Tag: physical sciences
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Smartphone Advance Can Improve Efficiency, Extend Battery
Researchers at University of Michigan in Ann Arbor have devised a more efficient “idle mode” for smartphones and Wi-Fi devices that reduces power use and can extend battery life. Computer science and engineering professor Kang Shin and doctoral student Xinyu Zhang will present their discovery, still in proof-of-concept stage, next week at the ACM International…
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Campaign Begins to Boost Public Support for Biomed Research
An advocacy group kicked off a national media campaign to boost what the group says is flagging public support for biomedical research, focusing on the benefits to military veterans. However, the group’s own poll and other survey data suggest a sizable majority of Americans continues to support public funding of biomedical research. The Foundation for…
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Device Captures Vibrations to Power Wireless Sensors
Engineers at MIT have designed a miniature device that harvests energy from low-frequency vibrations to power wireless sensors for industrial or environmental monitoring. Mechanical engineering professor Sang-Gook Kim and Arman Hajati, now at FujiFilm Dimatix in Santa Clara, California, published their findings last month in the journal Applied Physics Letters (paid subscription required). While wireless…
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Sandia Lab Contributes Nearly $1B to California Economy
An analysis of economic output generated by Sandia National Laboratories shows the lab contributes nearly $1 billion to the California economy, particularly in and around its Livermore campus in the Bay Area. The report was prepared by the Center for Economic Development (CED) at California State University in Chico. The CED report defines economic output…
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Report: Electric Cars Can Balance Renewable Power Grid
A report from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) says the growing use of electric vehicles offers a way of balancing the intermittent nature of renewable sources in the Northwest U.S. power grid. PNNL, a unit of the U.S. Department of Energy, examined grid conditions in the Northwest Power Pool, which covers Idaho, Montana, Nevada,…
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Simulation Improves Safety at Traffic Intersections
A computer simulation developed at Tel Aviv University in Israel incorporates human behavior data with traffic statistics to determine environmental features that lead to black spots, intersections that experience a high incidence of traffic accidents. Environmental science Ph.D. student Gennady Waizman and colleagues discussed the SAFEPED model in July at the Geocomputation 2011 conference in…
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Consortium Funds Semiconductor Research in Emirates
Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC), a university-research consortium in Durham, North Carolina, announced seven research contracts will be awarded to four universities in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The new contracts continue the joint effort between SRC and the Advanced Technology Investment Company (ATIC) in the UAE begun last year on semiconductor sciences and technologies. The…
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Measure Devised of Disruption From Attacks on Wi-Fi Networks
Engineers at North Carolina State University in Raleigh have developed a way of measuring the potential disruption from various types of attacks on Wi-Fi networks. The tools proposed by professor of electrical and computer engineering professor Wenye Wang and her colleagues will appear in a forthcoming issue of the journal IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing.…
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Companies Need Better Mix of Business, Patent Strategies
Science and engineering companies often develop innovations based on multiple discoveries, which calls for better integration of their patent and business strategies, according to study by three intellectual property analysts. The paper by Deepak Somaya at the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana college of business (pictured left), with David Teece of University of California at…
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University, Company Partner on Contraband Nuclear Detector
Researchers at University of New Hampshire in Durham and Michigan Aerospace Corporation in Ann Arbor have received a contract from the U.S. Defense Threat Reduction Agency to build an instrument to accurately detect illicit radioactive materials from a safe distance. The one-year contract of $303,000 calls for a realistic field test of the device in…