Informatics & Technology
Cradle-to-Cradle principles change how products are designed
Industry from the very beginning has treated natural resources as essentially infinite, and the world’s capacity to accommodate waste with the same regard. As the economy becomes global, we now understand this is not true – so the way we make products also should change. EPEA Switzerland has developed ‘Reference Model Cradle-to-Cradle Design Innovations’. Their reference model works for every product […]
Information aggregation in Arrow-Debreu markets: An experiment
Can market prices fully disclose the true state of the world when traders have identical or homogeneous partial private information? Lawrence Choo, a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg and research fellow at the University of Haifa, Todd R Kaplan, Professor of Economics at the University of Exeter Business School and Associate Professor in the Department of Economics at […]
Using WebGIS for disaster management: An insight into the work of a defence scientist
The research of Dr Abdalla of Sultan Qaboos University explores the use of WebGIS systems for integrating remote sensing data along with other geospatial data, to investigate environmental conditions in selected coastal regions in the Sultanate of Oman. In this way, he is creating technologies that help mitigate natural disasters through assessing potential scenarios that may occur should a disaster […]
Quantifying layered patterns in nature, medicine, and materials
The morphology of layered anisotropic systems plays a crucial part in the development of new materials as well as in medical, forensic and biomimetic research. The ability to quantitatively describe these morphologies is required for solving scientific and engineering problems. Dr Igor Smolyar, from the National Centers for Environment Information/NOAA, Professor Tim Bromage, from New York University and Professor Dr […]
More and better crops: Beyond the science and access to technology
With hunger still a global problem, solutions to achieve food security are more important than ever. Plant breeding for crop improvement remains one of the answers, but the sector faces many issues that don’t involve scientific innovations within breeding itself. Processes and mindsets need to be changed in order to maximise efficiency within the sector, and some organisations are doing […]
Protein structure prediction with machine learning
Shuichiro Makigaki and Dr Takashi Ishida, from the Department of Computer Science at Tokyo Institute of Technology, are developing a new sequence alignment generation model that employs machine learning and dynamic programming to predict protein structures. This novel methodology can also be applied to homology detection which is fundamental to bioinformatics. A protein’s function is dictated by its three-dimensional structure. If the structure is […]
Crisis management: Using Artificial Intelligence to help save lives
Climate change, and humanitarian issues such as the movement of refugees can create challenges for crisis management and emergency response, particularly in developing countries. Dr Mayank Kejriwal, based at the University of Southern California is passionate about applying Artificial Intelligence (AI) to social problems. He is working with colleagues to develop tools that extract critical data sent via social media […]
Qualitative monitoring of information infrastructures: A case study
When it comes to measuring the effectiveness of research and implementation projects, funders usually favour hard facts and statistics that easily translate into soundbites. As a result, quantitative evaluation methods usually win the day. But a European Directive to create an infrastructure to allow countries to capture, use and share computerised environmental data (geographic information systems, or GIS) has also […]
How Industry 4.0 affects SMEs in Germany and China
The world has experienced three industrial revolutions in 250 years. Each has radically changed both manufacturing processes and our working and daily lives. Now we are on the threshold of a fourth, the digitally enabled and interconnected “Industry 4.0” whose impact could be even greater still. Professor Dr Julian Müller, from the Salzburg University of Applied Sciences in Austria, studied small […]
Sender-controlled private email Electronic privacy with EPRIVO
Dr Csaba Andras Moritz, Founder and Chairman of BlueRISC Inc. and Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at University of Massachusetts Amherst, together with Senior Research Scientist Dr Santosh Khasanvis, Technical Director Kristopher Carver, and research staff, are addressing digital privacy issues. In particular, the team are exploring the vulnerability of communication to privacy violations, and enabling private collaborations with […]