The following is a roundup of news and notable developments in electrical engineering and computer or information technology during March 2009. Items are excerpted from news releases generated by research universities and government agencies. Highlighted topics include:

1. RFID Technology Helps Track Nuclear Materials

2. Magnetism Governs Properties of Iron-Based Superconductors

3. High Tech Manufacturing Processes Alarmingly Energy Inefficient

4. Microbial Research Suggests More Efficient Methane Option to Hydrogen Fuel

5. New Battery Material Could Enable Rapid Recharging For Phones and Cars

6. Nanoscale Catalysts May Enable Hydrogen Fuel Storage

7. Nanowires May Lead to Better Fuel Cells

8. PowerNap Plan Improves Energy Efficiency of Data Centers

9. Shifting Sound into Light May Improve Computer Chips

10. Einstein@Home Effort Uses Home Computers to Track Pulsars

11. New Metasearch Engine Offers Scalable Alternative to Web Crawler Technology

12. Argonne “Cloud Computing” Used in High Energy Physics Experiments

13. Los Alamos Researchers Create “Map of Science”

14. Video Games and Cell Phone Usage Not Harmful to Children’s Academics

15. Zinc Oxide Gives Green Shine to New Photoconductors

16. Research Progresses Toward More Efficient OLED Lighting

17. Measuring the Impacts of Electronic Health Records

18. Metallic Glass You Can Build With

1. RFID Technology Helps Track Nuclear Materials

Researchers at the Argonne National Laboratory have developed a unique tracking technology that also monitors the environmental and physical conditions of containers of nuclear materials in storage and transportation. The system is comprised of active transponders, or tags with long-life batteries (>10 years), on each package, readers that collect information from the tags, control computer, and application software. The information is constantly updated and communicated via a secured network, thus decreasing the need for manned surveillance.

"RFID technology is ideally suited for management of nuclear materials during both storage and transportation," said Dr. Yung Liu, Argonne senior nuclear engineer and RFID project manager.” He added, “The Argonne system can simultaneously monitor thousands of drums 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Any abnormal situation, such a loss of seal, a sudden shock, a rise in temperature or humidity, can trigger an alarm for immediate action."

This RFID technology also has applications outside the nuclear field and may be used for other hazardous materials or any valued material, according to Liu.

For more information, see the video at: www.media.anl.gov/TechnicalServices/DIS/RFID.wmv.

2. Magnetism Governs Properties of Iron-Based Superconductors

Though a year has passed since the discovery of a new family of high-temperature superconductors, a viable explanation for the iron-based materials’ unusual properties remains elusive. But a team of scientists working at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has found strong evidence that magnetism is a pivotal factor governing the physical properties of iron pnictides, a group of materials that conduct electricity without resistance at temperatures of up to 56 kelvin (-217 degrees celsius). Iron pnictides are composed of regularly spaced layers of iron sandwiched between other substances.

For more information, see: www.ncnr.nist.gov/staff/taner/highlights.htm

3. High Tech Manufacturing Processes Alarmingly Energy Inefficient

Modern manufacturing methods are spectacularly inefficient in their use of energy and materials, according to a detailed MIT analysis of the energy use of 20 major manufacturing processes. Overall, new manufacturing systems are anywhere from 1,000 to one million times bigger consumers of energy, per pound of output, than more traditional industries. In short, pound for pound, making microchips uses up orders of magnitude more energy than making manhole covers.

For more information, see: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2009/energy-manufacturing-0317.html

4. Microbial Research Suggests More Efficient Methane Option to Hydrogen Fuel

A tiny microbe can take electricity and directly convert carbon dioxide and water to methane, producing a portable energy source with a potentially neutral carbon footprint, according to a team of Penn State engineers.

The cells are about 80 percent efficient in converting electricity to methane and because they use carbon dioxide as feed stock, would be carbon neutral if the electricity comes from a non-carbon source such as solar or wind power.

"The process does not sequester carbon, but it does turn carbon dioxide into fuel," said Bruce Logan, a professor of environmental engineering at Penn State. "If the methane is burned and carbon dioxide captured, then the process can be carbon neutral."

Logan suggests the method for off peak capture of renewable energy in a portable fuel. Methane is preferred over hydrogen because a large portion of the U.S. infrastructure is already set up to easily transport and deliver methane.

For more information, see: www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-03/ps-mte033009.php

5. New Battery Material Could Enable Rapid Recharging For Phones and Cars

MIT engineers have created a kind of beltway that allows for the rapid transit of electrical energy through a well-known battery material. Using their new processing technique, they were able to make a small battery that could be fully charged or discharged in 10 to 20 seconds (it takes six minutes to fully charge or discharge a cell made from the unprocessed material). This advance could usher in smaller, lighter batteries — for cell phones and other devices — that could recharge in seconds rather than hours. The work could also allow for the quick recharging of batteries in electric cars, although that particular application would be limited by the amount of power available to a homeowner through the electric grid. Because the material involved is not new, the DOE and NSF-funded researchers believe the work, which has already been licensed, could make it into the marketplace within two to three years.

For more information, see: www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-03/miot-mbm030909.php

6. Nanoscale Catalysts May Enable Hydrogen Fuel Storage

A team of scientists from Virginia Commonwealth University, the University of Uppsala in Sweden, and the Savannah River National Laboratory have identified that carbon nanostructures can be used as catalysts to store and release hydrogen, a finding that may point researchers toward developing the right material for hydrogen storage for use in cars.

For more information, see: www.news.vcu.edu/news.aspx?v=detail&nid=2843

7. Nanowires May Lead to Better Fuel Cells

The creation of long platinum nanowires at the University of Rochester could soon lead to the development of commercially viable fuel cells. Described in a paper published in the journal Nano Letters, the new wires should provide significant increases in both the longevity and efficiency of fuel cells, which have until now been used largely for such exotic purposes as powering spacecraft. Nanowire enhanced fuel cells could power many types of vehicles, helping reduce the use of petroleum fuels for transportation, according to lead author James C. M. Li, of the University of Rochester.

For more information, see: www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-03/uor-nml031109.php

8. PowerNap Plan Improves Energy Efficiency of Data Centers

Putting idle servers to sleep when they're not in use is part of University of Michigan researchers' plan to save up to 75 percent of the energy that power-hungry computer data centers consume. Data centers, central to the nation's cyberinfrastructure, house computing, networking and storage equipment. Each time you make an ATM withdrawal, search the Internet or make a cell phone call, your request is routed through a data center.

Thomas Wenisch, assistant professor in the department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and students David Meisner and Brian Gold presented a paper about improving the energy efficiency of data center computer systems on 10 March at the International Conference on Architectural Support for Programming Languages and Operating Systems in Washington, D.C.

For more information, see: www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-03/uom-ppc030509.php

9. Shifting Sound into Light May Improve Computer Chips

By reversing a process that converts electrical signals into sounds heard out of a cell phone, researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory may have found a new tool to enhance the way computer chips, LEDs and transistors are built.

Commonly used piezo-electric speakers, such as those found in a cell phone, operate at low frequencies that human ears can hear. But by reversing that process, lead researchers Michael Armstrong, Evan Reed and Mike Howard, LLNL colleagues, and collaborators from Los Alamos National Laboratory and Nitronex Corp., used a very high frequency sound wave — about 100 million times higher frequency than what humans can hear — to generate light.

The researchers predicted that high frequency acoustic waves can be detected by seeing radiation emitted when the acoustic wave passes an interface between piezoelectric materials. "This is a fundamentally new phenomenon and it can be used to probe structural properties of nanoscopic materials," Armstrong said. "This method has the potential to characterize semiconductor devices more accurately than other nondestructive methods."

But that's not the only application, according to Reed. "This technique provides a new pathway to generation of THz radiation for security, medical and other purposes," he said. "In this application, we would utilize acoustic-based technologies to generate THz." Security applications include explosives detection and medical use may include detection of skin cancer.

For more information, see: www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-03/dlnl-sst031609.php

10. Einstein@Home Effort Uses Home Computers to Track Pulsars

Einstein@Home, based at the University of Wisconsin—Milwaukee (UWM) and the Albert Einstein Institute (AEI) in Germany, is one of the world's largest public volunteer distributed computing projects. More than 200,000 people have signed up for the project and donated time on their computers to search gravitational wave data collected by the Arecibo Observatory for signals from unknown pulsars.

For more information, see: www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-03/cu-nee032309.php

11. New Metasearch Engine Offers Scalable Alternative to Web Crawler Technology

One day in the not-too-distant future, you'll be able to type a query into an online search engine and have it deliver not Web pages that may contain an answer, but just the answer itself, says Weiyi Meng, a professor of computer science at Binghamton University, State University of New York. Meng, along with researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago and the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, has helped pioneer large-scale metasearch-engine technology that harnesses the power of small search engines to come up with results that are more accurate and more complete than “web crawler” based search engines such as Google and Yahoo.

For more information, see: www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-03/bu-nme032509.php

12. Argonne “Cloud Computing” Used in High Energy Physics Experiments

A novel system is enabling high energy physicists at CERN in Switzerland to make production runs that integrate their existing pool of distributed computers with dynamic resources in "science clouds." The work was presented at the 17th annual conference on Computing in High Energy and Nuclear Physics, held in Prague, Czech Republic, 21-27 March.

For more information, see: www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-03/dnl-acc032409.php

13. Los Alamos Researchers Create “Map of Science”

Los Alamos National Laboratory scientists have produced a high-resolution graphic depiction of the virtual trails scientists leave behind when they retrieve information from online services. According to principal researcher Johan Bollen, “this research will be a crucial component of future efforts to study and predict scientific innovation, as well novel methods to determine the true impact of articles and journals."

Bollen and colleagues from LANL and the Santa Fe Institute collected usage-log data gathered from a variety of publishers, aggregators, and universities spanning a period from 2006 to 2008. Their collection totaled nearly 1 billion online information requests. Because scientists typically read articles online well before they can be cited in subsequent publications, usage data reveal scientific activity nearly in real-time. Moreover, because log data reflect the interactions of all users — such as authors, science practitioners, and the informed public — they do not merely reflect the activities of scholarly authors.

The maps revealed unexpected relations between scientific domains that point to emerging relationships that are capturing the collective interest of the scientific community— for instance a connection between ecology and architecture.

For more information, see: www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-03/danl-lar031109.php

14. Video Games and Cell Phone Usage Not Harmful to Children’s Academics

Using cell phones and playing video games may not be as harmful to children's academic performance as previously believed, according to new research by a team of Michigan State University scholars.

For more information, see: http://news.msu.edu/story/6096

15. Zinc Oxide Gives Green Shine to New Photoconductors

Northwestern University researchers supported by DOE and NSF have designed a high-performing photoconducting material that uses zinc oxide — an environmentally friendly inorganic compound found in baby powder and suntan lotion — instead of lead sulfide. The best performing photoconductor is based on lead sulfide nanoparticles. The new material converts light into electricity but, unlike conventional materials, also features a novel combination of attractive attributes: environmentally benign chemistry, low-cost production, a high level of detectivity, mechanical flexibility and wavelength tunability.

For more information, see: www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-03/nu-zog031809.php

16. Research Progresses Toward More Efficient OLED Lighting

Researchers at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have designed, synthesized and tested new materials which improve the power efficiency of blue organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) by at least 25 percent.

Lighting consumes one-fifth of the electricity generated in the United States. Solid-state lighting offers tremendous potential to improve the efficiency of lighting, which currently consumes one-fifth of the electricity generated in the United States. The most promising technology to date is the organic light-emitting diode, or OLED. These multi-layered devices produce light by running an electrical current through a specially engineered host material into which light-producing phosphorescent molecules are embedded or "doped." The white light envisioned for large-scale applications, such as rooms and buildings, consists of red, green and blue light.

"The weakest link in OLED research is the absence of an efficient, long-lasting blue light to accompany the red and green," said Pacific Northwest National Laboratory scientist Asanga Padmaperuma. Development of better host materials to manage the flow of electricity through the device could help solve that problem.

For more information, see: www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-03/dnnl-bls032009.php

17. Measuring the Impacts of Electronic Health Records

The push is on to bring the U. S. health care system into the digital age by replacing paper-based systems now used at many medical facilities with electronic medical records systems and other information technology (IT) tools. To understand how best to realize the benefits these systems can provide, a team of experts at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) has launched a three-year study of health information technology (HIT) systems now in various stages of implementation at four medical organizations—two in the United States and one each in Canada and Israel.

Funded by a $750,000 grant from the National Science Foundation, the study will focus on the primary care setting to examine and analyze how implementing HIT systems impacts medical providers, their patients, and the operations of the health care delivery system. The goal of the study is to develop new insights and best practices to help guide future HIT implementations at other medical facilities. "Adapting to computer systems will be a learning process for primary care organizations, for physicians, and even for patients," said Diane Strong, Ph.D., professor of management at WPI. "From what we observe, we will develop new ideas and new concepts for health care delivery, such as better ways of organizing work flow and decision making to take advantage of the new opportunities enabled by these IT systems."

For more information, see: www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-03/wpi-mti030509.php

18. Metallic Glass You Can Build With

Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of California at Berkeley, working with colleagues at the California Institute of Technology, have solved the fundamental problem of poor fatigue resistance in bulk metallic glasses. The results are metallic glass alloys that are not only stronger than high-strength steel and aluminum alloys but more resistant to fatigue as well, opening the door to their usage as structural materials in aerospace and other applications.

For more information, see: http://newscenter.lbl.gov/feature-stories/2009/03/23/glass-you-can-build-with/

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