Posted on July 2nd, 2009 by admin
Robert Freitas published a major new theory paper on aspects of medical nanorobot control, providing an early glimpse of future discussions of this topic that are planned to appear in Chapter 12 (Nanorobot Control) of Nanomedicine, Vol. IIB: Systems and Operations, the third volume of the Nanomedicine book series (still in preparation).
The paper is part of an edited book collection on bio-inspired nanoscale computing that was published about a week ago by Wiley.
Robert Freitas contributed the 15th chapter:
Robert A. Freitas Jr., “Chapter 15. Computational Tasks in Medical Nanorobotics,” in M.M. Eshaghian-Wilner, ed., Bio-inspired and Nano-scale Integrated Computing, John Wiley & Sons, New York, 2009, pp. 391-428.
The chapter is about 5.2 MB in size and a draft preprint version may be downloaded from the nanomedicine website: http://www.nanomedicine.com/Papers/NanorobotControl2009.pdf
Nanomedicine is the application of nanotechnology to medicine: the preservation
and improvement of human health, using molecular tools and molecular knowledge
of the human body. Medical nanorobotics is the most powerful form of
future nanomedicine technology. Nanorobots may be constructed of diamondoid
nanometer-scale parts and mechanical subsystems including onboard sensors,
motors, manipulators, power plants, and molecular computers. The presence of
onboard nanocomputers would allow in vivo medical nanorobots to perform
numerous complex behaviors which must be conditionally executed on at least a
semiautonomous basis, guided by receipt of local sensor data and constrained by
preprogrammed settings, activity scripts, and event clocking, and further limited
by a variety of simultaneously executing real-time control protocols. Such
nanorobots cannot yet be manufactured in 2007 but preliminary scaling studies
for several classes of medical nanorobots have been published in the literature.
These designs are reviewed with an emphasis on the basic computational tasks
required in each case, and a summation of the various major computational
control functions common to all complex medical nanorobots is extracted from
these design examples. Finally, we introduce the concept of nanorobot control
protocols which are required to ensure that each nanorobot fully completes its
intended mission accurately, safely, and in a timely manner according to plan. Six
major classes of nanorobot control protocols have been identified and include
operational, biocompatibility, theater, safety, security, and group protocols. Six
important subclasses of theater protocols include locational, functional, situational, phenotypic, temporal, and identity control protocols.
Robert Freitas’ nanomedicine books remain freely available online at http://www.nanomedicine.com, with links to MNT-based medical nanorobot designs at http://www.nanomedicine.com/index.htm#NanorobotAnalyses.
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Posted on July 2nd, 2009 by admin
Solid-state lighting panels will begin to replace the venerable light bulb next year when General Electric (GE) kicks off its printable organic light-emitting diode (OLED) effort. These flexible light panels use an inexpensive printing process to fabricate OLEDs on cheap plastic substrates. Right now the panels are not bright enough to replace high-intensity halogen lights, but over the next decade, as they get brighter, look for the light bulb to be phased out. R.C.J.
In 2010, General Electric (GE) plans to start mass producing flexible, paper-thin lighting panels by printing organic light emitting diode (OLED) semiconductors on flexible polymer substrates, then encasing them in ultra-high barrier coatings. The market for organic printed electronics will grow to become a $300 billion market by 2028, according to IDTechEx Inc. (Cambridge, Mass.) The wide diversity of architectural, industrial and consumer applications for its flexible OLED lighting panels prompted GE to recently sponsor two design courses at the Cleveland Institute of Art (CIA) which explored the range of applications available.
Some of the most promising CIA student designs, according to GE, include under-shelf lighting for retailers, flexible signage for advertisers, illuminated stairs for architects, light-up wallpaper for decorators and illuminated safety jackets, pants and hats. View the full range of student ideas by viewing a video. By using its roll-to-roll manufacturing capability for OLEDs on inexpensive flexible substrates, GE claims it can both decrease manufacturing costs and increase design flexibility. And the company claims its ultra-high barrier coatings will protect the flexible OLED material throughout its lifetime just as well as the stiff glass panels traditionally used to protect the delicate organic devices being printed. The GE-CIA collaborative effort resulted in hundreds of student-inspired designs, many of which GE engineers are currently developing into commercial products at its Nela Park design center in Cleveland and its Global Research Center in Niskayuna, N.Y. The students at CIA originated the designs in a class entitled “Future Design Center,” the first semester of which focused on research, ideas and concepts, and the second semester of which refined, modeled and prototyped their best product recommendations.
Text: http://www.eetimes.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=218400218
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Posted on July 2nd, 2009 by admin
China Daily reports: China is planning for an installed nuclear power capacity of 86 gigawatts (gW) by 2020, up nearly 10-fold from the 9 gW capacity it had by the end of last year, two people familiar with the matter said. the new target is higher than targets earlier this year of 70-75 GW and higher than two-three years ago when the target was 40 GW.
The goal, which is part of an alternative energy development roadmap covering 2009-20, seeks to have at least 12 gW of installed nuclear power capacity by 2011.
The plan “will call for the government to accelerate nuclear power development in coastal provinces and autonomous regions, namely Liaoning, Guangdong, Zhejiang, Fujian, Guangxi, Jiangsu, Shandong and Hainan,” the sources said.
In order to achieve the goal, the government will also set up a “reasonable number of nuclear power plants in inland provinces in Jiangxi, Anhui, Hunan and Hubei”, they said.
The government is also planning to have 150 gW of installed wind power capacity by 2020, of which 30 gW will come from offshore wind farms. Installed wind power capacity should reach 35 gW by the end of 2011, of which 5 gW will come from offshore wind farms.
The [Energy] industry would attract investment worth 2.97 trillion yuan by 2011, creating 5 million jobs. And, total investment in the sector would touch 13.5 trillion yuan and create 20 million jobs by 2020
Chinese nuclear build continues apace with procurements for multi-unit power plants Hongyanhe and Ningde.
Having already won a contract for a simulator for Hongyanhe 1 and 2, Canada’s L3-MAPPS has now been picked to provide another for Hongyanhe 3 and 4.
The plant’s first two nuclear power generators are currently under construction on the Hongyan river in Liaoning province with first concrete for those coming in August 2007 and April 2008. First concrete at Hongyanhe 3 was poured on 15 March this year with the same for Hongyanhe 4 set for 15 September.
A similar plant, also based on domestic CPR-1000 pressurized water reactors, is being built at Ningde in Fujian province. The first two units there had first concrete in February and November 2008, the second two are set for 15 November this year and July 2010.
Both the plants are based on the domestic CPR-1000 design and are being managed by China Guangdong Nuclear Power Company (CGNPC) which is the lead partner in both projects They will both also feature forged steel valves from China Valves Technology after a contract signed a few days ago. CGNPC has paid 10% of the contract value up front, with the rest due on delivery. Half of the valves are required by the end of this year, with the others before March 2010.
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Posted on July 2nd, 2009 by admin
Postdoctoral Position in DNP-Enhanced MAS Solid State NMR Studies of the Mechanism of Energy Transduction by Bacteriorhodopsin.
A postdoctoral position will be available in late 2009 for studies of the structures of cryotrapped intermediates in the ion-motive photocycle of bacteriorhodopsin. The appointment will be at Brandeis University for spectroscopy to be carried out at the MIT/Harvard Center for Magnetic Resonance, as part of a long-term collaboration between the Herzfeld group at Brandeis and the Griffin group at MIT. (The two institutions are a few miles apart in the Boston area.) The one-year appointment will be annually renewable by mutual consent.
A strong background in NMR spectroscopy is required. Interested individuals should send a CV and the e-mail addresses of three references to herzfeld@brandeis.edu.
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Posted on July 1st, 2009 by admin
Shwann cells are shown here in a salamander limb. When the limb regrew after being amputated, only these cells wrapped around nerve fibers; other cell types did not turn into Shwann cells. Credit: D. Knapp/E. Tanaka
The salamander is a superhero of regeneration, able to replace lost limbs, damaged lungs, sliced spinal cord — even bits of lopped-off brain. In a paper set to appear Thursday in the journal Nature, a team of seven researchers, including a University of Florida zoologist debunk the source of the salamander regeneration as “pluripotent” cells.
The researchers show that cells from the salamander’s different tissues retain the “memory” of those tissues when they regenerate, contributing with few exceptions only to the same type of tissue from whence they came. The new findings suggest that harnessing the salamander’s regenerative wonders is at least within the realm of possibility for human medical science.
The researchers’ main conclusion: Only ‘old’ muscle cells make ‘new’ muscle cells, only old skin cells make new skin cells, only old nerve cells make new nerve cells, and so on. The only hint that the axolotl cells could revamp their function came with skin and cartilage cells, which in some circumstances seemed to swap roles, Maden said.
MIT Technology review has coverage.
Tanaka’s team employed a novel method for tracking the fate of cells from different tissues in a type of salamander called the axolotl. The researchers first created transgenic axolotls that carried green fluorescent protein (GFP) in their entire bodies. When the animals were still embryos, the researchers removed a piece of tissue from the limb region of the transgenic animals and transplanted the tissue into the same location in nontransgenic axolotls. The transplants were incorporated into the growing body as normal cells, and when the limb of the transplant recipients were then severed, the researchers could track the fate of the fluorescent cells as the limb regrew.
Sánchezalso says that the idea that blastemas held several different cell types was a “minority hypothesis” and that this study “shows that this hypothesis turns out to be correct.” He cautions that scientists now need to determine whether this phenomenon is the same in adult axolotls and in newts, which are a primary model organism for regeneration studies. But if the same mechanism turns out to underlie other cases of regeneration, it would change what scientists believe is required to regrow body parts, Sánchezsays. But it leaves a major question unanswered: if humans already have tissue-specific stem cells, what exactly is the difference between our cells and those of salamanders?
Maden said the findings will help researchers zero in on why salamander cells are capable of such remarkable regeneration. “If you can understand how they regenerate, then you ought to be able to understand why mammals don’t regenerate,” he said.
Maden said UF researchers will soon begin raising and experimenting on transgenic axolotls at UF as part of the The Regeneration Project, an effort to treat human brain and other diseases by examining regeneration in salamanders, newts, starfish and flatworms.
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