Tuesday 4 June 2019

Renault ex-boss linked to 11mn euros of suspicious spending: board

An internal audit conducted by carmakers Renault and Nissan identified 11 million euros of questionable expenses at their Dutch subsidiary linked to Carlos Ghosn, the ousted boss of the French-Japanese group, the Renault board said Tuesday.

* This article was originally published here

Using sensors to improve the interaction between humans and robots walking together

Researchers at the BioRobotics Institute of Scuola Superiore Sant"Anna, Co-Robotics srl and Sheffield Hallam University have recently proposed a new approach to improve interactions between humans and robots as they are walking together. Their paper, published in MDPI's Robotics journal, proposes the use of wearable sensors as a means to improve the collaboration between a human and a robot that are moving around in a shared environment.

* This article was originally published here

Solving the sun's super-heating mystery with Parker Solar Probe

It's one of the greatest and longest-running mysteries surrounding, quite literally, our sun—why is its outer atmosphere hotter than its fiery surface?

* This article was originally published here

Mortality rate 'weekend effect' not a reliable measure of care quality in hospitals

The higher mortality rate for weekend hospital admissions should not be used as an indicator of quality of care due to the lack of data preceding patient admission and on the severity of their illness, a new study conducted at the University of Warwick Medical School has concluded.

* This article was originally published here

REPLAB: A low-cost benchmark platform for robotic learning

Researchers at UC Berkeley have developed a reproducible, low-cost and compact benchmark platform to evaluate robotic learning approaches, which they called REPLAB. Their recent study, presented in a paper pre-published on arXiv, was supported by Berkeley DeepDrive, the Office of Naval Research (ONR), Google, NVIDIA and Amazon.

* This article was originally published here

Developers sue Apple over app store fees

A lawsuit filed Tuesday by developers alleges Apple is abusing its monopoly position in its online marketplace to extract excessive fees from those creating iPhone applications.

* This article was originally published here

Watchdog says FBI has access to about 640M photographs

A government watchdog says the FBI has access to about 640 million photographs—including from driver's licenses, passports and mugshots—that can be searched using facial recognition technology.

* This article was originally published here

A 3-D printer powered by machine vision and artificial intelligence

Objects made with 3-D printing can be lighter, stronger, and more complex than those produced through traditional manufacturing methods. But several technical challenges must be overcome before 3-D printing transforms the production of most devices.

* This article was originally published here

New orca calf reported in southern resident J pod

A new calf has been born to J pod, Canadian whale-watch companies were reporting Friday.

* This article was originally published here

K-Athena: a performance portable magnetohydrodynamics code

Running large-scale simulations is a crucial aspect of modern scientific research, yet it often requires a vast amount of computational resources. As we approach the era of exascale computing, which will be marked by the introduction of highly performing supercomputers, researchers have been trying to develop new architectures and codes to meet the huge computational requirements of our times. An important property to consider when developing codes for the exascale computing era is performance portability, which prevents the repeated, non-trivial refactoring of a code for different architectures.

* This article was originally published here

W3C and WHATWG agreement: Single version of HTML, DOM specifications

Having two separate HTML specifications? What's up with that? Stephen Shankland's account of the two in CNET: "for nearly a decade, two separate groups have been issuing separate documents to define Hypertext Markup Language, or HTML, the standard that tells you how to make a web page."

* This article was originally published here

UV light may illuminate improvements for next generation electronic devices

By adding one more layer of atoms to already infinitesimally small semiconductors, a next-level generation of electrical devices becomes possible. This work to build better and faster electronics is well underway, but little was known about how to test the ingredients of these devices to ensure performance. Now, researchers from the Nagoya Institute of Technology (NITech) in Japan have developed a method to make sure the connections between the two-dimensional layer of atoms and the semiconductors are as perfect as possible.

* This article was originally published here

Children's brains reorganize after epilepsy surgery to retain visual perception

Children can keep full visual perception—the ability to process and understand visual information—after brain surgery for severe epilepsy, according to a study funded by the National Eye Institute (NEI), part of the National Institutes of Health. While brain surgery can halt seizures, it carries significant risks, including an impairment in visual perception. However, a new report by Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, researchers from a study of children who had undergone epilepsy surgery suggests that the lasting effects on visual perception can be minimal, even among children who lost tissue in the brain's visual centers.

* This article was originally published here

Breakthrough as heart patches set for human trials

Researchers funded by the British Heart Foundation (BHF) have shown that heart 'patches' grown in the lab are safe to move on to trials in people with hearts damaged after a heart attack, in research presented at the British Cardiovascular Society (BCS) Conference in Manchester today.

* This article was originally published here

Energy storage project in Utah described as world's largest of its kind

Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems (MHPS) announced an ambitious energy storage project to develop what it claims will be the world's largest energy storage project of its kind, in Utah. Renewable hydrogen is at the core.

* This article was originally published here

Apple iTunes to play last song

Apple on Monday announced the demise of its groundbreaking iTunes platform in favor of three more tailored apps, as it refines its offerings to be a stage for digital music, films, podcasts and more.

* This article was originally published here

'Slothbot' takes a leisurely approach to environmental monitoring

For environmental monitoring, precision agriculture, infrastructure maintenance and certain security applications, slow and energy efficient can be better than fast and always needing a recharge. That's where "SlothBot" comes in.

* This article was originally published here

Significant barriers to care for patients seeking medication for opioid use

Buprenorphine-naloxone (buprenorphine), a highly effective, evidence-based treatment for opioid use disorder (OUD), is difficult to access in states with high rates of death associated with OUD, according to new research led by Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. The study also found that access to buprenorphine is especially challenging among patients with Medicaid coverage.

* This article was originally published here

Researchers discover cells that change their identity during normal development

A new study by researchers at the University of Virginia and other institutions has discovered a type of pigment cell in zebrafish that can transform after development into another cell type.

* This article was originally published here

Top Australian university reports vast, 'sophisticated' hack

A top Australian university with close ties to the country's government and security services on Tuesday said it had been the victim of a vast hack by a "sophisticated operator" who gained access to 19 years of sensitive data.

* This article was originally published here

NASA sees strong storms in developing gulf system 91L

NASA's Aqua satellite used infrared light to analyze the strength of storms in the developing low pressure area designated as System 91L is it moved through the Gulf of Campeche just north of Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula.

* This article was originally published here

Networking with ghosts in the machine... and speaking kettles

Imagine for just a moment that your kettle could speak? What would it say? How would it feel? More importantly, what on earth would you ask it?

* This article was originally published here