Today’s modeling and simulation (M&S) software provides indispensible tools for systems engineering challenges. Such programs allow investigators to experiment with “what-ifs” by adjusting design parameters and examining potential outcomes.
A team from the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) has produced an advanced web-based tool that lets physically separated participants collaborate on model-based systems engineering projects. Known as the Framework for Assessing Cost and Technology (FACT), the program utilizes open-source software components to allow users to visualize a system’s potential expense alongside its performance, reliability and other factors. (more…)
Researchers at JILA have for the first time used an atomic clock as a quantum simulator, mimicking the behavior of a different, more complex quantum system.
Atomic clocks now join a growing list of physical systems that can be used for modeling and perhaps eventually explaining the quantum mechanical behavior of exotic materials such as high-temperature superconductors, which conduct electricity without resistance. All but the smallest, most trivial quantum systems are too complicated to simulate on classical computers, hence the interest in quantum simulators. Sharing some of the features of experimental quantum computers—a hot research topic—quantum simulators are “special purpose” devices designed to provide insight into specific challenging problems. (more…)
Computer science researchers have programmed a computer to play the game Concentration (also known as Memory). The work could help improve computer security – and improve our understanding of how the human mind works.
The researchers developed a program to get the software system called ACT-R, a computer simulation that attempts to replicate human thought processes, to play Concentration. In the game, multiple matching pairs of cards are placed face down in a random order, and players are asked to flip over two cards, one at a time, to find the matching pairs. If a player flips over two cards that do not match, the cards are placed back face down. The player succeeds by remembering where the matching cards are located. (more…)
Research could guide business and political decisions as well as charity work
COLUMBIA, Mo. – A business may build a better reputation as a good corporate citizen by donating $100,000 to ten charities, as opposed to $1 million to one charity, suggested University of Missouri anthropologist Shane Macfarlan. Contrary to earlier assumptions in theoretical biology, Macfarlan’s research found that helping a greater number of people builds a positive reputation more than helping a few people many times. The results of this research can offer guidance to businesses and politicians on how to improve their public images.
“Good reputations are good business. For example, buyers tend to purchase from merchants with numerous positive ratings on internet-based commerce websites, such as Amazon and eBay,” said Shane Macfarlan, post-doctoral anthropology researcher in MU’s College of Arts and Science. “Beyond the realm of commerce, the power of a positive reputation may have influenced the evolution of language and cooperation in our species. In our study, we found that an individual’s reputation improves more after helping a greater number of people compared to performing a greater number of helpful acts for fewer people.” (more…)
Researchers at UCLA say it’s not just what you eat that makes those pants tighter — it’s also genetics. In a new study, scientists discovered that body-fat responses to a typical fast-food diet are determined in large part by genetic factors, and they have identified several genes they say may control those responses.
The study is the first of its kind to detail metabolic responses to a high-fat, high-sugar diet in a large and diverse mouse population under defined environmental conditions, modeling closely what is likely to occur in human populations. The researchers found that the amount of food consumed contributed only modestly to the degree of obesity. (more…)
Some arid lands in the American West degraded by military exercises that date back to General George Patton’s Word War II maneuvers in the Mojave Desert should get a boost from an innovative research project led by the University of Colorado Boulder.
Headed up by CU-Boulder Assistant Professor Nichole Barger, the research team is focused on developing methods to restore biological soil crusts — microbial communities primarily concentrated on soil surfaces critical to decreasing erosion and increasing water retention and soil fertility. Such biological soil crusts, known as “biocrusts,” can cover up to 70 percent of the ground in some arid ecosystems and are dominated by cyanobacteria, lichens, mosses, fungi and bacteria, she said. (more…)
In the world of proteins, form defines function. Based on interactions between their constituent amino acids, proteins form specific conformations, folding and twisting into distinct, chemically directed shapes. The resulting structure dictates the proteins’ actions; thus accurate modeling of structure is vital to understanding functionality.
Peptoids, the synthetic cousins of proteins, follow similar design rules. Less vulnerable to chemical or metabolic breakdown than proteins, peptoids are promising for diagnostics, pharmaceuticals, and as a platform to build bioinspired nanomaterials, as scientists can build and manipulate peptoids with great precision. But to design peptoids for a specific function, scientists need to first untangle the complex relationship between a peptoid’s composition and its function-defining folded structure. (more…)
Modeling biological systems can provide key insights for scientists and medical researchers, but periodic cycles that repeat themselves – so-called oscillatory systems – pose some key challenges. Researchers at North Carolina State University have developed a new method for estimating the parameters used in such models – which may advance modeling in research areas ranging from cancer to fertility. (more…)
