Posts
Monday, September 15, 2014
breath to speech
http://motherboard.vice.com/en_ca/read/an-indian-teenager-built-a-device-to-convert-breath-into-speech
A 16-year-old from India has designed a device that converts breath into speech. High-school student Arsh Shah Dilbagi invented TALK as a portable and affordable way to aid people suffering from ALS, locked-in syndrome, and anyone else speech-impaired or paralyzed. Prototyped using a basic $25 Arduino microcontroller, Dilbagi’s invention costs only $80, or about a hundred times less than the sort of Augmentative and Alternative Communication device used by Stephen Hawking.
TALK works by translating breath into electric signals using a MEMS Microphone, an advanced form of listeningtech that uses a diaphragm etched directly onto a silicon microchip. The user is expected to be able to give two distinguishable exhales, varying in intensity or time, so that they can spell words out using Morse code.
A microprocessor then interprets the breathes into dots and dashes, converting them into words. The words are then sent to a second microprocessor that synthesizes them into voice. The morse code can either be translated into English, or specific commands and phrases. The device features nine different voices varying in age and gender.
In his video explaining the device, Dilbagi (who prefers the nickname "Robo") notes that 1.4 percent of the population suffers from these sorts of disorders and they experience a lower life-expectancy in part due to lack of expression. With his affordable device, he has the potential to improve the lives of millions by giving them a means of communicating.
"After testing the final design with myself and friends and family, I was able to arrange a meeting with the Head of Neurology at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, New Delhi and tested TALK (under supervision of doctor and in controlled environment) with a person suffering from SEM and Parkinson's Disease," Robo wrote in his project report. "The person was able to give two distinguishable signals using his breath and the device worked perfectly."
Dilbagi was the only finalist from Asia in Google’s Global Science Fair, a competition open to 13 to 18 year old thinkers. Voting takes place online through today. Other projects submitted by teen geniuses include robots modeled after fruit flies; a new way to identify quasars; and an ultrasonic burner that reduces greenhouse gas emissions from car engines.
Thursday, September 11, 2014
transforming light into crystal
http://scienceblog.com/74321/solid-light-compute-previously-unsolvable-problems/#xcRbaviDwlQkk76W.97
The researchers are not shining light through crystal – they are transforming light intocrystal.
As part of an effort to develop exotic materials such as
room-temperature superconductors, the researchers have locked together
photons, the basic element of light, so that they become fixed in place.
“It’s something that we have never seen before,” said Andrew Houck, an associate professor of electrical engineering and one of the researchers. “This is a new behavior for light.”
The results raise intriguing possibilities for a variety of future materials. But the researchers also intend to use the method to address questions about the fundamental study of matter, a field called condensed matter physics.
“We are interested in exploring – and ultimately controlling and directing – the flow of energy at the atomic level,” said Hakan Türeci, an assistant professor of electrical engineering and a member of the research team. “The goal is to better understand current materials and processes and to evaluate materials that we cannot yet create.”
The team’s findings, reportedonline on Sept. 8 in the journal Physical Review X, are part of an effort to answer fundamental questions about atomic behavior by creating a device that can simulate the behavior of subatomic particles. Such a tool could be an invaluable method for answering questions about atoms and molecules that are not answerable even with today’s most advanced computers.
In part, that is because current computers operate under the rules of classical mechanics, which is a system that describes the everyday world containing things like bowling balls and planets. But the world of atoms and photons obeys the rules of quantum mechanics, which include a number of strange and very counterintuitive features. One of these odd properties is called “entanglement” in which multiple particles become linked and can affect each other over long distances.
The difference between the quantum and classical rules limits a standard computer’s ability to efficiently study quantum systems. Because the computer operates under classical rules, it simply cannot grapple with many of the features of the quantum world. Scientists have long believed that a computer based on the rules of quantum mechanics could allow them to crack problems that are currently unsolvable. Such a computer could answer the questions about materials that the Princeton team is pursuing, but building a general-purpose quantum computer has proven to be incredibly difficult and requires further research.
Another approach, which the Princeton team is taking, is to build a system that directly simulates the desired quantum behavior. Although each machine is limited to a single task, it would allow researchers to answer important questions without having to solve some of the more difficult problems involved in creating a general-purpose quantum computer. In a way, it is like answering questions about airplane design by studying a model airplane in a wind tunnel – solving problems with a physical simulation rather than a digital computer.
In addition to answering questions about currently existing material, the device also could allow physicists to explore fundamental questions about the behavior of matter by mimicking materials that only exist in physicists’ imaginations.
To build their machine, the researchers created a structure made of superconducting materials that contains 100 billion atoms engineered to act as a single “artificial atom.” They placed the artificial atom close to a superconducting wire containing photons.
By the rules of quantum mechanics, the photons on the wire inherit some of the properties of the artificial atom – in a sense linking them. Normally photons do not interact with each other, but in this system the researchers are able to create new behavior in which the photons begin to interact in some ways like particles.
“We have used this blending together of the photons and the atom to artificially devise strong interactions among the photons,” said Darius Sadri, a postdoctoral researcher and one of the authors. “These interactions then lead to completely new collective behavior for light – akin to the phases of matter, like liquids and crystals, studied in condensed matter physics.”
Türeci said that scientists have explored the nature of light for centuries; discovering that sometimes light behaves like a wave and other times like a particle. In the lab at Princeton, the researchers have engineered a new behavior.
“Here we set up a situation where light effectively behaves like a particle in the sense that two photons can interact very strongly,” he said. “In one mode of operation, light sloshes back and forth like a liquid; in the other, it freezes.”
The current device is relatively small, with only two sites where an artificial atom is paired with a superconducting wire. But the researchers say that by expanding the device and the number of interactions, they can increase their ability to simulate more complex systems – growing from the simulation of a single molecule to that of an entire material. In the future, the team plans to build devices with hundreds of sites with which they hope to observe exotic phases of light such as superfluids and insulators.
“There is a lot of new physics that can be done even with these small systems,” said James Raftery, a graduate student in electrical engineering and one of the authors. “But as we scale up, we will be able to tackle some really interesting questions.”
Besides Houck, Türeci, Sadri and Raftery, the research team included
Sebastian Schmidt, a senior researcher at the Institute for Theoretical
Physics at ETH Zurich, Switzerland. Support for the project was provided
by: the Eric and Wendy Schmidt Transformative Technology Fund; the
National Science Foundation; the David and Lucile Packard Foundation;
the U.S. Army Research Office; and the Swiss National Science
Foundation.
Read more at http://scienceblog.com/74321/solid-light-compute-previously-unsolvable-problems/#I0rPzFLyip23rCWR.99
‘Solid light’ could compute previously unsolvable problems
Researchers at Princeton
University have begun crystallizing light as part of an effort to answer
fundamental questions about the physics of matter.
“It’s something that we have never seen before,” said Andrew Houck, an associate professor of electrical engineering and one of the researchers. “This is a new behavior for light.”
The results raise intriguing possibilities for a variety of future materials. But the researchers also intend to use the method to address questions about the fundamental study of matter, a field called condensed matter physics.
“We are interested in exploring – and ultimately controlling and directing – the flow of energy at the atomic level,” said Hakan Türeci, an assistant professor of electrical engineering and a member of the research team. “The goal is to better understand current materials and processes and to evaluate materials that we cannot yet create.”
The team’s findings, reportedonline on Sept. 8 in the journal Physical Review X, are part of an effort to answer fundamental questions about atomic behavior by creating a device that can simulate the behavior of subatomic particles. Such a tool could be an invaluable method for answering questions about atoms and molecules that are not answerable even with today’s most advanced computers.
In part, that is because current computers operate under the rules of classical mechanics, which is a system that describes the everyday world containing things like bowling balls and planets. But the world of atoms and photons obeys the rules of quantum mechanics, which include a number of strange and very counterintuitive features. One of these odd properties is called “entanglement” in which multiple particles become linked and can affect each other over long distances.
The difference between the quantum and classical rules limits a standard computer’s ability to efficiently study quantum systems. Because the computer operates under classical rules, it simply cannot grapple with many of the features of the quantum world. Scientists have long believed that a computer based on the rules of quantum mechanics could allow them to crack problems that are currently unsolvable. Such a computer could answer the questions about materials that the Princeton team is pursuing, but building a general-purpose quantum computer has proven to be incredibly difficult and requires further research.
Another approach, which the Princeton team is taking, is to build a system that directly simulates the desired quantum behavior. Although each machine is limited to a single task, it would allow researchers to answer important questions without having to solve some of the more difficult problems involved in creating a general-purpose quantum computer. In a way, it is like answering questions about airplane design by studying a model airplane in a wind tunnel – solving problems with a physical simulation rather than a digital computer.
In addition to answering questions about currently existing material, the device also could allow physicists to explore fundamental questions about the behavior of matter by mimicking materials that only exist in physicists’ imaginations.
To build their machine, the researchers created a structure made of superconducting materials that contains 100 billion atoms engineered to act as a single “artificial atom.” They placed the artificial atom close to a superconducting wire containing photons.
By the rules of quantum mechanics, the photons on the wire inherit some of the properties of the artificial atom – in a sense linking them. Normally photons do not interact with each other, but in this system the researchers are able to create new behavior in which the photons begin to interact in some ways like particles.
“We have used this blending together of the photons and the atom to artificially devise strong interactions among the photons,” said Darius Sadri, a postdoctoral researcher and one of the authors. “These interactions then lead to completely new collective behavior for light – akin to the phases of matter, like liquids and crystals, studied in condensed matter physics.”
Türeci said that scientists have explored the nature of light for centuries; discovering that sometimes light behaves like a wave and other times like a particle. In the lab at Princeton, the researchers have engineered a new behavior.
“Here we set up a situation where light effectively behaves like a particle in the sense that two photons can interact very strongly,” he said. “In one mode of operation, light sloshes back and forth like a liquid; in the other, it freezes.”
The current device is relatively small, with only two sites where an artificial atom is paired with a superconducting wire. But the researchers say that by expanding the device and the number of interactions, they can increase their ability to simulate more complex systems – growing from the simulation of a single molecule to that of an entire material. In the future, the team plans to build devices with hundreds of sites with which they hope to observe exotic phases of light such as superfluids and insulators.
“There is a lot of new physics that can be done even with these small systems,” said James Raftery, a graduate student in electrical engineering and one of the authors. “But as we scale up, we will be able to tackle some really interesting questions.”
Read more at http://scienceblog.com/74321/solid-light-compute-previously-unsolvable-problems/#I0rPzFLyip23rCWR.99
Monday, September 8, 2014
Sunday, September 7, 2014
Thursday, August 14, 2014
X - Hungry Wolf - 1982
Listen high quality - would you have guessed what year it came out?
Now check the video - people who make music with this sound today dress like zombies and certainly would never smile:
Full album:
Wednesday, August 13, 2014
Skully AR-1 helmet - Android HUD
My thoughts:
This solves so many problems that ordinary wearable devices will not take on due to context. A helmet justifies an integrated system of inclusive interfaces for hearing and seeing that headphones and glasses cannot resolve (or have not).
from slashdot.org
Skully Systems has achieved Indiegogo funding for a high-tech Android 4.4 based motorcycle helmet with a head-up display (HUD), GPS navigation, and a 180-degree rearview camera. The Skully AR-1 helmet launched on Indiegogo on Aug. 10 and quickly blasted past its $250,000 flexible funding goal and has already surpassed $900,000 in funding. The helmet runs a heavily modified version of Android 4.4, with both screen size and safety in mind, according to Skully's Tow. 'You should not think of it as being Android as seen in a phone; it doesn't run the same skin,' wrote Tow on the Skully forum page. 'You instead should think of it as a variant of Linux, not Android per se. What counts is the device drivers, graphics rende
This solves so many problems that ordinary wearable devices will not take on due to context. A helmet justifies an integrated system of inclusive interfaces for hearing and seeing that headphones and glasses cannot resolve (or have not).
from slashdot.org
Skully Systems has achieved Indiegogo funding for a high-tech Android 4.4 based motorcycle helmet with a head-up display (HUD), GPS navigation, and a 180-degree rearview camera. The Skully AR-1 helmet launched on Indiegogo on Aug. 10 and quickly blasted past its $250,000 flexible funding goal and has already surpassed $900,000 in funding. The helmet runs a heavily modified version of Android 4.4, with both screen size and safety in mind, according to Skully's Tow. 'You should not think of it as being Android as seen in a phone; it doesn't run the same skin,' wrote Tow on the Skully forum page. 'You instead should think of it as a variant of Linux, not Android per se. What counts is the device drivers, graphics rende
Sunday, August 3, 2014
The Pill linked to increased breast cancer risk
Years ago (sometime between 2003-2005), there were reports that estrogen supplements could cause breast cancer for post menopausal women, and I immediately raised the question of how it should also be a concern for those taking birth control. It would seem like an obvious question, but I imagined that such a suggestion would create a great problem and threat to the pharmaceutical industry. I was surprised that the issue was never raised by anyone.
I also begin wondering whether long term use of birth control could cause disruption or infertility, such that women might require fertility drugs to get pregnant. So, I searched to compare average birth weights since the late 60s to present, but could not find enough data to conclude - my speculation was that birth weights may have gone down due to use of fertility drugs being used to counter the impact of long term birth control use.
--
Update:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2017/12/07/breast-cancer-study-finds-tumor-risk-increased-use-oral-contraceptives/929934001/
--
http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/the-pill-linked-to-increased-breast-cancer-risk-277937.html
A new statistical analysis finds that women under age 50 who were diagnosed with breast cancer were also more likely to have recently been on some versions of the Pill.
The increased cancer risk still translates to less than a 1% chance of developing breast cancer for most younger women, researchers emphasise, so the results should not outweigh the many benefits of taking oral contraceptives.
These results are not enough to change clinical practice or to discourage any women from taking birth control pills, said lead study author Elizabeth F Beaber of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, Washington.
Some past research suggests that the hormones in birth control pills could “feed” hormone-sensitive tumours and thereby raise younger women’s risk of a breast cancer diagnosis, or of developing more aggressive cancers.
However, birth control pills have evolved over the decades since their introduction and the hormone doses they contain have dropped steadily, so many studies are based on data for formulations that are no longer used, Beaber and her colleagues write in the journal Cancer Research.
To examine the risk in a group of women more recently taking birth control pills, Beaber’s team analysed data from a large healthcare delivery system, tracking birth control pill prescriptions and breast cancer diagnoses.
The researchers compared 1,102 women diagnosed with invasive breast cancer between 1990 and 2009 with 21,952 women without cancer who were of similar age.
Women who had taken oral contraception during the past year, according to pharmacy records, were more likely to be in the cancer group than those who had never taken birth control pills or who had taken them more than a year prior.
Contraceptives that contain higher doses of oestrogen or progestin were more strongly associated with increased cancer risk.
“Use of formulations with high dose oestrogen, ethynodiol diacetate [synthetic progestin], and specific triphasic oral contraceptives in the past year was associated with an increased breast cancer risk in our study, while other formulations, including low dose oestrogen oral contraceptives, did not appear to be associated with an elevated risk,” said Beaber.
Overall, the risk was higher for hormone-sensitive cancers than for other types of tumours, but that result was not statistically significant, meaning it could have been due to chance.
I also begin wondering whether long term use of birth control could cause disruption or infertility, such that women might require fertility drugs to get pregnant. So, I searched to compare average birth weights since the late 60s to present, but could not find enough data to conclude - my speculation was that birth weights may have gone down due to use of fertility drugs being used to counter the impact of long term birth control use.
--
Update:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2017/12/07/breast-cancer-study-finds-tumor-risk-increased-use-oral-contraceptives/929934001/
--
http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/the-pill-linked-to-increased-breast-cancer-risk-277937.html
A new statistical analysis finds that women under age 50 who were diagnosed with breast cancer were also more likely to have recently been on some versions of the Pill.
The increased cancer risk still translates to less than a 1% chance of developing breast cancer for most younger women, researchers emphasise, so the results should not outweigh the many benefits of taking oral contraceptives.
These results are not enough to change clinical practice or to discourage any women from taking birth control pills, said lead study author Elizabeth F Beaber of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, Washington.
Some past research suggests that the hormones in birth control pills could “feed” hormone-sensitive tumours and thereby raise younger women’s risk of a breast cancer diagnosis, or of developing more aggressive cancers.
However, birth control pills have evolved over the decades since their introduction and the hormone doses they contain have dropped steadily, so many studies are based on data for formulations that are no longer used, Beaber and her colleagues write in the journal Cancer Research.
To examine the risk in a group of women more recently taking birth control pills, Beaber’s team analysed data from a large healthcare delivery system, tracking birth control pill prescriptions and breast cancer diagnoses.
The researchers compared 1,102 women diagnosed with invasive breast cancer between 1990 and 2009 with 21,952 women without cancer who were of similar age.
Women who had taken oral contraception during the past year, according to pharmacy records, were more likely to be in the cancer group than those who had never taken birth control pills or who had taken them more than a year prior.
Contraceptives that contain higher doses of oestrogen or progestin were more strongly associated with increased cancer risk.
“Use of formulations with high dose oestrogen, ethynodiol diacetate [synthetic progestin], and specific triphasic oral contraceptives in the past year was associated with an increased breast cancer risk in our study, while other formulations, including low dose oestrogen oral contraceptives, did not appear to be associated with an elevated risk,” said Beaber.
Overall, the risk was higher for hormone-sensitive cancers than for other types of tumours, but that result was not statistically significant, meaning it could have been due to chance.
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