UD professor works to overcome challenges in harnessing power of multicore computer processors
Computer processors that can complete multiple tasks simultaneously have been available in the mainstream for almost a decade. In fact, almost all processors developed today are multicore processors. Yet, computer programmers still struggle to efficiently harness their power because it is difficult to write correct and efficient parallel code.
According to the University of Delaware’s John Cavazos, to effectively exploit the power of multi-core processors, programs must be structured as a collection of independent tasks where separate tasks are executed on independent cores.
The complexity of modern software, however, makes this difficult. (more…)
Why are efficient and affordable solar cells so highly coveted? Volume. The amount of solar energy lighting up Earth’s land mass every year is nearly 3,000 times the total amount of annual human energy use. But to compete with energy from fossil fuels, photovoltaic devices must convert sunlight to electricity with a certain measure of efficiency. For polymer-based organic photovoltaic cells, which are far less expensive to manufacture than silicon-based solar cells, scientists have long believed that the key to high efficiencies rests in the purity of the polymer/organic cell’s two domains – acceptor and donor. Now, however, an alternate and possibly easier route forward has been shown.
Working at Berkeley Lab’s Advanced Light Source (ALS), a premier source of X-ray and ultraviolet light beams for research, an international team of scientists found that for highly efficient polymer/organic photovoltaic cells, size matters. (more…)
The so-called “fiscal cliff” — an increase in income tax rates, expiration of many tax benefits and automatic federal spending cuts known collectively as sequestration — still looms as a possibility come January 2. Unless a deal is reached, universities across the country will face unprecedented cuts in federal funding, including cuts to research and development funding. Kevin Stacey spoke with Clyde Briant, vice president for University research, about the implications of the fiscal cliff.
If no deal is reached, how would the fiscal cliff affect federal research funding?
It could trigger sweeping cuts to agencies across the federal government, including agencies like the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, and others that provide the vast majority of the nation’s research and development funding. These are considerable, across-the-board cuts. The American Association for the Advancement of Science estimates that federal research and development spending nationwide could be cut by at least $50 billion over five years. Research universities all depend on those funds to support faculty, staff, postdocs, and graduate students, as well as to provide for equipment and facilities. If the level of support drops as dramatically as is called for under sequestration, it would profoundly change the way in which universities have to approach their research endeavors. (more…)
Mathematics anxiety can prompt a response in the brain similar to when a person experiences physical pain, according to new research at the University of Chicago.
Using brain scans, scholars determined that the brain areas active when highly math-anxious people prepare to do math overlap with the same brain areas that register the threat of bodily harm—and in some cases, physical pain. (more…)
What if the Ph.D. research becomes too complex for words? Dozens of candidates turned to the language of dance in the fifth annual national contest sponsored by Science Magazine. Diana Davis, a graduate student in mathematics, won the first-ever “Dance Your Ph.D.” prize in pure mathematics.
Math graduate student Diana Davis studies the symbolic dynamics that arise from cutting sequences on Veech surfaces and Bouw-Möller surfaces.
No idea what that means? It’s OK. She can show you. (more…)
Physicians are about half as willing to prescribe drugs tested in pharmaceutical-industry funded trials than those in NIH-funded studies, a new study finds.
Physicians are less likely to trust the results of clinical trials when they know those trials were funded by pharmaceutical companies, regardless of the quality of the research, a recent study in the New England Journal of Medicine shows.
The study, led by Dr. Aaron Kesselheim of the Harvard Medical School in Boston and co-authored by University of Arizona associate professor of law Christopher Robertson, evaluated physicians’ confidence in the results of drug trials conducted with a high, medium or low level of methodological rigor. It then looked at how their confidence in those same results changed when a trial’s funding source was revealed as either the National Institutes of Health or a company in the pharmaceutical industry, versus when no funding source was disclosed. (more…)
EAST LANSING, Mich. — Research by Michigan State University astronomers has scientists re-thinking the fates of black holes, particularly in groups of stars known as globular clusters.
The research of Jay Strader, MSU assistant professor of physics and astronomy, and colleagues focused on a cluster called Messier 22, or M22, a collection of hundreds of thousands of stars located about 10,000 light years from Earth. Using images of unprecedented depth observed at radio wavelengths, Strader and his team were surprised to find not one but two black holes in the cluster. (more…)
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — A small African mammal with an unusual ability to regrow damaged tissues could inspire new research in regenerative medicine, a University of Florida study finds.
For years biologists have studied salamanders for their ability to regrow lost limbs. But amphibian biology is very different than human biology, so lessons learned in laboratories from salamanders are difficult to translate into medical therapies for humans. New research in the Sept. 27 issue of the journal Nature describes a mammal that can regrow new body tissues following an injury. The African spiny mouse could become a new model for research in regenerative medicine. (more…)
