The U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory is increasingly relying on computer simulation and modeling to carry out nuclear energy research. “The traditional approach to developing nuclear energy technologies is to do a bunch of experiments to demonstrate a process or reaction,” notes Argonne’s program manager for the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership Mark Peters. “What Argonne is doing is creating a set of integrated models that demonstrate and validate new technologies, using a smaller number of experiments.” Argonne’s nuclear simulation project leader Andrew Siegel adds that virtual experimentation can substantially lower facilities’ costs by improving the identification and targeting of the physical experiments underlying their design. He says Argonne computational researchers are developing SHARP (Simulation-based High-efficiency Reactor Prototyping) software components that digitally emulate physical processes that transpire within a reactor core. The SHARP toolkit has been devised to exploit the lab’s Advanced Leadership Computing Facility featuring IBM’s Blue Gene/P computer, which runs at a sustained rate of 1 petaflop per second. SHARP could ultimately supplant computer codes that are used to carry out safety assessments of aging nuclear reactors, and Siegel says simulation tools such as SHARP could potentially save millions of dollars in reactor design development and assembly.

University of Ottawa Master’s student Kris Woodbeck is mapping how the human brain interacts with technology to power a search engine for visual images. The search engine mimics how the brain processes visual information and capitalizes on the processing capabilities of graphics processors. “The brain is very parallel. There’s lots of things going on at once,” Woodbeck says. “Graphics processors are also very parallel, so it’s a case of almost mapping the brain onto graphics processors, getting them to process visual information more effectively.” Woodbeck believes his research has potential for use in medical and military applications as well as facial recognition. Search engine specialist Guy Creese says vendors are struggling to find the right kind of artificial intelligence to extract the content of an image to create accurate metadata. “In text, you’ve got a lot of metadata compared to images,” Creese says. “For images, it might be when you took it, with what camera, with what exposure, that’s about it … How do you surface that metadata so it becomes much more searchable?” Creese says the biggest problem is that indexing image content is a manually intensive job that most organizations do not have the manpower to accomplish. Woodbeck says he has been testing his search engine on academic datasets that include between 60,000 and 100,000 images.

Academics are focusing their attention on petascale computers that can perform 1 quadrillion, or 1 million billion, operations per second, almost 10 times faster than today’s fastest supercomputers. Petascale computing is expected to create solutions to global challenges such as environmental sustainability, disease prevention, and disaster recovery. “Petascale Computing: Algorithms and Applications,” by Georgia Tech computing professor David A. Bader, was recently released, becoming the first published collection on petascale techniques for computational science and engineering. Bader says the past 50 years has seen a fundamental change in the scientific method, with computation joining theory and experimentation as a means for scientific discovery. “Computational science enables us to investigate phenomena where economics or constraints preclude experimentation, evaluate complex models and manage massive data volumes, model processes across interdisciplinary boundaries, and transform business and engineering practices,” Bader says. However, petascale computing will also create new challenges in designing algorithms and applications. “Several areas are important for this task: scalable algorithm design for massive concurrency, computational science and engineering applications, petascale tools, programming methodologies, performance analyses, and scientific visualization,” Bader says. He expects to see the first peak petascale systems in 2008, with sustained petascale systems following shortly behind.

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s “Adaptive Use Musical Instruments for the Physically Challenged” program enables students with severe physical disabilities to make music by just moving their heads. The system uses a digital video camera to track a student’s head movements on a computer screen and then translates the movements into piano scales or drum beats. Zane Van Dusen, a RPI undergraduate student in computer science and electronic media arts and communication, developed the idea of using a digital video camera to track the user’s head. A cursor is digitally placed on a portion of the student’s head, usually the tip of the nose, to follow the user’s movements. As the cursor moves, sounds are created based on the user’s movements. Moving the head completely in one direction will create a scale climb on the piano or a quick series of drum beats or a drum roll. The project’s ultimate goal is to eventually enable students to compose their own pieces to help students learn the creative process and build communication skills. “The client or patient doesn’t have to be a musician to participate,” says the American Musical Therapy Association’s Al Bumanis. “The goal is not usually a performance, it’s increasing communication skills, understanding, relearning lost skills.”

Technological advancements in sensing technology makes it possible to take more accurate measurements of brain activity, something computer scientists and neuroscientists say could lead to the discovery of the complex neuronal networks in the brain that allow for simple, automatic movements such as reaching for a glass of water. Virginia Tech and General Motors Research are opening the Laboratory for Neuroinformatics for the purpose of creating algorithms that process the massive amounts of data neuroscientists collect from the brain. The lab will be co-directed by Virginia Tech computer science professor Naren Ramakrishnan and General Motors research scientist K.P. Unnikrishnan. “Neuroscientists are making the transition from studying neurons to studying networks–the sequences of firings and spikes of activity across big groups of neurons,” Ramakrishnan says. “What we are trying to do is analyze all this data and discover something about the network–the connections and relationships.” Unnikrishnan says the many possible applications of neuroscience-related research include analyzing data from cars and maintaining vehicle health. But even greater applications are possible, Unnikrishnan says. “Creation of brain-machine interfaces is the next frontier,” Unnikrishnan says. “Giving senses to people who have lost them–vision, touch, hearing, and motor–would be a contribution to humanity.”

And its looking cool

Here we take a look at some of the short-range technologies that may hasten our farewell to the humble wire.

BLUE TOOTH:

Bluetooth is often equated with the wire-free connection between a headset and mobile phone, but it is in fact used to connect a whole range of devices, including digital cameras, laptops, PCs and games consoles.

The technology consists of chips that use radio signals to transfer information over short distances (typically less than 30m/100ft).

Bluetooth 2.0 is the current version used in most devices and can transfer information that requires low to moderate bandwidths – up to about three megabits per second (Mbps), slightly higher than average broadband speeds.

The technology has relatively low power consumption.

WIBREE / ULP BLUETOOTH:

Wibree, developed by mobile firm Nokia, is able to transfer small amounts of data (in the order of a few kilobits per second) between devices using very little power.

For this reason, it can be used in smaller devices such as watches or gaming sensors.

Bluetooth Special Interest Group (Sig) recently took over Wibree. The result, Bluetooth’s Sig says, will be ultra-low power (ULP) Bluetooth that will sit alongside and be compatible with current Bluetooth enabled-devices.

A whole range of applications have been proffered, from sport and fitness sensors to healthcare devices, such as glucose monitors.

The first ULP products are expected to hit the market in 2008.

ZIGBEE:

Zigbee technology, unlike Bluetooth or Wibree, uses mesh networking.

Mesh networking allows information to be sent through multiple devices, rather than just the two that are “talking” to each other. This has the effect of boosting Zigbee’s data transmission range (potentially to hundreds of metres) and strengthens the network.

Zigbee has lower power consumption than Bluetooth, but it also offers a lower bandwidth for data – 256 kilobits per second – which is comparable to early broadband speeds.

For this reason it is used in industrial and home automation systems, such as for lighting and heating systems.

NFC: 

NFC stands for Near Field Communication. It is a very short range technology: NFC enabled devices can transfer a few kilobits when held a few centimetres apart.

Because of its short transmission range, NFC advocates say it is a secure way of transferring vulnerable information.

Mobile phone companies are interested in the technology; it is envisaged that an NFC- enabled mobile could be used to transfer small payments in coffee shops or newsagents, for example.

It is suggested as the technology to could be used in electronic keys, identity documents, tickets and travel documents.

 WIRELESS USB:

Wireless USB essentially offers the same things as USB devices, but without the cables. It means that items such as printers, cameras and hard drives can be connected to a PC wirelessly.

It uses ultra-wideband (UWB), a common radio platform that allows large amounts of data to be transferred in pulses, wirelessly. Bluetooth has also announced it will use this UWB platform as a connection method, although products are not yet available.

Its data transfer rate is up to 2Gbps and some have suggested it could be used to transfer large data streams such as high definition video. It is not as power-hungry as its data carrying capacity suggests as it sends information in short bursts rather than continuously.

The first wireless USB products are just beginning to come onto the market.

WI-FI: 

Wi-fi (or wireless fidelity) allows connection to the internet, at broadband speeds, without the need for cables.

It has become extremely popular in homes, offices and cafes, and some city centres, such as Norwich, UK, are now wi-fi zones.

As well as using wi-fi to connect to the net, the technology is also being used to connect devices such as TVs and DVDs to computers.

Current wi-fi (standards 802.11b and 802.11g) can carry data at up to 54Mbps, other forthcoming versions will be even faster – standard 802.11n will be able to carry at 200Mbps, which would allow HD video to be transferred.

However, wi-fi has very high power consumption compared with Bluetooth or Zigbee.

 DECT:

Dect (Digitally Enhanced Cordless Telecommunications) is typically used for digital cordless phones. Using radio signals, it carries voice data within a 100m range.

It has been a hugely successful technology; cordless phones are used in many homes around the world.

Now, Cordless Advanced Technology (Cat) iq will build upon Dect, by adding Voip and radio services to Dect’s capabilities.

As well as using a handset for telephony, consumers will also be able to use them to listen to internet radio or to browse online phone directories, for example.

The first products are expected to be available later this year.