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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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Review: Reminder Packaging Can Help Medication Adherence
A review of studies conducted in the past few years shows instruction reminders on medication packaging helps some patients more closely follow those instructions. The review, led by health sciences professor Kamal Mahtani of Oxford University in the U.K., appears in the current issue of The Cochrane Library (paid subscription required). The analysis by Mahtani…
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Trial to Test Value of Genetic Tests for Heart Disease
The Stanford University Medical Center in California has begun a clinical trial to determine if giving patients genetic information about their risk of coronary artery disease will help motivate them to reduce that risk by changing their behavior. The study, just underway, is expected to be completed in December 2012. The trial will test the…
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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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AngelSoft Becomes Gust, Offers Start-Up Funding Platform
AngelSoft, a network of 600 angel investor groups, is rebranding itself under the new name Gust, and will offer both entrepreneurs and investors a common platform to make connections and develop partnerships. Gust says it has endorsements from more than 15 national and international investor associations, 150 venture capital funds, and 35,000 individual angel investors.…
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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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Cardiac Device Infections Linked to Higher Costs, Mortality
A team of academic and industry researchers have found an association between infections from cardiovascular implantable electronic devices (CIEDs) and increases in mortality and hospital care costs. The findings from this study appear online in the journal Archives of Internal Medicine (paid subscription required). The researchers, led by Muhammad Sohail, from the Mayo Clinic College…
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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.…