August 27th, 2008
MeteoSwiss watches the skies in 3D
MeteoSwiss, the Switzerland’s National Weather service, is using a new system to build 3D maps of Swiss skies. This LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) weather measurement system has been developed at the Lausanne-based Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL). According to EPFL, this new system will be able to provide real-time maps of atmospheric humidity to the Swiss weather forecasting researchers. It can collect data continuously by shooting laser beams in the sky 30 times per second. This should help to make more accurate weather forecasts in Switzerland, a country where you can go from 4,000-meters mountains to places close to sea level in less than 200 kilometers on the ground. But read more…
You can see on the left some parts of the new LIDAR system installed in Western Switzerland’s weather forecasting headquarters. (Credit: EPFL) These pictures are part of this gallery. Here are direct links to much larger versions of the top, the middle and the bottom pictures displayed on the left.
Here are some details given by EPFL about this system, which was co-funded by MeteoSwiss (54%), the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, EPFL, (39%) and the Swiss National Science Foundation (7%). “The LIDAR system developed by EPFL is a relative of the familiar RADAR systems used widely in weather forecasting. Instead of sending radio waves out looking for water droplets, however, the LIDAR sends a beam of light vertically into the sky. The ‘echo’ here is a reflection of that light from different layers in the atmosphere. This reflection is used to build an instantaneous vertical profile of temperature and humidity. The spatial and temporal resolution is excellent – the laser beam can be shot 30 times per second, a vast improvement over weather balloons that take minutes to reach the upper atmosphere and can be sent out only a few times a day. And even though it’s state-of-the-art technology, the LIDAR developed by EPFL is stable and reliable; even after a test run of several months, it did not need tuning. Traditional LIDAR systems are more finicky, typically needing to be tuned on a daily basis.”
In order to shoot its beams vertically, this system needs a special installation. Here are some details provided by MeteoSwiss about this LIDAR project. “The system will be installed in a cabin, divided into two distinct rooms: a “white” room containing the system itself, with a hole in the roof allowing the Lidar beam to be sent and the backscattered light to be collected, and a computer room, from which the system will be operated.” [You can see a diagram of this installation on the page mentioned just above.]
swissinfo gives us more information in this article from Simon Bradley, “Laser technology is being used to produce real-time 3D maps of atmospheric humidity” (August 27, 2008). For example, this LIDAR system “can also detect fine particles, including pollen, and from 2010 will be able to build up 3D temperature profiles.”
Of course, this system has some limitations. “Unfortunately, the new system can only be used two-thirds of the time, said Bertrand Calpini, head of the MeteoSwiss Aerological Station in Payerne. ‘When it’s raining or snowing or with low cloud cover, the system is blind and can’t work. The laser light can’t get through the clouds,’ he said. ‘There is no way around it.’” So this system will complement other instruments already used by MeteoSwiss in its forecasting toolkit.
If you want to know how much such a system, I’m afraid it’s a Swiss secret. “Officials were vague about the overall cost of the innovative project, ‘SFr 750,000 for the hardware and 20 years’ research work which amount to millions.’ But the investment is worth it, they claim.”
Sources: Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, August 26, 2008; and various websites
You’ll find related stories by following the links below.
August 26th, 2008
Sign language over cell phones in the U.S.
Thanks to University of Washington (UW) computer scientists, hearing-impaired users might soon be able to use sign language over a mobile phone, like in Japan or Sweden. The research team received a grant from the U.S. National Science Foundation to start a 20-person field project next year in Seattle. Of course, deaf people were already able to use text messages for communication. But as said the lead researcher, ‘the point is you want to be able to communicate in your native language. For deaf people that’s American Sign Language (ASL).’ Now the researchers have to convince a commercial cell phone manufacturer to integrate their MobileASL software before this service becomes widely available. But read more…
You can see on the left some of the visualization techniques used for this project. (Credit: UW) These images have been extracted from a technical paper named “Activity Detection in Conversational Sign Language Video for Mobile Telecommunication” (PDF format, 12 pages, 430 KB). This paper will be included in the Proceedings of the 8th IEEE International Conference on Automatic Face and Gesture Recognition (FG 2008) which will be held in September 2008 at Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Please read this paper to learn more about these visualization techniques.
The principal investigator (PI) of this project is Eve Riskin, a UW professor of electrical engineering. The MobileASL team also includes Richard Ladner, a UW professor of computer science and engineering, Sheila Hemami, a professor of electrical engineering at Cornell University and Jacob Wobbrock, an assistant professor in the UW’s Information School. And obviously, many students were involved as well.
Now, let’s see why two-way real-time video communication is not really possible today in the U.S. “Low data transmission rates on U.S. cellular networks, combined with limited processing power on mobile devices, have so far prevented real-time video transmission with enough frames per second that it could be used to transmit sign language. Communication rates on United States cellular networks allow about one-tenth of the data rates common in places such as Europe and Asia.”
So the team designed its software to work even with this bandwidth problem. “The team tried different ways to get comprehensible sign language on low-resolution video. They discovered that the most important part of the image to transmit in high resolution is around the face. This is not surprising, since eye-tracking studies have already shown that people spend the most time looking at a person’s face while they are signing.”
For more details, please visit the MobileASL project home page.
August 23rd, 2008
Gold nanoparticles purified air in old churches
Chemists from Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Australia, have found that the air in medieval European churches was purified by gold nanoparticles used to paint their stained glass windows. As said the team leader, ‘glaziers in medieval forges were the first nanotechnologists.’ [This is not completely true: nanocosmetics were used since the Pharaohs and Renaissance potters also were early nanotechnologists.] Anyway, when the gold nanoparticles are energized by the sun, they are able to destroy air-borne pollutants like volatile organic chemical (VOCs), which may often come from paint. The research team expects that this will help to develop more cost-effective and eco-friendly chemicals at room temperature. But read more…
You can see on the left a photo of the team leader of this project, Huai Yong Zhu, an associate professor in the School of Physical and Chemical Sciences who said that “For centuries people appreciated only the beautiful works of art, and long life of the colours, but little did they realise that these works of art are also, in modern language, photocatalytic air purifier with nanostructured gold catalyst.” (Credit: QUT) Here is a list of his recent publications.
And here are some additional quotes from Zhu Huai Yong. “These VOCs create that ‘new’ smell as they are slowly released from walls and furniture, but they, along with methanol and carbon monoxide, are not good for your health, even in small amounts. Gold, when in very small particles, becomes very active under sunlight. The electromagnetic field of the sunlight can couple with the oscillations of the electrons in the gold particles and creates a resonance. The magnetic field on the surface of the gold nanoparticles can be enhanced by up to hundred times, which breaks apart the pollutant molecules in the air.”
According to Zhu, the only byproduct is carbon dioxide, which is created in relatively small amounts by the process, and which is not as harmful as the VOCs that the nanoparticles eliminate. Zhu also thinks that the use of gold nanoparticles to drive chemical reactions is very energy efficient because the technology is solar-powered.
Sources: Queensland University of Technology, Australia, August 21, 2008; and various websites
You’ll find related stories by following the links below.
August 22nd, 2008
Better networked soldiers
The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has recently given a US$500K award to a computer scientist of the Washington University in St. Louis (WUSTL). His research project is called ‘Revolutionizing Defense Communications with a Diversified Internet Infrastructure.’ Crowley will design a new kind of network for the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD). The goal is to ‘facilitate real-time information in the field so that every foot soldier, commander, tank and transport vehicle is networked.’ Crowley thinks that commanders engaged in tactical combat-type situations ‘want to understand the location and states of all the platforms, equipment and personnel in real-time.’ And he adds he can help — and maybe save some lives. But read more…
You can see on the left a photo of Patrick Crowley, an assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science & Engineering at WUSTL and a member of the Applied Research Laboratory. (Credit: WUSTL on this page) You’ll find more information on Crowley’s activities by visiting his personal home page which lists all his publications.
This is the second phase of Crowley’s participation in the DARPA Computer Science Study Group (CSSG). This phase “consists of a research portion selected and funded through an additional round of competitive reviews. Crowley, a computer architect, intends to design a new kind of network for the DoD to facilitate real-time information in the field so that every foot soldier, commander, tank and transport vehicle is networked.
Here are some quotes from Crowley. “‘Imagine tactical combat-type situations where commanders in part of a region want to understand the location and states of all the platforms, equipment and personnel in real-time,’ Crowley said. ‘At WUSTL we have a programmable network platform that can scale real-time information sharing over several orders of magnitude, from a handful of interconnected platforms to thousands and tens of thousands. The core idea is information sharing. What had been lacking was knowledge of platform components. Now we have that knowledge and can try it out.’”
He also added that “the DoD has ‘extraordinary’ technologies, such as autonomous aircraft predator drones that can monitor people with cameras from seven to eight miles away. But because of the way the computer is architected, it’s limited to just a few visual feeds that only a few people can observe simultaneously. ‘That’s the kind of thing that I hope our network can do,’ Crowley said. ‘In a short amount of time you should be able to have not only video feeds from the predator, but feeds from individual soldiers in the field.’”
Sources: Washington University in St. Louis news release, August 7, 2008; and various websites
You’ll find related stories by following the links below.
August 20th, 2008
Nanospheres moving faster than light?
In recent years, I don’t think I’ve spent a month without a report about a new way to exceed the speed of light. Yesterday, University of Pennsylvania researchers announced a theoretical way to increase the speed of pulses of light which could bring optical computing closer to reality. The scientists claimed that their metallic nanosized particles could reach 2.5 times the speed of light. As said the research team, ‘application of this theory would use nanosized metal chains as building blocks for novel optoelectronic and optical devices, which would operate at higher frequencies than conventional electronic circuits.’ So when will see high-speed optical computers? Expect a few years, but read more…
This theory has been developed at the Department of Bioengineering of the University of Pennsylvania by Alexander Govyadinov, a post doctoral researcher, and by Vadim Markel, an assistant professor who also holds a job in the Department of Radiology. Both of them are members of the Penn Optics and Imaging Group.
So what is the team’s theory about? “Recent developments in nanotechnology have enabled researchers to fabricate nanoparticle chains with great precision and fidelity. Penn’s research team took advantage of this technological advance by utilizing metallic nanoparticles as a chain of miniature waveguides that exchange light. Currently, the advance is theoretical. But, from a practical standpoint, the creation of a metallic nanochain would provide the combination of smaller-diameter optical components coupled with larger bandwidth, making them optimal wave guiding materials. As the velocity of the light pulse increases, so too does the operating bandwidth of a waveguide. Increasing the bandwidth helps to increase the number of information channels, allowing more information to flow simultaneously through a waveguide.”
And what kind of results did the team reach? “Researchers investigated changing the shape of particles in an attempt to increase this bandwidth. Spherically-shaped nanoparticles, the shape used almost exclusively in early research, provide narrow bandwidths of light. As Markel and Govyadinov discovered, shaping the particles as prolate, cigar-shaped or oblate, saucer-shaped, spheroids boosted the velocities of surface plasmon pulses reflecting off the surface to 2.5 times the speed of light in a vacuum.”
I’m sure the vast majority of you thinks that the theory of relativity prohibits anything from moving faster than light. Here are some explanations by the researchers about their theory. “But what is a ‘thing’?’ Markel said. ‘A very powerful flashlight directed at the moon would theoretically create a bright spot on its surface. By simply turning the flashlight sideways, the flashlight’s beam streaks across the sky at speeds far exceeding the speed of light. This evidence has long been known and dismissed, since the bright spot cannot be used for superluminal, or faster-than-light communication, between the earth and the moon. The fast motion of the bright spot is simply a geometrical artifact, similar, in some ways, to the point at which the two blades of closing scissors intersect. The theory of relativity does not concern such purely geometrical objects.’”
If you’re not convinced by this explanation, this theoretical work has been published in Physical Review B under the title “From slow to superluminal propagation: Dispersive properties of surface plasmon polaritons in linear chains of metallic nanospheroids” (Volume 78, Number 3, Article 035403, July 15, 2008). Here is the end of the abstract. “We demonstrate superluminal propagation of Gaussian wave packets in numerical simulations. Both theory and simulations are based on Maxwell equations with account of retardation and, therefore, are fully relativistic.” If you want more information, here is a link to the full paper (PDF format, 12 pages, 1.09 MB), but be warned: reading it requires a solid mathematical background.
Sources: University of Pennsylvania news release, August 19, 2008; and various websites
You’ll find related stories by following the links below.
August 19th, 2008
New algorithm speeds up networks
Routing scalability has always been a problem in networking research. Now, computer scientists at UC San Diego (UCSD) have developed a new algorithm to improve the routing efficiency of networks. ‘Called XL, for approximate link state, the algorithm increases network routing efficiency by suppressing updates from parts of the system — updates which force connected networks to continuously re-calculate the paths they use in the great matrix of the Internet.’ The results presented today at the ACM SIGCOMM Conference show that XL outperforms standard algorithms, in some cases reducing the number of routing messages ten-fold. But read more…
You can see above how “the XL algorithm developed by computer scientists at UC San Diego significantly outperforms standard link-state and distance-vector algorithms, speeding routing in computer and communications networks.” (Credit: UCSD) The XL results are shown in green and are clearly better than other algorithms, at least in communication overhead. For your viewing pleasure, here is a link to a larger version of this figure.
This research work has been done at UCSD’s Center for Networked Systems (CNS) by the Systems and Networking group. The team was composed of Kirill Levchenko, a Ph.D. student working with three professors, Stefan Savage, Ramamohan Paturi and Geoffrey Voelker.
Let’s move to the UCSD news release for an introduction to this routing problem. “‘Routing in a static network is trivial,’ say the authors. ‘But most real networks are dynamic — network links go up and down — and thus some nodes need to recalculate their routes in response.’ The traditional approach, said Stefan Savage, professor of computer science at UC San Diego, ‘is to tell everyone; flood the topology change throughout the network and have each node re-compute its table of best routes — but that requirement to universally communicate, and to act on each change, is a big problem.’”
With their new routing algorithm, the researchers reduced the overhead of route computation by an order of magnitude. How did they achieve these results?
August 18th, 2008
Hand animation models for surgeons
Researchers at the University of British Columbia (UBC), Canada, have developed new computer animated models of the hand which show how the muscles and tendons function while moving. This new software uses ‘anatomical data from medical images to model the 17 bones and 54 tendons and muscles of the hand and forearm.’ With the help of this graphics software, surgeons will soon be able to reconstruct damaged hands more effectively. This work has been presented at the SIGGRAPH 2008 conference in Los Angeles on August 15, 2008. But read more…
You can see above a screenshot of the UBC hand simulator. “Fixed constraints are shown in cyan, sliding constraints in green, and surface constraints in maroon. Surface constraints allow the strands to move axially as well as laterally. The input animation target is shown in wireframe.” (Credit:UBC)
This research work has been done at UBC’s Sensorimotor Systems Laboratory. The team was composed of Shinjiro Sueda and Andrew Kaufman, under the supervision of Professor Dinesh K. Pai.
For the graphical interface, the research team has chosen to implement a plug-in for Maya (developed by Autodesk, Inc., San Rafael, CA). You can see above this Maya interface with their custom shelf. “Strands are shown in blue, and constraints are shown in green.” (Credit:UBC)
Here is how Sueda describes the team’s approach to New Scientist.
August 17th, 2008
Smart self-service scales
German researchers have developed new self-service scales able to automatically recognize fruit or vegetables placed on them. As says the lead scientist, ‘The scales automatically recognize which fruit or vegetables are to be weighed and ask the customer to choose between only those icons that are relevant,’ such as various kinds of tomatoes. These scales are equipped with a camera and an image evaluation algorithm which compares the image with other ones stored in its database. These scales are now being tested in about 300 supermarkets across Europe. But read more…
You can see above how “the intelligent self-service scales automatically recognize which type of fruit or vegetable has been placed on them.” (Credit: Fraunhofer IITB) If the resolution is not good enough for you, here is a link to a larger version of this photo.
This research work has been done at Fraunhofer Institute for Information and Data Processing (IITB) under a contract with the industrial weighing company Mettler-Toledo. This project has been led by IITB scientist Sascha Voth (page in German).
Now, let’s see how these scales can distinguish between various vegetables?
August 16th, 2008
Hairstyles for games and movies
U.S researchers have announced at the SIGGRAPH 2008 conference that they have developed a new method for accurately capturing the look of a person’s hairstyle for use in animated films and video games. The research team used multiple cameras, light sources and projectors. Then, the team created ‘algorithms to automatically ‘fill in the blanks’ and generate photo-realistic images of the hairstyles from new angles and new lighting situations.’ As said one member of the team, ‘we want to give movie and video game makers the tools necessary to animate actors and have their hair look and behave as it would in the real world.’ But read more…
You can see above how the method works. Here is what the research team says. “Our geometry reconstruction pipeline computes both a volumetric representation of hair position (bottom) and hair orientation (top). Our algorithm takes as input 16 uniformly images lit with all 150 LED lights turned on (one such image from each camera), 36 864 stripe images with a single line of light projected (768 lines per projector and 3 projectors), and 3 648 tracking images with all three projectors turned on (one such image every 10 stripe images). Hair fibers are then grown inside the volume and along the orientation, starting from the scalp.” (Credit: Adobe/MIT/UC San Diego)
This research work has been done by Sylvain Paris and Wojciech Matusik from Adobe Systems, Inc. The UC San Diego researchers associated to this project are Will Chang, Wojciech Jarosz and Matthias Zwicker. The last two researchers, Oleg Kozhushnyan and Frédo Durand work at the MIT.
August 15th, 2008
Beijing Olympic logos written by nano pens
Northwestern University (NU) researchers have used a new printing technique, called Polymer Pen Lithography (PPL), to print 15,000 Beijing Olympic logos on one square centimeter. Besides this ‘marketing’ approach, the PPL technique is very innovative. It can write on three different length scales — nanometer, micrometer and millimeter — using only one device. This new printing method could soon be used for more serious applications. Some of them include ‘computational tools (the electronics that make up these tools), medical diagnostics (gene chips and arrays of biomolecules) and the pharmaceutical industry (arrays for screening drug candidates).’ But read more…
You can see on the left one of these tiny Beijing Olympic logos. (Credit: NU, via Wired News, link to a larger version) The NU news releas adds that “each Olympic logo is so small — 70 micrometers long and 60 micrometers wide — that 2,500 of them would fit on a grain of rice.”
This research project has been led by Chad Mirkin, Professor of Chemistry, Professor of Medicine, Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, and Director of the International Institute for Nanotechnology at Northwestern University. I’m amazed. How can this scientist fill all these roles? And I have an additional question: is he paid for all these positions or does he have a single contract with Northwestern University? Please send me your comments if you know more about Mirkin’s situation.
Of course, Mirkin wasn’t alone to work on this project. Fengwei Huo, Zijian Zheng, Gengfeng Zheng, Louise Giam and Hua Zhang, all members of his research group were part of this effort. The company that Mirkin created, NanoInk, was also involved.
Here is a description of what is PPL. “Polymer Pen Lithography uses arrays of tiny pens made of polymers to print over large areas with nanoscopic through macroscopic resolution. By simply changing contact pressure (and the amount the pens deform), as well as the time of delivery, dots of various diameters can be produced. (The pen tips snap back to their original shape when the pressure is removed.)”
Apparently, the technique is ready to use because it only took two hours to the researchers to design this microscopic Beijing Olympic logo.
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