ECE GYAN

Industry figures show the global rate of solar energy installations grew by 30 percent in one recent year, and the average cost of installing solar has fallen from $7 per watt to $2.8 per watt, making rooftop solar attractive to many more homeowners. But the progress of rooftop installations is often slowed by a shortage of trained professionals who must use expensive tools to conduct labor-intensive structure assessments one by one, say scientists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. To automate the process at present, say UMass Amherst College of Information and Computer Sciences (CICS) researchers led by Prashant Shenoy and Subhransu Maji, requires expensive three-dimensional aerial maps using LIDAR technology not available for many areas. Now their team is proposing a new, data-driven approach that uses machine learning techniques and widely available satellite images to identify roofs that have the most potential to produce cost-effective solar power. Shenoy, Maji an...

For decades, biomedical researchers have used mouse behavior to study pain, but some researchers have questioned the accuracy of the interpretations of how mice experience pain. Now, Rutgers University-Camden neuroscientist Nathan Fried and colleagues from the University of Pennsylvania have developed a method that can more accurately gauge pain in mice, which could lead researchers to discover new ways to treat pain in human patients. "When I touch the paw of a mouse, it withdraws the paw. That withdrawal movement is the behavior we've relied on for decades to determine if a pain reliever is working. But that withdrawal is seemingly the same no matter if it's a soft brush or a sharp needle," describes Fried. "So if a mouse moves its paw, how can we be sure it's because the mouse is in pain?" Using slow-motion video, modern neuroscience techniques, and artificial intelligence, Fried and his fellow researchers could zoom in and perform a more det...

Good cardiovascular health at age 50 is associated with a lower risk of dementia later in life, finds a study of British adults published by  The BMJ  today. The researchers say their findings support public health policies to improve cardiovascular health in middle age to promote later brain health. Dementia is a progressive disease that can start to develop 15-20 years before any symptoms appear, so identifying factors that might prevent its onset is important. The American Heart Association's "Life Simple 7" cardiovascular health score, initially designed for cardiovascular disease, has been put forward as a potential tool for preventing dementia. Designed for "primordial" prevention, where the aim is to prevent the development of risk factors themselves in order to affect risk of disease, it is the sum of four behavioural (smoking, diet, physical activity, body mass index) and three biological (fasting glucose, blood cholesterol, blood pressure) m...

New research led by Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Rochester Medical Center indicates that concussions aren't the sole cause of damage to the brain in contact sports. A study of college football players found that typical hits sustained from playing just one season cause structural changes to the brain. The researchers studied 38 University of Rochester players, putting accelerometers -- devices that measures accelerative force -- in their helmets for every practice and game. The players' brains were scanned in an MRI machine before and after a season of play. While only two players suffered clinically diagnosed concussions during the time they were followed in the study, the comparison of the post- and pre-season MRIs showed greater than two-thirds of the players experienced a decrease in the structural integrity of their brain. Specifically, the researchers found reduced white matter integrity in the midbrain after the season compared to before the se...

Researchers at Stanford University have found that spraying a gel on the internal tissues of animals after cardiac surgery greatly reduces adhesions, fibrous bands that form between internal organs and tissues. Adhesions can cause serious, even fatal, complications. The gel, developed at Stanford to deliver medications, was far more effective than adhesion prevention materials currently on the market, the researchers said. It appeared to be safe in the animal study. "The difference between what we saw after using the gel and what we normally see after surgery was drastic," said Joseph Woo, MD, professor and chair of cardiothoracic surgery and the Norman E. Shumway Professor. A paper describing the research published August 7 in  Nature Biomedical Engineering . Woo and Eric Appel, PhD, an assistant professor of materials science and engineering, are the senior authors. Lyndsay Stapleton, a graduate student in bioengineering, is the lead author. Adhesions form after ...

A large international study led by McMaster University shows that low risk pregnant women who intend to give birth at home have no increased chance of the baby's perinatal or neonatal death compared to other low risk women who intend to give birth in a hospital. The results have been published by  The Lancet 's  EClinicalMedicine  journal. "More women in well-resourced countries are choosing birth at home, but concerns have persisted about their safety," said Eileen Hutton, professor emeritus of obstetrics and gynecology at McMaster, founding director of the McMaster Midwifery Research Centre and first author of the paper. "This research clearly demonstrates the risk is no different when the birth is intended to be at home or in hospital." The study examined the safety of place of birth by reporting on the risk of death at the time of birth or within the first four weeks, and found no clinically important or statistically different risk between home...