How To Remove Scratches from Any DVD
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Friday, July 10, 2009
Indo researcher unveils biodegradable scaffold to fix damaged knees
A research team at Hospital for Special Surgery, including an Indian-origin scientist, have developed a biodegradable scaffold that can be used to treat patients with damaged knee cartilage.
Dr Asheesh Bedi, a fellow in sports medicine and shoulder surgery at Hospital for Special Surgery, has revealed that his team's invention is a Trufit plug that has mechanical properties similar to cartilage and bone.
"The data has been encouraging to support further evaluation of this synthetic scaffold as a cartilage repair technique," he said.
Damage to so-called articular cartilage can occur in various ways, ranging from direct trauma in a motor vehicle accident to a noncontact, pivoting event on the soccer field.
The Trufit plug has two layers. The top layer has properties similar to cartilage and the lower layer has properties similar to bone.
The bilayered structure has mechanical properties that approximately match the adjacent cartilage and bone.
During the study, surgeons inserted the plug in the knees of 26 patients with donor lesions from OATS procedures and followed up with imaging studies (with MRI and T2-mapping) at various intervals for a period of 39 months.
"Quantitative MRI, when combined with morphologic assessment, allows us to understand the natural history of these repair techniques and define those patients who are most likely to benefit from the surgery," said Hollis Potter, M.D., chief of the Division of Magnetic Resonance Imaging, director of Research in the Department of Radiology and Imaging at Hospital for Special Surgery and lead author of the study.
"We gain knowledge about the biology of integration with the host tissue, as well as the repair tissue biochemistry, all by a noninvasive imaging technique," he added.
"What we found was that the plug demonstrated a predictable process of maturation on imaging studies that paralleled the biology of their incorporation," Bedi said.
The findings were presented at annual meeting of the American Orthopedic Society for Sports Medicine.
Dr Asheesh Bedi, a fellow in sports medicine and shoulder surgery at Hospital for Special Surgery, has revealed that his team's invention is a Trufit plug that has mechanical properties similar to cartilage and bone.
"The data has been encouraging to support further evaluation of this synthetic scaffold as a cartilage repair technique," he said.
Damage to so-called articular cartilage can occur in various ways, ranging from direct trauma in a motor vehicle accident to a noncontact, pivoting event on the soccer field.
The Trufit plug has two layers. The top layer has properties similar to cartilage and the lower layer has properties similar to bone.
The bilayered structure has mechanical properties that approximately match the adjacent cartilage and bone.
During the study, surgeons inserted the plug in the knees of 26 patients with donor lesions from OATS procedures and followed up with imaging studies (with MRI and T2-mapping) at various intervals for a period of 39 months.
"Quantitative MRI, when combined with morphologic assessment, allows us to understand the natural history of these repair techniques and define those patients who are most likely to benefit from the surgery," said Hollis Potter, M.D., chief of the Division of Magnetic Resonance Imaging, director of Research in the Department of Radiology and Imaging at Hospital for Special Surgery and lead author of the study.
"We gain knowledge about the biology of integration with the host tissue, as well as the repair tissue biochemistry, all by a noninvasive imaging technique," he added.
"What we found was that the plug demonstrated a predictable process of maturation on imaging studies that paralleled the biology of their incorporation," Bedi said.
The findings were presented at annual meeting of the American Orthopedic Society for Sports Medicine.
New Indian Software breakthrough
A new software designed by two Indian electronic engineers gleans clear pictures out of hazy or blurry images.
S.Uma, from the Coimbatore Institute of Technology, and S. Annadurai from the Government College of Technology, Coimbatore, have turned to neural networks to help them clean up their image.
Uma and Annadurai have developed a modified network that builds and extends the work of others to allow them to quickly process an image reducing distortion, noise and blurring.
An analysis of the before and after shows that quality is improved by between 39 percent and 67 percent using the team's approach and results take half the time compared to other methods.
The approach could significantly reduce information loss while reversing blurring caused by lens aberrations and faults, and could reduce noise that distorts the appearance of an image.
The team suggests that distortions in an image due to atmospheric disturbances between camera and distant subjects could be unravelled and a photo taken on a hot, hazy day made acceptable.
The researchers point out that earlier attempts at this kind of inverse filtering of an image relied on the image having a high signal-to-noise (SNR) ratio.
Other approaches require huge amounts of computing power and are generally untenable. This is especially true in the fledgling field of artificial vision, whether robotic or prosthetic. However, some success with neural networks has been achieved.
Errant pixels and blurry regions in a photo, whether digital or scanned, are the bane of lensmen, worldwide.
Moreover, in vision processing research, degraded photos are common and require restoration to a high-quality un-degraded state.
These findings have been published in the International Journal of Signal and Imaging Systems Engineering.
S.Uma, from the Coimbatore Institute of Technology, and S. Annadurai from the Government College of Technology, Coimbatore, have turned to neural networks to help them clean up their image.
Uma and Annadurai have developed a modified network that builds and extends the work of others to allow them to quickly process an image reducing distortion, noise and blurring.
An analysis of the before and after shows that quality is improved by between 39 percent and 67 percent using the team's approach and results take half the time compared to other methods.
The approach could significantly reduce information loss while reversing blurring caused by lens aberrations and faults, and could reduce noise that distorts the appearance of an image.
The team suggests that distortions in an image due to atmospheric disturbances between camera and distant subjects could be unravelled and a photo taken on a hot, hazy day made acceptable.
The researchers point out that earlier attempts at this kind of inverse filtering of an image relied on the image having a high signal-to-noise (SNR) ratio.
Other approaches require huge amounts of computing power and are generally untenable. This is especially true in the fledgling field of artificial vision, whether robotic or prosthetic. However, some success with neural networks has been achieved.
Errant pixels and blurry regions in a photo, whether digital or scanned, are the bane of lensmen, worldwide.
Moreover, in vision processing research, degraded photos are common and require restoration to a high-quality un-degraded state.
These findings have been published in the International Journal of Signal and Imaging Systems Engineering.
A City that Emits no waste ??
The futuristic city to come up on the outskirts of Abu Dhabi will meet its entire energy requirements from renewable sources, producing neither carbon dioxide nor waste.
Masdar City is to be constructed on a six square km area, 30 km east of the capital Abu Dhabi. It is designed to support a population of about 50,000.
The planned carbon-neutral city will be supplied entirely by renewable energy. It will use systematic recycling techniques and will be nearly waste-free. In addition, the city will have significantly reduced water consumption.
Thanks to an underground transportation system, this eco-friendly city will have car-free streets.
On June 21, Fraunhofer Gesellschaft (Germany) and the Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company, representing the Masdar City Project, signed a cooperative agreement for a strategic partnership.
The goal is to establish a close cooperation in the field of sustainable urban development and building planning, said a release from Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft.
Masdar City is to be constructed on a six square km area, 30 km east of the capital Abu Dhabi. It is designed to support a population of about 50,000.
The planned carbon-neutral city will be supplied entirely by renewable energy. It will use systematic recycling techniques and will be nearly waste-free. In addition, the city will have significantly reduced water consumption.
Thanks to an underground transportation system, this eco-friendly city will have car-free streets.
On June 21, Fraunhofer Gesellschaft (Germany) and the Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company, representing the Masdar City Project, signed a cooperative agreement for a strategic partnership.
The goal is to establish a close cooperation in the field of sustainable urban development and building planning, said a release from Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft.
Saturday, July 4, 2009
How does your Brain Process Speech
A review of human and non-human primate studies suggests that scientists are very close to forming a conclusive theory about the brain processes speech and language.
Dr. Josef Rauschecker of Georgetown University and his co-author Sophie Scott, a neuroscientist at University College, London, say that both human and animal studies have confirmed that speech is processed in the brain along two parallel pathways, each of which run from lower- to higher-functioning neural regions.
The authors describe these pathways as the "what" and "where" streams, which are similar to how the brain processes sight, but are located in different regions.
Both pathways begin with the processing of signals in the auditory cortex, located inside a deep fissure on the side of the brain underneath the temples - the so-called "temporal lobe".
Information processed by the "what" pathway then flows forward along the outside of the temporal lobe, and the job of that pathway is to recognize complex auditory signals, which include communication sounds and their meaning (semantics).
The "where" pathway is mostly in the parietal lobe, above the temporal lobe, and it processes spatial aspects of a sound - its location and its motion in space - but is also involved in providing feedback during the act of speaking.
Rauschecker says that auditory perception - the processing and interpretation of sound information - is tied to anatomical structures.
"Sound as a whole enters the ear canal and is first broken down into single tone frequencies, then higher-up neurons respond only to more complex sounds, including those used in the recognition of speech, as the neural representation of the sound moves through the various brain regions," he says.
"In both species, we are using species-specific communication sounds for stimulation, such as speech in humans and rhesus-specific calls in rhesus monkeys. We find that the structure of these communication sounds is similar across species," he adds.
Rauschecker believes that the findings of this research may ultimately yield some valuable insights into disorders that involve problems in comprehending auditory signals, such as autism and schizophrenia.
"Understanding speech is one of the major problems seen in autism, and a person with schizophrenia hears sounds that are just hallucinations. Eventually, this area of research will lead us to better treatment for these issues," Rauschecker says.
The study is published in the June issue of Nature Neuroscience.
Dr. Josef Rauschecker of Georgetown University and his co-author Sophie Scott, a neuroscientist at University College, London, say that both human and animal studies have confirmed that speech is processed in the brain along two parallel pathways, each of which run from lower- to higher-functioning neural regions.
The authors describe these pathways as the "what" and "where" streams, which are similar to how the brain processes sight, but are located in different regions.
Both pathways begin with the processing of signals in the auditory cortex, located inside a deep fissure on the side of the brain underneath the temples - the so-called "temporal lobe".
Information processed by the "what" pathway then flows forward along the outside of the temporal lobe, and the job of that pathway is to recognize complex auditory signals, which include communication sounds and their meaning (semantics).
The "where" pathway is mostly in the parietal lobe, above the temporal lobe, and it processes spatial aspects of a sound - its location and its motion in space - but is also involved in providing feedback during the act of speaking.
Rauschecker says that auditory perception - the processing and interpretation of sound information - is tied to anatomical structures.
"Sound as a whole enters the ear canal and is first broken down into single tone frequencies, then higher-up neurons respond only to more complex sounds, including those used in the recognition of speech, as the neural representation of the sound moves through the various brain regions," he says.
"In both species, we are using species-specific communication sounds for stimulation, such as speech in humans and rhesus-specific calls in rhesus monkeys. We find that the structure of these communication sounds is similar across species," he adds.
Rauschecker believes that the findings of this research may ultimately yield some valuable insights into disorders that involve problems in comprehending auditory signals, such as autism and schizophrenia.
"Understanding speech is one of the major problems seen in autism, and a person with schizophrenia hears sounds that are just hallucinations. Eventually, this area of research will lead us to better treatment for these issues," Rauschecker says.
The study is published in the June issue of Nature Neuroscience.
Scientists makefirstdirect measurement of lunar backscatter from Solar Wind
A team of scientists has for the first time observed energetic neutral atoms scattered off the Moon from the incoming solar wind ion beam.
When the solar wind, made up mostly of ionized hydrogen, hits the Moon, most of it is absorbed, but some is reemitted as energetic neutral atoms.
This lunar backscatter and neutralization had been predicted but not directly measured until now.
Using NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer satellite, launched on 19 October 2008, D. J. McComas and colleagues from Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio, Texas, US, have for the first time made the measurement of this lunar backscatter from solar wind.
They found that about 10 percent of solar wind ions hitting the Moon result in the emission of neutral atoms, corresponding to about 150 metric tons of hydrogen emitted from the Moon per year.
They also showed that the energy spectrum and numbers of neutral atoms emitted from the Moon trace the variations in the incident solar wind.
The researchers suggest that the findings could shed additional light on the solar wind's interactions with other objects in the solar system, such as dust grains, asteroids, and moons of other planets, and could provide clues to the evolution of dust and rocky moons in other planetary systems.
When the solar wind, made up mostly of ionized hydrogen, hits the Moon, most of it is absorbed, but some is reemitted as energetic neutral atoms.
This lunar backscatter and neutralization had been predicted but not directly measured until now.
Using NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer satellite, launched on 19 October 2008, D. J. McComas and colleagues from Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio, Texas, US, have for the first time made the measurement of this lunar backscatter from solar wind.
They found that about 10 percent of solar wind ions hitting the Moon result in the emission of neutral atoms, corresponding to about 150 metric tons of hydrogen emitted from the Moon per year.
They also showed that the energy spectrum and numbers of neutral atoms emitted from the Moon trace the variations in the incident solar wind.
The researchers suggest that the findings could shed additional light on the solar wind's interactions with other objects in the solar system, such as dust grains, asteroids, and moons of other planets, and could provide clues to the evolution of dust and rocky moons in other planetary systems.
Sony Walkman Named Numero Uno music invention of last 50 years
The Walkman used to be the perfect companion for whole generation of music lovers, and now the clunky portable cassette player by Sony has been named the best musical invention of the last 50 years, by a leading magazine.
Sony's music player has even beaten the Dolby sound, compact discs, and the ubiquitous iPod to top the list of 'ten most important musical innovations of the last 50 years', published by T3 magazine.
The Walkman's victory has comes in the same week in which it has celebrated its 30th birthday. he first Walkman was the blue-and-silver model TPS-L2, which went on sale in Japan on July 1, 1979, and started a musical revolution as it went on to become one of the world's first truly global gadgets.
"It changed the way we access music, changed how often we could access music, and changed a generation," the Telegraph quoted Kat Hanniford at T3 as saying.
The MP3 digital music format came in second, while the iPod music player was placed at the third spot on the list.
The Compact Disc was ranked fourth, followed by Napster, the ground-breaking illegal file-sharing site, at the fifth position.
T3's list of Top Most Important Musical Innovations of the last 50 years:
1. Sony Walkman
2. MP3 format
3. Apple iPod 1st Generation
4. CD
5. Napster
6. Dolby
7. DAB radio
8. Boombox
9. Sonos Multi-Room Music System
10. Panasonic Technics DJ deck
Sony's music player has even beaten the Dolby sound, compact discs, and the ubiquitous iPod to top the list of 'ten most important musical innovations of the last 50 years', published by T3 magazine.
The Walkman's victory has comes in the same week in which it has celebrated its 30th birthday. he first Walkman was the blue-and-silver model TPS-L2, which went on sale in Japan on July 1, 1979, and started a musical revolution as it went on to become one of the world's first truly global gadgets.
"It changed the way we access music, changed how often we could access music, and changed a generation," the Telegraph quoted Kat Hanniford at T3 as saying.
The MP3 digital music format came in second, while the iPod music player was placed at the third spot on the list.
The Compact Disc was ranked fourth, followed by Napster, the ground-breaking illegal file-sharing site, at the fifth position.
T3's list of Top Most Important Musical Innovations of the last 50 years:
1. Sony Walkman
2. MP3 format
3. Apple iPod 1st Generation
4. CD
5. Napster
6. Dolby
7. DAB radio
8. Boombox
9. Sonos Multi-Room Music System
10. Panasonic Technics DJ deck
A New Super Sensitive Explosive Detector
Scientists have developed a new explosives detector with incredible sensitivity and a range of up to 100 meters that could save lives and thwart the efforts of terrorists.
The detector, developed by a team of researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, is based on photo-induced acoustic spectroscopy (PIAS).
Using PIAS, the military and law enforcement agencies will have an instrument that is one-tenth the size of competing products.
At five pounds, it is one-fifth the weight and is about one-fifth the cost of the competition.
It works by illuminating the suspected explosive with an eye-safe laser and allowing the scattered light to be detected by a quartz crystal tuning fork.
After a series of subsequent steps, the instrument is able to identify a number of explosives without jeopardizing the safety of the operator.
Funding for research work into the development of the instrument was provided by the Department of Energy's Office of Nonproliferation Research and Development and the Office of Naval Research.
The detector, developed by a team of researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, is based on photo-induced acoustic spectroscopy (PIAS).
Using PIAS, the military and law enforcement agencies will have an instrument that is one-tenth the size of competing products.
At five pounds, it is one-fifth the weight and is about one-fifth the cost of the competition.
It works by illuminating the suspected explosive with an eye-safe laser and allowing the scattered light to be detected by a quartz crystal tuning fork.
After a series of subsequent steps, the instrument is able to identify a number of explosives without jeopardizing the safety of the operator.
Funding for research work into the development of the instrument was provided by the Department of Energy's Office of Nonproliferation Research and Development and the Office of Naval Research.
Andy Murray crashes out of Wimbledon
Andy Murray vowed to return to Wimbledon a better player next year after Andy Roddick ended his hopes of being a first Briton in the men's final since 1938 with a clinical masterclass of power serving and variation in pace.
Murray hit more winners than Roddick, more aces, and made fewer unforced errors, but was cut down in front of a shellshocked Centre Court crowd 6-4 4-6 7-6 7-6 by the American sixth seed, who now faces Roger Federer for the third time in a Wimbledon final on Sunday.
Murray, the third seed and warm favourite to progress from Friday's semi-final, said he would not dwell on the unexpected defeat and would look to grind out his first grand slam success at the U.S. Open later in the year.
"I'll move on very, very quickly and go and work on my game and improve and come back stronger," said Murray, who was bidding to become the first British man to hold aloft the Challenge Cup since Fred Perry in 1936.
"That's a pathetic attitude to have, if you lose one match and you go away and let it ruin your year.
"I've had a very good year so far. I'm very close to the top of the game," said the 22-year-old Scot, who has won four titles this year including the grass warm-up event at Queen's Club and the Masters Series title in Miami.
Murray held a 6-2 career record against Roddick going into Friday's match, including a straight sets win over the American here in 2006, but Roddick executed his gameplan to perfection, subtly varying the pace, hitting deep corners with relentless regularity and advancing to the net with great effect.
"If someone serves 130 miles an hour consistently throughout the match, and above, it's very tough to break them, especially on a court like this that's quick.
"You always expect your opponents to play well, especially at this stage of the tournament. And he served great. Served really, really well in the tiebreaks. I think he maybe missed two first serves."
Murray will now take a five-week break from tournament competition before focusing on the American hardcourt swing, culminating in the Aug 31-Sept 13 U.S. Open, an event which has held a special place in his heart since winning the junior title there in 2004.
"The U.S. Open I've always said is my best surface, my best chance to win a slam, and I'll give it my best shot there."
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