Tag Archives: Japan

Celebration of Spring

By Guest PostFebruary 26, 2012Cultureauspicious creature, beginning of the spring, cctv, China, chinese, chinese new year, chinese zodiac, chunjie, color of festivity, confucius institute, dumpling, east asian, eurozone crisis, family reunion, gregorian calendar, Honɡ bao, indonesia, Japan, jianguo chen, jiao zi, korea, lantern festival, lichun, lunar calendar, malaysia, mauritius, new year gala, nian ye fan, republican period, shang dynasty, singapore, solar term, southeast asian, spring festival, Thailand, the dragon, the philippines, tracey bryant, traditional chinese calendar, u.s economy, valentine day, Vietnam, year of the dragon

*UD Confucius Institute director answers questions about Chinese New Year*

The Year of the Dragon is now under way. What does this new year mean, and how do Chinese families typically celebrate it?

Jianguo Chen, associate professor of Chinese and director of the Confucius Institute at UD, shares his insights with UDaily. (more…)

comScore Releases the “2012 Mobile Future in Focus” Report

By Guest PostFebruary 23, 2012Technology2012 mobile future, apple ios, canada, Comscore, electronic payments, eu5, focus, france, Germany, google android, italy, Japan, lifestyle, mark donovan, mobile, mobile behaviors, mobile ecosystem dynamics, mobile industry, retail, smartphones, Social networking, spain, symbian, united kingdom, united states, us mobile users

*Report Offers Insights on the Mobile and Connected Device Landscape in 2011 and What They Mean for 2012*

RESTON, VA, February 23, 2012 – comScore, Inc., a leader in measuring the digital world, today released the 2012 Mobile Future in Focus report. This annual report examines the mobile and connected device landscape, covering several mobile markets measured by comScore, through an exploration of key trends driving smartphone adoption growth, mobile media usage in categories such as social networking and retail, mobile ecosystem dynamics, and shifts in multi-device digital media consumption in 2011. The report highlights insights primarily from mobile markets in the United States, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, United Kingdom, Japan, and Canada. (more…)

UCLA Engineers Create Tandem Polymer Solar Cells That Set Record For Energy-Conversion

By Guest PostFebruary 18, 2012Scienceabsorption, california nanosystems institute, cnsi, conductive, conversion, electricity, gang li, Japan, organic polymers, photovoltaic solar cells, polymer solar cells, shuji doi, solar energy, solar spectrum, sumitomo chemical, sunlight, tandem solar cell technology, tandem structure, yang yang

In the effort to convert sunlight into electricity, photovoltaic solar cells that use conductive organic polymers for light absorption and conversion have shown great potential. Organic polymers can be produced in high volumes at low cost, resulting in photovoltaic devices that are cheap, lightweight and flexible.

In the last few years, much work has been done to improve the efficiency with which these devices convert sunlight into power, including the development of new materials, device structures and processing techniques. (more…)

Facebook Blasts into Top Position in Brazilian Social Networking Market Following Year of Tremendous Growth

By Guest PostJanuary 17, 20121 commentTechnologyalex banks, brazil, brazilian market, China, Comscore, distrito federal, Facebook, google plus, Japan, orkut, poland, rio de janeiro, russia, social media, social networking market, social networking population, south korea, tumblr, Twitter, Vietnam, vostu, windows live profile

*Facebook Audience Triples in the Past Year while Engagement Grows Nearly Sevenfold*

São Paulo, Brazil, January 17, 2012 – comScore, Inc., a leader in measuring the digital world, today released data showing that Facebook assumed the top position in the Brazilian social networking market following a year of exceptional growth. In December 2011, Facebook.com attracted 36.1 million visitors – representing an increase of 192 percent in the past twelve months – to surpass Orkut as the leading social networking destination in the market.

“Facebook’s rapid ascent in the Brazilian market has certainly been one of the most interesting stories to develop during the course of 2011,” said Alex Banks, comScore managing director for Brazil. “Brazil has always been a particularly social market and currently owns the fifth largest social networking population in the world. But despite the cultural affinity for social media, Facebook adoption had traditionally lagged in the market. That has all changed in the past year, during which the site has tripled in audience size as engagement has grown sevenfold to assume the leadership position in the market.” (more…)

New Take on Impacts of Low Dose Radiation

By Guest PostDecember 24, 2011Health, Scienceatomic bomb blasts, berkeley lab, biological damage, breast cell line, broken dna, cancer risks, christopher pham, dna damage response, dna repair mechanisms, Environment, epidemiological data, extrapolation, gy of radiation, human breast cells, human tissue, ionizing radiation, Japan, joel swenson, lawrence berkeley national laboratory, levels of ionizing radiation, linear no threshold hypothesis, lnt, low dose radiation, mammogram, mathematical modeling, mcf10a, mina bissell, primary breast epithelial cells, radiation induced foci, rafael gomez sjoberg, repair, rif, standard model, survivors, sylvain costes, teresa neumaier, time lapse imaging, world war II, xray microbeam

*Berkeley Lab Researchers Find Evidence Suggesting Risk May Not Be Proportional to Dose at Low Dose Levels*

Researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), through a combination of time-lapse live imaging and mathematical modeling of a special line of human breast cells, have found evidence to suggest that for low dose levels of ionizing radiation, cancer risks may not be directly proportional to dose. This contradicts the standard model for predicting biological damage from ionizing radiation – the linear-no-threshold hypothesis or LNT – which holds that risk is directly proportional to dose at all levels of irradiation.

“Our data show that at lower doses of ionizing radiation, DNA repair mechanisms work much better than at higher doses,” says Mina Bissell, a world-renowned breast cancer researcher with Berkeley Lab’s Life Sciences Division. “This non-linear DNA damage response casts doubt on the general assumption that any amount of ionizing radiation is harmful and additive.” (more…)

UChicago Chemist Helps Craft Message For World Leaders

By Guest PostDecember 23, 2011General, ScienceBangladesh, burundi, dmitri talapin, energy and environment, food and population, future development, Germany, global necessity, global warming, Health, Japan, kyoto, kyoto protocol, mass media, megacities, nigeria, nobel laureates, North America, nuclear safety, positive and negative aspects, reverse osmosis membrane, science and technology, scientific information, scientific research, singapore, social media, steve koppes, sts forum, sustainability, the netherlands, water shortage, young scientists

Dmitri Talapin, associate professor in chemistry, was one of 10 young scientists from around the world who delivered a message that “Scientific Research is a Global Necessity” to political, scientific and business leaders participating in the 2011 Science and Technology in Society forum last October in Kyoto, Japan.

The Japan Society for the Promotion of Science and the New York Academy of Sciences selected Talapin to represent the young scientists of North America at the STS Forum, which meets at the same venue were the Kyoto Protocol to alleviate global warming was signed in 1997. (more…)

Fast Times in Physics

By Guest PostNovember 29, 2011Scienceatomic clocks, beams of neutrinos, c, Chicago, einstein, equation, Europe, faster than light, fermilab, Japan, marvin marshak, minos, neutrinos, northern minnesota, opera, physicists, scientific world, soudan underground laboratory, speed of light, subatomic particles, time, university of minnesota, vacuum, vibrations of cesium atoms

A U physicist will help determine if neutrinos can outrace light

Back in 2007, a physics experiment clocked elusive subatomic particles called neutrinos going faster than light.

That wasn’t supposed to happen. If the speed of light in a vacuum—denoted “c” by physicists—isn’t the universal speed limit, it would mean that Einstein put the wrong number in his famous E=mc² equation.

University of Minnesota physicist Marvin Marshak was part of the experiment, called MINOS. It clocked beams of neutrinos shot from Fermilab, a national physics lab near Chicago, to a detector 457 miles away in the Soudan Underground Laboratory in northern Minnesota. (more…)