnership between Edith Cowan University (ECU), observation data company QL Space, and University of South Wales (UK) is looking to the stars, literally, to create more secure and efficient communication. The collaboration will focus on ‘free space optics’, which uses light all around we can’t see to communicate, by sending data via light particles, or photons. ECU School of Science Senior Lecturer Dr Shihao Yan said this brought with it many benefits compared to using radio frequencies to send information. “When ...

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Technology20 Oct 2023

Algorithm and blues: how to judge music plagiarism?

Ed Sheeran convinced a jury this year that he didn’t rip off Marvin Gaye’s `Let’s Get It On.’ By way of contrast, Pharrell Williams and Robin Thicke earlier failed to establish that `Blurred Lines’ wasn’t a copy of Gaye’s `Got to Give It Up.’ Could automated algorithms bring a new objectivity to music copyright infringement decisions, limiting the number, scale and expense of court cases? Musicologist Dr Patrick Savage of the University of Auckland researched the topic in collaboration with Yuchen Yuan of Keio University, ...

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Technology19 Oct 2023

To excel at engineering design, generative AI must learn to innovate, study finds

ChatGPT and other deep generative models are proving to be uncanny mimics. These AI supermodels can churn out poems, finish symphonies, and create new videos and images by automatically learning from millions of examples of previous works. These enormously powerful and versatile tools excel at generating new content that resembles everything they’ve seen before. But as MIT engineers say in a new study, similarity isn’t enough if you want to truly innovate in engineering tasks. “Deep generative models (DGMs) are ...

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Technology19 Oct 2023

Point-of-care technology initiative awarded $8.9 million renewal

UMass Chan and UMass Lowell’s point-of-care technology initiative awarded $8.9 million renewal UMass Chan Medical School and UMass Lowell have received an $8.9 million award from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for renewed support of their initiative to advance the development of home-based and point-of-care health technologies. The program aims to jumpstart new tools to address heart, lung, blood and sleep disorders, especially in underserved populations. The Center for Advancing Point of Care Technologies ...

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Technology19 Oct 2023

New smartphone app quickly analyzes human motion to aid physical rehabilitation

WHAT: A research team funded by the National Institutes of Health has developed a smart phone app that can track and analyze a person’s ability to move from one place to another, known as locomotion, and other types of movements. Human motion analysis is used to evaluate patients with movement difficulties, to help clinicians plan surgery, and to assess the results of treatment procedures. The research team believes that using the app costs about 1% of conventional motion analysis techniques and works 25 times faster. The study appears in PLOS Computational Biology. Researchers tested their app, called OpenCap, with 100 participants. Using two or more smart phones, ...

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Technology19 Oct 2023

Electrical control of quantum phenomenon could improve future electronic devices

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — A new electrical method to conveniently change the direction of electron flow in some quantum materials could have implications for the development of next-generation electronic devices and quantum computers. A team of researchers from Penn State developed and demonstrated the method in materials that exhibit the quantum anomalous Hall (QAH) effect — a phenomenon in which the flow of electrons along the edge of a material does not lose energy. The team described the work in a paper appearing today (Oct. 19) in the journal Nature ...

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Technology19 Oct 2023

From square to cube: Hardware processing for AI goes 3D, boosting processing power

A breakthrough development in photonic-electronic hardware could significantly boost processing power for AI and machine learning applications. The approach uses multiple radio frequencies to encode data, enabling multiple calculations to be carried out in parallel. The method shows promise for outperforming state-of-the-art electronic processors, with further enhancements possible. In a paper published today in Nature Photonics, researchers from the University of Oxford, along with collaborators from the Universities of Muenster, Heidelberg, and Exeter, report on their development ...

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Technology19 Oct 2023

First Nations-led A.I. technology holds promise for salmon recovery

Scientists and natural resource managers from Canadian First Nations, governments, academic institutions, and conservation organizations published the first results of a unique salmon population monitoring tool in Frontiers in Marine Science. This groundbreaking new technology, dubbed “Salmon Vision,” combines artificial intelligence with age-old fishing weir technology. Early assessments show it to be remarkably adept at identifying and counting fish species, potentially enabling real-time salmon population monitoring for fisheries managers. “In ...

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Technology19 Oct 2023

CHIPS and Science Act spurs NanoFab cleanroom ribbon cutting at NYU Tandon School of Engineering

NYU leadership - including recently inaugurated President Linda Mills and NYU Tandon School of Engineering Dean Jelena Kovačević - joined University faculty and partners on October 18th to cut the ribbon at the newly-minted NYU Nanofabrication (NanoFab) Cleanroom, a specialized research environment in which scientists and engineers can fabricate cutting-edge semiconductor chips to advance research on quantum science and engineering, precision medicine, neurotechnologies, next-generation communications technology and secure computing. Located on NYU Tandon’s ...

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Technology18 Oct 2023

US Air Force funds multi-university initiative to study hybrid control, $1.5M annually

The U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research has funded a new Multi-University Research Initiative to be led by Yuliy Baryshnikov, a professor of mathematics and electrical & computer engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. The initiative, Hybrid Dynamics – Deconstruction and Aggregation, or HyDDRA, will bring researchers from four universities together to address the problem of hybrid control using modern mathematical tools. The initiative will be funded with an award ...

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Technology18 Oct 2023

UBC Okanagan researchers hope to prevent catastrophes with next-generation sensors

As the wind and rain pound the blades of a wind turbine, UBC Okanagan researchers carefully monitor screens, hundreds of kilometres away analyzing if the blade’s coatings can withstand the onslaught. While this was only a test in a lab, the researchers are working to improve the way structures such as turbines, helicopter propellers and even bridges are monitored for wear and tear from the weather. A changing climate is increasing the need for better erosion-corrosion monitoring in a wide range of industries from aviation to marine transportation and from renewable energy generation to construction, explains UBC Okanagan doctoral student Vishal Balasubramanian. In ...

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Technology18 Oct 2023

Protecting polar bears aim of new and improved radar technology

Research testing new technology to more effectively locate polar bear dens across the Arctic is showing promising results. Researchers from Simon Fraser University and Brigham Young University (BYU), collaborating with Polar Bears International, hope that improving detection tools to locate dens—which are nearly invisible and buried under snow—will help efforts to protect mother polar bears and their cubs. Results of a pilot study aimed at improving den location in Churchill, Manitoba—using ARTEMIS Inc., an imaging system that relies on Synthetic Aperture Radar, or SAR—are published this week ...

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Technology18 Oct 2023

Robotic prosthetic ankles improve ‘natural’ movement, stability

Robotic prosthetic ankles that are controlled by nerve impulses allow amputees to move more “naturally,” improving their stability, according to a new study from North Carolina State University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “This work focused on ‘postural control,’ which is surprisingly complicated,” says Helen Huang, corresponding author of the study and the Jackson Family Distinguished Professor in the Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering at NC State and UNC. “Basically, when we are standing still, ...

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Technology18 Oct 2023

Trends, outcomes of assisted reproductive technology cycles using a gestational carrier

About The Study: There was an increased likelihood of live birth among assisted reproductive technology cycles with a gestational carrier versus those without a gestational carrier in this analysis of 2014 to 2020 national surveillance data. Gestational carrier use was a risk factor for twins, even after adjusting for the number of embryos transferred. More than one-quarter of embryo transfers to gestational carriers involved two or more embryos despite national recommendations of single embryo transfer. Authors: Lisa M. Shandley, M.D, M.Sc., of the Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, is the corresponding author. To access ...

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