MIT News October 29, 2020 A team of researchers in the US (MIT, Harvard University) developed an AI speech processing framework that leverages acoustic biomarker feature extractors to pre-screen for COVID-19 from cough recordings. CNN-based models have been trained on 4256 subjects and tested on the remaining 1064 subjects of the dataset. When validated with subjects diagnosed using an official test, the model achieved COVID-19 sensitivity of 98.5% with a specificity of 94.2% . For asymptomatic subjects it achieved sensitivity of 100% with a specificity of 83.2%. AI techniques can produce a free, non-invasive, real-time, any-time, instantly distributable, large-scale COVID-19 […]
Author Archives: Hema Viswanath
Biodefense Headlines – 2 November 2020
Global Biodefense November 2, 2020 This week’s selections include partnering with schools for pandemic flu preparedness; validation analysis of the Global Health Security Index; and the hurdles of contact tracing across America… read more.
Breakthrough quantum-dot transistors create a flexible alternative to conventional electronics
Science Daily October 29, 2020 So far, most research on quantum dot electronic devices has focused on materials based on Pb- and Cd chalcogenides. In addition to environmental concerns associated with the presence of toxic metals, these quantum dots are not well suited for applications in CMOS circuits due to difficulties in integrating complementary n- and p-channel transistors in a common quantum dot active layer. A team of researchers in the US (Los Alamos National Laboratory, UC Irvine) demonstrated that by using heavy-metal-free CuInSe2 quantum dots, they could address the problem of toxicity and simultaneously achieve straightforward integration of complimentary […]
Brown carbon ‘tarballs’ detected in Himalayan atmosphere
Science Daily November 4, 2020 Primary brown carbon (BrC) co-emitted with black carbon from biomass burning is an important light-absorbing carbonaceous aerosol. An international team of researchers (China, USA – Georgia Institute of Technology, UK, Hungary) detected light-absorbing tarballs at microscopic scale collected on the northern slope of the Himalayas. About 28% of thousands of individual particles were tarballs. Air mass trajectories, satellite detection, and Weather Research and Forecasting model coupled to Chemistry (WRF-Chem) simulations all indicated that these tarballs were emitted from biomass burning in the Indo-Gangetic Plain. According to the researchers climate model simulation shows a significant heating […]
DRIVE ReDIRECT Program Seeks to Develop Countermeasures Against Chemical Threats
Global Biodefence October 31, 2020 The ReDIRECT Program is a new initiative from the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) which aims to identify existing, commonly available therapeutics that can be used to save lives during a chemical emergency. The program is focused on repurposing therapeutics against any of the following agents: Pulmonary Agents, Opioids, Vesicants, Blood/Metabolic Agents, Nerve Agents and Organophosphorus (OP) Pesticides, Computational approaches to identify candidates for drug repurposing. Under the EZ BAA Area of Interest (AOI), BARDA will review concise abstract submissions for funding development that repurposes easily accessible therapeutics as medical countermeasures. The effort is […]
Laying the groundwork for ultra-thin, energy efficient photodetector on Gorilla glass
Nanowerk November 2, 2020 Direct growth of high-performance, scalable, and reliable electronic materials on glass is difficult owing to low thermal budget. Researchers at the Pennsylvania State University have addressed the issue by relatively low-temperature (<600 °C) metal–organic chemical vapor deposition growth of atomically thin MoS2 on multicomponent glass and fabrication of low-power phototransistors using atomic layer deposition (ALD)-grown, high-k, and ultra-thin Al2O3 as the top-gate dielectric, circumventing the challenges associated with the ALD nucleation of oxides on inert basal planes of van der Waals materials. The MoS2 photodetectors demonstrate the ability to detect low-intensity visible light at high speed […]
New drone technology improves ability to forecast volcanic eruptions
Science Daily October 30, 2020 An international team of researchers (UK, Italy, Costa Rica, Sweden, Germany, USA – Michigan Tech. University, University of New Mexico, Canada, Papua New Guinea, New Zealand) has shown that aerial measurements of volcanic gases using unoccupied aerial systems (UAS) transform our ability to measure and monitor plumes remotely and to constrain global volatile fluxes from volcanoes. They combined multi-scale measurements from ground-based remote sensing, long-range aerial sampling, and satellites to construct comprehensive gas fluxes emitted by previously uncharacterized volcano Manam in Papua New Guinea. Their data emphasize the need to account for time averaging of […]
New technology allows cameras to capture colors invisible to the human eye
Phys.org November 5, 2020 In upconversion imaging phase matching severely limits the spectral bandwidth, therefore requires serial acquisitions to cover a large spectrum. Researchers in Israel have designed an upconversion imaging scheme covering the mid‐IR based on adiabatic frequency conversion. They presented mid‐IR multicolor imaging and demonstrated simultaneous imaging on a CMOS camera of radiation spanning a spectrum from 2 to 4 µm. This approach being coherent and ultrafast in essence, spectrally resolved spatiotemporal imaging is further demonstrated that allows spatially distinguishing the temporal evolution of spectral components. The findings has applications in a variety of fields from computer gaming […]
Physicists develop efficient modem for a future quantum internet
Phys.org November 5, 2020 A central research object is the interface between local quantum devices and light quanta that enable the remote transmission of highly sensitive quantum information. Researchers in Germany integrated a thin crystal of erbium-doped yttrium orthosilicate a cryogenic Fabry-Perot resonator leading to 56-fold enhancement of the emission rate with an out-coupling efficiency of 46%. They demonstrated that the emitter properties are not degraded. They observed ensemble-averaged optical coherence up to 0.54 ms, which exceeds the 0.19 ms lifetime of dopants at the cavity field maximum. The approach is also applicable to other solid-state quantum emitters, such as […]
Researchers develop a high-power, portable terahertz laser
MIT News November 2, 2020 Until now, generation of terahertz radiation powerful enough to perform real-time imaging and fast spectral measurements required temperatures far below 200 kelvins (-100 degrees Fahrenheit) or lower. An international team of researchers (USA – MIT, Canada) has developed THz QCLs (at ~4 THz) with a maximum operating temperature of 250 K. The high operating temperature enables portable THz systems to perform real-time imaging with a room-temperature THz camera, as well as fast spectral measurements with a room-temperature detector…read more. TECHNICAL ARTICLE