Recommender systems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lü, Linyuan; Medo, Matúš; Yeung, Chi Ho; Zhang, Yi-Cheng; Zhang, Zi-Ke; Zhou, Tao

2012-10-01

The ongoing rapid expansion of the Internet greatly increases the necessity of effective recommender systems for filtering the abundant information. Extensive research for recommender systems is conducted by a broad range of communities including social and computer scientists, physicists, and interdisciplinary researchers. Despite substantial theoretical and practical achievements, unification and comparison of different approaches are lacking, which impedes further advances. In this article, we review recent developments in recommender systems and discuss the major challenges. We compare and evaluate available algorithms and examine their roles in the future developments. In addition to algorithms, physical aspects are described to illustrate macroscopic behavior of recommender systems. Potential impacts and future directions are discussed. We emphasize that recommendation has great scientific depth and combines diverse research fields which makes it interesting for physicists as well as interdisciplinary researchers.

Dynamics of information diffusion and its applications on complex networks

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhang, Zi-Ke; Liu, Chuang; Zhan, Xiu-Xiu; Lu, Xin; Zhang, Chu-Xu; Zhang, Yi-Cheng

2016-09-01

The ongoing rapid expansion of the Word Wide Web (WWW) greatly increases the information of effective transmission from heterogeneous individuals to various systems. Extensive research for information diffusion is introduced by a broad range of communities including social and computer scientists, physicists, and interdisciplinary researchers. Despite substantial theoretical and empirical studies, unification and comparison of different theories and approaches are lacking, which impedes further advances. In this article, we review recent developments in information diffusion and discuss the major challenges. We compare and evaluate available models and algorithms to respectively investigate their physical roles and optimization designs. Potential impacts and future directions are discussed. We emphasize that information diffusion has great scientific depth and combines diverse research fields which makes it interesting for physicists as well as interdisciplinary researchers.

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Takacs, Peter

More than fifty years ago, before either arcades or home video games, visitors waited in line at Brookhaven National Laboratory to play Tennis for Two, an electronic tennis game that is unquestionably a forerunner of the modern video game. Two people played the electronic tennis game with separate controllers that connected to an analog computer and used an oscilloscope for a screen. The game's creator, William Higinbotham, was a physicist who lobbied for nuclear nonproliferation as the first chair of the Federation of American Scientists.

SEIZURE PREDICTION: THE FOURTH INTERNATIONAL WORKSHOP

PubMed Central

Zaveri, Hitten P.; Frei, Mark G.; Arthurs, Susan; Osorio, Ivan

2010-01-01

The recently convened Fourth International Workshop on Seizure Prediction (IWSP4) brought together a diverse international group of investigators, from academia and industry, including epileptologists, neurosurgeons, neuroscientists, computer scientists, engineers, physicists, and mathematicians who are conducting interdisciplinary research on the prediction and control of seizures. IWSP4 allowed the presentation and discussion of results, an exchange of ideas, an assessment of the status of seizure prediction, control and related fields and the fostering of collaborative projects. PMID:20674508

A Gendered Approach to Science Ethics for US and UK Physicists.

PubMed

Ecklund, Elaine Howard; Di, Di

2017-02-01

Some research indicates that women professionals-when compared to men-may be more ethical in the workplace. Existing literature that discusses gender and ethics is confined to the for-profit business sector and primarily to a US context. In particular, there is little attention paid to gender and ethics in science professions in a global context. This represents a significant gap, as science is a rapidly growing and global professional sector, as well as one with ethically ambiguous areas. Adopting an international comparative perspective, this paper relies on 121 semi-structured interviews with US and UK academic physicists to examine how physicists perceive the impact of gender on science ethics. Findings indicate that some US and UK physicists believe that female scientists handle ethical issues within science in a feminine way whereas their male colleagues approach ethics in a masculine way. Some of these physicists further claim that these different approaches to science ethics lead to male and female scientists' different levels of competitiveness in academic physics. In both the US and the UK, there are "gender-blind" physicists, who do not think gender is related to professional ethics. Relying on physicists' nuanced descriptions this paper contributes to the current understanding of gender and science and engineering ethics.

Careers and people

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

2009-09-01

IBM scientist wins magnetism prizes Stuart Parkin, an applied physicist at IBM's Almaden Research Center, has won the European Geophysical Society's Néel Medal and the Magnetism Award from the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP) for his fundamental contributions to nanodevices used in information storage. Parkin's research on giant magnetoresistance in the late 1980s led IBM to develop computer hard drives that packed 1000 times more data onto a disk; his recent work focuses on increasing the storage capacity of solid-state electronic devices.

First Video Game

ScienceCinema

Takacs, Peter

2018-06-21

More than fifty years ago, before either arcades or home video games, visitors waited in line at Brookhaven National Laboratory to play Tennis for Two, an electronic tennis game that is unquestionably a forerunner of the modern video game. Two people played the electronic tennis game with separate controllers that connected to an analog computer and used an oscilloscope for a screen. The game's creator, William Higinbotham, was a physicist who lobbied for nuclear nonproliferation as the first chair of the Federation of American Scientists.

The Impact of Explicit Teaching of Methodological Aspects of Physics on Scientistic Beliefs and Interest

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Korte, Stefan; Berger, Roland; Hänze, Martin

2017-05-01

We assessed the impact of teaching methodological aspects of physics on students' scientistic beliefs and subject interest in physics in a repeated-measurement design with a total of 142 students of upper secondary physics classes. Students gained knowledge of methodological aspects from the pre-test to the post-test and reported reduced scientistic beliefs, both from their own views and from their presumed prototypical physicists' views. We found no direct impact of teaching on students' subject interest in physics. As path analysis indicates, this result can be traced back to opposing paths: Lower scientistic beliefs of students attenuate subject interest while lower presumed scientistic beliefs that they hold of physicists foster subject interest. This finding is in accordance with the self-to-prototype matching theory that predicts an impact of the overlap between students' self-image and their prototypical image on subject interest in physics.

Video Image Stabilization and Registration (VISAR) Software

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1999-01-01

Two scientists at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, atmospheric scientist Paul Meyer and solar physicist Dr. David Hathaway, developed promising new software, called Video Image Stabilization and Registration (VISAR), which is illustrated in this Quick Time movie. VISAR is a computer algorithm that stabilizes camera motion in the horizontal and vertical as well as rotation and zoom effects producing clearer images of moving objects, smoothes jagged edges, enhances still images, and reduces video noise or snow. It could steady images of ultrasounds, which are infamous for their grainy, blurred quality. VISAR could also have applications in law enforcement, medical, and meteorological imaging. The software can be used for defense application by improving reconnaissance video imagery made by military vehicles, aircraft, and ships traveling in harsh, rugged environments.

Video Image Stabilization and Registration (VISAR) Software

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1999-01-01

Two scientists at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center,atmospheric scientist Paul Meyer and solar physicist Dr. David Hathaway, developed promising new software, called Video Image stabilization and Registration (VISAR), which is illustrated in this Quick Time movie. VISAR is a computer algorithm that stabilizes camera motion in the horizontal and vertical as well as rotation and zoom effects producing clearer images of moving objects, smoothes jagged edges, enhances still images, and reduces video noise or snow. It could steady images of ultrasounds, which are infamous for their grainy, blurred quality. VISAR could also have applications in law enforcement, medical, and meteorological imaging. The software can be used for defense application by improving reconnaissance video imagery made by military vehicles, aircraft, and ships traveling in harsh, rugged environments.

Good scientists and honest people

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Robinson, Andrew

2014-06-01

In early 1948, less than three years after the end of the Second World War in Europe, Werner Heisenberg - the Nobel laureate and physicist leader of the failed German atomic bomb project - was invited to the UK as part of an attempt to repair relations between British and German physicists.

Weapon Physicist Declassifies Rescued Nuclear Test Films

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Spriggs, Greg; Moye, Jim

2017-03-15

The U.S. conducted 210 atmospheric nuclear tests between 1945 and 1962, with multiple cameras capturing each event at around 2,400 frames per second. But in the decades since, around 10,000 of these films sat idle, scattered across the country in high-security vaults. Not only were they gathering dust, the film material itself was slowly decomposing, bringing the data they contained to the brink of being lost forever. For the past five years, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) weapon physicist Greg Spriggs and a crack team of film experts, archivists and software developers have been on a mission to hunt down,more » scan, reanalyze and declassify these decomposing films. The goals are to preserve the films’ content before it’s lost forever, and provide better data to the post-testing-era scientists who use computer codes to help certify that the aging U.S. nuclear deterrent remains safe, secure and effective.« less

Collaborative Lab Reports with Google Docs

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wood, Michael

2011-03-01

Science is a collaborative endeavor. The solitary genius working on the next great scientific breakthrough is a myth not seen much today. Instead, most physicists have worked in a group at one point in their careers, whether as a graduate student, faculty member, staff scientist, or industrial researcher. As an experimental nuclear physicist with research at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility, my collaboration consists of over 200 scientists, both national and international. A typical experiment will have a dozen or so principal investigators. Add in the hundreds of staff scientists, engineers, and technicians, and it is clear that science is truly a collaborative effort. This paper will describe the use of Google Docs for collaborative reports for an introductory physics laboratory.

Quantum Chemistry; A concise introduction for students of physics, chemistry, biochemistry and materials science

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Thakkar, Ajit J.

2017-09-01

This book provides non-specialists with a basic understanding of the underlying concepts of quantum chemistry. It is both a text for second- or third-year undergraduates and a reference for researchers who need a quick introduction or refresher. All chemists and many biochemists, materials scientists, engineers, and physicists routinely use spectroscopic measurements and electronic structure computations in their work. The emphasis of Quantum Chemistry on explaining ideas rather than enumerating facts or presenting procedural details makes this an excellent foundation text/reference.

Computational methods in the pricing and risk management of modern financial derivatives

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Deutsch, Hans-Peter

1999-09-01

In the last 20 years modern finance has developed into a complex mathematically challenging field. Very complicated risks exist in financial markets which need very advanced methods to measure and/or model them. The financial instruments invented by the market participants to trade these risk, the so called derivatives are usually even more complicated than the risks themselves and also sometimes generate new riks. Topics like random walks, stochastic differential equations, martingale measures, time series analysis, implied correlations, etc. are of common use in the field. This is why more and more people with a science background, such as physicists, mathematicians, or computer scientists, are entering the field of finance. The measurement and management of all theses risks is the key to the continuing success of banks. This talk gives insight into today's common methods of modern market risk management such as variance-covariance, historical simulation, Monte Carlo, “Greek” ratios, etc., including the statistical concepts on which they are based. Derivatives are at the same time the main reason for and the most effective means of conducting risk management. As such, they stand at the beginning and end of risk management. The valuation of derivatives and structured financial instruments is therefore the prerequisite, the condition sine qua non, for all risk management. This talk introduces some of the important valuation methods used in modern derivatives pricing such as present value, Black-Scholes, binomial trees, Monte Carlo, etc. In summary this talk highlights an area outside physics where there is a lot of interesting work to do, especially for physicists. Or as one of our consultants said: The fascinating thing about this job is that Arthur Andersen hired me not ALTHOUGH I am a physicist but BECAUSE I am a physicist.

Enabling the Discovery of Gravitational Radiation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Isaacson, Richard

2017-01-01

The discovery of gravitational radiation was announced with the publication of the results of a physics experiment involving over a thousand participants. This was preceded by a century of theoretical work, involving a similarly large group of physicists, mathematicians, and computer scientists. This huge effort was enabled by a substantial commitment of resources, both public and private, to develop the different strands of this complex research enterprise, and to build a community of scientists to carry it out. In the excitement following the discovery, the role of key enablers of this success has not always been adequately recognized in popular accounts. In this talk, I will try to call attention to a few of the key ingredients that proved crucial to enabling the successful discovery of gravitational waves, and the opening of a new field of science.

Lithuanian women physicists: Current situation and involvement in gender projects

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Šatkovskienė, Dalia; Ruželė, Živilė; Rutkūnienė, Živilė; Kupliauskienė, Alicija

2015-12-01

The changes in the situation of women in physics since the last Lithuanian country report are discussed on the basis of available statistics. The overall percentage of women physicists in research is 28%. Results show that there is a noticeable increase in female scientists in most phases of the academic career progression except in the highest positions. The results also show a permanent change in the awareness of gender-related issues in research. We also discuss the initiatives taken by Lithuanian women scientists to change the situation during three last years and their outcomes.

Collaborative Lab Reports with Google Docs

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wood, Michael

2011-01-01

Science is a collaborative endeavor. The solitary genius working on the next great scientific breakthrough is a myth not seen much today. Instead, most physicists have worked in a group at one point in their careers, whether as a graduate student, faculty member, staff scientist, or industrial researcher. As an experimental nuclear physicist with…

"Angels & Demons" May Help Physicists Explain What Matters

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Basken, Paul

2009-01-01

It's not every day that scientific researchers need to defend themselves against charges of destroying humanity. And yet a group of several dozen physicists associated with the Large Hadron Collider may be getting pretty good at it--and, at the same time, actively engaging in public education and debate in ways that university scientists have…

Becoming the Citizen Scientist: Opportunities and Challenges in Science Policy

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bosler, T. L.

2007-03-01

The methodologies, creativity and intellectual capacity of today's physicists are becoming more and more relevant in the world of policy and politics. Some issues such as climate change, alternative energy and avian influenza clearly reveal the relevance of scientific knowledge and research in policy. However, the connection between science and issues such as electronic voting, government earmarks and international cooperation are not as obvious, but the role of scientists in these topics and their effects on science itself are critical. As the world becomes increasingly technological and global, the need for the involvement of scientists in the political process grows. The traditional scientific training of physicists emphasizes intense scrutiny of specific physical phenomena in the natural world but often misses the opportunity to utilize trained scientific minds on some of society's greatest problems. I will discuss the many ways in which scientists can contribute to society far beyond the academic community and the unique opportunities science policy work offers to the socially conscious scientist or even those just looking to get more grant money.

How Academic Biologists and Physicists View Science Outreach

PubMed Central

Ecklund, Elaine Howard; James, Sarah A.; Lincoln, Anne E.

2012-01-01

Scholars and pundits alike argue that U.S. scientists could do more to reach out to the general public. Yet, to date, there have been few systematic studies that examine how scientists understand the barriers that impede such outreach. Through analysis of 97 semi-structured interviews with academic biologists and physicists at top research universities in the United States, we classify the type and target audiences of scientists’ outreach activities. Finally, we explore the narratives academic scientists have about outreach and its reception in the academy, in particular what they perceive as impediments to these activities. We find that scientists’ outreach activities are stratified by gender and that university and disciplinary rewards as well as scientists’ perceptions of their own skills have an impact on science outreach. Research contributions and recommendations for university policy follow. PMID:22590526

Performance Analysis, Modeling and Scaling of HPC Applications and Tools

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Bhatele, Abhinav

2016-01-13

E cient use of supercomputers at DOE centers is vital for maximizing system throughput, mini- mizing energy costs and enabling science breakthroughs faster. This requires complementary e orts along several directions to optimize the performance of scienti c simulation codes and the under- lying runtimes and software stacks. This in turn requires providing scalable performance analysis tools and modeling techniques that can provide feedback to physicists and computer scientists developing the simulation codes and runtimes respectively. The PAMS project is using time allocations on supercomputers at ALCF, NERSC and OLCF to further the goals described above by performing research alongmore » the following fronts: 1. Scaling Study of HPC applications; 2. Evaluation of Programming Models; 3. Hardening of Performance Tools; 4. Performance Modeling of Irregular Codes; and 5. Statistical Analysis of Historical Performance Data. We are a team of computer and computational scientists funded by both DOE/NNSA and DOE/ ASCR programs such as ECRP, XStack (Traleika Glacier, PIPER), ExaOSR (ARGO), SDMAV II (MONA) and PSAAP II (XPACC). This allocation will enable us to study big data issues when analyzing performance on leadership computing class systems and to assist the HPC community in making the most e ective use of these resources.« less

State-Transition Structures in Physics and in Computation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Petri, C. A.

1982-12-01

In order to establish close connections between physical and computational processes, it is assumed that the concepts of “state” and of “transition” are acceptable both to physicists and to computer scientists, at least in an informal way. The aim of this paper is to propose formal definitions of state and transition elements on the basis of very low level physical concepts in such a way that (1) all physically possible computations can be described as embedded in physical processes; (2) the computational aspects of physical processes can be described on a well-defined level of abstraction; (3) the gulf between the continuous models of physics and the discrete models of computer science can be bridged by simple mathematical constructs which may be given a physical interpretation; (4) a combinatorial, nonstatistical definition of “information” can be given on low levels of abstraction which may serve as a basis to derive higher-level concepts of information, e.g., by a statistical or probabilistic approach. Conceivable practical consequences are discussed.

Economics' Fall from Grace

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rudolph, Lloyd I.; Rudolph, Susanne Hoeber

2010-01-01

Not long ago, many political scientists suffered from economics envy. Some still do. They view economics as the queen of the social sciences, claiming that it is "scientific," like physics. Physicists and other natural scientists spend most of their time trying to explain phenomena, but non-behavioral micro-economists spend most of their time on…

Writing for Non-Scientists about Physics

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hobson, Art

2011-01-01

Physicists should communicate their knowledge to the general public because, as the American Association for the Advancement of Science puts it, "without a scientifically literate population, the outlook for a better world is not promising." This article discusses what I've learned about writing for non-scientists from working on my physics…

A perspective on slow-relaxing molecular magnets built from rare-earths and nitronyl-nitroxide building blocks (invited)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bogani, Lapo

2011-04-01

We offer a perspective, accessible to both chemists and physicists, of recent developments in the synthesis and characterization of molecular magnetic materials based on rare-earths and nitronyl-nitroxide radicals. We show both the rationale of the synthetic strategies and the observed behaviors. We highlight the relevance of these findings for synthetic chemists, material scientists, and physicists.

Is the local linearity of space-time inherited from the linearity of probabilities?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Müller, Markus P.; Carrozza, Sylvain; Höhn, Philipp A.

2017-02-01

The appearance of linear spaces, describing physical quantities by vectors and tensors, is ubiquitous in all of physics, from classical mechanics to the modern notion of local Lorentz invariance. However, as natural as this seems to the physicist, most computer scientists would argue that something like a ‘local linear tangent space’ is not very typical and in fact a quite surprising property of any conceivable world or algorithm. In this paper, we take the perspective of the computer scientist seriously, and ask whether there could be any inherently information-theoretic reason to expect this notion of linearity to appear in physics. We give a series of simple arguments, spanning quantum information theory, group representation theory, and renormalization in quantum gravity, that supports a surprising thesis: namely, that the local linearity of space-time might ultimately be a consequence of the linearity of probabilities. While our arguments involve a fair amount of speculation, they have the virtue of being independent of any detailed assumptions on quantum gravity, and they are in harmony with several independent recent ideas on emergent space-time in high-energy physics.

Gender, Ethnicity, and Physics Education: Understanding How Black Women Build Their Identities as Scientists

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rosa, Katemari Diogo da

This research focuses on the underrepresentation of minoritized groups in scientific careers. The study is an analysis of the relationships between race, gender, and those with careers in the sciences, focusing on the lived experiences of Black women physicists, as viewed through the lens of women scientists in the United States. Although the research is geographically localized, the base-line question is clear and mirrors in the researcher's own intellectual development: "How do Black women physicists describe their experiences towards the construction of a scientific identity and the pursuit of a career in physics?" Grounded on a critical race theory perspective, the study uses storytelling to analyze how these women build their identities as scientists and how they have negotiate their multiple identities within different communities in society. Findings show that social integration is a key element for Black women physicists to enter study groups, which enables access to important resources for academic success in STEM. The study has implications for physics education and policymakers. The study reveals the role of the different communities that these women are part of, and the importance of public policies targeted to increase the participation of underrepresented groups in science, especially through after-school programs and financial support through higher education.

The Bohr paradox

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Crease, Robert P.

2008-05-01

In his book Niels Bohr's Times, the physicist Abraham Pais captures a paradox in his subject's legacy by quoting three conflicting assessments. Pais cites Max Born, of the first generation of quantum physics, and Werner Heisenberg, of the second, as saying that Bohr had a greater influence on physics and physicists than any other scientist. Yet Pais also reports a distinguished younger colleague asking with puzzlement and scepticism "What did Bohr really do?".

Physics of the 1 Teraflop RIKEN-BNL-Columbia QCD project. Proceedings of RIKEN BNL Research Center workshop: Volume 13

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

NONE

1998-10-16

A workshop was held at the RIKEN-BNL Research Center on October 16, 1998, as part of the first anniversary celebration for the center. This meeting brought together the physicists from RIKEN-BNL, BNL and Columbia who are using the QCDSP (Quantum Chromodynamics on Digital Signal Processors) computer at the RIKEN-BNL Research Center for studies of QCD. Many of the talks in the workshop were devoted to domain wall fermions, a discretization of the continuum description of fermions which preserves the global symmetries of the continuum, even at finite lattice spacing. This formulation has been the subject of analytic investigation for somemore » time and has reached the stage where large-scale simulations in QCD seem very promising. With the computational power available from the QCDSP computers, scientists are looking forward to an exciting time for numerical simulations of QCD.« less

Materials for Digital Optical Design:. a Survey Study

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ismail, Ayman Abdel Khader; Ismail, Imane Aly Saroit; Ahmed, S. H.

2010-04-01

In the last few years digital optical design had major attention in research fields. Many researches were published in the fields of optical materials, instruments, circuit design and devices. This is considered to be the most multidisciplinary field and requires for its success collaborative efforts of many disciplines, ranging from device and optical engineers to computer architects, chemists, material scientists, and optical physicists. In this study we will introduce a survey of the latest papers in the field of optical materials and its properties for light; this paper is organized in three major sections, optical glasses, compound materials and nonlinear absorption (multi photon absorption) and up-conversion.

On the money

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

2014-10-01

Increases in governmental funding for research are outmatched by the swelling ranks of scientists competing for grants. Physicists are starting to look for creative alternatives to complement their funding.

[Information production by scientists and the history of science: typological study of personal archives].

PubMed

Silva, Maria Celina Soares de Mello E; Trancoso, Márcia Cristina Duarte

2015-01-01

This article addresses the study of document typology in the personal archives of scientists and its importance in the history of science studies and for the archivist's work. A brief history is presented of diplomatic to typological information, emphasizing that identifying document production activity as essential for its classification. The article illustrates personal archive characteristics as regards the diversity of documental types and, in particular, those belonging to physicists. Furthermore, it presents five examples of documental types found in the archives of physicists as examples of research in progress. It also highlights the elaboration of a glossary of different documental kinds and types found in the private archives of Museum of Astronomy and Related Sciences in Rio de Janeiro.

Keeping an Eye on the Prize

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Hazi, A U

2007-02-06

Setting performance goals is part of the business plan for almost every company. The same is true in the world of supercomputers. Ten years ago, the Department of Energy (DOE) launched the Accelerated Strategic Computing Initiative (ASCI) to help ensure the safety and reliability of the nation's nuclear weapons stockpile without nuclear testing. ASCI, which is now called the Advanced Simulation and Computing (ASC) Program and is managed by DOE's National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), set an initial 10-year goal to obtain computers that could process up to 100 trillion floating-point operations per second (teraflops). Many computer experts thought themore » goal was overly ambitious, but the program's results have proved them wrong. Last November, a Livermore-IBM team received the 2005 Gordon Bell Prize for achieving more than 100 teraflops while modeling the pressure-induced solidification of molten metal. The prestigious prize, which is named for a founding father of supercomputing, is awarded each year at the Supercomputing Conference to innovators who advance high-performance computing. Recipients for the 2005 prize included six Livermore scientists--physicists Fred Streitz, James Glosli, and Mehul Patel and computer scientists Bor Chan, Robert Yates, and Bronis de Supinski--as well as IBM researchers James Sexton and John Gunnels. This team produced the first atomic-scale model of metal solidification from the liquid phase with results that were independent of system size. The record-setting calculation used Livermore's domain decomposition molecular-dynamics (ddcMD) code running on BlueGene/L, a supercomputer developed by IBM in partnership with the ASC Program. BlueGene/L reached 280.6 teraflops on the Linpack benchmark, the industry standard used to measure computing speed. As a result, it ranks first on the list of Top500 Supercomputer Sites released in November 2005. To evaluate the performance of nuclear weapons systems, scientists must understand how materials behave under extreme conditions. Because experiments at high pressures and temperatures are often difficult or impossible to conduct, scientists rely on computer models that have been validated with obtainable data. Of particular interest to weapons scientists is the solidification of metals. ''To predict the performance of aging nuclear weapons, we need detailed information on a material's phase transitions'', says Streitz, who leads the Livermore-IBM team. For example, scientists want to know what happens to a metal as it changes from molten liquid to a solid and how that transition affects the material's characteristics, such as its strength.« less

A Different Laboratory Tale: Fifty Years of Mössbauer Spectroscopy

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Westfall, Catherine

2006-05-01

I explore the fifty-year development of Mössbauer spectroscopy by focusing on three episodes in its development at Argonne National Laboratory: work by nuclear physicists using radioactive sources in the early 1960s, work by solid-state physicists using radioactive resources from the mid- 1960s through the 1970s,and work by solid-state physicists using the Advanced Photon Source from the 1980s to 2005. These episodes show how knowledge about the properties of matter was produced in a national-laboratory context and highlights the web of connections that allow nationallaboratory scientists working at a variety of scales to produce both technological and scientific innovations.

Herbert Fröhlich: A Physicist Ahead of His Time, by G.J. Hyland [Book Review

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Devanathan, Ram

This authoritative biography of Herbert Fröhlich (1905-1991), a well-known theoretical physicist, paints an intimate portrait of a pioneering scientist who made seminal contributions to condensed matter physics and left his mark on other domains such as biology over a 60-year career. From his vantage point as the last graduate student of this eminent physicist, Gerard Hyland has produced an account that weaves the personal experiences and travails of Fröhlich with detailed discussion of the theory of dielectrics. The political upheavals in Europe during the 20th century provide a dramatic backdrop for the narrative.

Gender, Ethnicity, and Physics Education: Understanding How Black Women Build Their Identities as Scientists

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

da Rosa, Katemari Diogo

2013-01-01

This research focuses on the underrepresentation of minoritized groups in scientific careers. The study is an analysis of the relationships between race, gender, and those with careers in the sciences, focusing on the lived experiences of Black women physicists, as viewed through the lens of women scientists in the United States. Although the…

An Analysis of the Actual Processes of Physicists' Research and the Implications for Teaching Scientific Inquiry in School

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Park, Jongwon; Jang, Kyoung-Ae; Kim, Ikgyun

2009-01-01

Investigation of scientists' actual processes of conducting research can provide us with more realistic aspects of scientific inquiry. This study was performed to identify three aspects of scientists' actual research: their motivations for scientific inquiry, the scientific inquiry skills they used, and the main types of results obtained from…

Jobs for Women in Science. A Discussion for the Conference for Educating Women for Science: A Continuous Spectrum.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hanson, Marlys C.

Opportunities for scientists in the near future will be very good in the fields of energy research and development, both for degreed scientists and for technicians. Geologists, geophysicists, mining engineers, rock mechanics, hydrologists, applied physicists, applied chemists, and nuclear engineers are among the types of personnel needed. These…

A New Generation of Networks and Computing Models for High Energy Physics in the LHC Era

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Newman, H.

2011-12-01

Wide area networks of increasing end-to-end capacity and capability are vital for every phase of high energy physicists' work. Our bandwidth usage, and the typical capacity of the major national backbones and intercontinental links used by our field have progressed by a factor of several hundred times over the past decade. With the opening of the LHC era in 2009-10 and the prospects for discoveries in the upcoming LHC run, the outlook is for a continuation or an acceleration of these trends using next generation networks over the next few years. Responding to the need to rapidly distribute and access datasets of tens to hundreds of terabytes drawn from multi-petabyte data stores, high energy physicists working with network engineers and computer scientists are learning to use long range networks effectively on an increasing scale, and aggregate flows reaching the 100 Gbps range have been observed. The progress of the LHC, and the unprecedented ability of the experiments to produce results rapidly using worldwide distributed data processing and analysis has sparked major, emerging changes in the LHC Computing Models, which are moving from the classic hierarchical model designed a decade ago to more agile peer-to-peer-like models that make more effective use of the resources at Tier2 and Tier3 sites located throughout the world. A new requirements working group has gauged the needs of Tier2 centers, and charged the LHCOPN group that runs the network interconnecting the LHC Tierls with designing a new architecture interconnecting the Tier2s. As seen from the perspective of ICFA's Standing Committee on Inter-regional Connectivity (SCIC), the Digital Divide that separates physicists in several regions of the developing world from those in the developed world remains acute, although many countries have made major advances through the rapid installation of modern network infrastructures. A case in point is Africa, where a new round of undersea cables promises to transform the continent.

Establishment of an Undergraduate Research and Training Program in Radiochemistry at Florida Memorial University, a Historically Black College or University (HBCU)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tamalis, Dimitri; Stiffin, Rose; Elliott, Michael; Huisso, Ayivi; Biegalski, Steven; Landsberger, Sheldon

2009-08-01

With the passing of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, the United States is experiencing for the first time in over two decades, what some refer to as the "Nuclear Renaissance". The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) recognizes this surge in application submissions and is committed to reviewing these applications in a timely manner to support the country's growing energy demands. Notwithstanding these facts, it is understood that the nuclear industry requires appropriately trained and educated personnel to support the growing needs of the nuclear industry and the US NRC. Equally important is the need to educate the next generation of students in nuclear non-proliferation, nuclear forensics and various aspects of homeland security for the national laboratories and the Department of Defense. From mechanical engineers educated and experienced in materials, thermal/fluid dynamics, and component failure analysis, to physicists using advanced computing techniques to design the next generation of nuclear reactor fuel elements, the need for new engineers, scientists, and health physicist has never been greater.

Close encounters

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

2017-01-01

In a series of 20 short, sharp essays by a mix of extraterrestrial scientists and experts, compiled and edited by physicist and TV presenter Jim Al-Khalili, Aliens attempts to answer some big questions.

Comments from physicsworld.com

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

2009-02-01

US President Barack Obama's decision to include several scientists in his cabinet-including two physicists, John Holdren and Steven Chu, who will serve as science advisor and energy secretary, respectively - is discussed in this month's news section (see pp8-9). Two articles posted on physicsworld.com when the announcements were first made ("Nobel laureate goes to Washington?" 11 December 2008 and "Obama nominates physicist as science advisor" 22 December 2008) sparked a number of comments, both sceptical and supportive, from readers.

Science anc Society

ScienceCinema

None

2018-05-18

S.P. Worden, member of the U.S. delegation at Geneva for negotiations on nuclear weapons, is a physicist, astronomer, scientist and an officer in the Air Force. He speaks about strategical defensive technologies.

Formalizing an integrative, multidisciplinary cancer therapy discovery workflow

PubMed Central

McGuire, Mary F.; Enderling, Heiko; Wallace, Dorothy I.; Batra, Jaspreet; Jordan, Marie; Kumar, Sushil; Panetta, John C.; Pasquier, Eddy

2014-01-01

Although many clinicians and researchers work to understand cancer, there has been limited success to effectively combine forces and collaborate over time, distance, data and budget constraints. Here we present a workflow template for multidisciplinary cancer therapy that was developed during the 2nd Annual Workshop on Cancer Systems Biology sponsored by Tufts University, Boston, MA in July 2012. The template was applied to the development of a metronomic therapy backbone for neuroblastoma. Three primary groups were identified: clinicians, biologists, and scientists (mathematicians, computer scientists, physicists and engineers). The workflow described their integrative interactions; parallel or sequential processes; data sources and computational tools at different stages as well as the iterative nature of therapeutic development from clinical observations to in vitro, in vivo, and clinical trials. We found that theoreticians in dialog with experimentalists could develop calibrated and parameterized predictive models that inform and formalize sets of testable hypotheses, thus speeding up discovery and validation while reducing laboratory resources and costs. The developed template outlines an interdisciplinary collaboration workflow designed to systematically investigate the mechanistic underpinnings of a new therapy and validate that therapy to advance development and clinical acceptance. PMID:23955390

The Search for Dark Matter

ScienceCinema

Orrell, John

2018-05-01

More than 25 years ago, PNNL scientists began the first underground measurements searching for dark matter using specialized radiation detector technology. Dark matter is yet to be discovered says Physicist John L. Orrell.

The Search for Dark Matter

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Orrell, John

More than 25 years ago, PNNL scientists began the first underground measurements searching for dark matter using specialized radiation detector technology. Dark matter is yet to be discovered says Physicist John L. Orrell.

Strontium-90 Error Discovered in Subcontract Laboratory Spreadsheet

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

D. D. Brown A. S. Nagel

1999-07-31

West Valley Demonstration Project health physicists and environment scientists discovered a series of errors in a subcontractor's spreadsheet being used to reduce data as part of their strontium-90 analytical process.

"Geniuses like this are very rare today..."

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Shcherbakov, Robert N.

2011-11-01

This paper gives insight into the context of how Lomonosov developed into a scientist and a physicist; reviews his major achievements in physics; discusses his epistemological method, and explores the major reasons for his tragedy as a physicist. The role of the poetically interpreted knowledge and science of nature in Lomonosov's popularization activities is emphasized. The paper traces Lomonosov's route from science and its popularization to the organization of higher and secondary education in Russia. How the perception of his genius changes with time is discussed.

The Mental Aftermath - The Mentality of German Physicists 1945-1949

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hentschel, Klaus

2007-01-01

Few scientific communities have been more thoroughly studied than 20th-century German physicists. Yet their behavior and patterns of thinking immediately after the war remains puzzling. During the first five postwar years they suspended their internecine battles and a strange solidarity emerged. Former enemies were suddenly willing to exonerate each other blindly and even morally upright physicists began to write tirades against the 'denazification mischief' or the 'export of scientists'. Personal idiosyncracies melded into a strangely uniform pattern of rejection or resistance to the Allied occupiers, with attendant repressed feelings and self-pity. Politics was once again perceived as remote, dirty business. It was feared that the least concession of guilt would bring down even more severe sanctions on their discipline. Using tools from the history of mentality, such as analysis of serial publications, these tendenciesare examined. The perspective of emigre physicists, as reflected in their private letters and reports, embellish this portrait.

Exploiting volatile opportunistic computing resources with Lobster

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Woodard, Anna; Wolf, Matthias; Mueller, Charles; Tovar, Ben; Donnelly, Patrick; Hurtado Anampa, Kenyi; Brenner, Paul; Lannon, Kevin; Hildreth, Mike; Thain, Douglas

2015-12-01

Analysis of high energy physics experiments using the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) can be limited by availability of computing resources. As a joint effort involving computer scientists and CMS physicists at Notre Dame, we have developed an opportunistic workflow management tool, Lobster, to harvest available cycles from university campus computing pools. Lobster consists of a management server, file server, and worker processes which can be submitted to any available computing resource without requiring root access. Lobster makes use of the Work Queue system to perform task management, while the CMS specific software environment is provided via CVMFS and Parrot. Data is handled via Chirp and Hadoop for local data storage and XrootD for access to the CMS wide-area data federation. An extensive set of monitoring and diagnostic tools have been developed to facilitate system optimisation. We have tested Lobster using the 20 000-core cluster at Notre Dame, achieving approximately 8-10k tasks running simultaneously, sustaining approximately 9 Gbit/s of input data and 340 Mbit/s of output data.

Calculate the Top Quark Mass

Science.gov Websites

Searching for Top How do today's scientists use conservation of momentum? Particle physicists mass into energy and then energy into mass! You can use the principle of conservation of momentum which

P3: a practice focused learning environment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Irving, Paul W.; Obsniuk, Michael J.; Caballero, Marcos D.

2017-09-01

There has been an increased focus on the integration of practices into physics curricula, with a particular emphasis on integrating computation into the undergraduate curriculum of scientists and engineers. In this paper, we present a university-level, introductory physics course for science and engineering majors at Michigan State University called P3 (projects and practices in physics) that is centred around providing introductory physics students with the opportunity to appropriate various science and engineering practices. The P3 design integrates computation with analytical problem solving and is built upon a curriculum foundation of problem-based learning, the principles of constructive alignment and the theoretical framework of community of practice. The design includes an innovative approach to computational physics instruction, instructional scaffolds, and a unique approach to assessment that enables instructors to guide students in the development of the practices of a physicist. We present the very positive student related outcomes of the design gathered via attitudinal and conceptual inventories and research interviews of students’ reflecting on their experiences in the P3 classroom.

Device physics vis-à-vis fundamental physics in Cold War America: the case of quantum optics.

PubMed

Bromberg, Joan Lisa

2006-06-01

Historians have convincingly shown the close ties U.S. physicists had with the military during the Cold War and have raised the question of whether this alliance affected the content of physics. Some have asserted that it distorted physics, shifting attention from fundamental problems to devices. Yet the papers of physicists in quantum electronics and quantum optics, fields that have been exemplary for those who hold the distortion thesis, show that the same scientists who worked on military devices simultaneously pursued fundamental and foundational topics. This essay examines one such physicist, Marlan O. Scully, with attention to both his extensive foundational studies and the way in which his applied and basic researches played off each other.

Scientists warn of 'trillion-dollar' spent-fuel risk

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gwynne, Peter

2016-07-01

A study by two Princeton University physicists suggests that a major fire in the spent nuclear fuel stored on the sites of US nuclear reactors could “dwarf the horrific consequences of the Fukushima accident”.

Edison and the pure science ideal in 19th-century america.

PubMed

Hounshell, D A

1980-02-08

Between 1878 and 1882, key members of the American scientific community played an important role in Thomas A. Edison's work on electric lighting. Impressed by his abilities, these scientists came to regard Edison as a peer and led him to see himself as a scientific man. But Edison's high standing among scientists and the American public and his professed self-image as a scientist provoked America's noted experimental physicist, Henry A. Rowland, to make a "Plea for pure science" before the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1883.

Current Crisis in Science Education? Women in Science and Problems for the Behavioral Scientists. Some Perspectives of a Physicist.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dresselhaus, Mildred S.

A number of problems exist in society which require the cooperation of physical and social scientists. One of these problems is the current crisis in science education. There are several aspects to this problem, including the declining interest of students in math and science at a time when functioning in our society requires more, not less,…

Hot Quark Soup Produced at RHIC

ScienceCinema

None

2018-01-16

The Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC, http://www.bnl.gov/rhic) is a 2.4-mile-circumference particle accelerator/collider that has been operating at Brookhaven Lab since 2000, delivering collisions of heavy ions, protons, and other particles to an international team of physicists investigating the basic structure and fundamental forces of matter. In 2005, RHIC physicists announced that the matter created in RHICs most energetic collisions behaves like a nearly perfect liquid in that it has extraordinarily low viscosity, or resistance to flow. Since then, the scientists have been taking a closer look at this remarkable form of matter, which last existed some 13 billion years ago, a mere fraction of a second after the Big Bang. Scientists have revealed new findings, including the first measurement of temperature very early in the collision events, and their implications for the nature of this early-universe matter.

From Crisis to Transition: The State of Russian Science Based on Focus Groups with Nuclear Physicists

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Gerber, T P; Ball, D Y

The collapse of the Soviet system led to a sharp contraction of state funding for science. Formerly privileged scientists suddenly confronted miserly salaries (often paid late), plummeting social prestige, deteriorating research facilities and equipment, and few prospects for improvement. Many departed the field of science for more lucrative opportunities, both within Russia and abroad. The number of inventions, patent applications, and publications by Russian scientists declined. Reports of desperate nuclear physicists seeking work as tram operators and conducting hunger strikes dramatized the rapid collapse of one of the contemporary world's most successful scientific establishments. Even more alarming was the 1996more » suicide of Vladimir Nechai, director of the second largest nuclear research center in Russia (Chelyabinsk-70, now known as Snezhinsk). Nechai, a respected theoretical physicist who spent almost 40 years working on Soviet and Russian nuclear programs, killed himself because he could no longer endure his inability to rectify a situation in which his employees had not been paid for more than 5 months and were ''close to starvation.'' The travails of Russia's scientists sparked interest in the West primarily because of the security threat posed by their situation. The seemingly relentless crisis in science raised fears that disgruntled scientists might sell their nuclear weapons expertise to countries or organizations that harbor hostile intentions toward the United States. Such concerns are particularly pressing in the wake of the September 2001 terrorist attacks in the US. At the same time, we should not overlook other critical implications that the state of Russian science has for Russia's long-term economic and political development. It is in the West's interest to see Russia develop a thriving market economy and stable democracy. A successful scientific community can help on both counts. Science and technology can attract foreign investment and fuel renewed economic progress in Russia. Russian scientists could also be an important source of support for democratic norms: sociologists of science have long argued that scientists tend to support democracy because it provides them with the freedom in which their research can flourish. At the same time, a more recent study suggests that funding shortages may override the researcher's need for freedom and drive scientists to align themselves with the economic policies espoused by Nationalists and Communists in order to survive. Therefore, much turns on the question: ''What is the state of science in Russia today?'' The good news is that focus group interviews with Russian nuclear physicists conducted in October 2001 suggest that the ''science in crisis'' image is one-sided and misleading. Though scientists still complained about low salaries, lack of respect in society, and other similar issues, the participants in the focus groups also expressed positive sentiments about recent changes in the field of science. To be sure, the financing of science remains at a considerably lower level than during the heyday of Soviet times. Yet, it is now possible to earn a decent living as a scientist because of the greater availability of foreign and domestic grants and contracts. In addition, state funding has stabilized over the past few years. Thus, it is more accurate to say that Russian science is in a state of transition rather than in a state of crisis.« less

Future forum, Hobart, October 29, 2017: examining the role of medical physics in cancer research.

PubMed

Ebert, Martin A; Hardcastle, Nicholas; Kron, Tomas

2018-06-25

This commentary reports on a forum held in October 2017 in Hobart, Tasmania, attended by 20 Australasian medical physicists, to consider the future role of medical physics, as well as non-medical physics and allied disciplines, in oncology research. Attendees identified important areas of oncology research which physicists can be contributing to, with these evaluated in the context of a set of "Provocative Questions" recently generated by the American Association of Physicists in Medicine. Primary perceived barriers to participation in research were identified, including a "lack of knowledge of cancer science", together with potential solutions. Mechanisms were considered for engagement with the broader scientific community, consumers, advocates and policy makers. In considering future opportunities in oncology research for medical physicists, it was noted that a professional need to focus on the safety and accuracy of current treatments applied to patients, encouraging risk-aversion, is somewhat in competition with the role of physical scientists in the exploration and discovery of new concepts and understandings.

Women in physics in Bangladesh

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Choudhury, Shamima K.

2013-03-01

Bangladesh has had a glorious physics tradition since the beginning of the last century, when the physicist S.N. Bose published a groundbreaking paper with Albert Einstein on Bose-Einstein statistics. However, women in Bangladesh traditionally have not been able to make their way in the realm of science in general and physics in particular. Since Bangladesh achieved independence in 1971, the situation has gradually changed and more and more women choose physics as an academic discipline. The percentage of women students in physics rose from 10% in 1970 to almost 30% in 2010. In recent years, women physicists have actively participated in many activities promoting science and technology, creating awareness among the public about the importance of physics education. The present status of women physicists in academic, research, and administrative programs in the government and private sectors in Bangladesh is reported. The greater inclusion of women scientists, particularly physicists, in policy-making roles on important issues of global and national interest is suggested.

Why was Relativity Accepted?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Brush, S. G.

Historians of science have published many studies of the reception of Einstein's special and general theories of relativity. Based on a review of these studies, and my own research on the role of the light-bending prediction in the reception of general relativity, I discuss the role of three kinds of reasons for accepting relativity (1) empirical predictions and explanations; (2) social-psychological factors; and (3) aesthetic-mathematical factors. According to the historical studies, acceptance was a three-stage process. First, a few leading scientists adopted the special theory for aesthetic-mathematical reasons. In the second stage, their enthusiastic advocacy persuaded other scientists to work on the theory and apply it to problems currently of interest in atomic physics. The special theory was accepted by many German physicists by 1910 and had begun to attract some interest in other countries. In the third stage, the confirmation of Einstein's light-bending prediction attracted much public attention and forced all physicists to take the general theory of relativity seriously. In addition to light-bending, the explanation of the advance of Mercury's perihelion was considered strong evidence by theoretical physicists. The American astronomers who conducted successful tests of general relativity became defenders of the theory. There is little evidence that relativity was `socially constructed' but its initial acceptance was facilitated by the prestige and resources of its advocates.

Book Review: Physics of the Space Environment

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Holman, Gordon D.

1998-01-01

Space physics, narrowly defined as the study of Earth's plasma environment, has had an identity crisis throughout its relatively brief existence as a discipline. - The limited and often serendipitous nature of the data requires the research style of an astrophysicist. However, the in situ observations and instrumentation that are central to the field are quite different from the remote observations and instrumentation of astronomy. Compared to neutral gases, the wealth of additional phenomena and the complexity associated with magnetized plasmas and their interaction leaves little in common with the atmospheric scientist. Although the phenomena studied in space physics are ultimately important to astrophysics, the intimate measurements of plasma properties provide a greater commonality with the plasma physicist. Space physics has experienced something of a renaissance in the past few years. The interdisciplinary umbrella "Solar-Terrestrial Physics" or "Sun-Earth Connection" has stimulated an increasing interaction of space physicists, solar physicists and atmospheric scientists. Spectacular images of the Sun from Yohkoh and SOHO and solar-activity-related damage to communications satellites have increased the public's awareness of and interest in "space weather". The dangers of energetic particles and currents in space to technological systems and to future space exploration have elevated space physics observations from interesting scientific measurements that can be included on a space probe to critically important measurements that must be made.

What price politics? Scientists and political controversy.

PubMed

Nye, M J

1999-01-01

There is a long tradition within scientific communities that encourages governments, patrons and citizens to enlist scientific expertise in the service of the public good. However, since the 17th century, scientists who have engaged in public political controversy have often been judged harshly by scientific colleagues, as well as by political adversaries. Some prominent scientists were politically active in Germany, France and England during the 1920s and 1930s; controversial stands were taken by the British physicist P.M.S. Blackett and the American chemist Linus C. Pauling against their countries' nuclear weapons policy following the Second World War.

Solar Sea Power

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Zener, Clarence

1976-01-01

In their preoccupation with highly complex new energy systems, scientists and statesmen may be overlooking the possibilities of Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC). That is the view of a Carnegie-Mellon University physicist who is in the forefront of solar sea power investigation. (Author/BT)

MO-C-BRB-04: Observations of a Nuclear Radiologist on the Value of the Medical Physicist

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Greenspan, B.

With the profound changes currently occurring in medicine, the role of the medical physicist cannot stagnate, but must evolve to meet the challenges and opportunities that are presented. Medical physicists must understand these changes and establish themselves not only as relevant but as leaders in this new environment. We must increase our presence in clinical settings such as tumor boards, patient rounds, and the development of new diagnosis, imaging, and treatment techniques. By establishing ourselves as competent scientists, we can and must participate in the development of technologies through research, teaching, and clinical implementation. As medical physicists we must definemore » our roles and value to our physician colleagues, patients, referring physicians, and senior administrators. We cannot afford to be viewed solely as quality assurance technologists, but need to move forward in step with medical and practice advances, becoming recognized as having a leadership role in providing quality research, technological development, and quality patient care. In this session, four leaders in medical research and healthcare will discuss their observations on how medical physicists have contributed to advancements in healthcare and opportunities to continue leadership in providing quality medicine through the applications of physics to research, education, and clinical practice. Learning Objectives: Understand the changes in the healthcare environment and how medical physicists can contribute to improving patient care. Learn how medical physicists are currently leading research efforts to improve clinical imaging and diagnosis. Understand the role of medical physicists in developing new technology and leading its translation into clinical care.« less

Nanotechnology: A Vast Field for the Creative Mind

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Benavides, Jeannette

2003-01-01

Nanotechnology is a rapidly developing field worldwide. Nanotechnology is the development of smart systems for many different applications by building from the molecular level up. Current research, sponsored by The National Nanotechnology Alliance in the US will be described. Future needs in manpower of different disciplines will be discussed. Nanotechnology is a field of research that could allow developing countries to establish a technological infrastructure. The nature of nanotechnology requires professionals in many areas, such as engineers, chemists, physicists, mathematicians, computer scientists, materials scientists, etc. One of the materials that provide unique properties for nanotechnology is carbon nanotubes. At Goddard we have develop a process to produce nanotubes at lower costs and without metal catalysts which will be of great importance for the development of new materials for space applications and others outside NASA. Nanotechnology in general is a very broad and exciting field that will provide the technologies of tomorrow including biomedical applications for the betterment of mankind. There is room in this area for many researchers all over the world. The key is collaboration, nationally and internationally.

A Physicist in Business: Opportunities, Pitfalls, and Lifestyle.

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Woollam, John

2007-03-01

A traditional education in physics does not normally include business classes or dealing with opportunities to start a company, yet scientists often now start and run small companies. Physicists are mainly interested in technology. However, other factors quickly dominate chances for business success. These include finance, accounting, cash flow analysis, recruiting, interviewing, personnel issues, marketing, investments, retirement plans, patents and other not always so fun activities. Technical decisions are often strongly influenced by company finances and market-analysis. This talk discusses how to recognize opportunity, how to minimize chances for failure, and lifestyle changes one needs to be aware of before entrepreneurship involvement.

The Dürrenmatt's ``Physicists'' as a Tool in Understanding the Ethics of Science

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kapor, Darko

2007-04-01

Part of the course of the History of Physics taught by the author is dedicated to the ethics of science, in particular to moral responsibility of the scientist towards society. In order to make the subject more interesting to the students, the first step is reading the play ``Physicists'' by Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1962). The students are then asked to relate some of the events connected to the nuclear studies before and during the World War II and armaments race with some situations in the play or the author's theses related to it.

Questions raised over future of UK research council

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Banks, Michael

2010-02-01

Five senior physicists have written to the UK science minister, Lord Drayson, about the "dismal future" for researchers in the country in the wake of a £40m shortfall in the budget of the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC). The physicists, who chair the STFC's five advisory panels, have also called for structural reforms to be made to the council. They warn that unless the government takes action to reverse the situation, the UK will be "perceived as an untrustworthy partner in global projects" and predict that a brain drain of the best UK scientists to positions overseas will ensue.

Prize for Industrial Applications of Physics Lecture: A physicist in Business

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Woollam, John

2013-03-01

In the 1980s I inherited a famous ellipsometry laboratory. To speed up data acquisition and analysis I associated myself with creative scientists and engineers. We started a company which grew. Together we rapidly improved acquisition speed, accuracy, precision, spectral range, and types of applications. Yet, a business is much more than technology. In this talk I outline how a high-tech business functions, and illustrate the role of physicists and engineers in making a company successful. It is fast-paced, exciting, and enormously gratifying to provide quality instruments for researchers and industry.

423rd Brookhaven Lecture

ScienceCinema

Mei Bai

2017-12-09

Among other things, scientists at BNL's Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) are studying a fundamental question of particle physics: What is responsible for proton "spin"? Physicist Mei Bai discusses this topic at the 423rd Brookhaven Lecture, "RHIC: The Worlds First High-Energy, Polarized-Proton Collider."

The Role of Physicists in Anti-Terrorism: Transportation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fainberg, Anthony

2002-04-01

Physicists, along with many other categories of scientists, participate in efforts against terrorism in a multitude of ways, including developing explosive detectors, sensors, security procedures, technical analyses, and decision tools. Transportation, especially civil aviation, is a field of focus within the anti- and counterterrorism arenas. The most spectacular terrorist acts have generally aimed at this sector and this trend is likely to continue. Physicists play their roles in all sectors: government, private industry, and even academia. Defense against terrorism has become a national priority in the United States, and one may expect the roles of scientific experts to become more important. The tactics of terrorists will change and develop, so it will become necessary to develop ever more sophisticated measures to fight them. Technology is part of the answer, but human factors, vulnerability analyses, threat assessment, and security procedures are equally important.

Hangout with CERN: a direct conversation with the public

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rao, Achintya; Goldfarb, Steven; Kahle, Kate

2016-04-01

Hangout with CERN refers to a weekly, half-hour-long, topical webcast hosted at CERN. The aim of the programme is threefold: (i) to provide a virtual tour of various locations and facilities at CERN, (ii) to discuss the latest scientific results from the laboratory, and, most importantly, (iii) to engage in conversation with the public and answer their questions. For each ;episode;, scientists gather around webcam-enabled computers at CERN and partner institutes/universities, connecting to one another using the Google+ social network's ;Hangouts; tool. The show is structured as a conversation mediated by a host, usually a scientist, and viewers can ask questions to the experts in real time through a Twitter hashtag or YouTube comments. The history of Hangout with CERN can be traced back to ICHEP 2012, where several physicists crowded in front of a laptop connected to Google+, using a ;Hangout On Air; webcast to explain to the world the importance of the discovery of the Higgs-like boson, announced just two days before at the same conference. Hangout with CERN has also drawn inspiration from two existing outreach endeavours: (i) ATLAS Virtual Visits, which connected remote visitors with scientists in the ATLAS Control Room via video conference, and (ii) the Large Hangout Collider, in which CMS scientists gave underground tours via Hangouts to groups of schools and members of the public around the world. In this paper, we discuss the role of Hangout with CERN as a bi-directional outreach medium and an opportunity to train scientists in effective communication.

Modeling high-temperature superconductors and metallic alloys on the Intel IPSC/860

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Geist, G. A.; Peyton, B. W.; Shelton, W. A.; Stocks, G. M.

Oak Ridge National Laboratory has embarked on several computational Grand Challenges, which require the close cooperation of physicists, mathematicians, and computer scientists. One of these projects is the determination of the material properties of alloys from first principles and, in particular, the electronic structure of high-temperature superconductors. While the present focus of the project is on superconductivity, the approach is general enough to permit study of other properties of metallic alloys such as strength and magnetic properties. This paper describes the progress to date on this project. We include a description of a self-consistent KKR-CPA method, parallelization of the model, and the incorporation of a dynamic load balancing scheme into the algorithm. We also describe the development and performance of a consolidated KKR-CPA code capable of running on CRAYs, workstations, and several parallel computers without source code modification. Performance of this code on the Intel iPSC/860 is also compared to a CRAY 2, CRAY YMP, and several workstations. Finally, some density of state calculations of two perovskite superconductors are given.

Soviet scientists speak out

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Holloway, D.

1993-05-01

In this article, Russian bomb designers answer the KGB's claim that espionage, not science, produced the Soviet bomb. Yuli Khariton and Yuri Smirnov wholly reject the argument that Soviet scientists can claim little credit for the first Soviet bomb. In a lecture delivered at the Kurchatov Institute, established in 1943 when Igor Kurchatov became the director of the Soviet nuclear weapons project, Khariton and Smironov point to the work done by Soviet nuclear physicists before 1941 and refute assertions that have been made in Western literature regarding the hydrogen bomb.

Electrostatic Precipitator

NASA Image and Video Library

2017-06-09

Dr. Carlos Calle, lead scientist in the Kennedy Space Center's Electrostatics and Surface Physics Laboratory, left, and Jay Phillips, a research physicist, are modifying an electrostatic precipitator to help remove dust from simulated Martian atmosphere. NASA's Journey to Mars requires cutting-edge technologies to solve the problems explorers will face on the Red Planet. Scientists are developing some of the needed solutions by adapting a device to remove the ever-present dust from valuable elements in the Martian atmosphere. Those commodities include oxygen, water and methane.

Electrostatic Precipitator

NASA Image and Video Library

2017-06-09

Dr. Carlos Calle, lead scientist in the Kennedy Space Center's Electrostatics and Surface Physics Laboratory, left, and Jay Phillips, a research physicist, are modifying an electrostatic precipitator to help remove dust from a simulated Martian atmosphere. NASA's Journey to Mars requires cutting-edge technologies to solve the problems explorers will face on the Red Planet. Scientists are developing some of the needed solutions by adapting a device to remove the ever-present dust from valuable elements in the Martian atmosphere. Those commodities include oxygen, water and methane.

Electrostatic Precipitator

NASA Image and Video Library

2017-06-09

Jay Phillips, a research physicist in the Kennedy Space Center's Electrostatics and Surface Physics Laboratory, left, and Dr. Carlos Calle, lead scientist in the lab, are modifying an electrostatic precipitator to help remove dust from simulated Martian atmosphere. NASA's Journey to Mars requires cutting-edge technologies to solve the problems explorers will face on the Red Planet. Scientists are developing some of the needed solutions by adapting a device to remove the ever-present dust from valuable elements in the Martian atmosphere. Those commodities include oxygen, water and methane.

The images of scientists and science among Hebrew- and Arabic-speaking pre-service teachers in Israel

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rubin, Edna; Cohen, Ariel

2003-07-01

This study investigated the image of scientists held by Israeli pre-service teachers, the majority of whom were female. The population consisted of students belonging to two cultures, Hebrew-speaking and Arabic-speaking. The DAST ('Draw-a-Scientist-Test') tool and other tools, some of which were developed specifically for this research, tested the image of the scientist as perceived by the participants. It was found that the image of the scientist is perceived as predominantly male, a physicist or a chemist, working in a laboratory typical of the eighteenth, nineteenth or the early-twentieth century. Students did not differentiate between scientists and inventors. Different images were held in the two cultures. Most of the Arabic-speaking students put Classical Islamic scientists near the top of their lists and thought of the scientist as an Arab male, while the Hebrew-speaking students' was as a typical Western male. Recommendations, resulting from the findings, for developing a new learning unit for the purpose of altering stereotypes are suggested.

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Cheng, Hai-Ping

The Sanibel Symposium 2014 was held February 16-21, 2014, at the King and Prince, St. Simons Island, GA. It was successful in bringing condensed-matter physicists and quantum chemists together productively to drive the emergence of those specialties. The Symposium had a significant role in preparing a whole generation of quantum theorists. The 54th Sanibel meeting looked to the future in two ways. We had 360⁰-View sessions to honor the exceptional contributions of Rodney Bartlett (70), Bill Butler (70), Yngve Öhrn (80), Fritz Schaefer (70), and Malcolm Stocks (70). The work of these five has greatly impacted several generations of quantummore » chemists and condensed matter physicists. The “360⁰” is the sum of their ages. More significantly, it symbolizes a panoramic view of critical developments and accomplishments in theoretical and computational chemistry and physics oriented toward the future. Thus, two of the eight 360⁰-View sessions focused specifically on younger scientists. The 360⁰-View program was the major component of the 2014 Sanibel meeting. Another four sessions included a sub-symposium on ab initio Simulations at Extreme Conditions, with focus on getting past the barriers of present-day Born-Oppenheimer molecular dynamics by advances in finite-temperature density functional theory, orbital-free DFT, and new all-numerical approaches.« less

Inorganic Fullerenes, Onions, and Tubes

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

York, Andrew P. E.

2004-01-01

Buckminsterfullerene, which is in the shape of a soccer-ball was first discovered in 1985, has many applications as a good lubricant, or as a new superconductor. The synthesis of these inorganic fullerenes involves a great deal of interdisciplinary research between physicists, material scientists, engineers and chemists from various fields.

Fermilab | Science | Particle Accelerators

Science.gov Websites

2,300 physicists from all over the world come to Fermilab to conduct experiments using particle particle physics to the next level, collaborating with scientists and laboratories around the world to help world leader in accelerator research, development and industrialization. Learn more about IARC. Fermilab

MO-C-BRB-02: The Physicists’ Leadership Role in Academic Radiology: The Chair’s Perspective

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Arenson, R.

With the profound changes currently occurring in medicine, the role of the medical physicist cannot stagnate, but must evolve to meet the challenges and opportunities that are presented. Medical physicists must understand these changes and establish themselves not only as relevant but as leaders in this new environment. We must increase our presence in clinical settings such as tumor boards, patient rounds, and the development of new diagnosis, imaging, and treatment techniques. By establishing ourselves as competent scientists, we can and must participate in the development of technologies through research, teaching, and clinical implementation. As medical physicists we must definemore » our roles and value to our physician colleagues, patients, referring physicians, and senior administrators. We cannot afford to be viewed solely as quality assurance technologists, but need to move forward in step with medical and practice advances, becoming recognized as having a leadership role in providing quality research, technological development, and quality patient care. In this session, four leaders in medical research and healthcare will discuss their observations on how medical physicists have contributed to advancements in healthcare and opportunities to continue leadership in providing quality medicine through the applications of physics to research, education, and clinical practice. Learning Objectives: Understand the changes in the healthcare environment and how medical physicists can contribute to improving patient care. Learn how medical physicists are currently leading research efforts to improve clinical imaging and diagnosis. Understand the role of medical physicists in developing new technology and leading its translation into clinical care.« less

Physics in Industry: A Case Study

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pratt-Ferguson, Ben

2007-10-01

Often ignored and sometimes even considered ``black sheep'' by the university & government-lab physicists, many industrial physicists continue making valuable scientific contributions in diverse areas, from computer science to aero and thermo-dynamics, communications, mathematics, engineering, and simulation, to name a few. This talk will focus on what industrial physicists do, what preparations are beneficial to obtaining a first industrial job, and what the business environment is like for physicists. The case study will be that of the author, starting with undergraduate and graduate studies and continuing on to jobs in industry.

Managing Inflections in Life and Career: Tale from a Physicist

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bhattacharya, Santanu

2010-03-01

By training, a physicist possesses one of the rarest qualities ever imparted in an educational degree program, namely, the ability to take on complex problems, divide them into ``solvable'' parts, derive solutions and put them back as insightful outputs. Dr Bhattacharya, CEO of Salorix, a research, analytics and consulting firm, explains how he has used these skills learned at the graduate school to build a career as a scientist, management consultant and entrepreneur. He will also speak about how the real-life skillsets of understanding and dealing with ``Inflections'', self discovery and introspection can be a great tool for managing one's life and career progression.

Healing the mental scars

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cassidy, David C.

2008-01-01

Few groups of scientists can have been studied more intensely than 20th-century German physicists, thanks to both their extraordinary successes and their involvement in the upheavals of the first half of the century. That attention has produced a number of first-rate accounts of these physicists and their community through the Third Reich (1933-1945), thus enabling us to gain a considerable grasp of their science and its broader cultural and political context. The same cannot be said, however, for the postwar period, especially the chaotic years following the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945 through to the founding of East and West Germany - then under Allied occupation - in 1949.

A physicists guide to The Los Alamos Primer

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Reed, B. Cameron

2016-11-01

In April 1943, a group of scientists at the newly established Los Alamos Laboratory were given a series of lectures by Robert Serber on what was then known of the physics and engineering issues involved in developing fission bombs. Serber’s lectures were recorded in a 24 page report titled The Los Alamos Primer, which was subsequently declassified and published in book form. This paper describes the background to the Primer and analyzes the physics contained in its 22 sections. The motivation for this paper is to provide a firm foundation of the background and contents of the Primer for physicists interested in the Manhattan Project and nuclear weapons.

STS-9 payload specialist Merbold and backup Ockels in training session

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1983-01-01

STS-9 payload specialist Ulf Merbold, right, a West German physicist and backup Wubbo Ockels, a Dutch scientist, are pictured in a training session in JSC's Shuttle mockup and integration laboratory. In this view Ockels appears to be showing Merbold how to operate a camera.

Changing Course

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ruffins, Paul

2009-01-01

The University of the District of Columbia's problems are so deep and longstanding that some people thought it would take a rocket scientist to figure them out. So a year ago, its board of trustees appointed as president Dr. Allen Sessoms, the former Delaware State University president and Yale University-trained physicist who spent years sniffing…

News | News | Page 3

Science.gov Websites

. Scientist Bob Tschirhart appointed Fermilab chief project officer March 27, 2018 As CPO, Tschirhart will target is the site of particle creation. It's a straightforward role with complex considerations. ADMX renowned accelerator physicist with leadership experience at three science laboratories, took on the role

The Space Telescope Observatory

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Bahcall, J. N.; Odell, C. R.

1979-01-01

A convenient guide to the expected characteristics of the Space Telescope Observatory for astronomers and physicists is presented. An attempt is made to provide enough detail so that a professional scientist, observer or theorist, can plan how the observatory may be used to further his observing programs or to test theoretical models.

Einstein Revisited

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fine, Leonard

2005-01-01

A brief description on the work and life of the great physicist scientist Albert Einstein is presented. The photoelectric paper written by him in 1905 led him to the study of fluctuations in the energy density of radiation and from there to the incomplete nature of the equipartition theorem of classical mechanics, which failed to account for…

JPRS Report, Soviet Union, Military Affairs.

DTIC Science & Technology

1988-12-16

Smirnov: "How We Made the Bomb"] [Text] In the "Forest Ranger Shack" (as the physicists nicknamed the house in which Kurchatov lived right on the...returned to China and educated a galaxy of talented scientists. Guo Yonghuai: specialist in field of mechanics; studied in USA; became professor at

Energy and Sociology.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cottrell, Fred

The realization that all scientific phenomena are manifestations of energy, rather than separate subjects of inquiry for chemists, physicists, or biologists, has encouraged scientists to explore gaps between the traditional fields of scientific inquiry. In light of this fact, it would seem that the flow of energy should be a major area of concern…

American Physicists, Nuclear Weapons in World War II, and Social Responsibility

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Badash, Lawrence

2005-06-01

Social responsibility in science has a centuries-long history, but it was such a minor thread that most scientists were unaware of the concept. Even toward the conclusion of the Manhattan Project, which produced the first nuclear weapons, only a handful of its participants had some reservations about use of a weapon of mass destruction. But the explosions over Hiroshima and Nagasaki not only made society more aware of the importance of science, they made scientists more aware of their responsibility to society. I describe the development of the concept of social responsibility and its appearance among American scientists both before and after the end of World War II.

100 Years Werner Heisenberg: Works and Impact

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Papenfuß, Dietrich; Lüst, Dieter; Schleich, Wolfgang P.

2003-09-01

Over 40 renowned scientists from all around the world discuss the work and influence of Werner Heisenberg. The papers result from the symposium held by the Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Heisenberg's birth, one of the most important physicists of the 20th century and cofounder of modern-day quantum mechanics. Taking atomic and laser physics as their starting point, the scientists illustrate the impact of Heisenberg's theories on astroparticle physics, high-energy physics and string theory right up to processing quantum information.

Becoming a Scientist: Using First-Year Undergraduate Science Courses to Promote Identification with Science Disciplines

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ruff, Chloe; Jones, Brett D.

2016-01-01

In this qualitative study, we examined how two professors (a physicist and biochemist) of first year college students perceived their students' development of identification in biochemistry or physics and how they actively supported this development. The professors described students who entered college with different levels of domain…

New Ways of Knowledge: The Sciences, Society, and Reconstructive Knowledge.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Raskin, Marcus G.; And Others

In this volume, physicists and social scientists challenge the bedrock of scientific thinking whose applications can prove destructive to existing social systems, and shift the debate to the need for a radical change of direction that would replace traditional "value-free" inquiry and research with a knowledge model that incorporates…

Positive Actions for Promoting Women Physicists in Korea

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Park, Youngah; Yoon, Jin-Hee

We review the recent activities of Women in Physics (WIP) Committee of the Korean Physical Society (KPS) in networking and communication from the view point of international collaborations and domestic efforts. We also present the history of affirmative action in Korea and the Act on Fostering and Supporting Women Scientists and Engineers.

The impact of educational reform and categorization of scientific journals and scientists on physics in Serbia

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Božić, Mirjana; Davidović, Milena; Kapor, Agneš; Knežević, Dragica; Pavkov-Hrvojević, Milica; Puač, Nevena; Savić, Ilija; Stojanović, Maja; Marković-Topalović, Tatjana

2013-03-01

The trend of the increasing participation and importance of female physicists in Serbia continues. Many women have taken leading position in research and faculty governance and are contributing significantly to educational reform and the improvement of physics education in the primary and secondary schools.

The Pleasure of Finding Things out

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Loxley, Peter

2005-01-01

"The pleasure of finding things out" is a collection of short works by the Nobel Prize winning scientist Richard Feynman. The book provides insights into his infectious enthusiasm for science and his love of sharing ideas about the subject with anyone who wanted to listen. Feynman has been widely acknowledged as one of the greatest physicists of…

HOW TO FIND OUT ABOUT PHYSICS.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

YATES, B.

SOURCES OF PHYSICS INFORMATION ARE INCLUDED IN THIS GUIDE. IT WAS WRITTEN FOR STUDENTS AND TEACHERS OF PHYSICS, AT BOTH THE COLLEGE AND SECONDARY LEVELS, PHYSICISTS, LIBRARIANS, AND THE GENERAL PUBLIC. MATERIALS QUOTED WERE PUBLISHED PRIOR TO 1963 AND WERE SELECTED ON THE BASIS OF THE AUTHOR'S EXPERIENCE AS AN INFORMATION SCIENTIST. DEWEY DECIMAL…

The Environmental Impact of Electrical Power Generation: Nuclear and Fossil.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pennsylvania State Dept. of Education, Harrisburg.

This text was written to accompany a course concerning the need, environmental costs, and benefits of electrical power generation. It was compiled and written by a committee drawn from educators, health physicists, members of industry and conservation groups, and environmental scientists. Topics include: the increasing need for electrical power,…

Medical revolution in Argentina.

PubMed

Ballarin, V L; Isoardi, R A

2010-01-01

The paper discusses the major Argentineans contributors, medical physicists and scientists, in medical imaging and the development of medical imaging in Argentina. The following are presented: history of medical imaging in Argentina: the pioneers; medical imaging and medical revolution; nuclear medicine imaging; ultrasound imaging; and mathematics, physics, and electronics in medical image research: a multidisciplinary endeavor.

Whether or Not to Run in the Rain

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bocci, Franco

2012-01-01

The problem of choosing an optimal strategy for moving in the rain has attracted considerable attention among physicists and other scientists. Taking a novel approach, this paper shows, by studying simple shaped bodies, that the answer depends on the shape and orientation of the moving body and on wind direction and intensity. For different body…

Teaching the Stories of Scientists and Their Discoveries

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

McKinney, Donald; Michalovic, Mark

2004-01-01

For many science students and teachers, the history of science brings to mind musty portraits of long-ago chemists, physicists, and biologists, birth and death dates, and some brief mention of specific contributions. Frequently lost amid teaching pressures are the lessons that may be found in the history of science. These stories not only teach…

'Keeping in the race': physics, publication speed and national publishing strategies in Nature, 1895-1939.

PubMed

Baldwin, Melinda

2014-06-01

By the onset of the Second World War, the British scientific periodical Nature--specifically, Nature's 'Letters to the editor' column--had become a major publication venue for scientists who wished to publish short communications about their latest experimental findings. This paper argues that the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Ernest Rutherford was instrumental in establishing this use of the 'Letters to the editor' column in the early twentieth century. Rutherford's contributions set Nature apart from its fellow scientific weeklies in Britain and helped construct a defining feature of Nature's influence in the twentieth century. Rutherford's participation in the journal influenced his students and colleagues in the field of radioactivity physics and drew physicists like the German Otto Hahn and the American Bertram Borden Boltwood to submit their work to Nature as well, and Nature came to play a major role in spreading news of the latest research in the science of radioactivity. Rutherford and his colleagues established a pattern of submissions to the 'Letters to the editor' that would eventually be adopted by scientists from diverse fields and from laboratories around the world.

QuarkNet: Benefits for Teachers, Their Students and Physicists

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bardeen, Marjorie

2017-01-01

The QuarkNet Collaboration has forged nontraditional relationships among particle physicists, high school teachers and their students. QuarkNet centers are located at 50 + universities and labs across the U.S. and Puerto Rico. We provide professional development for teachers and create opportunities for teachers and students to engage in particle physics data investigations and join research teams. Students develop scientific knowledge and habits of mind by working alongside scientists to make sense of the world using authentic experimental data. Our program is based a classroom vision where teaching strategies emulate closely the way scientists build knowledge through inquiry. We look at how student engagement in research and masterclasses develops an understanding about the process of scientific discovery and science using current scientific data. We also look at ways and to what extent teachers provide scientific discovery and science practices for students and how QuarkNet contributes to the professionalism of participating teachers. Also, we describe success factors that enhance local center programs and describe important benefits of the program that flow to university faculty. Funded by the National Science Foundation and the US Department of Energy.

Informing Physics: Jacob Bekenstein and the Informational Turn in Theoretical Physics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Belfer, Israel

2014-03-01

In his PhD dissertation in the early 1970s, the Mexican-Israeli theoretical physicist Jacob Bekenstein developed the thermodynamics of black holes using a generalized version of the second law of thermodynamics. This work made it possible for physicists to describe and analyze black holes using information-theoretical concepts. It also helped to transform information theory into a fundamental and foundational concept in theoretical physics. The story of Bekenstein's work—which was initially opposed by many scientists, including Stephen Hawking—highlights the transformation within physics towards an information-oriented scientific mode of theorizing. This "informational turn" amounted to a mild-mannered revolution within physics, revolutionary without being rebellious.

Public dialogue on physics and related technology after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Sasao, Mamiko

After the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Accident, the importance of bottom-up and two-way dialogue between scientists and the public has been recognized. In such dialogue, information provided must accurately match the public’s interest and ability regarding science and technology. We have started to investigate what people want to know about physics. Some were interested in energy security (a particular concern in Japan), but others were concerned about radioactivity in food and natural radiation background. The conversations revealed that physicists often give insufficient explanations of the biological effects of radiation and highlighted key points for physicists to make when talking with themore » public.« less

Physical Science in Bologna

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Dragoni, Giorgio; Stojanovic, Ivana

2013-03-01

We provide a guide to Bologna, Italy, focusing particularly on sites of interest to physicists. Our first tour is in the city center; it begins in the Piazza Maggiore at the Palazzo d'Accursio, the Basilica di San Petronio, and the Archiginnasio (Old University) and then proceeds to the Two Towers and the Palazzo Poggi, which houses the Astronomical Observatory Museum and other important instrument and art collections; it concludes at the Physics Museum, Department of Physics and Astronomy. Our second tour again begins in the Piazza Maggiore but goes to sites beyond the city center where famous Bolognese physicists and other scientists were born, lived, and are buried. Finally, we point out important museums and other institutions on the outskirts of Bologna.

Study of the QCD Phase Diagram using STAR at RHIC - Final Report

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Westfall, Gary

This grant supported the MSU STAR Group from April 1, 1998 to October 31, 2016. Originally the MSU STAR Group consisted of the principal investigator (PI), a staff physicist, and one graduate student. Funds were provided for half the summer salary of the PI, the full salary of the staff physicist, and half the costs associated with one graduate student. The other half of the PI’s summer salary and graduate student costs was covered by NSCL. In addition, this grant provided funds for travel and workstations related to STAR. Starting in 2009, the MSU STAR Group replaced the staff physicistmore » with a postdoctoral scientist.« less

Gertrude Scharff-Goldhaber, 1911-1998: Nuclear Physicist Against the Odds

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Goldhaber, Michael H.

2016-08-01

The author's mother, Gertrude Scharff-Goldhaber, was a prominent nuclear physicist who had to overcome steep odds to pursue her work. She lived and worked at a time when it was very uncommon for any woman to be a scientist and even more uncommon for a mother of young children. She also faced Nazi persecution and a series of other challenges in growing up in Germany. Drawing on personal conversations and testimony of her friends, this brief account includes a number of intimate details to illustrate some of the difficulties she faced and the zest for life and for understanding the world that pushed her forward anyway. Details of her work and a bibliography are included.

Reaching for the cloud: on the lessons learned from grid computing technology transfer process to the biomedical community.

PubMed

Mohammed, Yassene; Dickmann, Frank; Sax, Ulrich; von Voigt, Gabriele; Smith, Matthew; Rienhoff, Otto

2010-01-01

Natural scientists such as physicists pioneered the sharing of computing resources, which led to the creation of the Grid. The inter domain transfer process of this technology has hitherto been an intuitive process without in depth analysis. Some difficulties facing the life science community in this transfer can be understood using the Bozeman's "Effectiveness Model of Technology Transfer". Bozeman's and classical technology transfer approaches deal with technologies which have achieved certain stability. Grid and Cloud solutions are technologies, which are still in flux. We show how Grid computing creates new difficulties in the transfer process that are not considered in Bozeman's model. We show why the success of healthgrids should be measured by the qualified scientific human capital and the opportunities created, and not primarily by the market impact. We conclude with recommendations that can help improve the adoption of Grid and Cloud solutions into the biomedical community. These results give a more concise explanation of the difficulties many life science IT projects are facing in the late funding periods, and show leveraging steps that can help overcoming the "vale of tears".

A short history of nomograms and tables used for thermal radiation calculations

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Stewart, Seán. M.; Johnson, R. Barry

2016-09-01

The theoretical concept of a perfect thermal radiator, the blackbody, was first introduced by the German physicist Gustav Robert Kirchhoff in 1860. By the latter half of the nineteenth century it had become the object of intense theoretical and experimental investigation. While an attempt at trying to theoretically understand the behavior of radiation emitted from a blackbody was undertaken by many eminent physicists of the day, its solution was not found until 1900 when Max Planck put forward his now famous law for thermal radiation. Today, of course, understanding blackbody behavior is vitally important to many fields including infrared systems, illumination, pyrometry, spectroscopy, astronomy, thermal engineering, cryogenics, and meteorology. Mathematically, the form Planck's law takes is rather cumbersome meaning calculations made with it before the advent of modern computers were rather tedious, dramatically slowing the process of computation. Fortunately, during those early days of the twentieth century researchers quickly realized Planck's equation, and the various functions closely related to it, readily lend themselves to being given a graphical, mechanical, or numerically tabulated form for their evaluation. The first of these computational aids to appear were tables. These arose shortly after Planck introduced his equation, were produced in the greatest number, and remained unsurpassed in their level of accuracy compared to all other aids made. It was also not long before nomograms designed to aid thermal radiation calculations appeared. Essentially a printed chart and requiring nothing more than a straightedge to use, nomograms were cheap and extremely easy to use. Facilitating instant answers to a range of quantities relating to thermal radiation, a number were produced and the inventiveness displayed in some was quite remarkable. In this paper we consider the historical development of many of the nomograms and tables developed and used by generations of scientists and engineers before their sudden and irrevocable decline shortly after the arrival of affordable digital computers and hand-held electronic calculators during the mid-1970s. This work represents a continuation of our earlier work on a number of radiation slide rules developed and used for thermal radiation calculations, with all three of these computational aids being the subject of a forthcoming book.

Dad's in the Garage: Santa Barbara Physicists in the Long 1970s

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mody, Cyrus

2013-03-01

American physicists faced many challenges in the 1970s: declining research budgets; public skepticism of scientific authority; declining student enrollments; and pressure to shift to topics such as biomedicine, environmental remediation, alternative energy, public housing and transport, and disability technologies. This paper examines the responses to these challenges of a small group of Santa Barbara physicists. While this group is not representative of the American physics profession, the success and failure of their responses to changed conditions tells us something about how American physicists got through the 1970s, and about the origins of some features of American physics today. The three physicists examined here are Philip Wyatt, David Phillips, and Virgil Elings. In the late `60s, Wyatt left a defense think tank to found an instrumentation firm. The Santa Barbara oil spill and other factors pushed that firm toward civilian markets in biomedicine and pollution measurement. Phillips joined Wyatt's firm from UCSB, while also founding his own company, largely to sell electronic devices for parapsychology. Phillips was also the junior partner in a master's of scientific instrumentation degree curriculum founded by Elings in order to save UCSB Physics' graduate program. Through the MSI program, Elings moved into biomedical research and became a serial entrepreneur. By the 1990s, Wyatt, Phillips, and Elings' turn toward academic entrepreneurship, dual military-civilian markets for physics start-ups, and interdisciplinary collaborations between physicists and life scientists were no longer unusual. Together, their journey through the `70s shows how varied the physics' profession's response to crisis was, and how much it pivoted on new interactions between university and industry.

Fusion Simulation Project Workshop Report

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kritz, Arnold; Keyes, David

2009-03-01

The mission of the Fusion Simulation Project is to develop a predictive capability for the integrated modeling of magnetically confined plasmas. This FSP report adds to the previous activities that defined an approach to integrated modeling in magnetic fusion. These previous activities included a Fusion Energy Sciences Advisory Committee panel that was charged to study integrated simulation in 2002. The report of that panel [Journal of Fusion Energy 20, 135 (2001)] recommended the prompt initiation of a Fusion Simulation Project. In 2003, the Office of Fusion Energy Sciences formed a steering committee that developed a project vision, roadmap, and governance concepts [Journal of Fusion Energy 23, 1 (2004)]. The current FSP planning effort involved 46 physicists, applied mathematicians and computer scientists, from 21 institutions, formed into four panels and a coordinating committee. These panels were constituted to consider: Status of Physics Components, Required Computational and Applied Mathematics Tools, Integration and Management of Code Components, and Project Structure and Management. The ideas, reported here, are the products of these panels, working together over several months and culminating in a 3-day workshop in May 2007.

On transferring the grid technology to the biomedical community.

PubMed

Mohammed, Yassene; Sax, Ulrich; Dickmann, Frank; Lippert, Joerg; Solodenko, Juri; von Voigt, Gabriele; Smith, Matthew; Rienhoff, Otto

2010-01-01

Natural scientists such as physicists pioneered the sharing of computing resources, which resulted in the Grid. The inter domain transfer process of this technology has been an intuitive process. Some difficulties facing the life science community can be understood using the Bozeman's "Effectiveness Model of Technology Transfer". Bozeman's and classical technology transfer approaches deal with technologies that have achieved certain stability. Grid and Cloud solutions are technologies that are still in flux. We illustrate how Grid computing creates new difficulties for the technology transfer process that are not considered in Bozeman's model. We show why the success of health Grids should be measured by the qualified scientific human capital and opportunities created, and not primarily by the market impact. With two examples we show how the Grid technology transfer theory corresponds to the reality. We conclude with recommendations that can help improve the adoption of Grid solutions into the biomedical community. These results give a more concise explanation of the difficulties most life science IT projects are facing in the late funding periods, and show some leveraging steps which can help to overcome the "vale of tears".

Physics through the 1990s: An overview

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1986-01-01

The volume details the interaction of physics and society, and presents a short summary of the progress in the major fields of physics and a summary of the other seven volumes of the Physics through the 1990s series, issues and recommended policy changes are described regarding funding, education, industry participation, small-group university research and large facility programs, government agency programs, and computer database needs. Three supplements report in detail on international issues in physics (the US position in the field, international cooperation and competition-especially on large projects, freedom for scientists, free flow of information, and education of foreign students), the education and supply of physicists (the changes in US physics education, employment and manpower, and demographics of the field), and the organization and support of physics (government, university, and industry research; facilities; national laboratories; and decision making). An executive summary contains recommendations for maintaining excellence in physics. A glossary of scientific terms is appended.

Molecular imaging and the unification of multilevel mechanisms and data in medical physics.

PubMed

Nikiforidis, George C; Sakellaropoulos, George C; Kagadis, George C

2008-08-01

Molecular imaging (MI) constitutes a recently developed approach of imaging, where modalities and agents have been reinvented and used in novel combinations in order to expose and measure biologic processes occurring at molecular and cellular levels. It is an approach that bridges the gap between modalities acquiring data from high (e.g., computed tomography, magnetic resonance imaging, and positron-emitting isotopes) and low (e.g., PCR, microarrays) levels of a biological organization. While data integration methodologies will lead to improved diagnostic and prognostic performance, interdisciplinary collaboration, triggered by MI, will result in a better perception of the underlying biological mechanisms. Toward the development of a unifying theory describing these mechanisms, medical physicists can formulate new hypotheses, provide the physical constraints bounding them, and consequently design appropriate experiments. Their new scientific and working environment calls for interventions in their syllabi to educate scientists with enhanced capabilities for holistic views and synthesis.

Lightning Physics and Effects

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Orville, Richard E.

2004-03-01

Lightning Physics and Effects is not a lightning book; it is a lightning encyclopedia. Rarely in the history of science has one contribution covered a subject with such depth and thoroughness as to set the enduring standard for years, perhaps even decades, to come. This contribution covers all aspects of lightning, including lightning physics, lightning protection, and the interaction of lightning with a variety of objects and systems as well as the environment. The style of writing is well within the ability of the technical non-expert and anyone interested in lightning and its effects. Potential readers will include physicists; engineers working in the power industry, communications, computer, and aviation industries; atmospheric scientists; geophysicists; meteorologists; atmospheric chemists; foresters; ecologists; physicians working in the area of electrical trauma; and, lastly, architects. This comprehensive reference volume contains over 300 illustrations, 70 tables with quantitative information, and over 6000 reference and bibliography entries.

Biological insight, high-throughput datasets and the nature of neuro-degenerative disorders.

PubMed

Valente, André X C N; Oliveira, Paulo J; Khaiboullina, Svetlana F; Palotás, András; Rizvanov, Albert A

2013-09-01

Life sciences are experiencing a historical shift towards a quantitative, data-rich regime. This transition has been associated with the advent of bio-informatics: mathematicians, physicists, computer scientists and statisticians are now commonplace in the field, working on the analysis of ever larger data-sets. An open question regarding what should drive scientific progress in this new era remains: will biological insight become increasingly irrelevant in a world of hypothesis-free, unbiased data analysis? This piece offers a different perspective, pin-pointing that biological thought is more-than-ever relevant in a data-rich setting. Some of the novel highthroughput information being acquired in the field of neuro-degenerative disorders is highlighted here. As but one example of how theory and experiment can interact in this new reality, our efforts in developing an idiopathic neuro-degenerative disease hematopoietic stemcell ageing theory are described.

Engineering the next generation of clinical deep brain stimulation technology.

PubMed

McIntyre, Cameron C; Chaturvedi, Ashutosh; Shamir, Reuben R; Lempka, Scott F

2015-01-01

Deep brain stimulation (DBS) has evolved into a powerful clinical therapy for a range of neurological disorders, but even with impressive clinical growth, DBS technology has been relatively stagnant over its history. However, enhanced collaborations between neural engineers, neuroscientists, physicists, neurologists, and neurosurgeons are beginning to address some of the limitations of current DBS technology. These interactions have helped to develop novel ideas for the next generation of clinical DBS systems. This review attempts collate some of that progress with two goals in mind. First, provide a general description of current clinical DBS practices, geared toward educating biomedical engineers and computer scientists on a field that needs their expertise and attention. Second, describe some of the technological developments that are currently underway in surgical targeting, stimulation parameter selection, stimulation protocols, and stimulation hardware that are being directly evaluated for near term clinical application. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The Unexpected Vista: A Physicist's View of Nature.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Trefil, James S.

This 12-chapter book examines different phenomena as viewed by those trained in physics. These views (or vistas) are promulgated to demonstrate that the infinite variety of things seen in the material world can be reduced to a handful of general laws and to share with the public the richness of the scientist's world view. The phenomena examined…

Leo Szilard Lectureship Award: Arguing from the Periphery

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ramana, M. V.

2014-03-01

In today's societies, where the use of sophisticated and potentially dangerous technologies has become routine and where economic and political power require the constant invention and deployment of new technologies, meaningful democratization necessarily requires that people with expertise on these subjects intervene actively in the public interest, speaking truth to power as it were. There is a long history of such intervention by scientists, physicists in particular, in debates over nuclear policies in many countries around the world. This talk will explore different roles scientists have played in this contentious and disputed arena, with some recent examples from India.

Leo Szilard Lecturship Award: How can physicists help the public make better decisions about science and technology?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Primack, Joel

2016-03-01

For more than 40 years the APS has worked to improve governmental decision-making, mainly through the Congressional Science and Technology Fellowship program and through occasional studies of important science and technology issues. How productive have these been? How can the APS and other professional societies more effectively combat anti-science propaganda and help the public develop better-informed views about science and technology? How can individual scientists communicate scientific concepts in a more understandable and engaging way? How can we encourage young scientists and students to participate in creating a scientifically responsible future?

The threat of nuclear war: Some responses

PubMed Central

Marcattilio, A. J. M.; Nevin, John A.

1986-01-01

The possibility of nuclear holocaust threatens the very existence of the world community. Biologists, earth scientists, educators, lawyers, philosophers, physicists, physicians, and social scientists have addressed the problem from their special perspectives, and have had substantial impact on the public. Behavior analysts, however, have not as a whole contributed a great deal to the goal of preventing nuclear catastrophe. We argue that the threat of nuclear war is primarily a behavioral problem, and present an analysis of that problem. In addition, we address the difficulty of implementing behavioral interventions that would contribute to the survival of the World. PMID:22478648

PREFACE: 1st International Workshop on Theoretical and Computational Physics: Condensed Matter, Soft Matter and Materials Physics & 38th National Conference on Theoretical Physics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

2014-09-01

This volume contains selected papers presented at the 38th National Conference on Theoretical Physics (NCTP-38) and the 1st International Workshop on Theoretical and Computational Physics: Condensed Matter, Soft Matter and Materials Physics (IWTCP-1). Both the conference and the workshop were held from 29 July to 1 August 2013 in Pullman hotel, Da Nang, Vietnam. The IWTCP-1 was a new activity of the Vietnamese Theoretical Physics Society (VTPS) organized in association with the 38th National Conference on Theoretical Physics (NCTP-38), the most well-known annual scientific forum dedicated to the dissemination of the latest development in the field of theoretical physics within the country. The IWTCP-1 was also an External Activity of the Asia Pacific Center for Theoretical Physics (APCTP). The overriding goal of the IWTCP is to provide an international forum for scientists and engineers from academia to share ideas, problems and solution relating to the recent advances in theoretical physics as well as in computational physics. The main IWTCP motivation is to foster scientific exchanges between the Vietnamese theoretical and computational physics community and world-wide scientists as well as to promote high-standard level of research and education activities for young physicists in the country. About 110 participants coming from 10 countries participated in the conference and the workshop. 4 invited talks, 18 oral contributions and 46 posters were presented at the conference. In the workshop we had one keynote lecture and 9 invited talks presented by international experts in the fields of theoretical and computational physics, together with 14 oral and 33 poster contributions. The proceedings were edited by Nguyen Tri Lan, Trinh Xuan Hoang, and Nguyen Ai Viet. We would like to thank all invited speakers, participants and sponsors for making the conference and the workshop successful. Nguyen Ai Viet Chair of NCTP-38 and IWTCP-1

Barriers and constraints: women physicists' perceptions of career progress

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hodgson, Barbara; Scanlon, Eileen; Whitelegg, Elizabeth

2000-11-01

Researchers in the area of women in science are trying to understand how the participation of women in science can be increased and also what prevents women from developing scientific careers. Past influential work supports the importance of taking the perspective of women's education and career paths as a whole, emphasizing the importance of structural and social factors in career progress. This paper reports some outcomes from an interview study with women PhD physicists working in a variety of science-related careers. Our aim is to explore and document the career experience of women scientists and to identify barriers and constraints to women's participation in science careers and to investigate ways in which educational experiences contribute to career progress.

Willie Hobbs Moore (1934-1994): The First Female African American Physicist

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mickens, Ronald

2011-03-01

We discuss the life and career of Willie Hobbs Moore, the first African American woman to receive a doctorate degree in physics. This achievement occurred in June 1972 at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI. Her dissertation, directed by the renowned spectroscopist Samuel Krimm, was on the subject of ``A Vibrational Analysis of Secondary Chlorides," and focused on a theoretical analysis of the secondary chlorides for polyvinal-chlorine polymers. From 1972--1977, she, Krimm, and collaborators published more than thirty papers on this and related research issues. In addition to an overview of her family background, her careers as a research physicist and scientist working in various industrial laboratories, we discuss the obstacles and successes she encountered at various stages of her life.

The role of medical physics in prostate cancer radiation therapy.

PubMed

Fiorino, Claudio; Seuntjens, Jan

2016-03-01

Medical physics, both as a scientific discipline and clinical service, hugely contributed and still contributes to the advances in the radiotherapy of prostate cancer. The traditional translational role in developing and safely implementing new technology and methods for better optimizing, delivering and monitoring the treatment is rapidly expanding to include new fields such as quantitative morphological and functional imaging and the possibility of individually predicting outcome and toxicity. The pivotal position of medical physicists in treatment personalization probably represents the main challenge of current and next years and needs a gradual change of vision and training, without losing the traditional and fundamental role of physicists to guarantee a high quality of the treatment. The current focus issue is intended to cover traditional and new fields of investigation in prostate cancer radiation therapy with the aim to provide up-to-date reference material to medical physicists daily working to cure prostate cancer patients. The papers presented in this focus issue touch upon present and upcoming challenges that need to be met in order to further advance prostate cancer radiation therapy. We suggest that there is a smart future for medical physicists willing to perform research and innovate, while they continue to provide high-quality clinical service. However, physicists are increasingly expected to actively integrate their implicitly translational, flexible and high-level skills within multi-disciplinary teams including many clinical figures (first of all radiation oncologists) as well as scientists from other disciplines. Copyright © 2016. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Teaching Elementary Particle Physics: Part I1

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hobson, Art

2011-01-01

I'll outline suggestions for teaching elementary particle physics, often called high energy physics, in high school or introductory college courses for non-scientists or scientists. Some presentations of this topic simply list the various particles along with their properties, with little overarching structure. Such a laundry list approach is a great way to make a fascinating topic meaningless. Students need a conceptual framework from which to view the elementary particles. That conceptual framework is quantum field theory (QFT). Teachers and students alike tend to quake at this topic, but bear with me. We're talking here about concepts, not technicalities. My approach will be conceptual and suitable for non-scientists and scientists; if mathematical details are added in courses for future scientists, they should be simple and sparse. Introductory students should not be expected to do QFT, but only to understand its concepts. Those concepts take some getting used to, but they are simple and can be understood by any literate person, be she plumber, attorney, musician, or physicist.

Anniversary Paper: History and status of CAD and quantitative image analysis: The role of Medical Physics and AAPM

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Giger, Maryellen L.; Chan, Heang-Ping; Boone, John

2008-12-15

The roles of physicists in medical imaging have expanded over the years, from the study of imaging systems (sources and detectors) and dose to the assessment of image quality and perception, the development of image processing techniques, and the development of image analysis methods to assist in detection and diagnosis. The latter is a natural extension of medical physicists' goals in developing imaging techniques to help physicians acquire diagnostic information and improve clinical decisions. Studies indicate that radiologists do not detect all abnormalities on images that are visible on retrospective review, and they do not always correctly characterize abnormalities thatmore » are found. Since the 1950s, the potential use of computers had been considered for analysis of radiographic abnormalities. In the mid-1980s, however, medical physicists and radiologists began major research efforts for computer-aided detection or computer-aided diagnosis (CAD), that is, using the computer output as an aid to radiologists--as opposed to a completely automatic computer interpretation--focusing initially on methods for the detection of lesions on chest radiographs and mammograms. Since then, extensive investigations of computerized image analysis for detection or diagnosis of abnormalities in a variety of 2D and 3D medical images have been conducted. The growth of CAD over the past 20 years has been tremendous--from the early days of time-consuming film digitization and CPU-intensive computations on a limited number of cases to its current status in which developed CAD approaches are evaluated rigorously on large clinically relevant databases. CAD research by medical physicists includes many aspects--collecting relevant normal and pathological cases; developing computer algorithms appropriate for the medical interpretation task including those for segmentation, feature extraction, and classifier design; developing methodology for assessing CAD performance; validating the algorithms using appropriate cases to measure performance and robustness; conducting observer studies with which to evaluate radiologists in the diagnostic task without and with the use of the computer aid; and ultimately assessing performance with a clinical trial. Medical physicists also have an important role in quantitative imaging, by validating the quantitative integrity of scanners and developing imaging techniques, and image analysis tools that extract quantitative data in a more accurate and automated fashion. As imaging systems become more complex and the need for better quantitative information from images grows, the future includes the combined research efforts from physicists working in CAD with those working on quantitative imaging systems to readily yield information on morphology, function, molecular structure, and more--from animal imaging research to clinical patient care. A historical review of CAD and a discussion of challenges for the future are presented here, along with the extension to quantitative image analysis.« less

Research Activity in Computational Physics utilizing High Performance Computing: Co-authorship Network Analysis

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ahn, Sul-Ah; Jung, Youngim

2016-10-01

The research activities of the computational physicists utilizing high performance computing are analyzed by bibliometirc approaches. This study aims at providing the computational physicists utilizing high-performance computing and policy planners with useful bibliometric results for an assessment of research activities. In order to achieve this purpose, we carried out a co-authorship network analysis of journal articles to assess the research activities of researchers for high-performance computational physics as a case study. For this study, we used journal articles of the Scopus database from Elsevier covering the time period of 2004-2013. We extracted the author rank in the physics field utilizing high-performance computing by the number of papers published during ten years from 2004. Finally, we drew the co-authorship network for 45 top-authors and their coauthors, and described some features of the co-authorship network in relation to the author rank. Suggestions for further studies are discussed.

Scientific Migration in Central Europe in the Context of the Cold War

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hoffmann, Dieter

2011-03-01

As a way of intellectual reparations the Allies tried in 1945 to capture German scientists to undertake research in their own R& D and military research projects. The Soviet Occupied Zone of Germany was particularly strongly affected by this seizure of its scientific elite. Among the displaced were a group of leading German physicists, who were assigned to specific laboratories in the Caucasus, where they were kept like precious birds in a golden cage advancing the Soviet atomic bomb project. These included the Nobel Laureate Gustav Hertz, Manfred von Ardenne, Peter Adolf Thiessen and Max Steenbeck, to name but a few. In contrast to many others in similar circumstances, the fate of these scientists was directly influenced by the nuclear race and the Cold War as a result of which they were unable to return to Germany before 1955. Many German returnee scientists settled in East Germany, but some enjoyed successful careers in the West. Remarkably, one of the most instrumental inventions of the nuclear age -- the ultracentrifuge used for uranium enrichment -- emerged from this ``gilded cage.'' However, the 1950s were also marked by other migrations as well as by processes of science and technology transfer. In particular, there was an exodus of many scientists from East to West, which was driven by a lack of political freedom and prospertity and exacerbated by political turmoil in Central Europe during this period (1953/1956/1961/1968). My talk will provide a brief account of these migratory processes with a focus on Germany. Migrations concerning other Central European countries such as Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Poland will be also briefly described in a comparative perspective and illustrated with examples about the life and work of several physicists.

Women in Physics: Self-Actualization and Perspectives

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kunitsyna, E. V.; Murashova, A. V.; Sokolova, Z. N.; Shmidt, N. M.; Vitman, R. F.

2005-10-01

The status of women physicists at the Ioffe Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences is analyzed. In the Ioffe Physico-Technical Institute (PTI), just 20% of the researchers are female. They work in all of the departments: in theoretical groups, 13% in technological laboratories. up to 30%. Women account for 18% among PhDs and about 11% among Doctors of Science. From 1991 to 2001 there was a trend of growth in the fraction of young women at PTI (from 7% up to 20%). For the last 3 years the percentage of women among postgraduate students has held at 20%. There seems to be the following social phenomenon in the sciences in Russia: against a background of the aging of scientists as a whole, the younger the scientists are, the more likely they are to be women. Women scientists of Ioffe Institute take a hand in organizing the conferences, the physics schools, and the Physics of the Solid State and Semiconductors journals. It is very important to note that careful and reliable results of pseudo-routine work of the PTI women are not always published. This fact exposes them to the ``publications gap.'' In spite of their high research levels, the PTI women physicists give talks at conferences and seminars much more seldom than their male colleagues. In the institute and the departments the male staff of the Academic Councils make decisions without taking gender issues into consideration. In addition, women account for only 3% of the laboratory heads. Now Russian young people are free from archaic gender stereotypes. We can say with certainty that the cultural and professional potential of women scientists is a considerable potential for the 21st century.

Joseph Rotblat: Moral Dilemmas and the Manhattan Project

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Veys, Lucy

2013-12-01

John Fitzgerald Kennedy famously said, "One man can make a difference and every man should try."1 Joseph Rotblat (1908-2005) was the quintessence of Kennedy's conviction. He was the only scientist who left Los Alamos after it transpired that the atomic bomb being developed there was intended for use against adversaries other than Nazi Germany. I explore Rotblat's early research in Warsaw and Liverpool, which established his reputation as a highly capable experimental physicist, and which led him to join the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos in 1944. I examine his motivation for resigning from the project in 1945, and the unwillingness of his fellow scientists to follow suit, which draws attention to the continuing discourse on the responsibility of scientists for the consequences of their research.

Examining the Relationships among Doctoral Completion Time, Gender, and Future Salary Prospects for Physical Scientists

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Potvin, Geoff; Tai, Robert H.

2012-01-01

Using data from a national survey of Ph.D.-holding chemists and physicists, time-to-doctoral degree is found to be a strong predictor of salary: each additional year in graduate school corresponds to a significantly lower average salary. This is true even while controlling for standard measures of scientific merit (grant funding and publication…

Scientist as detective: Luis Alvarez and the pyramid burial chambers, the JFK assassination, and the end of the dinosaurs

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wohl, Charles G.

2007-11-01

Luis Alvarez (1911-1988) was one of the most brilliant and productive experimental physicists of the twentieth century. His investigations of three mysteries, all of them outside his normal areas of research, show what remarkable things a far-ranging imagination working with an immense store of knowledge can accomplish.

Building baby universes

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Coles, Peter

2017-08-01

The thought of a scientist trying to design a laboratory experiment in which to create a whole new universe probably sounds like it belongs in the plot of a science-fiction B-movie. But as author Zeeya Merali explains in her new book A Big Bang in a Little Room, there are more than a few eminent physicists who think that this is theoretically possible.

Slippery and never wet

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Backholm, Matilda; Timonen, Jaakko V. I.; Ras, Robin H. A.

2017-11-01

Superhydrophobic surfaces let water droplets roll off with low friction and falling droplets rebound, leaving the surfaces completely dry. Such extremely water repellent surfaces are found in nature on lotus leaves, the legs of water striders and feather coatings of birds, and portray a beautiful example of ingenious biological design. They provide an exciting research avenue for physicists and materials scientists aspiring to understand and mimic nature.

A Staged Reading of the Play: Moving Bodies

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Schwartz, Brian

Moving Bodies is about Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman as he explores nature, science, sex, anti-Semitism, and the world around him. This epic, comic journey portrays Feynman as an iconoclastic young man, a physicist with the Manhattan Project and confronting the mystery of the Challenger disaster. The Atomic Bomb is central to the play, but it is also very much about human loves and losses. We learn about his (Feynman's) eccentricities: his bongo playing, his penchant for picking locks, and most notably his appreciation for women. Through playwright Arthur Giron's eyes, we see how Feynman became one of the most important scientists of our time. The playwright, Arthur Giron, is the co-playwright of the recent 2015 Broadway Musical, Amazing Grace. The staged reading is performed by the Southern Rep Theatre. http://www.southernrep.com/ The play director and actors as well as a historian-scientist who knew Feynman will be available for a talk-back discussion after the play reading. Produced by Brian Schwartz, CUNY and Gregory Mack, APS. Sponsored by: The Forum on the History of Physics, The Forum on Outreach and Engaging the Public and The Forum on Physics and Society.

The National Cancer Institute's Physical Sciences - Oncology Network

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Espey, Michael Graham

In 2009, the NCI launched the Physical Sciences - Oncology Centers (PS-OC) initiative with 12 Centers (U54) funded through 2014. The current phase of the Program includes U54 funded Centers with the added feature of soliciting new Physical Science - Oncology Projects (PS-OP) U01 grant applications through 2017; see NCI PAR-15-021. The PS-OPs, individually and along with other PS-OPs and the Physical Sciences-Oncology Centers (PS-OCs), comprise the Physical Sciences-Oncology Network (PS-ON). The foundation of the Physical Sciences-Oncology initiative is a high-risk, high-reward program that promotes a `physical sciences perspective' of cancer and fosters the convergence of physical science and cancer research by forming transdisciplinary teams of physical scientists (e.g., physicists, mathematicians, chemists, engineers, computer scientists) and cancer researchers (e.g., cancer biologists, oncologists, pathologists) who work closely together to advance our understanding of cancer. The collaborative PS-ON structure catalyzes transformative science through increased exchange of people, ideas, and approaches. PS-ON resources are leveraged to fund Trans-Network pilot projects to enable synergy and cross-testing of experimental and/or theoretical concepts. This session will include a brief PS-ON overview followed by a strategic discussion with the APS community to exchange perspectives on the progression of trans-disciplinary physical sciences in cancer research.

Automated Feature and Event Detection with SDO AIA and HMI Data

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Davey, Alisdair; Martens, P. C. H.; Attrill, G. D. R.; Engell, A.; Farid, S.; Grigis, P. C.; Kasper, J.; Korreck, K.; Saar, S. H.; Su, Y.; Testa, P.; Wills-Davey, M.; Savcheva, A.; Bernasconi, P. N.; Raouafi, N.-E.; Delouille, V. A.; Hochedez, J. F..; Cirtain, J. W.; Deforest, C. E.; Angryk, R. A.; de Moortel, I.; Wiegelmann, T.; Georgouli, M. K.; McAteer, R. T. J.; Hurlburt, N.; Timmons, R.

The Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) represents a new frontier in quantity and quality of solar data. At about 1.5 TB/day, the data will not be easily digestible by solar physicists using the same methods that have been employed for images from previous missions. In order for solar scientists to use the SDO data effectively they need meta-data that will allow them to identify and retrieve data sets that address their particular science questions. We are building a comprehensive computer vision pipeline for SDO, abstracting complete metadata on many of the features and events detectable on the Sun without human intervention. Our project unites more than a dozen individual, existing codes into a systematic tool that can be used by the entire solar community. The feature finding codes will run as part of the SDO Event Detection System (EDS) at the Joint Science Operations Center (JSOC; joint between Stanford and LMSAL). The metadata produced will be stored in the Heliophysics Event Knowledgebase (HEK), which will be accessible on-line for the rest of the world directly or via the Virtual Solar Observatory (VSO) . Solar scientists will be able to use the HEK to select event and feature data to download for science studies.

Urgency of evolution-process congruent thinking in physics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Roychoudhuri, Chandrasekhar

2015-09-01

It is now generally recognized that physics has not been contributing anything conceptually fundamentally new beyond the century old Relativity and 90 years old Quantum Mechanics [1-4]. We have also started recognizing that there is an increasing rate of species extinction all over the world, especially since the last century [5]; and we are beginning to understand that the related problems are being steadily accelerated by human behavior to conquer nature, rather than understanding nature as is and living within its system logics [6,7]. We are beginning to appreciate that our long-term sustainability as a species literally depends upon proactively learning to nurture the entire bio-diversity [8-10]. Thus, humans must consciously become evolution process congruent thinkers. The evolutionary biologists have been crying out loud for us to listen [5,6, 8-10]. Social scientists, political scientists, economic scientists [13] have started chiming in to become consilient thinkers [6] for re-constructing sustainable societies. But, the path to consilient thinking requires us to recognize and accept a common vision based thinking process, which functionally serves as a uniting platform. I am articulating that platform as the "evolution process congruent thinking" (EPCT). Do physicists have any obligation to co-opt this EPCT? Is there any immediate and/or long-term gain for them? This paper argues affirmatively that co-opting EPCT is the best way to re-anchor physics back to reality ontology and develop newer and deeper understanding of natural phenomena based on understanding of the diverse interaction processes going on in nature. Physics is mature enough to acknowledge that all of our theories are "work in progress". This is a good time to start iteratively re-evaluating and re-structuring all the foundational postulates behind all the working theories. This will also consistently energize all the follow-on generation of physicists to keep on fully utilizing their evolution-given enquiring minds without being afraid by the prevailing culture of "publish-or-perish", requiring them to stay within the bounds of the prevailing theories as the final ones. Current physics thinking has been successfully driven by Measurable Data Modeling Epistemology (MDM-E); which is basically curve-fitting without demanding to understand the actual physical processes nature is carrying out. I am proposing to add an iterative repertoire, Interaction Process mapping Epistemology (IPM-E) over and above successful MDM-E. This will facilitate the physicists to become conceptual reverse engineers of nature. The gap between physicists and engineers will start melting down and our collective sustainability will be re-assured as successful engineers of nature.

The Society's Involvement in the Defense of Human Rights

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gerjuoy, Edward

2015-04-01

The history of the Society's involvement in the defense of human rights, a history of which the Society can be proud, will be summarized; the summary will include illustrative specific APS human rights defense actions in illustrative specific cases. As will be emphasized, the aforesaid involvement has been primarily through the activities of the APS Committee on International Freedom of Scientists (CIFS). It is noteworthy-and one of the reasons the Society can be proud-that CIFS is charged with ``monitoring concerns regarding human rights for scientists,'' not solely for physicists, and that CIFS indeed has sought to protect the human rights of nonphysicists.

Engaging the public on climate change issues

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bean, Alice

2016-03-01

As a Jefferson Science Fellow from August 2014-August 2015, Alice Bean worked with the Office of Religion and Global Affairs at the U.S. Department of State on climate change and environmental issues. The Office of Religion and Global Affairs works to implement the National Strategy on Religious Leader and Faith Community Engagement which includes building partnerships on environmental issues. With the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference of the Parties meeting 21 in December, 2015 in Paris, there were and continue to be great opportunities for physicists to interact with policy makers and the general public. As an experimental particle physicist, much was learned about climate change science, how the public views scientists, how science can influence policy, but most especially how to communicate about science.

JPRS Report, Arms Control.

DTIC Science & Technology

1989-06-14

in New Delhi on Thurs- day said that the integrated guided missile development program aims at developing capabilities for ensuring national...defense minis- ter and the chief of the Defense Research and Develop - ment Program , has said Agni would have to be further tested. The scientists and...physicists of continuous loading of the nuclear fuel from above and unloading of the core from below in order to guarantee its more completely

Preface to the Special Issue of Optical Materials associated with the ;Photoluminescence in Rare Earths 2016: Photonic Materials and Devices (PRE'16); Workshop

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jacobsohn, Luiz G.; Ballato, John

2017-06-01

Since the inaugural meeting in 2005, the Photoluminescence in Rare Earths: Photonic Materials and Devices (PRE) workshop has grown into a global forum for material scientists, chemists and physicists to discuss and debate the state of the art and future perspectives for photonic materials based on rare earth ions.

Benefit from NASA

NASA Image and Video Library

1999-06-01

Two scientists at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, atmospheric scientist Paul Meyer (left) and solar physicist Dr. David Hathaway, have developed promising new software, called Video Image Stabilization and Registration (VISAR), that may help law enforcement agencies to catch criminals by improving the quality of video recorded at crime scenes, VISAR stabilizes camera motion in the horizontal and vertical as well as rotation and zoom effects; produces clearer images of moving objects; smoothes jagged edges; enhances still images; and reduces video noise of snow. VISAR could also have applications in medical and meteorological imaging. It could steady images of Ultrasounds which are infamous for their grainy, blurred quality. It would be especially useful for tornadoes, tracking whirling objects and helping to determine the tornado's wind speed. This image shows two scientists reviewing an enhanced video image of a license plate taken from a moving automobile.

Birth of prominent scientists.

PubMed

Reyes Gonzalez, Leonardo; González Brambila, Claudia N; Veloso, Francisco

2018-01-01

This paper analyzes the influence key scientists have in the development of a science and technology system. In particular, this work appraises the influence that star scientists have on the productivity and impact of young faculty, as well as on the likelihood that these young researchers become a leading personality in science. Our analysis confirms previous results that eminent scientist have a prime role in the development of a scientific system, especially within the context of an emerging economy like Mexico. In particular, in terms of productivity and visibility, this work shows that between 1984 and 2001 the elite group of physicists in Mexico (approximate 10% of all scientists working in physics and its related fields) published 42% of all publications, received 50% of all citations and bred 18% to 26% of new entrants. In addition our work shows that scientists that enter the system by the hand of a highly productive researcher increased their productivity on average by 28% and the ones that did it by the hand of a highly visible scientist received on average 141% more citations, vis-à-vis scholars that did not published their first manuscripts with an eminent scientist. Furthermore, scholars that enter the system by the hand of a highly productive researcher were on average 2.5 more likely to also become a star.

Birth of prominent scientists

PubMed Central

Reyes Gonzalez, Leonardo; Veloso, Francisco

2018-01-01

This paper analyzes the influence key scientists have in the development of a science and technology system. In particular, this work appraises the influence that star scientists have on the productivity and impact of young faculty, as well as on the likelihood that these young researchers become a leading personality in science. Our analysis confirms previous results that eminent scientist have a prime role in the development of a scientific system, especially within the context of an emerging economy like Mexico. In particular, in terms of productivity and visibility, this work shows that between 1984 and 2001 the elite group of physicists in Mexico (approximate 10% of all scientists working in physics and its related fields) published 42% of all publications, received 50% of all citations and bred 18% to 26% of new entrants. In addition our work shows that scientists that enter the system by the hand of a highly productive researcher increased their productivity on average by 28% and the ones that did it by the hand of a highly visible scientist received on average 141% more citations, vis-à-vis scholars that did not published their first manuscripts with an eminent scientist. Furthermore, scholars that enter the system by the hand of a highly productive researcher were on average 2.5 more likely to also become a star. PMID:29543855

A Novel Approach to Develop the Lower Order Model of Multi-Input Multi-Output System

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rajalakshmy, P.; Dharmalingam, S.; Jayakumar, J.

2017-10-01

A mathematical model is a virtual entity that uses mathematical language to describe the behavior of a system. Mathematical models are used particularly in the natural sciences and engineering disciplines like physics, biology, and electrical engineering as well as in the social sciences like economics, sociology and political science. Physicists, Engineers, Computer scientists, and Economists use mathematical models most extensively. With the advent of high performance processors and advanced mathematical computations, it is possible to develop high performing simulators for complicated Multi Input Multi Ouptut (MIMO) systems like Quadruple tank systems, Aircrafts, Boilers etc. This paper presents the development of the mathematical model of a 500 MW utility boiler which is a highly complex system. A synergistic combination of operational experience, system identification and lower order modeling philosophy has been effectively used to develop a simplified but accurate model of a circulation system of a utility boiler which is a MIMO system. The results obtained are found to be in good agreement with the physics of the process and with the results obtained through design procedure. The model obtained can be directly used for control system studies and to realize hardware simulators for boiler testing and operator training.

Simulating the Dynamics of Earth's Core: Using NCCS Supercomputers Speeds Calculations

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

2002-01-01

If one wanted to study Earth's core directly, one would have to drill through about 1,800 miles of solid rock to reach liquid core-keeping the tunnel from collapsing under pressures that are more than 1 million atmospheres and then sink an instrument package to the bottom that could operate at 8,000 F with 10,000 tons of force crushing every square inch of its surface. Even then, several of these tunnels would probably be needed to obtain enough data. Faced with difficult or impossible tasks such as these, scientists use other available sources of information - such as seismology, mineralogy, geomagnetism, geodesy, and, above all, physical principles - to derive a model of the core and, study it by running computer simulations. One NASA researcher is doing just that on NCCS computers. Physicist and applied mathematician Weijia Kuang, of the Space Geodesy Branch, and his collaborators at Goddard have what he calls the,"second - ever" working, usable, self-consistent, fully dynamic, three-dimensional geodynamic model (see "The Geodynamic Theory"). Kuang runs his model simulations on the supercomputers at the NCCS. He and Jeremy Bloxham, of Harvard University, developed the original version, written in Fortran 77, in 1996.

EDITORIAL: XXVI IUPAP Conference on Computational Physics (CCP2014)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sandvik, A. W.; Campbell, D. K.; Coker, D. F.; Tang, Y.

2015-09-01

The 26th IUPAP Conference on Computational Physics, CCP2014, was held in Boston, Massachusetts, during August 11-14, 2014. Almost 400 participants from 38 countries convened at the George Sherman Union at Boston University for four days of plenary and parallel sessions spanning a broad range of topics in computational physics and related areas. The first meeting in the series that developed into the annual Conference on Computational Physics (CCP) was held in 1989, also on the campus of Boston University and chaired by our colleague Claudio Rebbi. The express purpose of that meeting was to discuss the progress, opportunities and challenges of common interest to physicists engaged in computational research. The conference having returned to the site of its inception, it is interesting to recect on the development of the field during the intervening years. Though 25 years is a short time for mankind, computational physics has taken giant leaps during these years, not only because of the enormous increases in computer power but especially because of the development of new methods and algorithms, and the growing awareness of the opportunities the new technologies and methods can offer. Computational physics now represents a ''third leg'' of research alongside analytical theory and experiments in almost all subfields of physics, and because of this there is also increasing specialization within the community of computational physicists. It is therefore a challenge to organize a meeting such as CCP, which must have suffcient depth in different areas to hold the interest of experts while at the same time being broad and accessible. Still, at a time when computational research continues to gain in importance, the CCP series is critical in the way it fosters cross-fertilization among fields, with many participants specifically attending in order to get exposure to new methods in fields outside their own. As organizers and editors of these Proceedings, we are very pleased with the high quality of the papers provided by the participants. These articles represent a good cross-section of what was presented at the meeting, and it is our hope that they will not only be useful individually for their specific scientific content but will also represent a historical snapshot of the state of computational physics that they represent collectively. The remainder of this Preface contains lists detailing the organizational structure of CCP2014, endorsers and sponsors of the meeting, plenary and invited talks, and a presentation of the 2014 IUPAP C20 Young Scientist Prize. We would like to take the opportunity to again thank all those who contributed to the success of CCP214, as organizers, sponsors, presenters, exhibitors, and participants. Anders Sandvik, David Campbell, David Coker, Ying Tang

The Need For ``Pleasure in Finding Things Out:'' The Use of History and Our Greatest Scientists for Human Survival and Scientific Integrity

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Borchardt, Joshua

2011-03-01

Why Homo sapiens search for interesting things and the methods of which we do so. The use of philosophical, theoretical, and demonstrated processes for exploration of the natural, and not so natural world are presented based on the ideas and wishes of some of History's greatest scientists, with concentration on Richard P. Feynman's lens on scientific discovery and pursuit, for which the abstract gets its title. This talk is presented towards the layman as well as the physicist, and gives insight to the nature of discovery and what it means to have pleasure in finding things out for the betterment of all mankind.

Workshop V: Cultural Perception and Bias/Science Practice and Ethics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chuan, Kwek Leong; Lin, Jauyn Grace; Pierron-Bohnes, Veronique; Dawson, Silvina Ponce

2015-12-01

Despite the objectivity of science, the local work environment affects the daily activities of scientists. Differences in cultural perception can affect female scientists in the workplace directly. The pressure currently exerted on researchers, on the other hand, is altering how science is practiced and seems to affect women and men differently. In this paper we summarize the discussions that took place on this topic in Workshop V of the 5th IUPAP International Conference on Women in Physics. We present some of the results of the 2010 Global Survey of Physicists analyzed by region and data from France and Taiwan. We also include the recommendations that were formulated at the end of the workshop.

The Death of the Dinosaurs: 27 Years Later (LBNL Summer Lecture Series)

ScienceCinema

Muller, Rich [Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States). Dept. of Physics

2017-12-15

Summer Lecture Series 2006: Rich Muller, a Berkeley Lab physicist, discusses Nobel laureate Luis Alvarez and colleagues' 1979 discovery that an asteroid impact killed the dinosaurs. He also discusses what scientists have learned in the subsequent 27 years. Alvarez's team detected unusual amounts of iridium in sedimentary layers. They attributed the excess iridium to an impact from a large asteroid. His talk was presented June 30, 2006.

Message from the Worldwide Ahmadiyya Muslim Community

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ahmad, Mirza Masroor

2008-07-01

Abdus Salam was an Ahmadi Muslim from Pakistan, a renowned theoretical physicist who received the Nobel Prize in 1979 for his work in electroweak theory. Although he was the first Muslim Nobel Laureate, Pakistan's military dictator at that time could not admit that its brilliant scientist was a Muslim citizen. Dr Salam's entire award was devoted to the furtherance of education: he did not spend a penny on himself or his family...

The Death of the Dinosaurs: 27 Years Later (LBNL Summer Lecture Series)

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Muller, Rich

2006-06-30

Summer Lecture Series 2006: Rich Muller, a Berkeley Lab physicist, discusses Nobel laureate Luis Alvarez and colleagues' 1979 discovery that an asteroid impact killed the dinosaurs. He also discusses what scientists have learned in the subsequent 27 years. Alvarez's team detected unusual amounts of iridium in sedimentary layers. They attributed the excess iridium to an impact from a large asteroid. His talk was presented June 30, 2006.

Nordic cosmogonies: Birkeland, Arrhenius and fin-de-siècle cosmical physics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kragh, Helge

2013-09-01

During the two decades before World War I, many physicists, astronomers and earth scientists engaged in interdisciplinary research projects with the aim of integrating terrestrial, solar and astronomical phenomena. Under the umbrella label "cosmical physics" they studied, for example, geomagnetic storms, atmospheric electricity, cometary tails and the aurora borealis. According to a few of the cosmical physicists, insights in solar-terrestrial and related phenomena might be extrapolated to the entire solar system or beyond it. Inspired by their research in the origin and nature of the aurora, Kristian Birkeland from Norway and Svante Arrhenius from Sweden proposed new theories of the universe that were of a physical rather than astronomical nature. Whereas Birkeland argued that electrons and other charged particles penetrated the entire universe - and generally that electromagnetism was of no less importance to cosmology than gravitation - Arrhenius built his cosmology on the hypothesis of dust particles being propelled throughout the cosmos by stellar radiation pressure. Both of the Scandinavian scientists suggested that the universe was infinitely filled with matter and without a beginning or an end in time. Although their cosmological speculations did not survive for long, they are interesting early attempts to establish physical cosmologies and for a while they attracted a good deal of attention.

The promises of big data and small data for travel behavior (aka human mobility) analysis.

PubMed

Chen, Cynthia; Ma, Jingtao; Susilo, Yusak; Liu, Yu; Wang, Menglin

2016-07-01

The last decade has witnessed very active development in two broad, but separate fields, both involving understanding and modeling of how individuals move in time and space (hereafter called "travel behavior analysis" or "human mobility analysis"). One field comprises transportation researchers who have been working in the field for decades and the other involves new comers from a wide range of disciplines, but primarily computer scientists and physicists. Researchers in these two fields work with different datasets, apply different methodologies, and answer different but overlapping questions. It is our view that there is much, hidden synergy between the two fields that needs to be brought out. It is thus the purpose of this paper to introduce datasets, concepts, knowledge and methods used in these two fields, and most importantly raise cross-discipline ideas for conversations and collaborations between the two. It is our hope that this paper will stimulate many future cross-cutting studies that involve researchers from both fields.

Vibrations used to talk to quantum circuits

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cho, Adrian

2018-03-01

The budding discipline of quantum acoustics could shake up embryonic quantum computers. Such machines run by flipping quantum bits, or qubits, that can be set not only to zero or one, but, bizarrely, to zero and one at the same time. The most advanced qubits are circuits made of superconducting metal, and to control or read out a qubit, researchers make it interact with a microwave resonator—typically a strip of metal on the qubit chip or a finger-size cavity surrounding it—which rings with microwave photons like an organ pipe rings with sound. But some physicists see advantages to replacing the microwave resonator with a mechanical one that rings with quantized vibrations, or phonons. A well-designed acoustic resonator could ring longer than a microwave one does and could be far smaller, enabling researchers to produce more compact technologies. But first scientists must gain quantum control over vibrations. And several groups are on the cusp of doing that, as they reported at a recent meeting.

The promises of big data and small data for travel behavior (aka human mobility) analysis

PubMed Central

Chen, Cynthia; Ma, Jingtao; Susilo, Yusak; Liu, Yu; Wang, Menglin

2016-01-01

The last decade has witnessed very active development in two broad, but separate fields, both involving understanding and modeling of how individuals move in time and space (hereafter called “travel behavior analysis” or “human mobility analysis”). One field comprises transportation researchers who have been working in the field for decades and the other involves new comers from a wide range of disciplines, but primarily computer scientists and physicists. Researchers in these two fields work with different datasets, apply different methodologies, and answer different but overlapping questions. It is our view that there is much, hidden synergy between the two fields that needs to be brought out. It is thus the purpose of this paper to introduce datasets, concepts, knowledge and methods used in these two fields, and most importantly raise cross-discipline ideas for conversations and collaborations between the two. It is our hope that this paper will stimulate many future cross-cutting studies that involve researchers from both fields. PMID:27182125

The Rhetoric of Physics: AN Ethnography of the Research and Writing Processes in a Physics Laboratory.

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Graves, Heather Ann Brodie

1992-01-01

This dissertation explores the extent to which rhetoric plays a role in the research and writing processes of physicists. It seeks to join the on-going conversation in the rhetoric of inquiry about the ways in which rhetorical forces shape all knowledge systems. Based on data collected during a six-month ethnography in a thin films laboratory, this study argues that these physicists use rhetoric in all stages of the knowledge creation process. After following the experimental process through all its stages from the inception of an experiment through to publication, this study maps out the types of heuristic devices employed by the physicists as they analyzed, interpreted, and presented their research data in a persuasive scientific article. In light of the insights gained from studying the dynamic interactions between physicists, this dissertation also comments on the theoretical and philosophical debates under discussion in the rhetoric of inquiry and the rhetoric of science. It examines current theories of language (as expressed by rhetoricians, critical theorists, and the physicists in this laboratory) to explore the relationship between reality and language, the role that rhetoric plays in knowledge creation in physics, and the ways in which reality and knowledge may be socially constructed. It concludes that these physicists use rhetorical invention strategies to interpret and present their data. It also argues that scientific knowledge is subject to rhetorical forces because it deals with contingent affairs--phenomena about which scientists advance propositions which appear to be true but about which there is no way to gain absolute certainty or truth. Finally, it concludes that rhetoric both is and is not epistemic in the physics research studied here, and it argues that instead of asking "Is rhetoric epistemic?" perhaps we might shift our attention to inquiring "When is rhetoric epistemic?".

Physicists and Economic Growth: Preparing the Next Generation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Arion, Douglas

2012-02-01

For many years it has been recognized that many physicists are ``hidden'' -- deep in the industrial world or holding positions not named ``physicist.'' In parallel with this phenomenon is the recognition that many new and innovative product ideas are, in fact, generated by physicists. There are many more ideas that could be brought to market to the benefit of both society and the inventor, but physicists don't often see themselves as the innovators and inventors that they actually are. A number of education programs have arisen to try to address this issue and to engender a greater entrepreneurial spirit in the scientific community. The ScienceWorks program at Carthage College was one of the first to do so, and has for nearly twenty years prepared undergraduate science majors to understand and practice innovation and value creation. Other programs, such as professional masters degrees, also serve to bridge the technical and business universes. As it is no doubt easier to teach a scientist the world of business than it is to teach a businessperson the world of physics, providing educational experiences in innovation and commercialization to physics students can have tremendous economic impact, and will also better prepare them for whatever career direction they may ultimately pursue, even if it is the traditional tenure-track university position. This talk will discuss education programs that have been effective at preparing physics students for the professional work environment, and some of the positive outcomes that have resulted. Also discussed will be the variety of opportunities and resources that exist for faculty and students to develop the skills, knowledge and abilities to recognize and successfully commercialize innovations.

Geoscience and Public Policy

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

White, K. S.

2013-12-01

Many current public policy issues have a geoscience component: climate change, natural hazards, energy, and mineral resources to name just a few. In addition, Congress makes decisions that directly affect scientists, such as funding allocations and visa and travel policy. Yet few geoscientists are engaged in the policy-making process. Members of Congress have called on scientists to become more active, including Ph.D. physicist and former-Representative Vernon Ehlers (R-MI). In an address at the 2010 AAAS Forum on Science and Technology Policy, he told scientists, "The gulf between the scientifically minded and those who are not scientifically minded is still tremendous. I think we are keeping far too quiet about what we know and how we would go about solving problems. We have so much to offer this country à solutions to various difficulties." This talk will provide information on avenues for geoscientists to more effectively engage in the public policy arena.

Video Image Stabilization and Registration (VISAR) Software

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1999-01-01

Two scientists at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, atmospheric scientist Paul Meyer (left) and solar physicist Dr. David Hathaway, have developed promising new software, called Video Image Stabilization and Registration (VISAR), that may help law enforcement agencies to catch criminals by improving the quality of video recorded at crime scenes, VISAR stabilizes camera motion in the horizontal and vertical as well as rotation and zoom effects; produces clearer images of moving objects; smoothes jagged edges; enhances still images; and reduces video noise of snow. VISAR could also have applications in medical and meteorological imaging. It could steady images of Ultrasounds which are infamous for their grainy, blurred quality. It would be especially useful for tornadoes, tracking whirling objects and helping to determine the tornado's wind speed. This image shows two scientists reviewing an enhanced video image of a license plate taken from a moving automobile.

Physics in WWI: Fighting the Acoustic War

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kevles, Daniel

2015-01-01

World War I was the first high-technology war, and when the United States began to prepare for it in 1915 the federal government turned to the storied inventor Thomas Edison. Edison formed a board that included industrial executives and engineers but only one physicist, its members holding that they wanted people who would do things and not just talk about them. However, in 1916, the nation's scientists managed to create a place for themselves in the preparedness effort by organizing the National Research Council under the National Academy of Sciences. Once the United States went to war, in April 1917, the NRC brought academic and industrial physicists together in efforts to detect incoming aircraft, submerged submarines, and the location of long-range artillery. The efforts employed devices that relied in the main on the detection and identification of sound waves from these weapons. The devices were passive responders, but they were marked by increasing sophistication and enabled the United States and its allies to prosecute an acoustic war. That branch of the war was militarily effective, overshadowed the work of Edison's group, and gained physicists high standing among leaders in both the military and industry.

For the love of learning science: Connecting learning orientation and career productivity in physics and chemistry

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hazari, Zahra; Potvin, Geoff; Tai, Robert H.; Almarode, John

2010-06-01

An individual’s motivational orientation serves as a drive to action and can influence their career success. This study examines how goal orientation toward the pursuit of a graduate degree in physics and chemistry influences later success outcomes of practicing physicists and chemists. Two main categories of goal orientation are examined in this paper: performance orientation or motivation to demonstrate one’s ability or performance to others, and learning orientation or motivation through the desire to learn about a topic. The data were obtained as part of Project Crossover, a mixed-methods study which focused on studying the transition from graduate student to scientist in the physical sciences and included a survey of members of two national professional physical science organizations. Using regression analysis on data from 2353 physicists and chemists, results indicate that physicists and chemists who reported a learning orientation as their motivation for going to graduate school were more productive, in terms of total career primary and/or first-author publications and grant funding, than those reporting a performance orientation. Furthermore, given equal salary, learning-oriented individuals produced more primary and/or first-author publications than their nonlearning oriented counterparts.

Great Physicists - The Life and Times of Leading Physicists from Galileo to Hawking

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cropper, William H.

2004-09-01

Here is a lively history of modern physics, as seen through the lives of thirty men and women from the pantheon of physics. William H. Cropper vividly portrays the life and accomplishments of such giants as Galileo and Isaac Newton, Marie Curie and Ernest Rutherford, Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr, right up to contemporary figures such as Richard Feynman, Murray Gell-Mann, and Stephen Hawking. We meet scientists--all geniuses--who could be gregarious, aloof, unpretentious, friendly, dogged, imperious, generous to colleagues or contentious rivals. As Cropper captures their personalities, he also offers vivid portraits of their great moments of discovery, their bitter feuds, their relations with family and friends, their religious beliefs and education. In addition, Cropper has grouped these biographies by discipline--mechanics, thermodynamics, particle physics, and others--each section beginning with a historical overview. Thus in the section on quantum mechanics, readers can see how the work of Max Planck influenced Niels Bohr, and how Bohr in turn influenced Werner Heisenberg. Our understanding of the physical world has increased dramatically in the last four centuries. With Great Physicists , readers can retrace the footsteps of the men and women who led the way.

High-throughput landslide modelling using computational grids

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wallace, M.; Metson, S.; Holcombe, L.; Anderson, M.; Newbold, D.; Brook, N.

2012-04-01

Landslides are an increasing problem in developing countries. Multiple landslides can be triggered by heavy rainfall resulting in loss of life, homes and critical infrastructure. Through computer simulation of individual slopes it is possible to predict the causes, timing and magnitude of landslides and estimate the potential physical impact. Geographical scientists at the University of Bristol have developed software that integrates a physically-based slope hydrology and stability model (CHASM) with an econometric model (QUESTA) in order to predict landslide risk over time. These models allow multiple scenarios to be evaluated for each slope, accounting for data uncertainties, different engineering interventions, risk management approaches and rainfall patterns. Individual scenarios can be computationally intensive, however each scenario is independent and so multiple scenarios can be executed in parallel. As more simulations are carried out the overhead involved in managing input and output data becomes significant. This is a greater problem if multiple slopes are considered concurrently, as is required both for landslide research and for effective disaster planning at national levels. There are two critical factors in this context: generated data volumes can be in the order of tens of terabytes, and greater numbers of simulations result in long total runtimes. Users of such models, in both the research community and in developing countries, need to develop a means for handling the generation and submission of landside modelling experiments, and the storage and analysis of the resulting datasets. Additionally, governments in developing countries typically lack the necessary computing resources and infrastructure. Consequently, knowledge that could be gained by aggregating simulation results from many different scenarios across many different slopes remains hidden within the data. To address these data and workload management issues, University of Bristol particle physicists and geographical scientists are collaborating to develop methods for providing simple and effective access to landslide models and associated simulation data. Particle physicists have valuable experience in dealing with data complexity and management due to the scale of data generated by particle accelerators such as the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The LHC generates tens of petabytes of data every year which is stored and analysed using the Worldwide LHC Computing Grid (WLCG). Tools and concepts from the WLCG are being used to drive the development of a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform to provide access to hosted landslide simulation software and data. It contains advanced data management features and allows landslide simulations to be run on the WLCG, dramatically reducing simulation runtimes by parallel execution. The simulations are accessed using a web page through which users can enter and browse input data, submit jobs and visualise results. Replication of the data ensures a local copy can be accessed should a connection to the platform be unavailable. The platform does not know the details of the simulation software it runs, so it is therefore possible to use it to run alternative models at similar scales. This creates the opportunity for activities such as model sensitivity analysis and performance comparison at scales that are impractical using standalone software.

Anniversary Paper: History and status of CAD and quantitative image analysis: The role of Medical Physics and AAPM

PubMed Central

Giger, Maryellen L.; Chan, Heang-Ping; Boone, John

2008-01-01

The roles of physicists in medical imaging have expanded over the years, from the study of imaging systems (sources and detectors) and dose to the assessment of image quality and perception, the development of image processing techniques, and the development of image analysis methods to assist in detection and diagnosis. The latter is a natural extension of medical physicists’ goals in developing imaging techniques to help physicians acquire diagnostic information and improve clinical decisions. Studies indicate that radiologists do not detect all abnormalities on images that are visible on retrospective review, and they do not always correctly characterize abnormalities that are found. Since the 1950s, the potential use of computers had been considered for analysis of radiographic abnormalities. In the mid-1980s, however, medical physicists and radiologists began major research efforts for computer-aided detection or computer-aided diagnosis (CAD), that is, using the computer output as an aid to radiologists—as opposed to a completely automatic computer interpretation—focusing initially on methods for the detection of lesions on chest radiographs and mammograms. Since then, extensive investigations of computerized image analysis for detection or diagnosis of abnormalities in a variety of 2D and 3D medical images have been conducted. The growth of CAD over the past 20 years has been tremendous—from the early days of time-consuming film digitization and CPU-intensive computations on a limited number of cases to its current status in which developed CAD approaches are evaluated rigorously on large clinically relevant databases. CAD research by medical physicists includes many aspects—collecting relevant normal and pathological cases; developing computer algorithms appropriate for the medical interpretation task including those for segmentation, feature extraction, and classifier design; developing methodology for assessing CAD performance; validating the algorithms using appropriate cases to measure performance and robustness; conducting observer studies with which to evaluate radiologists in the diagnostic task without and with the use of the computer aid; and ultimately assessing performance with a clinical trial. Medical physicists also have an important role in quantitative imaging, by validating the quantitative integrity of scanners and developing imaging techniques, and image analysis tools that extract quantitative data in a more accurate and automated fashion. As imaging systems become more complex and the need for better quantitative information from images grows, the future includes the combined research efforts from physicists working in CAD with those working on quantitative imaging systems to readily yield information on morphology, function, molecular structure, and more—from animal imaging research to clinical patient care. A historical review of CAD and a discussion of challenges for the future are presented here, along with the extension to quantitative image analysis. PMID:19175137

Intuitive Space Weather Displays to Improve Space Situational Awareness (SSA)

DTIC Science & Technology

2011-09-01

parsimonious offering. After engaging several mathematicians and space physicists to devise valid computational formulas for aggregating the four hazard... PROJECT NUMBER 5e. TASK NUMBER 5f. WORK UNIT NUMBER 7. PERFORMING ORGANIZATION NAME(S) AND ADDRESS(ES) Aptima, Inc.,12 Gill Street Ste 200,Woburn,MA... physicists , the operational users find little use in receiving particle fluxes or magnetometer readings collected by the scientific community. Fortunately

A proposed protocol for acceptance and constancy control of computed tomography systems: a Nordic Association for Clinical Physics (NACP) work group report.

PubMed

Kuttner, Samuel; Bujila, Robert; Kortesniemi, Mika; Andersson, Henrik; Kull, Love; Østerås, Bjørn Helge; Thygesen, Jesper; Tarp, Ivanka Sojat

2013-03-01

Quality assurance (QA) of computed tomography (CT) systems is one of the routine tasks for medical physicists in the Nordic countries. However, standardized QA protocols do not yet exist and the QA methods, as well as the applied tolerance levels, vary in scope and extent at different hospitals. To propose a standardized protocol for acceptance and constancy testing of CT scanners in the Nordic Region. Following a Nordic Association for Clinical Physics (NACP) initiative, a group of medical physicists, with representatives from four Nordic countries, was formed. Based on international literature and practical experience within the group, a comprehensive standardized test protocol was developed. The proposed protocol includes tests related to the mechanical functionality, X-ray tube, detector, and image quality for CT scanners. For each test, recommendations regarding the purpose, equipment needed, an outline of the test method, the measured parameter, tolerance levels, and the testing frequency are stated. In addition, a number of optional tests are briefly discussed that may provide further information about the CT system. Based on international references and medical physicists' practical experiences, a comprehensive QA protocol for CT systems is proposed, including both acceptance and constancy tests. The protocol may serve as a reference for medical physicists in the Nordic countries.

The Importance of Women Scientists to the World

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Do Yoon, Byun

2009-04-01

Dear Professor Barbara Sandow, Conference Chair; Ms. Young-Ah Park of the National Assembly; Professor Jeong-Gu Kim, President of Korean Physics Association; and Professor Elizabeth Giacobino, Director of CNRS: Hello and welcome. It is good to see you all. Today I congratulate you on the Third ICWIP Conference and welcome so many women physicists from around the world. Also, I express my sincere gratitude to those who have worked hard preparing for this Conference.

Breakthrough: RHIC Explores Matter at the Dawn of Time

ScienceCinema

Sorensen, Paul

2018-02-13

Physicist Paul Sorensen describes discoveries made at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), a particle accelerator at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory. At RHIC, scientists from around the world study what the universe may have looked like in the first microseconds after its birth, helping us to understand more about why the physical world works the way it does -- from the smallest particles to the largest stars.

The Manhattan project—a part of physics history

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mårtensson-Pendrill, Ann-Marie

2006-11-01

Current physics textbooks tend to exclude military applications, but it is explained here how a study of the Manhattan project—the devastatingly successful attempt to develop an atomic bomb—can show students how the lives and work of physicists are shaped by events in society. Much of the original source material is available in books and on the internet (and referenced here), which allows students to discover the views of the scientists for themselves.

The Important Role of Physics in Industry and Economic Development

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Alvarado, Igor

2012-10-01

Good Physics requires good education. Good education translates into good Physics professionals. The process starts early with Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education programs for Middle and High-School students. Then it continues with competitive higher education programs (2 years and 4 years) at colleges and universities designed to satisfy the needs of industry and academia. The research work conducted by graduate students in Physics (and Engineering Physics) frequently translates into new discoveries and innovations that have direct impact in society (e.g. Proton Cancer Therapy). Some of the major and largest scientific experiments in the world today are physics-centered (e.g. Large Hadron Collider-LHC) that generate employment and business opportunities for thousands of scientists, academic research groups and companies from around the world. New superconducting magnets and advanced materials that have resulted from previous research in physics are commonly used in these extreme experiments. But not all physicists will end up working at these large high-energy physics experiments, universities or National Laboratories (e.g. Fermilab); industry requires new generations of (industrial) physicists in such sectors as semiconductor, energy, space, life sciences, defense and advanced manufacturing. This work presents an industry perspective about the role of Physics in economic development and the need for a collaborative Academic-Industry approach for a more effective translational research. A series of examples will be presented with emphasis in the measurement, control, diagnostics and computing capabilities needed to translate the science (physics) into innovations and practical solutions that can benefit society as a whole.

The mentoring of male and female scientists during their doctoral studies

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Filippelli, Laura Ann

The mentoring relationships of male and female scientists during their doctoral studies were examined. Male and female biologists, chemists, engineers and physicists were compared regarding the importance of doctoral students receiving career enhancing and psychosocial mentoring from their doctoral chairperson and student colleagues. Scientists' satisfaction with their chairperson and colleagues as providers of these mentoring functions was also investigated. In addition, scientists identified individuals other than their chairperson and colleagues who were positive influencers on their professional development as scientists and those who hindered their development. A reliable instrument, "The Survey of Accomplished Scientists' Doctoral Experiences," was developed to assess career enhancing and psychosocial mentoring of doctoral chairpersons and student colleagues based on the review of literature, interviews with scientists and two pilot studies. Surveys were mailed to a total of 400 men and women scientists with earned doctorates, of which 209 were completed and returned. The findings reveal that female scientists considered the doctoral chairperson furnishing career enhancing mentoring more important than did the men, while both were in accordance with the importance of them providing psychosocial mentoring. In addition, female scientists were not as satisfied as men with their chairperson providing most of the career enhancing and psychosocial mentoring functions. For doctoral student colleagues, female scientists, when compared to men, indicated that they considered student colleagues more important in providing career enhancing and psychosocial mentoring. However, male and female scientists were equally satisfied with their colleagues as providers of these mentoring functions. Lastly, the majority of male scientists indicated that professors served as a positive influencer, while women revealed that spouses and friends positively influenced their professional development as scientists. Several recommended changes in science departments are provided.

Implicit Theories of Creativity in Computer Science in the United States and China

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tang, Chaoying; Baer, John; Kaufman, James C.

2015-01-01

To study implicit concepts of creativity in computer science in the United States and mainland China, we first asked 308 Chinese computer scientists for adjectives that would describe a creative computer scientist. Computer scientists and non-computer scientists from China (N = 1069) and the United States (N = 971) then rated how well those…

Balancing Family and Career

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Andam, Aba Bentil; Dawson, Silvina Ponce; Horton, K. Renee; Sandow, Barbara

2005-10-01

In essentially all countries, responsibilities for child care, cooking, cleaning, and other homemaking tasks fall predominantly on the wife and mother. In addition, the childbearing years come during the period when a physicist must study hard, work long hours on research, and take temporary positions, often abroad. Thus, balancing family and career has long been one of the major barriers to women's participation in science and engineering fields, including physics. While many young women believe that they must choose between having children and having a science career, the fact is that the majority of women physicists in both developing and developed countries have successfully done both. This paper summarizes some ideas and recommendations raised in discussions, especially focused on easing the challenges of having children while in temporary jobs, returning to physics after a career break, the need for "family-friendly" working conditions, and the dual-career problem facing couples where both are scientists.

Physicists in the Wild

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Miller, Michael L.

2017-09-01

Startups and large corporations are full of physicists, many hiding in plain sight. Why? I will discuss the strong parallels between basic research in nuclear/particle physics, founding teams at great startups, and leaders at some of the world's largest corporations. How big are these opportunities (mission and capital), and what can we do to help prepare more physicists for such roles? I will provide lessons learned from my winding career that began at the NSCL as a philosophy undergrad, proceeded through a PhD, postdoc and brief stint as faculty, and continued through the founding of an early cloud computing startup, a sale to IBM, and the founding of one of Silicon Valley's most active venture capital firms.

Nuclear Forensics: Scientific Analysis Supporting Law Enforcement and Nuclear Security Investigations

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Keegan, Elizabeth; Kristo, Michael J.; Toole, Kaitlyn

In Nuclear Forensic Science, analytical chemists join forces with nuclear physicists, material scientists, radiochemists, and traditional forensic scientists, as well as experts in nuclear security, nuclear safeguards, law enforcement, and policy development, in an effort to deter nuclear smuggling. Nuclear forensic science, or “nuclear forensics,” aims to answer questions about nuclear material found outside of regulatory control, questions such as ‘where did this material come from?’ and ‘what is the intended use of the material?’ In this Feature, we provide a general overview of nuclear forensics, selecting examples of key “nuclear forensic signatures” which have allowed investigators to determine themore » identity of unknown nuclear material in real investigations.« less

Nuclear Forensics: Scientific Analysis Supporting Law Enforcement and Nuclear Security Investigations

DOE PAGES

Keegan, Elizabeth; Kristo, Michael J.; Toole, Kaitlyn; ...

2015-12-24

In Nuclear Forensic Science, analytical chemists join forces with nuclear physicists, material scientists, radiochemists, and traditional forensic scientists, as well as experts in nuclear security, nuclear safeguards, law enforcement, and policy development, in an effort to deter nuclear smuggling. Nuclear forensic science, or “nuclear forensics,” aims to answer questions about nuclear material found outside of regulatory control, questions such as ‘where did this material come from?’ and ‘what is the intended use of the material?’ In this Feature, we provide a general overview of nuclear forensics, selecting examples of key “nuclear forensic signatures” which have allowed investigators to determine themore » identity of unknown nuclear material in real investigations.« less

Maniac Talk - Stephen Ungar

NASA Image and Video Library

2016-08-24

Stephen Ungar Maniac Lecture, August 24, 2016 NASA climate scientist Stephen Ungar presented a Maniac lecture entitled, "My Intellectual Journey from 'Idiot' to 'Savant'." Steve shared his journey from somewhat problematic childhood, spanning World War 2, through early formative years leading to his six decades of association with NASA. Learn why, although race, religion and ethnicity played a role in his identity, he self-identify himself as a Physicist. According to Steve, NASA has served as a safe harbor for those afflicted with his condition and provided him an opportunity to make meaningful contributions to society. Steve also briefly touched on his good fortune in serving as the initial Mission Scientist for EO-1, "NASA's Science and Technology Pathfinder to the 21st Century."

Computer-Based Self-Instructional Modules. Final Technical Report.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Weinstock, Harold

Reported is a project involving seven chemists, six mathematicians, and six physicists in the production of computer-based, self-study modules for use in introductory college courses in chemistry, physics, and mathematics. These modules were designed to be used by students and instructors with little or no computer backgrounds, in institutions…

Improved Algorithms Speed It Up for Codes

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Hazi, A

2005-09-20

Huge computers, huge codes, complex problems to solve. The longer it takes to run a code, the more it costs. One way to speed things up and save time and money is through hardware improvements--faster processors, different system designs, bigger computers. But another side of supercomputing can reap savings in time and speed: software improvements to make codes--particularly the mathematical algorithms that form them--run faster and more efficiently. Speed up math? Is that really possible? According to Livermore physicist Eugene Brooks, the answer is a resounding yes. ''Sure, you get great speed-ups by improving hardware,'' says Brooks, the deputy leadermore » for Computational Physics in N Division, which is part of Livermore's Physics and Advanced Technologies (PAT) Directorate. ''But the real bonus comes on the software side, where improvements in software can lead to orders of magnitude improvement in run times.'' Brooks knows whereof he speaks. Working with Laboratory physicist Abraham Szoeke and others, he has been instrumental in devising ways to shrink the running time of what has, historically, been a tough computational nut to crack: radiation transport codes based on the statistical or Monte Carlo method of calculation. And Brooks is not the only one. Others around the Laboratory, including physicists Andrew Williamson, Randolph Hood, and Jeff Grossman, have come up with innovative ways to speed up Monte Carlo calculations using pure mathematics.« less

Diagnostic medical physicists and their clinical activities.

PubMed

Cypel, Yasmin S; Sunshine, Jonathan H

2004-02-01

The primary objective of this study was to obtain basic, descriptive information about medical physicists involved in diagnostic radiology-related activities, the diagnostic-related activities that they performed, and the time spent on these activities. A survey was sent to a randomly selected sample of 1511 medical physicists from July through October 2001 using primarily e-mail methods; a total of 851 surveys was received, for a response rate of 56%. Of these, 427 were responses from physicists who do partly or only clinical diagnostic medical physics; it is this group for which results are presented. Fifty-four percent of the physicists who reported doing any clinical diagnostic medical physics performed clinical activities only in diagnostic medical physics. Fourteen percent of all those doing clinical diagnostic medical physics were women. Over 97% of the physicists doing clinical diagnostic medical physics reported having graduate degrees in physics; 53% had PhDs. The mean total weekly hours worked by physicists doing clinical diagnostic medical physics was 42. Medical physicists doing only clinical diagnostic activities reported working approximately 40 hours weekly, whereas those doing partly clinical diagnostic medical physics reported working 14 hours weekly in the field (approximately one-third of their work time). Radiography and fluoroscopy, computed tomography, nuclear medicine, and mammography are all fields in which the majority of those doing any clinical diagnostic medical physics are active. Full-time physicists working only in diagnostic medical physics were responsible for a median of 25 units of equipment, compared with a median of 10 units for those working only partly in the field. Number of units evaluated, frequency of evaluation, and hours per evaluation were reported for almost 20 types of equipment. Medical physicists performing diagnostic clinical activities typically are responsible for a large number and wide variety of imaging equipment. It would be helpful to study their work further, focusing in particular on whether there is a shortage, as is true of diagnostic radiologists, and whether the variety of responsibilities creates strain.

Art and Science

ScienceCinema

Murray Gibson

2017-12-09

Argonne's Murray Gibson is a physicist whose life's work includes finding patterns among atoms. The love of distinguishing patterns also drives Gibson as a musician and Blues enthusiast.Both artists and scientists rely on the principles of mathematics and physics, whether consciously or intuitively, to achieve their goals.And, at the same time, both science and art rely on the creative questioner to ask, "Why do we do it this way?" and "Why not try something else and see what happens?"

Obama signals fresh approach to science

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gwynne, Peter

2009-02-01

"More than ever before, science holds the key to our survival as a planet and our security and prosperity as a nation." Statements like these from US President Barack Obama have been widely applauded by the US scientific community. With several scientists already named to fill top posts in Obama's administration - which will feature physicists Steven Chu and John Holdren as energy secretary and presidential science advisor, respectively - it seems clear that he intends to back up his words with actions.

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Lincoln, Don

The manner in which particle physicists investigate collisions in particle accelerators is a puzzling process. Using vaguely-defined “detectors,” scientists are able to somehow reconstruct the collisions and convert that information into physics measurements. In this video, Fermilab’s Dr. Don Lincoln sheds light on this mysterious technique. In a surprising analogy, he draws a parallel between experimental particle physics and bomb squad investigators and uses an explosive example to illustrate his points. Be sure to watch this video… it’s totally the bomb.

Albert Einstein and Wernher von Braun - the two great German-American physicists seen in a historical perspective.

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Winterberg, Friedwardt

2008-04-01

It was Albert Einstein who for the first time changed our view of the universe to be a non-euclidean curved space-time. And it was Wernher von Braun who blazed the trail to take us into this universe, leaving for the first time the gravitational field of our planet earth, with the landing a man on the moon the greatest event in human history. Both these great physicists did this on the shoulders of giants. Albert Einstein on the shoulders of his landsman, the mathematician Bernhard Riemann, and Wernher von Braun on the shoulders of Goddard and Oberth. Both Einstein and von Braun made a Faustian pact with the devil, von Braun by accepting research funds from Hitler, and Einstein by urging Roosvelt to build the atom bomb (against Hitler). Both of these great men later regretted the use of their work for the killing of innocent bystanders, even though in the end the invention of nuclear energy and space flight is for the benefit of man. Their example serves as a warning for all of us. It can be formulated as follows: ``Can I in good conscience accept research funds from the military to advance scientific knowledge, for weapons developed against an abstract enemy I never have met in person?'' Weapons if used do not differentiate between the scientist, who invented these weapons, and the non-scientist.

John Wheatley Award Talk: Promoting Under-Represented Physicists in Asian and Arab Countries and Muslim Women in Science

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Nahar, Sultana

2013-04-01

Physics fascinates people's minds regardless of their geographic location. Often the best students choose the challending profession of physics. Physicists in developing countries in Asia and Arab countries work mostly on their own with limited resources or external collaboration and some do extraordinarily well. However, these dedicated individuals need the support and interactive modalities with their fellow physicists, particularly from developed countries, for coherent and rapid advances in knowledge, discoveries and inventions. My main objective is to promote and motivate physics education and research in developing and Arab countries to a level of excellence commensurate with that at U.S. institutions, and to facilitate connection through the strong network of APS. I have developed a general STEM based program. Another focus of this initiative is the very weak community of Muslim women in science, who have have remained behind owing to surrounding circumstances. To encourage them in scientific professions, and to enable them to nurture their intellectuality, we have formed a network called the International Society of Muslim Women in Science. It now has 85 enthusiastic and aspiring members from 21 countries. I will discuss these and the special needs of the these under-represented scientists, and how APS might lend them its valuable support.

Developing the next generation of diverse computer scientists: the need for enhanced, intersectional computing identity theory

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rodriguez, Sarah L.; Lehman, Kathleen

2017-10-01

This theoretical paper explores the need for enhanced, intersectional computing identity theory for the purpose of developing a diverse group of computer scientists for the future. Greater theoretical understanding of the identity formation process specifically for computing is needed in order to understand how students come to understand themselves as computer scientists. To ensure that the next generation of computer scientists is diverse, this paper presents a case for examining identity development intersectionally, understanding the ways in which women and underrepresented students may have difficulty identifying as computer scientists and be systematically oppressed in their pursuit of computer science careers. Through a review of the available scholarship, this paper suggests that creating greater theoretical understanding of the computing identity development process will inform the way in which educational stakeholders consider computer science practices and policies.

After the War: Women in Physics in the United States

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Howes, Ruth H.; Herzenberg, Caroline L.

2015-12-01

This book examines the lives and contributions of American women physicists who were active in the years following World War II, during the middle decades of the 20th century. It covers the strategies they used to survive and thrive in a time where their gender was against them. The percentage of woman taking PhDs in physics has risen from 6% in 1983 to 20% in 2012 (an all-time high for women). By understanding the history of women in physics, these gains can continue. It discusses two major classes of women physicists; those who worked on military projects, and those who worked in industrial laboratories and at universities largely in the late 1940s and 1950s. While it includes minimal discussion of physics and physicists in the 1960s and later, this book focuses on the challenges and successes of women physicists in the years immediately following World War II and before the eras of affirmative actions and the use of the personal computer.

Cool Cities, Cool Planet (LBNL Science at the Theater)

ScienceCinema

Rosenfeld, Arthur; Pomerantz, Melvin; Levinson, Ronnen

2018-06-14

Science at the Theater: Berkeley Lab scientists discuss how cool roofs can cool your building, your city ... and our planet. Arthur Rosenfeld, Professor of Physics Emeritus at UC Berkeley, founded the Berkeley Lab Center for Building Science in 1974. He served on the California Energy Commission from 2000 to 2010 and is commonly referred to as California's godfather of energy efficiency. Melvin Pomerantz is a member of the Heat Island Group at Berkeley Lab. Trained as a physicist at UC Berkeley, he specializes in research on making cooler pavements and evaluating their effects. Ronnen Levinson is a staff scientist at Berkeley Lab and the acting leader of its Heat Island Group. He has developed cool roofing and paving materials and helped bring cool roof requirements into building energy efficiency standards.

A remarkable legacy

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Parkinson, Stuart

2008-02-01

Joseph Rotblat, who died in 2005 at the age of 96, was a rare combination of distinguished scientist and leading peace advocate. During the Second World War he was involved with the Manhattan Project - which created the world's first atomic bombs - but then decided to resign on ethical grounds. This life-changing decision set the scene for the dual role that he would play for the rest of his life. On the one hand, Rotblat was a key figure in setting up and leading the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, which bring together scientists and public figures concerned with reducing the danger of armed conflict and seeking co-operative solutions for global problems. On the other, he was an accomplished nuclear and medical physicist, eventually becoming president of the British Institute of Radiology.

Millikan Award Lecture, 2006: Physics For All

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hobson, Art

2006-12-01

We physics teachers must broaden our focus from physics for physicists and other scientists to physics for all. The reason, as the American Association for the Advancement of Science puts it, is that "[w]ithout a scientifically literate population, the outlook for a better world is not promising." Physics for all (including the first course for scientists) should be conceptual, not technical. It should describe the universe as we understand it today, including special and general relativity, quantum physics, modern cosmology, nuclear physics, the standard model of particles and interactions, and quantum fields. Many science writers have shown that this description is possible. It should emphasize the scientific process and include such societal topics as global warming, nuclear weapons, and pseudoscience, because citizens need to vote intelligently on such issues.

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Finkbeiner, Ann

This book is a history/profile of the group, called Jason, of academic scientists who advise the government. The book starts where the Manhattan Project ends -- with physicists trying to decide, having let the genie out of the bottle, how to get it back in again. One result of their attempts was Jason. Jason is 30 to 50 scientists who meet for six weeks every summer to answer questions for the government -- usually for the defense department or the intelligence community -- about national security issues. They specialize in studies for the Department of Energy on the technical backingmore » for treaties to ban the bomb. Jason is unique, not only in this country, but in the world. The book is about the group's attempts to hold onto their scientific souls, remain independent, and still stay in business.« less

On the Matter of Dark Matter

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Orrell, John L.

The mission of the USS Enterprise was to “boldly go where no one has gone before.” And so it is with Particle Physicist John Orrell as he seeks to solve the conundrum of elusive dark matter. It’s a mystery that PNNL scientists have chased for more than 25 years. And, if dark matter is discovered, it will change our entire understanding of how the universe was formed. The first experiments to locate dark matter were conducted underground using specialized, radiation detector technology developed at PNNL.

Canada attempts to lure top minds

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gwynne, Peter

2008-04-01

Physicists in Canada have given a cautious welcome to the country's 2008-2009 budget, one of the highlights of which is the award of C200m (about €125m) over seven years for 20 "Canada Global Excellence Research Chairs". These chairs are intended to persuade some of the world's "keenest minds" in fields such as information technology, energy and the environment, to migrate to Canada. The government wants the chairs to attract foreign scientists as well as Canadians who have moved abroad.

Cosmic rays and cosmological speculations in the 1920s

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Demaria, M.; Russo, A.

1988-07-01

A controversy which opposed the American physicist Millikan to the English scientist Jeans is discussed. It is an interesting aspect of a debate about the cultural and social value of science which shook the scientific comunity as well as the public. Ideological and religious belief concurred with Millikan's scientific work in designing this unified perspective. This American optimism and progressive ideology of science clashed with Jeans' and Eddington's claim of the cosmological validity of the second law of thermodynamics.

To Advance and Diffuse the Knowledge of Physics...

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lustig, Harry

1999-10-01

: On May 20th,1899, thirty-six physicists founded the American Physical Society. A hundred years later, 11,239 scientists - the Society had by then 41,786 members, - gathered to mark both a century of physics and the Centennial of the Society. Selected tales from the author's comprehensive account of how the APS came about and developed and how it pusued its mission - the advancement and diffusion of the knowledge of physics - through its meetings, journals, and pulic activities, will be the subject of this talk.

Letters by Franz Xaver von Zach to Ranieri Gerbi and Pompilio Pozzetti. (German Title: Briefe von Franz Xaver von Zach an Ranieri Gerbi und Pompilio Pozzetti)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Meschiari, Alberto

Two letters by Zach to the physicist Gerbi at Pisa and one to the librarian Pozzetti at Bologna confirm once more the role of the first as collector and distributor of scientific information. In the second letter to Gerbi, Zach ensures the recipient that he had rightfully criticized the optical contributions of Goethe and that the latter doesn't enjoy any reputation as a scientist.

Where do the Neutrinos go?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Freedman, Stuart

2011-10-01

Everybody knows that nuclear physics is the study the kind of matter found inside the atomic nucleus whether they it is at the center of atoms or the core of neutron stars. Nevertheless, nuclear physicists have made important discoveries about the neutrino. Figuring out where the neutrinos go in nuclear physics has challenged nuclear scientists, policy makers and those responsible for funding the enterprise. I will consider these and other challenges and how insightful scientific management has contributed the feast of wonderful discoveries about the neutrino.

Polygraph Screening of Physicists and Spies

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lykken, David

2000-03-01

You will be invited to imagine yourself a scientist at the weapons laboratory at Los Alamos. You have just been ordered, pursuant to DOE Secretary Richardson's directive, to submit to a polygraph or ``lie detector" test, the Test for Espionage and Sabotage or TES. This talk will help you to picture yourself being tested and to predict whether you will pass or fail the TES. It will also explain why your passing or failing will have little to do with whether you are in fact a spy or not.

Speculative Truth - Henry Cavendish, Natural Philosophy, and the Rise of Modern Theoretical Science

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

McCormmach, Russell

2004-03-01

With a never-before published paper by Lord Henry Cavendish, as well as a biography on him, this book offers a fascinating discourse on the rise of scientific attitudes and ways of knowing. A pioneering British physicist in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, Cavendish was widely considered to be the first full-time scientist in the modern sense. Through the lens of this unique thinker and writer, this book is about the birth of modern science.

International Physics Summer Camp for High School Students

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pope, Damian T.; Korsunsky, B.

2006-12-01

Each year for the past three years, Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, has staged an annual physics summer camp for high school students worldwide. Known as the International Summer School for Young Physicists (ISSYP), it attracts students from all corners of the globe and this year had attendees from 15 countries and 5 continents. The camp is aimed at motivated students around the age of 16 and is a two-week immersion into the exciting world of cutting-edge physics today. It covers topics such as dark matter, superstring theory and quantum computers, and exposes attendees to some of the very latest research results. It includes lectures, tutorials, laboratory visits and small-group projects and, in addition to teaching new material, strives to give students a deeper appreciation of the true nature of science. Throughout, attendees have a great deal of interaction with the institute's scientists. This presentation will give an overview of the camp including the material taught within it, its impact on students and the goals of the program. More information about the camp can be found at: http://www.youngphysicists.ca

An Insider's View of the Role of Science and Scientists in Public Policy

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zwicker, Andrew

2016-10-01

In many ways, advances in fusion energy sciences and the amount of federal funding received are a case study of how the perception of a scientific endeavor can have a greater influence than actual scientific advances. Clearly, outreach by scientists to both legislators and the general public has a critical role in modifying this perception. This might include presenting current research results to the general public, advising an elected official on a piece of legislation, arguing for an increase in science funding, and more. As a new member of the NJ General Assembly, and as the first physicist ever elected to the NJ Legislature, I have had an opportunity to witness first hand how non-scientists judge science funding, scientists, and scientific advances. As expected, this can be based upon a lack of understanding of how science is conducted rather than results. There is no doubt that there is a clear need for scientists as policy advisors at all levels of government. I will discuss the importance of crosspollination between science and public policy and my experiences during my first year in public office, including my work to create a science fellowship similar to the APS/AAAS Congressional fellowship in the NJ Statehouse.

Will Russian Scientists Go Rogue? A Survey on the Threat and the Impact of Western Assistance

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Ball, D Y; Gerber, T P

2004-12-27

The collapse of the Soviet Union sparked fears throughout the world that rogue nations and terrorist organizations would gain access to weapons of mass destruction (WMD). One specific concern has been 'WMD brain drain.' Russians with knowledge about nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons could now depart to any country of their choice, including rogue nations seeking to produce WMD. Meanwhile, Russian science fell into a protracted crisis, with plummeting salaries, little funding for research, and few new recruits to science. These developments increased both the incentives and the opportunities for scientists to sell their knowledge to governments and terrorist organizationsmore » with hostile intentions toward the United States. Recognizing the threat of WMD brain drain from Russia, the United States, and other governments implemented a host of programs designed to reduce the risk. Despite, or perhaps partly because of, massive assistance from the West to prevent scientists with WMD knowledge from emigrating, the threat of Russian WMD brain drain has recently faded from view. Yet we have seen no evidence that these programs are effective and little systematic assessment of the current threat of WMD migration. Our data from an unprecedented survey of 602 Russian physicists, biologists, and chemists suggest that the threat of WMD brain drain from Russia should still be at the forefront of our attention. Roughly 20 percent of Russian physicists, biologists, and chemists say they would consider working in rogue nations such as North Korea, Iran, Syria, or Iraq (still considered a rogue state at the time of the survey). At the same time, the data reveal that U.S. and Western nonproliferation assistance programs work. They significantly reduce the likelihood that Russian scientists would consider working in these countries. Moreover, Russian grants do not reduce scientists' propensity to 'go rogue'. These survey findings have clear policy implications: the U.S. and its allies must continue to adequately fund nonproliferation assistance programs rather than hastily declare victory. The U.S. should remain engaged with former Soviet WMD scientists until they are willing and able to find support for their research from competitive, civilian-oriented, privately funded projects. Otherwise, we run a great risk that WMD expertise will migrate from the former Soviet Union to countries or organizations that harbor hostile intentions toward the U.S. Assistance programs work to reduce the threat of WMD brain drain, but their task is not complete. Now is not the time to pull back.« less

The Media of Relativity: Einstein and Telecommunications Technologies.

PubMed

Canales, Jimena

2015-07-01

How are fundamental constants, such as "c" for the speed of light, related to the technological environments that produce them? Relativistic cosmology, developed first by Albert Einstein, depended on military and commercial innovations in telecommunications. Prominent physicists (Hans Reichenbach, Max Born, Paul Langevin, Louis de Broglie, and Léon Brillouin, among others) worked in radio units during WWI and incorporated battlefield lessons into their research. Relativity physicists, working at the intersection of physics and optics by investigating light and electricity, responded to new challenges by developing a novel scientific framework. Ideas about lengths and solid bodies were overhauled because the old Newtonian mechanics assumed the possibility of "instantaneous signaling at a distance." Einstein's universe, where time and space dilated, where the shortest path between two points was often curved and non-Euclidean, followed the rules of electromagnetic "signal" transmission. For these scientists, light's constant speed in the absence of a gravitational field-a fundamental tenet of Einstein's theory-was a lesson derived from communication technologies.

Qualification of niobium materials for superconducting radio frequency cavity applications: View of a condensed matter physicist

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Roy, S. B., E-mail: sbroy@rrcat.gov.in; Myneni, G. R., E-mail: rao@jlab.org

2015-12-04

We address the issue of qualifications of the niobium materials to be used for superconducting radio frequency (SCRF) cavity fabrications, from the point of view of a condensed matter physicist/materials scientist. We focus on the particular materials properties of niobium required for the functioning a SCRF cavity, and how to optimize the same properties for the best SCRF cavity performance in a reproducible manner. In this way the niobium materials will not necessarily be characterized by their purity alone, but in terms of those materials properties, which will define the limit of the SCRF cavity performance and also other relatedmore » material properties, which will help to sustain this best SCRF cavity performance. Furthermore we point out the need of standardization of the post fabrication processing of the niobium-SCRF cavities, which does not impair the optimized superconducting and thermal properties of the starting niobium-materials required for the reproducible performance of the SCRF cavities according to the design values.« less

SU-F-T-250: What Does It Take to Correctly Assess the High Failure Modes of an Advanced Radiotherapy Procedure Such as Stereotactic Body Radiation Therapy?

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Han, D; Vile, D; Rosu, M

Purpose: Assess the correct implementation of risk-based methodology of TG 100 to optimize quality management and patient safety procedures for Stereotactic Body Radiation Therapy. Methods: A detailed process map of SBRT treatment procedure was generated by a team of three physicists with varying clinical experience at our institution to assess the potential high-risk failure modes. The probabilities of occurrence (O), severity (S) and detectability (D) for potential failure mode in each step of the process map were assigned by these individuals independently on the scale from1 to 10. The risk priority numbers (RPN) were computed and analyzed. The highest 30more » potential modes from each physicist’s analysis were then compared. Results: The RPN values assessed by the three physicists ranged from 30 to 300. The magnitudes of the RPN values from each physicist were different, and there was no concordance in the highest RPN values recorded by three physicists independently. The 10 highest RPN values belonged to sub steps of CT simulation, contouring and delivery in the SBRT process map. For these 10 highest RPN values, at least two physicists, irrespective of their length of experience had concordance but no general conclusions emerged. Conclusion: This study clearly shows that the risk-based assessment of a clinical process map requires great deal of preparation, group discussions, and participation by all stakeholders. One group albeit physicists cannot effectively implement risk-based methodology proposed by TG100. It should be a team effort in which the physicists can certainly play the leading role. This also corroborates TG100 recommendation that risk-based assessment of clinical processes is a multidisciplinary team effort.« less

Recruitment of Foreigners in the Market for Computer Scientists in the United States

PubMed Central

Bound, John; Braga, Breno; Golden, Joseph M.

2016-01-01

We present and calibrate a dynamic model that characterizes the labor market for computer scientists. In our model, firms can recruit computer scientists from recently graduated college students, from STEM workers working in other occupations or from a pool of foreign talent. Counterfactual simulations suggest that wages for computer scientists would have been 2.8–3.8% higher, and the number of Americans employed as computers scientists would have been 7.0–13.6% higher in 2004 if firms could not hire more foreigners than they could in 1994. In contrast, total CS employment would have been 3.8–9.0% lower, and consequently output smaller. PMID:27170827

Remembering Gribov

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Szent-Györgyi, Andrew

It was always a pleasure to remember your husband Gribov, and how much it meant to spend time with him. Although I am not a physicist, it is clear what a great scientist Volodya was, innovative and deep. At the same time he was an extremely nice person. He was not only a great scientist, but a person who, apart from his great contributions to physics, was also able to clearly see what was right and what was wrong in life. His presence, his opinion about people and science was always a delightful experience. Albert was the only other person I have known well who also clearly knew what was right and what was wrong, and was willing to stand up for his principles. We are lucky to have known and lived with such great individuals. Note from Publisher: This article contains the abstract only.

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Finkbeiner, Ann

I'm a free-lance science writer, and have written a history/profile of the group, called Jason, of academic scientists who advise the government. The book starts where the Manhattan Project ends -- with physicists trying to decide, having let the genie out of the bottle, how to get it back in again. One result of their attempts was Jason. Jason is 30 to 50 scientists who meet for six weeks every summer to answer questions for the government -- usually for the defense department or the intelligence community -- about national security issues. They specialize in studies for the Department ofmore » Energy on the technical backing for treaties to ban the bomb. Jason is unique, not only in this country, but in the world. The book is about the group's attempts to hold onto their scientific souls, remain independent, and still stay in business.« less

The contribution of Medical Physics to Nuclear Medicine: looking back - a physicist's perspective.

PubMed

Hutton, Brian F

2014-12-01

This paper is the first in a series of invited perspectives by four pioneers of Nuclear Medicine imaging and physics. A medical physicist and a Nuclear Medicine clinical specialist each take a backward look and a forward look at the contributions of Medical Physics to Nuclear Medicine. Contributions of Medical Physics are presented from the early discovery of radioactivity, development of first imaging devices, computers and emission tomography to recent development of hybrid imaging. There is evidence of significant contribution of Medical Physics throughout the development of Nuclear Medicine.

Fritz Reiche and German Refugee Scientists

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bederson, Benjamin

2003-04-01

Fritz Reiche (1883-1969) was a distinguished theoretical physicist, a student and colleague of Wilhelm Roentgen, Max Planck, Fritz Haber, Rudolf Ladenburg, James Franck, Max Born, Max von Laue and other early luminaries. He was coauthor of the famous Thomas-Reiche-Kuhn sum rule, and author of the seminal book The Quantum Theory, first published in 1920. He was one of the last Jewish physicists to leave Germany during the Nazi period, in 1941. In his book "Heisenberg's War" Thomas Powers relates that Reiche bore news of German work on nuclear fission, in a message from Friedrich Houtermans to Wigner and others in Princeton, where Reiche lived in Einstein's home during the summer of 1941. Reiche's son Hans later claimed that this incident played a significant role in convincing Einstein to write that letter to President Roosevelt. In this talk I will relate the difficulties Reiche experienced, first in leaving Germany and then in reestablishing his physics career in the US. He finally obtained an adjunct position at NYU where he served until his retirement. The role played by the renowned Emergency Committee in Aid of Displaced Foreign Scholars will be discussed. The particular role played by Ladenburg, who was instrumental in obtaining a small grant for Reiche permitting him to obtain a US visa, in helping many physicists leave Nazi Germany and occupied countries, will also be described.

BOOK REVIEW: Great Physicists - The Life and Times of Leading Physicists from Galileo to Hawking

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cropper, William H.

2002-11-01

The author, a former American chemistry professor, has organized his book into nine parts with 29 chapters, covering, in a fairly historical sequence and systemtic conceptual progression, all fundamentals of today's physics: i.e., mechanics, thermodynamics, electromagnetism, statistical mechanics, relativity, quantum mechanics, nuclear physics, particle physics, astronomy-astrophysics-cosmology. Obviously, the 20th century (when about 90% of professional physicists of all time worked) assumes with five topics the dominant role in this enterprise. For each topic, a small number (ranging from one to eight) of leading personalities is selected and the biographies of these 29 physicists, including two women (Marie Curie and Lise Meitner), are presented in some detail together with their achievements in the particular topic. Important relevant contributions of other scholars to each topic are also discussed. In addition, Cropper provides each of the topics with a short 'historical synopsis' justifying his selection of key persons. One may argue that concentrating on leading physicists constitutes an old-fashioned approach to displaying the history and contents of fundamental topics in physics. However, the mixture of biographies and explanation of leading contributions given here will certainly serve for a larger public, not just professional physicists and scientists, as a guide through the exciting development of physical ideas and discoveries. In general, the presentation of the material is quite satisfactory (with only few slips, e.g., in the Meitner story, where the author follows too closely a new biography) and gives the essence of the great advances in physics since the 15th century. One notices perhaps the limitation of the author in cases where no biography in English is available - this would also explain the omission of some of the main contributors to atomic and particle physics, such as Arnold Sommerfeld and Hideki Yukawa, or that French or Russian readers might occasionally miss a proper mention of their scientific heroes. These slightly critical observations should not obscure the impression that the chemist Cropper has succeeded with his goal of writing a very useful and informative book, displaying great understanding of the life of the physicists, their ingenious theoretical ideas and experimental discoveries. Simultaneously he has provided a pleasantly readable account of the great success story of physics extending over the past three hundred years. Both laymen and professionals may like to have the book in their public or private libraries. Helmut Rechenberg

Preface.

PubMed

Ditlevsen, Susanne; Lansky, Petr

2016-06-01

This Special Issue of Mathematical Biosciences and Engineering contains 11 selected papers presented at the Neural Coding 2014 workshop. The workshop was held in the royal city of Versailles in France, October 6-10, 2014. This was the 11th of a series of international workshops on this subject, the first held in Prague (1995), then Versailles (1997), Osaka (1999), Plymouth (2001), Aulla (2003), Marburg (2005), Montevideo (2007), Tainan (2009), Limassol (2010), and again in Prague (2012). Also selected papers from Prague were published as a special issue of Mathematical Biosciences and Engineering and in this way a tradition was started. Similarly to the previous workshops, this was a single track multidisciplinary event bringing together experimental and computational neuroscientists. The Neural Coding Workshops are traditionally biennial symposia. They are relatively small in size, interdisciplinary with major emphasis on the search for common principles in neural coding. The workshop was conceived to bring together scientists from different disciplines for an in-depth discussion of mathematical model-building and computational strategies. Further information on the meeting can be found at the NC2014 website at https://colloque6.inra.fr/neural_coding_2014. The meeting was supported by French National Institute for Agricultural Research, the world's leading institution in this field. This Special Issue of Mathematical Biosciences and Engineering contains 11 selected papers presented at the Neural Coding 2014 workshop. The workshop was held in the royal city of Versailles in France, October 6-10, 2014. This was the 11th of a series of international workshops on this subject, the first held in Prague (1995), then Versailles (1997), Osaka (1999), Plymouth (2001), Aulla (2003), Marburg (2005), Montevideo (2007), Tainan (2009), Limassol (2010), and again in Prague (2012). Also selected papers from Prague were published as a special issue of Mathematical Biosciences and Engineering and in this way a tradition was started. Similarly to the previous workshops, this was a single track multidisciplinary event bringing together experimental and computational neuroscientists. The Neural Coding Workshops are traditionally biennial symposia. They are relatively small in size, interdisciplinary with major emphasis on the search for common principles in neural coding. The workshop was conceived to bring together scientists from different disciplines for an in-depth discussion of mathematical model-building and computational strategies. Further information on the meeting can be found at the NC2014 website at https://colloque6.inra.fr/neural_coding_2014. The meeting was supported by French National Institute for Agricultural Research, the world's leading institution in this field. Understanding how the brain processes information is one of the most challenging subjects in neuroscience. The papers presented in this special issue show a small corner of the huge diversity of this field, and illustrate how scientists with different backgrounds approach this vast subject. The diversity of disciplines engaged in these investigations is remarkable: biologists, mathematicians, physicists, psychologists, computer scientists, and statisticians, all have original tools and ideas by which to try to elucidate the underlying mechanisms. In this issue, emphasis is put on mathematical modeling of single neurons. A variety of problems in computational neuroscience accompanied with a rich diversity of mathematical tools and approaches are presented. We hope it will inspire and challenge the readers in their own research. We would like to thank the authors for their valuable contributions and the referees for their priceless effort of reviewing the manuscripts. Finally, we would like to thank Yang Kuang for supporting us and making this publication possible.

BOOK REVIEW: Quantum Generations. A history of physics in the twentieth century

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Brown, Neil

2000-03-01

Physics has a long history, but more physics has been discovered in the twentieth century than in all previous eras together. That in itself would be a sufficient justification for a history of physics in the twentieth century, but the end of the previous century also marked a discontinuity, from Newtonian classical physics to relativity and quantum mechanics. If any single event marks the start of the process it is the discovery of x-rays in 1895, and Kragh's century spans from about 1895 to about 1995. It is, of course, too much for a single volume, even a large one, and Kragh recognizes from the outset that he has to be selective and concentrate on those subjects that define twentieth-century physics. For the early part of the century the author relies on carefully chosen secondary sources, to avoid the near-impossible task of absorbing a multitude of original papers. The recent period is more difficult, and the sources are articles, reviews, and the recollections of physicists. The book is in three main sections, roughly to the end of World War I, to the end of World War II, and up to 1995, plus a retrospective summary. It deals with more than just discoveries in physics, looking also at physicists and institutions, and at their interactions with the rest of society. The broad outlines of many discoveries are often known to physicists who have no special interest in history, and Kragh is careful to point out where these conventional accounts are inadequate. The first chapters set the scene at the end of the nineteenth century, acknowledging that there was a belief that all the grand underlying principles had been established, but also pointing out that there was a ferment of attempts to reinterpret physics in terms of concepts like vortices and hyperspaces. The history begins with the mould-breaking discoveries of x-rays, radioactivity and the electron. The chapters that follow look at theories about atomic structure, and at quantum physics, relativity and superconductivity, plus a glance at some practical applications of physics such as the beginnings of electronics. The interwar and World War II themes are quantum mechanics, the physics of the nucleus, the discovery of more fundamental particles and atomic fission, including the Manhattan project and nuclear weapons. Post World War II themes include nuclear physics and nuclear energy, particle physics, fundamental theories, solid-state physics, and some engineering physics - transistors, lasers and fibre optics. To show that physics is not a linear and uninterrupted process some unsuccessful ideas are included such as the concept of electromagnetic mass. As fascinating as the physics is the development of the physics community. At the beginning of the century physics research was largely a European activity and Germany was the leading nation. Kragh, based at the University of Aarhus, in Denmark, is better placed than most historians writing in English to produce an even-handed account. He is also well placed to chronicle the role of the man who features so prominently in the middle period: Niels Bohr. It was not only Bohr's own work, but also the focus provided by his Copenhagen Institute for so many other contributions to atomic physics. At the beginning of the century scientists considered themselves a supranational group. That illusion was shattered by World War I, when scientists showed themselves to be no less nationalistic than other groups. The ostracism suffered by German scientists after the war is something we ought to be more aware of. In part because science became a substitute for the political and military power much good work was done in Germany, at least until the Nazi regime began to sack non-Aryan scientists. As is well known, the loss of talent was enormous, and much of it went to America, which became the world power in physics as in so much else. The major role played by physicists in World War II, most obviously in the atomic bomb project, the largest research project ever undertaken, is discussed. Since World War II support from governments for physics has increased enormously, but the fortunes of many physicists have remained entwined with the military establishment and many others now work within megaprojects such as CERN. At the end of the century the numbers of physicists and of papers published have grown a hundred-fold, and funding by an even larger factor. Other aspects have changed less. Physics is still male-dominated and largely a North American and European enterprise. Latterly there has been some reduction in support. Physics, along with the rest of science, has also been under attack for the problems it has created. The beginning of the twenty-first century promises to be as interesting for physics as recent decades have been. Comparison with the other recent work in this field, the three-volume Twentieth Century Physics edited by Laurie Brown, Abraham Pais and Brian Pippard (Institute of Physics Publishing and American Institute of Physics Press, 1995), is unavoidable. They fill different niches. Twentieth Century Physics is a massive and expensive work by some 30 leading physicists, destined mainly for the shelves of academic libraries. Quantum Generations is a book by a professional historian covering much of the same physics, albeit more briefly, but written with a broader sweep that takes in more of the political and cultural milieu within which the physicists worked. References are given sparingly so as not to break up the text, but there are suggestions for further reading for each chapter, and there is an extensive bibliography. It is not a book for those with no background at all in physics - there are too many equations of nuclear reactions for that, and in any case such a book would be a superficial thing. Even many physicists will find some of the more esoteric ideas, such as the grand unified theories and superstring theory, heavy going. It is, however, accessible to a wide readership, and a book that can be read for the broad story, not just dipped into for specific details. It is likely to become the standard historical introduction to the history of physics in the twentieth century for scientists and historians, not to be superseded until well into the twenty-first century when the consequences of work that is still recent can be seen more clearly.

LCPT: a program for finding linear canonical transformations. [In MACSYMA

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Char, B.W.; McNamara, B.

This article describes a MACSYMA program to compute symbolically a canonical linear transformation between coordinate systems. The difficulties in implementation of this canonical small physics problem are also discussed, along with the implications that may be drawn from such difficulties about widespread MACSYMA usage by the community of computational/theoretical physicists.

[Around biological evolution. Reflections of a physicist].

PubMed

Sanchez-Palencia, Evariste

2016-01-01

This text is the written version of a talk at the Société de Biologie on February 17, 2016. It contains reflections of a non-biologist scientist on general problems of biological evolution, including the kind of causality involved, the ideas emerging from it, in particular the constructive and structuring character of phenomena such as predation, the role of stability and attractors. This leads to a larger reflection on dialectics, the general framework of evolving processes, which overpasses formal logic and instantaneousness. © Société de Biologie, 2016.

On the Matter of Dark Matter

ScienceCinema

Orrell, John L.

2018-05-31

The mission of the USS Enterprise was to “boldly go where no one has gone before.” And so it is with Particle Physicist John Orrell as he seeks to solve the conundrum of elusive dark matter. It’s a mystery that PNNL scientists have chased for more than 25 years. And, if dark matter is discovered, it will change our entire understanding of how the universe was formed. The first experiments to locate dark matter were conducted underground using specialized, radiation detector technology developed at PNNL.

Albanian women in physics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Deda, Antoneta; Alushllari, Mirela; Mico, Silvana

2015-12-01

In this report, presented at the 5th IUPAP International Conference on Women in Physics, we describe the status of women physicists in Albania and offer some statistical data illustrating the present situation. Undergraduate physics enrollment by girls is high and stable, more women are receiving financial support for doctoral studies, women are well represented in recent academic promotions, and recently women scientists have been appointed to several leadership positions. However, both women and men are challenged by the overall low levels of funding for research and by issues of availability and affordability of child care.

Women physicists in Russia in a period of new reforms in fundamental science and higher education

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Didenko, N.; Domashevskaya, E.; Ermolaeva, E.; Kunitsyna, E.; Vitman, R.

2015-12-01

New holistic reforms in the system of higher education and the State Academy of Sciences have been carried out in Russia recently. New types of universities were founded, and funding of science is shifting to a grants model. The Russian Ministry of Higher Education and Science is also working to attract well-known foreign scientists, especially expatriate Russians, through megagrants of 3-5 million to establish modern laboratories. Women are participating to an adequate degree in all parts of the ongoing reforms.

The birth of wave mechanics (1923-1926)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Aspect, Alain; Villain, Jacques

2017-11-01

In 1923, in three articles published in the Comptes Rendus of the Académie des Sciences, Louis de Broglie proposed the concept of wave-particle duality. Physicists from many countries seized upon this idea. In particular, Schrödinger developed de Broglie's qualitative idea by writing down the equation that the wave must satisfy in the non-relativistic approximation. A relativistic version of this equation was proposed in 1926 by several scientists, and other ones found a solution to the Schrödinger equation as an expansion in powers of the Planck constant.

Oskar Klein

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fischer-Hjalmars, Inga; Laurent, Bertel

2014-03-01

Oskar Klein died on the fifth of February 1977 at the age of eighty-two. One of the most prominent Swedish physicists ever and an outstanding personality in the field of culture had passed away. He was a man whose interests knew no limits and as a scientist he greatly enriched our understanding of Nature. All those who knew him were astounded by his profound thinking, wealth of ideas, extensive insight and humanism, qualities that obviously had been stimulated by the spirit in his parents' home. His father, rabbi and professor in Stockholm, was deeply engaged in theological and humanitarian issues...

JUSTIPEN: Japan US Theory Institute for Physics with Exotic Nuclei

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Papenbrock, Thomas

2014-05-16

The grant “JUSTIPEN: Japan US Theory Institute for Physics with Exotic Nuclei ” (DOE DE-FG02-06ER41407) ran from 02/01/2006 thru 12/31/2013. JUSTIPEN is a venue for international collaboration between U.S.-based and Japanese scientists who share an interest in theory of rare isotopes. Since its inception JUSTIPEN has supported many visitors, fostered collaborations between physicists in the U.S. and Japan, and enabled them to deepen our understanding of exotic nuclei and their role in cosmos.

The extraordinary impact of Michael Faraday on chemistry and related subjects.

PubMed

Thomas, John Meurig

2017-08-25

Biographers of Michael Faraday, as well as many dictionaries of science, often describe him as a physicist, which he certainly was. But he was also an astonishingly effective chemist: in fact, he was the Fullerian Professor of Chemistry (at the Royal Institution, RI) from 1834 until the time of his death in August, 1867. To mark the sesquicentenary of his passing, this editorial, by one of his distant successors as Director and Fullerian Professor at the RI, focuses on Faraday's output and influence as a scientist.

Big Mysteries: Dark Energy

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Lincoln, Don

2014-04-15

Scientists were shocked in 1998 when the expansion of the universe wasn't slowing down as expected by our best understanding of gravity at the time; the expansion was speeding up! That observation is just mind blowing, and yet it is true. In order to explain the data, physicists had to resurrect an abandoned idea of Einstein's now called dark energy. In this video, Fermilab's Dr. Don Lincoln tells us a little about the observations that led to the hypothesis of dark energy and what is the status of current research on the subject.

Big Mysteries: Dark Energy

ScienceCinema

Lincoln, Don

2018-01-16

Scientists were shocked in 1998 when the expansion of the universe wasn't slowing down as expected by our best understanding of gravity at the time; the expansion was speeding up! That observation is just mind blowing, and yet it is true. In order to explain the data, physicists had to resurrect an abandoned idea of Einstein's now called dark energy. In this video, Fermilab's Dr. Don Lincoln tells us a little about the observations that led to the hypothesis of dark energy and what is the status of current research on the subject.

Integrated interdisciplinary training in the radiological sciences.

PubMed

Brenner, D J; Vazquez, M; Buonanno, M; Amundson, S A; Bigelow, A W; Garty, G; Harken, A D; Hei, T K; Marino, S A; Ponnaiya, B; Randers-Pehrson, G; Xu, Y

2014-02-01

The radiation sciences are increasingly interdisciplinary, both from the research and the clinical perspectives. Beyond clinical and research issues, there are very real issues of communication between scientists from different disciplines. It follows that there is an increasing need for interdisciplinary training courses in the radiological sciences. Training courses are common in biomedical academic and clinical environments, but are typically targeted to scientists in specific technical fields. In the era of multidisciplinary biomedical science, there is a need for highly integrated multidisciplinary training courses that are designed for, and are useful to, scientists who are from a mix of very different academic fields and backgrounds. We briefly describe our experiences running such an integrated training course for researchers in the field of biomedical radiation microbeams, and draw some conclusions about how such interdisciplinary training courses can best function. These conclusions should be applicable to many other areas of the radiological sciences. In summary, we found that it is highly beneficial to keep the scientists from the different disciplines together. In practice, this means not segregating the training course into sections specifically for biologists and sections specifically for physicists and engineers, but rather keeping the students together to attend the same lectures and hands-on studies throughout the course. This structure added value to the learning experience not only in terms of the cross fertilization of information and ideas between scientists from the different disciplines, but also in terms of reinforcing some basic concepts for scientists in their own discipline.

A PICKSC Science Gateway for enabling the common plasma physicist to run kinetic software

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hu, Q.; Winjum, B. J.; Zonca, A.; Youn, C.; Tsung, F. S.; Mori, W. B.

2017-10-01

Computer simulations offer tremendous opportunities for studying plasmas, ranging from simulations for students that illuminate fundamental educational concepts to research-level simulations that advance scientific knowledge. Nevertheless, there is a significant hurdle to using simulation tools. Users must navigate codes and software libraries, determine how to wrangle output into meaningful plots, and oftentimes confront a significant cyberinfrastructure with powerful computational resources. Science gateways offer a Web-based environment to run simulations without needing to learn or manage the underlying software and computing cyberinfrastructure. We discuss our progress on creating a Science Gateway for the Particle-in-Cell and Kinetic Simulation Software Center that enables users to easily run and analyze kinetic simulations with our software. We envision that this technology could benefit a wide range of plasma physicists, both in the use of our simulation tools as well as in its adaptation for running other plasma simulation software. Supported by NSF under Grant ACI-1339893 and by the UCLA Institute for Digital Research and Education.

SED Alumni---breeding ground for scientists

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bederson, Benjamin

2006-04-01

In 1943 the US Army established the Special Engineering Detachment (SED), in which mostly drafted young soldiers possessing some scientific credentials (though usually quite minimal) were reassigned from other duties to the Manhattan Project to assist in various research and development aspects of nuclear weapons. The Los Alamos contingent, never more than a few hundred GIs, worked with more senior scientists and engineers, often assuming positions of real responsibility. An unintended consequence of this circumstance was the fact that being in the SEDs turned out to be a fortuitous breeding ground for future physicists, chemists, and engineers. SEDs benefited from their close contacts with established scientists, working with them side by side, attended lectures by luminaries, and gained invaluable experience that would help them establish academic and industrial careers later in life. I will discuss some of these individuals (I list only those of whom I am personally aware). These include Henry ``Heinz'' Barschall*, Richard Bellman*-RAND Corporation, Murray Peshkin-ANL, Peter Lax-Courant Institute, NYU, William Spindel*-NRC,NAS, Bernard Waldman- Notre Dame, Richard Davisson*-U of Washington, Arnold Kramish- RAND, UNESCO, Josef Hofmann- Acoustic Research Corp, Val Fitch- Princeton U. *deceased

Fish Tales

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

McLerran, L.

2010-07-06

This talk is about fishing and the friendships that have resulted in its pursuit. It is also about theoretical physics, and the relationship of imagination and fantasy to the establishment of ideas about nature. Fishermen, like theoretical physicists, are well known for their inventive imaginations. Perhaps neither are as clever as sailors, who conceived of the mermaid. If one doubts the power of this fantasy, one should remember the ghosts of the many sailors who drowned pursuing these young nymphs. An extraordinary painting by J. Waterhouse is shown as Fig. 1. The enchantment of a mermaid must reflect an extraordinarymore » excess of imagination on the part of the sailor, perhaps together with an impractical turn of mind. A consummated relationship with a mermaid is after all, by its very nature a fantasy incapable of realization. To a theoretical physicist, she is symbolic of many ideas we develop. There are many truths known to fisherman in which one might also find parallels to the goals of scientists: (1) A fish is the only animal that keeps growing after its death; (2) Nothing makes a fish bigger than almost being caught; (3) ''...of all the liars among mankind, the fisherman is the most trustworthy.'' (William Sherwood Fox, in Silken Lines and Silver Hooks); and (4) Men and fish are alike. They both get into trouble when they open their mouths. These quotes may be interpreted as reflecting skepticism regarding the honesty of fisherman, and probably do not reflect adequate admiration for a creative imagination. Is it fair to criticize a person for believing a falsehood that he or she sincerely believes to be true? The fisherman simultaneously invents the lie, and believes in it himself. The parallel with theoretical physics is perhaps only approximate, although we physicists may invent stories that we come to believe, on some rare occasions our ideas actually correspond to a more or less true descriptions of nature. These minor philosophical differences are not really the central issue, however. It is more to the point that both fishermen and scientists enjoy creating a good story, and we also enjoy a story well told. The correct mixture of truth, lie, fantasy and excitement is a witches brew.« less

Minority American Women Physicists Achieving at the Intersection of Race and Gender

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Horton, K. Renee

2005-10-01

As minority women physicists, we stand at the intersection of race and gender. We are physicists to be sure, but we are also women of Native, African, Hispanic, and Asian descent. We are colleagues, mothers, sisters, friends and wives, as are our white counterparts, but our experiences cannot be distilled to only gender or race. As Prudence Carter (2005 Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association) and Scott Page (``The Logic of Diversity,'' private communication, 2004) remind us, women of color emerge from the interaction between race and gender. This distinction is important because most researchers who study American women's participation in science focus exclusively on the participation of white American women. Of those who acknowledge the existence of non-white women, most do so by disclaiming the exclusion of women of color because the numbers are so small or the experiences are different from white American women. There are some important differences, however. While American women are 15% of all scientists and engineers, black American women are 60% of all black scientists and engineers. Yet an average of less than 3 black women and less than 3 Hispanic women earn PhDs in the U.S. each year, out of about 1100. As Rachel Ivie and Kim Nies Ray point out in AIP Publication R-430.02, ``Minority women especially represent a great, untapped resource that could be drawn on to increase the size of the scientific workforce in the U.S.'' Donna Nelson's (University of Oklahoma) study of diversity in science and engineering faculties further finds that (with the exception of one black woman in astronomy) there are no female black or Native American full professors. In physics, there are no black women professors and no Native American women professors. Despite such a bleak picture, there is hope. Of the 18 departments that award at least 40% of bachelors degrees to women, 7 are in Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). Black women are earning degrees from HBCUs at rates above equity, and many singles and firsts at predominantly white institutions continue to persevere despite the obstacles.

FOREWORD: 4th International Colloquium on Atomic Spectra and Oscillator Strengths for Astrophysical and Laboratory Plasmas

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Leckrone, David S.; Sugar, Jack

1993-01-01

In 1983 the Atomic Spectroscopy Group at the University of Lund organized a conference at Lund the purpose of which was to establish a dialogue between scientists whose research made use of basic atomic data, and scientists whose research produced such data. The data in question include complete descriptions of atomic and ionic spectra, accurate transition wavelengths and relative intensities, energy levels, lifetimes, oscillator strengths, line shapes, and nuclear effects (hyperfine structure and isotope shifts). The "consumers" in urgent need of new or improved atomic data included astrophysicsts, laboratory plasma physicists, and spectrochemists. The synergism between these specialists and the theoretical and experimental atomic physicists resulted in a highly successful meeting, attended by approximately 70 people. The rapid advances foreseen at that time in all of these areas of observational, experimental and theoretical science stimulated planning for a second conference on this subject in 1986 at the University of Toledo, and subsequently a third meeting was held at the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences in Amsterdam in 1989. Again attendance at the latter two meetings totaled approximately 70 researchers. The participants in Amsterdam agreed to re-convene at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Gaithersburg, Maryland, in 1992, maintaining the frequency of these conferences at one every three years. The present Topical Issue of Physica Scripta consists of 31 invited reviews given at the Gaithersburg meeting. Extended abstracts of 63 poster papers from the meeting are being published in NIST Special Publication SP850. Approximately 170 scientists attended the Gaithersburg conference, representing a substantial growth in the size of meetings in this series. One session of the conference was devoted to an informal workshop, at which any participant could give a brief oral statement about his or her most immediate data need or about work currently in progress. This resulted in a number of interesting exchanges, and served to facilitate the coordination of work to be done in the near term. Over the past 15 years we have witnessed the explosive growth of astrophysical spectroscopic observations in both the ultraviolet and infrared bands. Recently, with the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope, the precision and resolution of such data have reached remarkable levels, giving one the sense that the body of atomic data currently to be found in the literature lags far behind what is needed to adequately interpret the observations. Similarly, high temperature laboratory experiments in plasma physics, e.g. fusion energy and x-ray lasers, are demanding larger quantities of atomic data over a wide range of ionization states. Fortunately, the experimental and computational techniques of atomic physics have kept pace. One may cite, for example, the extraordinary precision inherent in recent laboratory work with laser-induced fluorescence spectroscopy and with Fourier transform spectrometers, and for data of highly-ionized atoms, with ion traps and tokamak plasmas. The major challenge is to nurture and support expanded activity in those sub-disciplines of atomic physics that apply such modern techniques to the production of extensive volumes of atomic data, and to reinvigorate such "old fashioned" subjects as the term analysis of new, more accurate laboratory spectra. This series of conferences has a very special character. It is not sponsored or supported by any particular institution, government organization or professional society. The meetings occur only because they serve the common scientific interests of a broad and diverse group of people from around the world. They have had the delightful effect of stimulating professional collaborations and friendships among astronomers, physicists, chemists, mathematicians, and others, who might not have initially realized that they shared so much in common. The series has also demonstrated that the dialogue between "users" and "providers" of atomic data is a two-way conversation, with atomic physicists beginning to view astrophysical and laboratory plasmas as unique sources of new information about the structure of complex atomic species. The fifth International Colloquium on Atomic Spectra and Oscillator Strengths for Astrophysical and Laboratory Plasmas is scheduled to take place in Meudon, France in 1995.

MO-C-BRCD-03: The Role of Informatics in Medical Physics and Vice Versa.

PubMed

Andriole, K

2012-06-01

Like Medical Physics, Imaging Informatics encompasses concepts touching every aspect of the imaging chain from image creation, acquisition, management and archival, to image processing, analysis, display and interpretation. The two disciplines are in fact quite complementary, with similar goals to improve the quality of care provided to patients using an evidence-based approach, to assure safety in the clinical and research environments, to facilitate efficiency in the workplace, and to accelerate knowledge discovery. Use-cases describing several areas of informatics activity will be given to illustrate current limitations that would benefit from medical physicist participation, and conversely areas in which informaticists may contribute to the solution. Topics to be discussed include radiation dose monitoring, process management and quality control, display technologies, business analytics techniques, and quantitative imaging. Quantitative imaging is increasingly becoming an essential part of biomedicalresearch as well as being incorporated into clinical diagnostic activities. Referring clinicians are asking for more objective information to be gleaned from the imaging tests that they order so that they may make the best clinical management decisions for their patients. Medical Physicists may be called upon to identify existing issues as well as develop, validate and implement new approaches and technologies to help move the field further toward quantitative imaging methods for the future. Biomedical imaging informatics tools and techniques such as standards, integration, data mining, cloud computing and new systems architectures, ontologies and lexicons, data visualization and navigation tools, and business analytics applications can be used to overcome some of the existing limitations. 1. Describe what is meant by Medical Imaging Informatics and understand why the medical physicist should care. 2. Identify existing limitations in information technologies with respect to Medical Physics, and conversely see how Informatics may assist the medical physicist in filling some of the current gaps in their activities. 3. Understand general informatics concepts and areas of investigation including imaging and workflow standards, systems integration, computing architectures, ontologies, data mining and business analytics, data visualization and human-computer interface tools, and the importance of quantitative imaging for the future of Medical Physics and Imaging Informatics. 4. Become familiar with on-going efforts to address current challenges facing future research into and clinical implementation of quantitative imaging applications. © 2012 American Association of Physicists in Medicine.

Workshop on Models for Plasma Spectroscopy

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

1993-09-01

A meeting was held at St. Johns College, Oxford from Monday 27th to Thursday 30th of September 1993 to bring together a group of physicists working on computational modelling of plasma spectroscopy. The group came from the UK, France, Israel and the USA. The meeting was organized by myself, Dr. Steven Rose of RAL and Dr. R.W. Lee of LLNL. It was funded by the U.S. European Office of Aerospace Research and Development and by LLNL. The meeting grew out of a wish by a group of core participants to make available to practicing plasma physicists (particularly those engaged in the design and analysis of experiments) sophisticated numerical models of plasma physics. Additional plasma physicists attended the meeting in Oxford by invitation. These were experimentalists and users of plasma physics simulation codes whose input to the meeting was to advise the core group as to what was really needed.

PREFACE: 21st International Conference on Computing in High Energy and Nuclear Physics (CHEP2015)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sakamoto, H.; Bonacorsi, D.; Ueda, I.; Lyon, A.

2015-12-01

The International Conference on Computing in High Energy and Nuclear Physics (CHEP) is a major series of international conferences intended to attract physicists and computing professionals to discuss on recent developments and trends in software and computing for their research communities. Experts from the high energy and nuclear physics, computer science, and information technology communities attend CHEP events. This conference series provides an international forum to exchange experiences and the needs of a wide community, and to present and discuss recent, ongoing, and future activities. At the beginning of the successful series of CHEP conferences in 1985, the latest developments in embedded systems, networking, vector and parallel processing were presented in Amsterdam. The software and computing ecosystem massively evolved since then, and along this path each CHEP event has marked a step further. A vibrant community of experts on a wide range of different high-energy and nuclear physics experiments, as well as technology explorer and industry contacts, attend and discuss the present and future challenges, and shape the future of an entire community. In such a rapidly evolving area, aiming to capture the state-of-the-art on software and computing through a collection of proceedings papers on a journal is a big challenge. Due to the large attendance, the final papers appear on the journal a few months after the conference is over. Additionally, the contributions often report about studies at very heterogeneous statuses, namely studies that are completed, or are just started, or yet to be done. It is not uncommon that by the time a specific paper appears on the journal some of the work is over a year old, or the investigation actually happened in different directions and with different methodologies than originally presented at the conference just a few months before. And by the time the proceedings appear in journal form, new ideas and explorations have quickly formed, have already started, and presumably have also followed previously unpredictable directions. In this scenario, it is normal and healthy for the entire community to question itself as of whether it is a set of proceedings the best way to document and communicate to peers (present and future) the work that has been done at a precise time and the vivid and live ideas of a precise moment in the evolution of the discipline. Pointing the attention to a specific CHEP event alone does not give the right answer: in fact, the heritage value lies in the quality and continuity of the documentation work, despite the changes of times, trends and actors. The CHEP proceedings, in their variety and thanks to the condensed form of knowledge they offer, are what most likely will be more easily preserved for future generations, thanks to the outstanding efforts over digital libraries for all kinds of cultural heritage. Since 1985, this long-standing tradition continued with the 21st CHEP edition in Okinawa. The successful model that brings together high-energy and nuclear physicist and computer scientists was repeated in the Okinawa prefecture, an outstanding location consisting of a few dozen small islands in the southern half of the Nansei Shoto, the island chain which stretches over about one thousand kilometres from Kyushu to Taiwan. The OIST (Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology) centre hosted the event, and offered an outstanding location and efficient facilities for the event. As for the CHEP history, contributions from 'general purpose' physics experiments mixed together with highly specialized work on the frontier of precision and intensity. The year 2015 is marked by the LHC restart in Run 2. Experimental groups at the LHC reviewed and presented their Run 1 experiences in detail, and reported the work done in acquiring the latest computing and software technologies, as well as in evolving their computing models in preparation for Run 2 (and beyond). On the side of the intensity frontier, 2015 is also the start of Super-KEKB commissioning. Fixed-target experiments at CERN, Fermilab and J-PARC are growing bigger in size. In the field of nuclear physics, FAIR is under construction and RHIC well engaged into its Phase-II research program facing increased datasets and new challenges with precision physics. For the future, developments are progressing towards the construction of ILC. In all these projects, computing and software will be even more important than before. Beyond those examples, non-accelerator experiments reported on their search for novel computing models as their apparatus and operation become larger and more distributed. The CHEP edition in Okinawa explored the synergy of HEP experimental physicists and computer scientists with data engineers and data scientists even further. Many area of research are covered, and the techniques developed and adopted are presented in a richness and diversity never seen before. In numbers, CHEP 2015 attracted a very high number of oral and poster contribution, 535 in total, and hosted 450 participants from 28 countries. For the first time in the conference history, a system of 'keywords' at the abstracts submission time was set up and exploited to produce conference tracks depending on the topics covered in the proposed contributions. Authors were asked to select some 'application keywords' and/or 'technology keywords' to specify the content of their contribution. A bottom-up approach that was tried at CHEP 2015 in Okinawa for the first time in the history of this conference series, this encountered vast satisfaction both in the International Advisory Committee and among the conference attendees. This process created 8 topical tracks, well balanced in content, manageable in terms of number of contributions, and able to create the adequate discussion space for trend topics (e.g. cloud computing and virtualization). CHEP 2015 hosted contributions on online computing; offline software; data store and access; middleware, software development and tools, experiment frameworks, tools for distributed computing; computing activities and computing models; facilities, infrastructure, network; clouds and virtualization; performance increase and optimization exploiting hardware features. Throughout the entire process, we were blessed with a forward-looking group of competent colleagues in our International Advisory Committee, whom we warmly thank. All the individuals in the Program Committee team, who put together the technical tracks of the conference and reviewed all papers to prepare the sections of this proceedings journal, have to be credited for their outstanding work. And of course the gratitude goes to all people who submitted a contribution, presented it, and spent time to prepare a careful paper to document the work. These people, in the first place, are the main authors of the big success that CHEP continues to be. After almost 30 years, and 21 CHEP editions, this conference cycle continues to stay strong and to evolve in rapidly changing times towards a challenging future, covering new grounds and intercepting new trends as our field of research evolves. The next stop in this journey will be at the 22nd CHEP Conference on October 12th-14th, in San Francisco, hosted by SLAC and LBNL.

Big Bang Day : The Great Big Particle Adventure - 1. Atom

ScienceCinema

None

2017-12-09

In this series, comedian and physicist Ben Miller asks the CERN scientists what they hope to find. The notion of atoms dates back to Greek philosophers who sought a natural mechanical explanation of the Universe, as opposed to a divine one. The existence what we call chemical atoms, the constituents of all we see around us, wasn't proved until a hundred years ago, but almost simultaneously it was realised these weren't the indivisible constituents the Greeks envisaged. Much of the story of physics since then has been the ever-deeper probing of matter until, at the end of the 20th century, a complete list of fundamental ingredients had been identified, apart from one, the much discussed Higgs particle. In this programme, Ben finds out why this last particle is so pivotal, not just to atomic theory, but to our very existence - and how hopeful the scientists are of proving its existence.

Mendelevium: The Way It Was

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

None

A reel of black & white film shot nearly 60 years ago has surfaced at Berkeley Lab, depicting the discovery of Mendelevium - or Element 101 - as reenacted by some of the legendary scientists who did the actual work at that time. Since the 1940s, Berkeley Lab scientists were locked in a race to synthesize new elements, and more often than not, they came out winners. Sixteen elements, most of them in the actinide series at the bottom of the periodic table, were discovered and synthesized by its researchers. Retired Berkeley Lab physicist Claude Lyneis found the reel inmore » a box of dusty and deteriorating films slated for disposal. Using digital editing skills he acquired to make videos of his son's lacrosse team, Lyneis has produced and narrated an excerpt of this nearly-lost footage. It is an entertaining and informative look at the pioneering physics performed at UC Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's hillside campus.« less

To envision a new particle or change an existing law? Hypothesis formation and anomaly resolution for the curious case of the β decay spectrum

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gauderis, Tjerk

2014-02-01

This paper addresses the question of how scientists determine which type of hypothesis is most suitable for tackling a particular problem by examining the historical case of the anomalous β spectrum in early nuclear physics (1927-1934), a puzzle that occasioned the most diverse hypotheses amongst physicists at the time. It is shown that such determinations are most often implicitly informed by scientists' individual perspectives on the structural relations between the various elements of the theory and the problem at hand. In addition to this main result, it is suggested that Wolfgang Pauli's neutrino idea may well have been an adaptation of Ernst Rutherford's original and older neutron idea, which would provide evidence that the adaptation of older ideas is a more common practice than is often thought.

Mendelevium: The Way It Was

ScienceCinema

None

2018-05-30

A reel of black & white film shot nearly 60 years ago has surfaced at Berkeley Lab, depicting the discovery of Mendelevium - or Element 101 - as reenacted by some of the legendary scientists who did the actual work at that time. Since the 1940s, Berkeley Lab scientists were locked in a race to synthesize new elements, and more often than not, they came out winners. Sixteen elements, most of them in the actinide series at the bottom of the periodic table, were discovered and synthesized by its researchers. Retired Berkeley Lab physicist Claude Lyneis found the reel in a box of dusty and deteriorating films slated for disposal. Using digital editing skills he acquired to make videos of his son's lacrosse team, Lyneis has produced and narrated an excerpt of this nearly-lost footage. It is an entertaining and informative look at the pioneering physics performed at UC Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's hillside campus.

Lessons that non-scientists can teach us about the concept of energy: a human-centred approach

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Leggett, Monica

2003-03-01

Energy is not only a core concept in physics but also a major issue in our post-Kyoto world. When using a constructivist approach to teaching, we need to be aware of students' preconceptions. A palette of alternative frameworks, which includes those used by adults within the community, can facilitate this. An exploration of energy issues with non-scientists within the community has generated some relevant insights. Participants' concepts of energy were multifaceted. Most had a strong personal component, but also social, technical and cosmic dimensions. Although many participants were uncomfortable with the terms `renewable' and `sustainable', they clearly articulated the social and technical requirements for a shift away from current fossil fuel dependency. However, the law of conservation of energy, a core belief of physicists, appeared to be totally absent from their concept of energy.

Moments in the Life of a Scientist

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rossi, Bruno

1990-08-01

Bruno Rossi has long been an influential figure in diverse areas of physics and in this volume he presents a fascinating account of his life and work as an experimental physicist. He discusses his scientific contributions, from experiments that played a major role in establishing the nature and properties of cosmic rays to those establishing the existence of a solar wind and others that laid the foundations of X-ray astronomy. Rossi provides close insight into his actual experiences as a scientist and the motivations that gave direction to his research, and he recounts the beginning of very significant stages in high energy physics and space research. He writes evocatively of the many places where he worked--of Florence, Arcetri, Padua, and Venice, of the mountains of Colorado and the deserts of New Mexico. His narrative also provides insight into the life of a Jewish family in fascist Italy. The text is accompanied by photographs taken throughout Rossi's career.

Bridging the Vector Calculus Gap

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Dray, Tevian; Manogue, Corinne

2003-05-01

As with Britain and America, mathematicians and physicists are separated from each other by a common language. In a nutshell, mathematics is about functions, but physics is about things. For the last several years, we have led an NSF-supported effort to "bridge the vector calculus gap" between mathematics and physics. The unifying theme we have discovered is to emphasize geometric reasoning, not (just) algebraic computation. In this talk, we will illustrate the language differences between mathematicians and physicists, and how we are trying reconcile them in the classroom. For further information about the project go to: http://www.physics.orst.edu/bridge

Eurekas and Euphorias - The Oxford Book of Scientific Anecdotes

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gratzer, Walter

2002-11-01

The march of science has been marked through the years by episodes of drama and comedy, of failure as well as triumph, by outrageous strokes of luck, deserved and undeserved, and sometimes by human tragedy. In Eurekas and Euphorias , Walter Gratzer captures the human face of discovery as he relates many intriguing tales of scientific adventures spanning over two thousand years. Open this book at random and you may chance on the clumsy chemist named Sapper who broke a thermometer in a reaction vat and made the discovery that launched the modern dyestuff industry. Or the physicist who dissolved his gold Nobel Prize medal in acid to prevent it from falling into the hands of the Nazis. The book uncovers deep intellectual friendships, as well as ferocious animosities, and even acts of theft and malice, deceit, and a hoax or two. Indeed, we discover that scientists come in all shapes--the obsessive and the dilettantish, the genial, the envious, the preternaturally brilliant and the slow-witted who sometimes saw further in the end, the open-minded and the intolerant, recluses and arrivistes . We meet mathematicians and physicists in prison cells, and even in a madhouse, making important advances in their field. And we witness the careers, sometimes tragic, sometimes carefree, of the great women scientists, from Hypatia of Alexandria, to Sophie Germain and Sonia Kovalevskaya, to Marie Curie and her relentless battle with the French Academy. Told with wit and relish, here then is a glorious parade to delight the reader, with stories to astonish, to instruct, and most especially, to entertain.

International scientific cooperation during the 1930s. Bruno Rossi and the development of the status of cosmic rays into a branch of physics.

PubMed

Bonolis, Luisa

2014-07-01

During the 1920s and 1930s, Italian physicists established strong relationships with scientists from other European countries and the United States. The career of Bruno Rossi, a leading personality in the study of cosmic rays and an Italian pioneer of this field of research, provides a prominent example of this kind of international cooperation. Physics underwent major changes during these turbulent years, and the traditional internationalism of physics assumed a more institutionalized character. Against this backdrop, Rossi's early work was crucial in transforming the study of cosmic rays into a branch of modern physics. His friendly relationships with eminent scientists--notably Enrico Fermi, Walther Bothe, Werner Heisenberg, Hans Bethe, and Homi Bhabha--were instrumental both for the exchange of knowledge about experimental practices and theoretical discussions, and for attracting the attention of physicists such as Arthur Compton, Louis Leprince-Ringuet, Pierre Auger and Patrick Blackett to the problem of cosmic rays. Relying on material from different archives in Europe and the United States, this case study aims to provide a glimpse of the intersection between national and international dimensions during the 1930s, at a time when the study of cosmic rays was still very much in its infancy, strongly interlaced with nuclear physics, and full of uncertain, contradictory, and puzzling results. Nevertheless, as a source of high-energy particles it became a proving ground for testing the validity of the laws of quantum electrodynamics, and made a fundamental contribution to the origins of particle physics.

What is Science?

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Quinn, H.

Helen Quinn is a theoretical particle physicist at SLAC. Throughout her career, she has been passionately involved in science education and public understanding of science. In talking about science, whether to the public or to students, we scientists often assume that they share with us a common idea of science. In my experience that is often not the case. To oversimplify, scientists think of science both as a process for discovering properties of nature, and as the resulting body of knowledge, whereas most people seem to think of science, or perhaps scientists, as an authority that provides some information--just onemore » more story among the many that they use to help make sense of their world. Can we close that gap in understanding? Middle school teachers typically spend a day or so teaching something called the scientific method, but the process by which scientific ideas are developed and tested is messier and much more interesting than that typical capsule description. Some remarkable features of the process are seldom stressed in teaching science, nor are they addressed in explaining any one piece of science to the public. My goal in this column is to provide some ideas for closing that gap in understanding, and to encourage scientists and teachers to communicate about the process as they discuss scientific work.« less

2017 ISCB Accomplishment by a Senior Scientist Award: Pavel Pevzner

PubMed Central

Fogg, Christiana N.; Kovats, Diane E.; Berger, Bonnie

2017-01-01

The International Society for Computational Biology ( ISCB) recognizes an established scientist each year with the Accomplishment by a Senior Scientist Award for significant contributions he or she has made to the field. This award honors scientists who have contributed to the advancement of computational biology and bioinformatics through their research, service, and education work. Pavel Pevzner, PhD, Ronald R. Taylor Professor of Computer Science and Director of the NIH Center for Computational Mass Spectrometry at University of California, San Diego, has been selected as the winner of the 2017 Accomplishment by a Senior Scientist Award. The ISCB awards committee, chaired by Dr. Bonnie Berger of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, selected Pevzner as the 2017 winner. Pevzner will receive his award and deliver a keynote address at the 2017 Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology-European Conference on Computational Biology joint meeting ( ISMB/ECCB 2017) held in Prague, Czech Republic from July 21-July 25, 2017. ISMB/ECCB is a biennial joint meeting that brings together leading scientists in computational biology and bioinformatics from around the globe. PMID:28713548

Epidemic processes in complex networks

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pastor-Satorras, Romualdo; Castellano, Claudio; Van Mieghem, Piet; Vespignani, Alessandro

2015-07-01

In recent years the research community has accumulated overwhelming evidence for the emergence of complex and heterogeneous connectivity patterns in a wide range of biological and sociotechnical systems. The complex properties of real-world networks have a profound impact on the behavior of equilibrium and nonequilibrium phenomena occurring in various systems, and the study of epidemic spreading is central to our understanding of the unfolding of dynamical processes in complex networks. The theoretical analysis of epidemic spreading in heterogeneous networks requires the development of novel analytical frameworks, and it has produced results of conceptual and practical relevance. A coherent and comprehensive review of the vast research activity concerning epidemic processes is presented, detailing the successful theoretical approaches as well as making their limits and assumptions clear. Physicists, mathematicians, epidemiologists, computer, and social scientists share a common interest in studying epidemic spreading and rely on similar models for the description of the diffusion of pathogens, knowledge, and innovation. For this reason, while focusing on the main results and the paradigmatic models in infectious disease modeling, the major results concerning generalized social contagion processes are also presented. Finally, the research activity at the forefront in the study of epidemic spreading in coevolving, coupled, and time-varying networks is reported.

Single-molecule toroics in Ising-type lanthanide molecular clusters.

PubMed

Ungur, Liviu; Lin, Shuang-Yan; Tang, Jinkui; Chibotaru, Liviu F

2014-01-01

Single-molecule toroics (SMTs) are defined, by analogy with single-molecule magnets, as bistable molecules with a toroidal magnetic state, and seem to be most promising for future applications in quantum computing and information storage and use as multiferroic materials with magnetoelectric effect. As an interdisciplinary research area that spans chemistry, physics and material sciences, synthetic chemists have produced systems suitable for detailed study by physicists and materials scientists, while ab initio calculations have been playing a major role in the detection of toroidal magnetization and the advancement of this field. In this tutorial review, we demonstrate the research developed in the fascinating and challenging field of molecular-based SMTs with particular focus on how recent studies tend to address the issue of toroidal arrangement of the magnetic moment in these systems. Herein, nine typical SMTs are summarized, showing that the assembly of wheel-shaped complexes with the high symmetry of the molecule unit and strong intra-molecular dipolar interactions using strong anisotropy metal ions represents the most promising route toward the design of a toroidal moment. Furthermore, the linkage of such robust toroidal moment units with ferromagnetic type through appropriate bridging ligands enhances the toroidal magnetic moment per unit cell.

Babson, Bahnson, the DeWitts and the General Relativity Renaissance

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Carter, Hamilton

2012-03-01

During the 1950s the efforts of an unlikely group composed of two colorful businessmen, a handful of physicists, and Air Force representatives helped to create a renaissance in general relativity research. Industrialist Agnew Bahson was an air conditioning magnate with connections to leading scientists, and the Air Force. In addition to his contribution to ``respectable'' physics, his life and death are shrouded in a cloak of UFO and anti-gravity conspiracy theories. Business theorist Roger Babson was driven to search for a solution to anti-gravity after first his sister and later his grandson drowned tragically as children. This presentation tells of the globe spanning, harrowing adventure of mountainside crashes, an international love affair, physicists masquerading as secretaries, the founding of Les Houches, the development of the first radar defense system and how Bahnson and Babson became benefactors of mainstream physics, leading to the creation of the Institute of Field Physics at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill led by Cecile and Bryce DeWitt and ultimately to the groundbreaking research that predicted the Higgs boson.

Promoting Gender Equity in STEM: Theory and Applications

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Simmons, Elizabeth

2016-03-01

This presentation will begin by briefly reviewing data on the current status of women in STEM disciplines: degrees earned, careers pursued, obstacles encountered. Next, it will draw on social science research to illuminate a variety of underlying causes for gender disparities in STEM. These, in turn, will be shown to suggest an array of concrete actions that individual scientists, group leaders, and institutions can take to improve gender diversity; a few that the speaker has found especially effective in her role as a college dean will be noted. While the primary focus of the talk will be on women in physics, some of the broader issues encountered by sexual and gender minorities in STEM will also be discussed. In the remainder of the presentation, two particular interventions in which the speaker has been involved for the past several years will be covered in more detail: one aimed at building career skills of women physicists in developing nations and the other aimed at improving the climate for LGBT physicists here in the United States. These illustrate the wide array of opportunities open to all of us for making our field more inclusive.

Career Opportunities for Physicists in the Micro Electronics Industry

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bourianoff, George

1997-10-01

The US micro electronics industry anticipates growth of 20 to 30 percent per year for the next five years. The need for engineers and scientists poses a critical problem for the industry but conversely presents great opportunities for those in closely related fields such as physics where career opportunities may be more limited. There is no shortage of important and challenging problems on the Semiconductor Institute of America (SIA) roadmap which will require solution in the next 10 years and which require expertise in the physical sciences. However, significant cultural differences exist between the physics community and the engineering oriented semiconductor community which must be understood and addressed in order for a physicist to successfully contribute in this environment. This talk will identify some of those cultural differences and describe some of the critical physics related problems which must be solved. Critical roadblocks include lithographic patterning below 0.18m. and design of Very Large Scale Integrated (VLSI) circuits in the deep submicron regime. The former will require developing radiation sources and optical elements for the EUV or XRAY part of the spectrum. The latter will require incorporating electromagnetic field equations with traditional lumped element circuit design methods. The cultural barriers alluded to earlier involve the manner in which engineering detail is approached. A physicist's basic instinct is to strip off the detail in order to make a problem mathematically tractable. This enables understanding of the underlying physical relationships but does not yield the quantitative detail necessary in semiconductor production.

Biomimetics of photonic nanostructures.

PubMed

Parker, Andrew R; Townley, Helen E

2007-06-01

Biomimetics is the extraction of good design from nature. One approach to optical biomimetics focuses on the use of conventional engineering methods to make direct analogues of the reflectors and anti-reflectors found in nature. However, recent collaborations between biologists, physicists, engineers, chemists and materials scientists have ventured beyond experiments that merely mimic what happens in nature, leading to a thriving new area of research involving biomimetics through cell culture. In this new approach, the nanoengineering efficiency of living cells is harnessed and natural organisms such as diatoms and viruses are used to make nanostructures that could have commercial applications.

National Calendar-2008

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ghedrovici, Vera; Svet, Maria; Matvei, Valeria; Madan, Ion; Perju, Elena; Sargun, Maria; Netida, Maria

The calendar represents a few hundreds of biographies of scientists, artists and writers from everywhere, printed in chronological order and adjusted to their birthdays. A number of international and national holydays, including some refering to science are included in the Calendar. A great defect of the calendar is the introduction of the "International day of astrology" in the list of holydays. Another defect is the absence of the indication on the membership to the Communist Party for persons cited from the former Soviet Union. The following Physicists, mathematicians, chemists and astronomers had biographies in this issue: Ilie I. Lupu (math),Lev D. Landau,

Life in a three-dimensional grid.

PubMed

Shapiro, Lucy

2012-11-02

There have been two sharp demarcations in my life in science: the transition from fine arts to chemistry, which happened early in my career, and the move from New York to Stanford University, which initiated an ongoing collaboration with the physicist Harley McAdams. Both had a profound effect on the kinds of questions I posed and the means I used to arrive at answers. The outcome of these experiences, together with the extraordinary scientists I came to know along the way, was and is an abiding passion to fully understand a simple cell in all its complexity and beauty.

The 1922 Einstein Film: Cinematic Innovation and Public Controversy

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wazeck, Milena

2010-06-01

In 1922 Hanns Walter Kornblum produced a long and comprehensive educational film on Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity that made extensive use of trick shots. His film was considered to be a milestone in the history of film and also in the popularization of science. Although the original film has been lost, I have reconstructed its content and its reception by members of the German film industry and cultural sector, laymen, scientists and academics, and politically motivated opponents based upon the large collection of newspaper clippings that was assembled by the antirelativist physicist Ernst Gehrcke.

A Physicist's Anschauungen Concerning Mental Imagery

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Miller, Arthur I.; Kaiser, Mary K.

1987-01-01

This book is an integration of historical and psychological analyses, with the goal of understanding the role of mental imagery in three seminal developments of early 20th-century physics: special relativity (1905), general relativity (1915), and quantum mechanics (1925). The book focuses on the insights that can be gleaned from Gesalt psychology, genetic epistemology, and recent theories of imagery in cognitive science. The book is divided into three sections. The first presents the comparative epistemologies of the scientists whose developments provide the data base for analyses. The second section considers the role of aesthetics and "visuability" in the transformation (and evaluation) of scientific concepts.

2017 Oersted Medal Presentation: The changing face of physics and the students who take physics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tobochnik, Jan

2017-06-01

I have never found teaching physics to be as interesting as it is now for two reasons. Students are changing rapidly and it is an intellectual challenge to figure out the best way to work with them. Simultaneously, it is becoming increasingly clear that there is a major disconnect between what we teach, which has barely changed since I started teaching, and what physicists and other scientists are actually doing in their research. I will discuss these changes and what is being done at Kalamazoo College and elsewhere to address these challenges.

Luminous flux and illumination

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Schröer, H.

2001-06-01

Themes of this book are luminous flux and illumination. The book begins with definitions of the notions luminous flux and solid angle. Then the luminous flux through simple geometrical areas as circle, ball, triangles and n-gons is treated. Chapter 7 deals with luminous flux through general surfaces. A comparison between photometric and radiation dimensions follow. The next chapter contains the luminous flux through simple areas in medium (gas). At last illumination and temperature are presented. The content is interesting for opticians, light technicians and all physicists and natural scientists, who have to do with radiation. There is an english and a german edition.

Particle Detectors Subatomic Bomb Squad

ScienceCinema

Lincoln, Don

2018-01-16

The manner in which particle physicists investigate collisions in particle accelerators is a puzzling process. Using vaguely-defined “detectors,” scientists are able to somehow reconstruct the collisions and convert that information into physics measurements. In this video, Fermilab’s Dr. Don Lincoln sheds light on this mysterious technique. In a surprising analogy, he draws a parallel between experimental particle physics and bomb squad investigators and uses an explosive example to illustrate his points. Be sure to watch this video… it’s totally the bomb.

Electroactive materials for organic electronics: preparation strategies, structural aspects and characterization techniques.

PubMed

Pron, Adam; Gawrys, Pawel; Zagorska, Malgorzata; Djurado, David; Demadrille, Renaud

2010-07-01

This critical review discusses specific chemical and physicochemical requirements which must be met for organic compounds to be considered as promising materials for applications in organic electronics. Although emphasis is put on molecules and macromolecules suitable for fabrication of field effect transistors (FETs), a large fraction of the discussed compounds can also be applied in other organic or hybrid (organic-inorganic) electronic devices such as photodiodes, light emitting diodes, photovoltaic cells, etc. It should be of interest to chemists, physicists, material scientists and electrical engineers working in the domain of organic electronics (423 references).

HIGH ENERGY PHYSICS: CERN Link Breathes Life Into Russian Physics.

PubMed

Stone, R

2000-10-13

Without fanfare, 600 Russian scientists here at CERN, the European particle physics laboratory, are playing key roles in building the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), a machine that will explore fundamental questions such as why particles have mass, as well as search for exotic new particles whose existence would confirm supersymmetry, a popular theory that aims to unify the four forces of nature. In fact, even though Russia is not one of CERN's 20 member states, most top high-energy physicists in Russia are working on the LHC. Some say their work could prove the salvation of high-energy physics back home.

Using non-specialist observers in 4AFC human observer studies

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Elangovan, Premkumar; Mackenzie, Alistair; Dance, David R.; Young, Kenneth C.; Wells, Kevin

2017-03-01

Virtual clinical trials (VCTs) are an emergent approach for rapid evaluation and comparison of various breast imaging technologies and techniques using computer-based modeling tools. Increasingly 4AFC (Four alternative forced choice) virtual clinical trials are used to compare detection performances of different breast imaging modalities. Most prior studies have used physicists and/or radiologists and physicists interchangeably. However, large scale use of statistically significant 4AFC observer studies is challenged by the individual time commitment and cost of such observers, often drawn from a limited local pool of specialists. This work aims to investigate whether non-specialist observers can be used to supplement such studies. A team of five specialist observers (medical physicists) and five non-specialists participated in a 4AFC study containing simulated 2D-mammography and DBT (digital breast tomosynthesis) images, produced using the OPTIMAM toolbox for VCTs. The images contained 4mm irregular solid masses and 4mm spherical targets at a range of contrast levels embedded in a realistic breast phantom background. There was no statistically significant difference between the detection performance of medical physicists and non-specialists (p>0.05). However, non-specialists took longer to complete the study than their physicist counterparts, which was statistically significant (p<0.05). Overall, the results from both observer groups indicate that DBT has a lower detectable threshold contrast than 2D-mammography for both masses and spheres, and both groups found spheres easier to detect than irregular solid masses.

Report on the solar physics-plasma physics workshop

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Sturrock, P. A.; Baum, P. J.; Beckers, J. M.; Newman, C. E.; Priest, E. R.; Rosenberg, H.; Smith, D. F.; Wentzel, D. G.

1976-01-01

The paper summarizes discussions held between solar physicists and plasma physicists on the interface between solar and plasma physics, with emphasis placed on the question of what laboratory experiments, or computer experiments, could be pursued to test proposed mechanisms involved in solar phenomena. Major areas discussed include nonthermal plasma on the sun, spectroscopic data needed in solar plasma diagnostics, types of magnetic field structures in the sun's atmosphere, the possibility of MHD phenomena involved in solar eruptive phenomena, the role of non-MHD instabilities in energy release in solar flares, particle acceleration in solar flares, shock waves in the sun's atmosphere, and mechanisms of radio emission from the sun.

Nontrivial Quantum Effects in Biology: A Skeptical Physicists' View

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wiseman, Howard; Eisert, Jens

The following sections are included: * Introduction * A Quantum Life Principle * A quantum chemistry principle? * The anthropic principle * Quantum Computing in the Brain * Nature did everything first? * Decoherence as the make or break issue * Quantum error correction * Uselessness of quantum algorithms for organisms * Quantum Computing in Genetics * Quantum search * Teleological aspects and the fast-track to life * Quantum Consciousness * Computability and free will * Time scales * Quantum Free Will * Predictability and free will * Determinism and free will * Acknowledgements * References

Computational modelling of memory retention from synapse to behaviour

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

van Rossum, Mark C. W.; Shippi, Maria

2013-03-01

One of our most intriguing mental abilities is the capacity to store information and recall it from memory. Computational neuroscience has been influential in developing models and concepts of learning and memory. In this tutorial review we focus on the interplay between learning and forgetting. We discuss recent advances in the computational description of the learning and forgetting processes on synaptic, neuronal, and systems levels, as well as recent data that open up new challenges for statistical physicists.

Women in medical physics: a preliminary analysis of workforce and research participation in Australia and New Zealand.

PubMed

Crowe, S B; Kairn, T

2016-06-01

Although the participation of women within the science, technology, engineering and mathematics workforces has been widely discussed over recent decades, the recording and analysis of data pertaining to the gender balance of medical physicists in Australia and New Zealand remains rare. This study aimed to provide a baseline for evaluating future changes in workforce demographics by quantifying the current level of representation of women in the Australasian medical physics workforce and providing an indication of the relative contribution made by those women to the local research environment. The 2015 Australasian College of Physical Scientists and Engineers in Medicine (ACPSEM) member directory and list of chief physicists at ACPSEM-accredited radiation oncology and diagnostic imaging training centres were interrogated to identify the gender balance of medical physicists working in Australia and New Zealand. A specific investigation of the employment levels of all medical physicists in Queensland was undertaken to provide an example of the gender balance at different levels of seniority in one large Australian state. Lists of authors of medical physics presentations at ACPSEM annual conferences and authors of publications in the ACPSEM's official journal, were used to provide an indication of the gender balance in published research within Australia and New Zealand. The results of this study showed that women currently constitute approximately 28 % of the medical physics workforce in Australia and New Zealand, distributed disproportionally in junior roles; there is a decrease in female participation in the field with increasing levels of seniority, which is particularly apparent in the stratified data obtained for the Queensland workforce. Comparisons with older data suggest that this situation has changed little since 2008. Examination of ACPSEM conference presentations suggested that there are similar disparities between the gender-balance of proffered and invited or keynote speakers (28 % and 13 % from female authors) and the gender balance of certified and chief physicists (28 % and 21 % female). The representation of women in the ACPSEM journal does not differ substantially between authorship of proffered versus invited work (22 % and 19 % from female authors). While this work was limited to evaluating the membership, annual conference and official journal of the ACPSEM (rather than evaluating the entire medical physics workforce and the contributions of male and female physicists to international conferences and publications), this study nonetheless led to the following recommendations: that a longitudinal study analysing correlations between age, period of service, seniority and gender should be undertaken and that future ACPSEM workforce surveys should include analyses of gender representation.

Emperical Laws in Economics Uncovered Using Methods in Statistical Mechanics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Stanley, H. Eugene

2001-06-01

In recent years, statistical physicists and computational physicists have determined that physical systems which consist of a large number of interacting particles obey universal "scaling laws" that serve to demonstrate an intrinsic self-similarity operating in such systems. Further, the parameters appearing in these scaling laws appear to be largely independent of the microscopic details. Since economic systems also consist of a large number of interacting units, it is plausible that scaling theory can be usefully applied to economics. To test this possibility using realistic data sets, a number of scientists have begun analyzing economic data using methods of statistical physics [1]. We have found evidence for scaling (and data collapse), as well as universality, in various quantities, and these recent results will be reviewed in this talk--starting with the most recent study [2]. We also propose models that may lead to some insight into these phenomena. These results will be discussed, as well as the overall rationale for why one might expect scaling principles to hold for complex economic systems. This work on which this talk is based is supported by BP, and was carried out in collaboration with L. A. N. Amaral S. V. Buldyrev, D. Canning, P. Cizeau, X. Gabaix, P. Gopikrishnan, S. Havlin, Y. Lee, Y. Liu, R. N. Mantegna, K. Matia, M. Meyer, C.-K. Peng, V. Plerou, M. A. Salinger, and M. H. R. Stanley. [1.] See, e.g., R. N. Mantegna and H. E. Stanley, Introduction to Econophysics: Correlations & Complexity in Finance (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1999). [2.] P. Gopikrishnan, B. Rosenow, V. Plerou, and H. E. Stanley, "Identifying Business Sectors from Stock Price Fluctuations," e-print cond-mat/0011145; V. Plerou, P. Gopikrishnan, L. A. N. Amaral, X. Gabaix, and H. E. Stanley, "Diffusion and Economic Fluctuations," Phys. Rev. E (Rapid Communications) 62, 3023-3026 (2000); P. Gopikrishnan, V. Plerou, X. Gabaix, and H. E. Stanley, "Statistical Properties of Share Volume Traded in Financial Markets," Phys. Rev. E (Rapid Communications) 62, 4493-4496 (2000).

Supermultiplicative Speedups of Probabilistic Model-Building Genetic Algorithms

DTIC Science & Technology

2009-02-01

physicists as well as practitioners in evolutionary computation. The project was later extended to the one-dimensional SK spin glass with power -law... Brasil ) 10. Yuji Sato (Hosei University, Japan) 11. Shunsukc Saruwatari (Tokyo University, Japan) 12. Jian-Hung Chen (Feng Chia University, Taiwan...scalability. In A. Tiwari, J. Knowlcs, E. Avincri, K. Dahal, and R. Roy (Eds.) Applications of Soft Computing: Recent Trends. Berlin: Springer (2006

Sam Goudsmit--His Physics and His Statesmanship

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bederson, Benjamin

2010-03-01

Sam Goudsmit was already a famous theoretical physicist in his thirties, mainly because of his co-discovery of electron spin with George Uhlenbeck while both were students of Paul Ehrenfest in Holland in 1925. He and Uhlenbeck continued their thriving careers at the University of Michigan. Goudsmit's style as a physicist was always to make as close a connection between theory and experiment as possible. Thus, for example, his development with his student Robert Bacher of the technique called ``fractional parentage'' used fruitfully in both atomic and nuclear physics to compute energy levels of unknown states in terms of know ones. He also delved deeply into problems related to determinations of nuclear spins and moments. Partly because of his service as scientific leader of the Alsos project at the end of WWII he became a leading statesman of science. I will describe some of his achievements both as a physicist and as a statesman, prior to his becoming Editor in Chief of the American Physical Society.

Einstein and Millikan

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Erwin, Charlotte

2005-03-01

Albert Einstein traveled to America by boat during the great depression to consult with scientists at the California Institute of Technology. He was a theoretical physicist, a Nobel Prize winner, and a 20th century folk hero. Few members of the general public understood his theories, but they idolized him all the same. The invitation came from physicist Robert Millikan, who had initiated a visiting-scholars program at Caltech shortly after he became head of the school in 1921. Einstein's visits to the campus in 1931, 1932, and 1933 capped Millikan's campaign to make Caltech one of the physics capitals of the world. Mount Wilson astronomer Edwin Hubble's discovery that redshifts are proportional to their distances from the observer challenged Einstein's cosmological picture of a static universe. The big question at Caltech in 1931 was whether Einstein would give up his cosmological constant and accept the idea of an expanding universe. By day, Einstein discussed his theory and its interpretation at length with Richard Tolman, Hubble, and the other scientists on the campus. By night, Einstein filled his travel diary with his personal impressions. During his third visit, Einstein sidestepped as long as possible the question of whether conditions in Germany might prevent his return there. After the January 30 announcement that Hitler had become chancellor of Germany, the question could no longer be evaded. He postponed his return trip for a few weeks and then went to Belgium for several months instead of to Berlin. In the fall of 1933, Albert Einstein returned to the United States as an emigre and became a charter member of Abraham Flexner's new Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. Why did Einstein go to Princeton and not Pasadena?

Science as theater, theater as science

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lustig, Harry

2002-04-01

Beginning with Bertold Brecht's "Galileo" in 1942 and Friedrich Dürrenmatt's "The Physicists" in 1962, physics and other sciences have served a number of dramatists as backdrops for the exposition of existential problems, as well as the provision of entertainment. Michael Frayn's 1998 play "Copenhagen" broke new ground by giving a central role to the presentation of scientific substance and ideas and to the examination of recent controversial and emotionally charged events in the history of science and of the "real world". A rash of "science plays" erupted. How should we physicists react to this development? Surely, it can be argued, any exposure of science to the public is better than none and will help break down the barriers between the "two cultures". But what if the science or the scientists are badly misrepresented or the play is a weapon to strip science of its legitimacy and its claims to reality and truth? After reviewing a half dozen of the new plays, I conclude that "Copenhagen", though flawed, is not only the best of show, but a positive, even admirable endeavor. The contributions of Bohr, Heisenberg, Born, Schrödinger, and other scientists and their interactions in the golden years of the creation of quantum mechanics are accurately and thrillingly rendered. There may be no better non-technical exposition of complementarity and the uncertainty principle than the one that Frayn puts into the mouths of Bohr and Heisenberg. The treatment of the history of the atomic bomb and Heisenberg's role in Germany's failure to achieve a bomb is another matter. Frayn can also be criticized for applying uncertainly and complementarity to the macroscopic world and, in particular, to human interactions, thereby giving some aid and comfort to the post-modernists. These reservations aside, Copenhagen is a beautiful contribution to the appreciation of science.

TH-A-16A-01: Image Quality for the Radiation Oncology Physicist: Review of the Fundamentals and Implementation

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Seibert, J; Imbergamo, P

The expansion and integration of diagnostic imaging technologies such as On Board Imaging (OBI) and Cone Beam Computed Tomography (CBCT) into radiation oncology has required radiation oncology physicists to be responsible for and become familiar with assessing image quality. Unfortunately many radiation oncology physicists have had little or no training or experience in measuring and assessing image quality. Many physicists have turned to automated QA analysis software without having a fundamental understanding of image quality measures. This session will review the basic image quality measures of imaging technologies used in the radiation oncology clinic, such as low contrast resolution, highmore » contrast resolution, uniformity, noise, and contrast scale, and how to measure and assess them in a meaningful way. Additionally a discussion of the implementation of an image quality assurance program in compliance with Task Group recommendations will be presented along with the advantages and disadvantages of automated analysis methods. Learning Objectives: Review and understanding of the fundamentals of image quality. Review and understanding of the basic image quality measures of imaging modalities used in the radiation oncology clinic. Understand how to implement an image quality assurance program and to assess basic image quality measures in a meaningful way.« less

Interactive visualization of Earth and Space Science computations

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Hibbard, William L.; Paul, Brian E.; Santek, David A.; Dyer, Charles R.; Battaiola, Andre L.; Voidrot-Martinez, Marie-Francoise

1994-01-01

Computers have become essential tools for scientists simulating and observing nature. Simulations are formulated as mathematical models but are implemented as computer algorithms to simulate complex events. Observations are also analyzed and understood in terms of mathematical models, but the number of these observations usually dictates that we automate analyses with computer algorithms. In spite of their essential role, computers are also barriers to scientific understanding. Unlike hand calculations, automated computations are invisible and, because of the enormous numbers of individual operations in automated computations, the relation between an algorithm's input and output is often not intuitive. This problem is illustrated by the behavior of meteorologists responsible for forecasting weather. Even in this age of computers, many meteorologists manually plot weather observations on maps, then draw isolines of temperature, pressure, and other fields by hand (special pads of maps are printed for just this purpose). Similarly, radiologists use computers to collect medical data but are notoriously reluctant to apply image-processing algorithms to that data. To these scientists with life-and-death responsibilities, computer algorithms are black boxes that increase rather than reduce risk. The barrier between scientists and their computations can be bridged by techniques that make the internal workings of algorithms visible and that allow scientists to experiment with their computations. Here we describe two interactive systems developed at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Space Science and Engineering Center (SSEC) that provide these capabilities to Earth and space scientists.

Toward a superconducting quantum computer

PubMed Central

Tsai, Jaw-Shen

2010-01-01

Intensive research on the construction of superconducting quantum computers has produced numerous important achievements. The quantum bit (qubit), based on the Josephson junction, is at the heart of this research. This macroscopic system has the ability to control quantum coherence. This article reviews the current state of quantum computing as well as its history, and discusses its future. Although progress has been rapid, the field remains beset with unsolved issues, and there are still many new research opportunities open to physicists and engineers. PMID:20431256

Toward a superconducting quantum computer. Harnessing macroscopic quantum coherence.

PubMed

Tsai, Jaw-Shen

2010-01-01

Intensive research on the construction of superconducting quantum computers has produced numerous important achievements. The quantum bit (qubit), based on the Josephson junction, is at the heart of this research. This macroscopic system has the ability to control quantum coherence. This article reviews the current state of quantum computing as well as its history, and discusses its future. Although progress has been rapid, the field remains beset with unsolved issues, and there are still many new research opportunities open to physicists and engineers.

Effects of Relativity Lead to"Warp Speed" Computations

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Vay, J.-L.

A scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has discovered that a previously unnoticed consequence of Einstein's special theory of relativity can lead to speedup of computer calculations by orders of magnitude when applied to the computer modeling of a certain class of physical systems. This new finding offers the possibility of tackling some problems in a much shorter time and with far more precision than was possible before, as well as studying some configurations in every detail for the first time. The basis of Einstein's theory is the principle of relativity, which states that the laws of physics are themore » same for all observers, whether the 'observer' is a turtle 'racing' with a rabbit, or a beam of particles moving at near light speed. From the invariance of the laws of physics, one may be tempted to infer that the complexity of a system is independent of the motion of the observer, and consequently, a computer simulation will require the same number of mathematical operations, independently of the reference frame that is used for the calculation. Length contraction and time dilation are well known consequences of the special theory of relativity which lead to very counterintuitive effects. An alien observing human activity through a telescope in a spaceship traveling in the Vicinity of the earth near the speed of light would see everything flattened in the direction of propagation of its spaceship (for him, the earth would have the shape of a pancake), while all motions on earth would appear extremely slow, slowed almost to a standstill. Conversely, a space scientist observing the alien through a telescope based on earth would see a flattened alien almost to a standstill in a flattened spaceship. Meanwhile, an astronaut sitting in a spaceship moving at some lower velocity than the alien spaceship with regard to earth might see both the alien spaceship and the earth flattened in the same proportion and the motion unfolding in each of them at the same speed. Let us now assume that each protagonist (the alien, the space scientist and the astronaut) is to run a computer simulation describing the motion of all of them in a single calculation. In order to model a physical system on a computer, scientists often divide space and time into small chunks. Since the computer must calculated some things for each chunk, having a large system containing numerous small chunks translates to long calculations requiring many computational steps on supercomputers. Let us assume that each protagonist of our intergalactic story uses the space and time slicing as described and chooses to perform the calculation in its own frame of reference. For the alien and the space scientist, the slicing of space and time results in an exceedingly large number of chunks, due to the wide disparity of spatial and time scales needed to describe both their own environment and motion together with the other extremely flattened environment and slowed motion. Since the disparity of scales is reduced for the astronaut, who is traveling at an intermediate velocity, the number of computer operations needed to complete the calculation in his frame of reference will be significantly lower, possibly by many orders of magnitude. Analogously, the new discovery at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory shows that there exists a frame of reference minimizing the number of computational operations needed for studying the interaction of beams of particles or light (lasers) interacting at, or near, light speed with other particles or with surrounding structures. Speedups ranging from ten to a million times or more are predicted for the modeling of beams interacting with electron clouds, such as those in the upcoming Large Hadron Collider 'atom smasher' accelerator at CERN (Switzerland), and in free electron lasers and tabletop laser wakefield accelerators. The discovery has surprised many physicists and was received initially with much skepticism. It sounded too much like a 'free lunch'. Yet, the demonstration of a speedup of a stunning one thousand times in a test simulation of a particle beam interacting with a background of electrons (see image), has proven that the effect is real and can be applied successfully, at least to some problems. Work is being actively pursued at Berkeley Lab and elsewhere to validate the feasibility of the method for a wider range of applications, as well as to apply the already successful method to more problems, where it might help getting better understanding of some processes and eventually lead to new findings.« less

Precision Oncology and Genomically Guided Radiation Therapy: A Report From the American Society for Radiation Oncology/American Association of Physicists in Medicine/National Cancer Institute Precision Medicine Conference.

PubMed

Hall, William A; Bergom, Carmen; Thompson, Reid F; Baschnagel, Andrew M; Vijayakumar, Srinivasan; Willers, Henning; Li, X Allen; Schultz, Christopher J; Wilson, George D; West, Catharine M L; Capala, Jacek; Coleman, C Norman; Torres-Roca, Javier F; Weidhaas, Joanne; Feng, Felix Y

2018-06-01

To summarize important talking points from a 2016 symposium focusing on real-world challenges to advancing precision medicine in radiation oncology, and to help radiation oncologists navigate the practical challenges of precision, radiation oncology. The American Society for Radiation Oncology, American Association of Physicists in Medicine, and National Cancer Institute cosponsored a meeting on precision medicine in radiation oncology. In June 2016 numerous scientists, clinicians, and physicists convened at the National Institutes of Health to discuss challenges and future directions toward personalized radiation therapy. Various breakout sessions were held to discuss particular components and approaches to the implementation of personalized radiation oncology. This article summarizes the genomically guided radiation therapy breakout session. A summary of existing genomic data enabling personalized radiation therapy, ongoing clinical trials, current challenges, and future directions was collected. The group attempted to provide both a current overview of data that radiation oncologists could use to personalize therapy, along with data that are anticipated in the coming years. It seems apparent from the provided review that a considerable opportunity exists to truly bring genomically guided radiation therapy into clinical reality. Genomically guided radiation therapy is a necessity that must be embraced in the coming years. Incorporating these data into treatment recommendations will provide radiation oncologists with a substantial opportunity to improve outcomes for numerous cancer patients. More research focused on this topic is needed to bring genomic signatures into routine standard of care. Published by Elsevier Inc.

TU-E-BRD-01: President’s Symposium: The Necessity of Innovation in Medical Physics

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Bayouth, J; Siewerdsen, J; Wahl, E

This abstract will not blow you away, but speed-painting presenter Erik Wahl will certainly make a truly unique AAPM symposium that you will not want to miss. Along with clinical director John Bayouth and scientific leader Jeff Siewerdsen, this session will highlight innovation. To avoid being button pushers and irrelevant investigators of yesterday’s science, we must innovate. This is particularly challenging in the changing landscape of declining research funding and healthcare reimbursement. But all hope is not lost, Medical Physics is a field born out of innovation. As scientists we quickly translated the man-made and natural phenomena of radiation intomore » a tool that could diagnose broken bones, locate foreign objects imbedded within the body, and treat a spectrum of diseases. As hyperbolae surrounding the curative powers of radiation overcame society, physicists continued their systematic pursuit of a fundamental understanding of radiation and applied their knowledge to enable the diagnostic and therapeutic power of this new tool. Health economics and the decline in research funding have put the Medical Physicist in a precarious position: how do we optimally participate in medical research and advanced patient care in the face of many competing needs? Today's diagnostic imaging and therapeutic approaches are tremendously sophisticated. Researchers and commercial vendors are producing technologies at a remarkable rate; to enable their safe and effective implementation Medical Physicists must work from a fundamental understanding of these technologies. This requires all of us, clinically practicing Medical Physicists, Researchers and Educators alike, to combine our training in scientific methods with innovation. Innovation is the key to our past, a necessity for our contemporary challenges, and critical for the future of Medical Physics. The keynote speakers for the 2014 AAPM Presidential Symposium session will address the way we approach these vitally important technologies for diagnosis and therapy into opportunities to innovate. The speed-painting artist and lecturer Erik Wahl will finish the symposium with a fast-paced and entertaining presentation on embracing the future by creating disruptive innovation strategies. Learning Objectives: Identify connection between Medical Physics and Innovation. Understand how Innovation enables Clinical Medical Physicists to implement novel technologies. Learn how innovative Medical Physics solutions can address significant and relevant challenges in science. Become inspired to pursue a new scientific understanding, positive change in clinical practice, and benefit to patients.« less

Climate@Home: Crowdsourcing Climate Change Research

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Xu, C.; Yang, C.; Li, J.; Sun, M.; Bambacus, M.

2011-12-01

Climate change deeply impacts human wellbeing. Significant amounts of resources have been invested in building super-computers that are capable of running advanced climate models, which help scientists understand climate change mechanisms, and predict its trend. Although climate change influences all human beings, the general public is largely excluded from the research. On the other hand, scientists are eagerly seeking communication mediums for effectively enlightening the public on climate change and its consequences. The Climate@Home project is devoted to connect the two ends with an innovative solution: crowdsourcing climate computing to the general public by harvesting volunteered computing resources from the participants. A distributed web-based computing platform will be built to support climate computing, and the general public can 'plug-in' their personal computers to participate in the research. People contribute the spare computing power of their computers to run a computer model, which is used by scientists to predict climate change. Traditionally, only super-computers could handle such a large computing processing load. By orchestrating massive amounts of personal computers to perform atomized data processing tasks, investments on new super-computers, energy consumed by super-computers, and carbon release from super-computers are reduced. Meanwhile, the platform forms a social network of climate researchers and the general public, which may be leveraged to raise climate awareness among the participants. A portal is to be built as the gateway to the climate@home project. Three types of roles and the corresponding functionalities are designed and supported. The end users include the citizen participants, climate scientists, and project managers. Citizen participants connect their computing resources to the platform by downloading and installing a computing engine on their personal computers. Computer climate models are defined at the server side. Climate scientists configure computer model parameters through the portal user interface. After model configuration, scientists then launch the computing task. Next, data is atomized and distributed to computing engines that are running on citizen participants' computers. Scientists will receive notifications on the completion of computing tasks, and examine modeling results via visualization modules of the portal. Computing tasks, computing resources, and participants are managed by project managers via portal tools. A portal prototype has been built for proof of concept. Three forums have been setup for different groups of users to share information on science aspect, technology aspect, and educational outreach aspect. A facebook account has been setup to distribute messages via the most popular social networking platform. New treads are synchronized from the forums to facebook. A mapping tool displays geographic locations of the participants and the status of tasks on each client node. A group of users have been invited to test functions such as forums, blogs, and computing resource monitoring.

The Axion Dark Matter Experiment: Big Science with a (relatively) Small Team

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Carosi, Gianpaolo

2016-03-01

The idea of the solitary physicist tinkering alone in a lab was my image of how science was done growing up (mostly influenced by popular culture). Of course this is not generally how experimental physics is done now days with examples of experiments at the LHC now involving thousands of scientists. In this talk I will describe my experience in a relatively modest project, the Axion Dark Matter eXperiment (ADMX), which involves only a few dozen scientists at various universities and national labs. I will outline ADMX's humble beginnings at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), where it began in the mid-1990s, and describe how the collaboration has evolved and grown throughout the years, as we pursue our elusive quarry: the dark-matter axion. Supported by DOE Grants DE-FG02-97ER41029, DE-FG02-96ER40956, DE- AC52-07NA27344, DE-AC03-76SF00098, and the Livermore LDRD program.

[Max Planck--an adversary of Christianity? The debate about Planck's attitude towards religion after World War II].

PubMed

Löhr, Gebhard

2012-03-01

The article discusses a debate which unfolded in the early 1950s and 1960s between East German Marxist philosophers and historians of science and West German theologians and scientists. The subject treated was the attitude towards religion of famous physicist Max Planck who had died a few years earlier, in 1947. The article analyses the different positions of the contributors, mainly with a view to developing a categorial framework usable in descriptions and analyses of the religious attitudes of natural scientists. Moreover the different stages of the debate are outlined in order to exhibit their connections to the larger historical context, i.e. the unfolding of the cold war. In the light of this the debate can be regarded as a religious or ideological war, albeit a cold one, on German soil, which fortunately did not escalate into a hot conflict. It ended, as can be illustrated in a late contribution to the debate, with the collapse of the GDR in 1989 or shortly thereafter.

Astronomers Who Write Science Fiction: Using SF as a Form of Astronomy Outreach

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fraknoi, Andrew

2017-01-01

In a recent survey, I have identified 21 living professional astronomers who write science fiction, plus a yet uncounted number of physicists. Many of the science fiction stories by this group involve, as you might imagine, reasonable extrapolation from current scientific ideas and discoveries. These stories, some of which are available free on the Web or are collected in inexpensive anthologies, represented a method of astronomy outreach to which relatively little attention has been paid. I will list the authors identified in the survey and provide a representative list of their stories or novels, organized by astronomical topic. I will also discuss how written SF (and SF films based on ideas by scientists, such as Kip Thorne's "Interstellar") can be used in general education classes and public programs. Scientists do not need to cede the field to wizards, dragons, and zombies! (Note: The author is included in the list of 21, having published two short stories in two different anthologies recently.)

Beyond disciplinary borders. H. A. Lorentz and S. Ramón y Cajal.

PubMed

Fernández Santarén, J; Kox, A J; Sánchez-Ron, J M

2014-01-01

Science is a multidisciplinary enterprise. Mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, geology, and many other, perhaps not so " basic ", but not less interesting disciplines form what we call " science ". The task of history of science is to recover and put order in the past of such disciplines. Although, on most the occasions, those histories are limited by the territories of the different sciences, we know that their frontiers are not impermeable, that there are relationships between them. However, it is not frequent to find studies dealing with those relationships, especially dealing with relations among scientists belonging to different fields. In the present paper, we study a case in which two outstanding scientists, a physicist and a histologist (or neuroscientist, as we would say today), the Dutchman Hendrik A. Lorentz and the Spanish Santiago Ramón y Cajal, maintained a, albeit brief, relation. Both being such prominent scientific figures, of worldwide stature, the relation they maintained deserves to be known.

Quark Matter 2017: Young Scientist Support

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Evdokimov, Olga

Quark Matter conference series are amongst the major scientific events for the Relativistic Heavy Ion community. With over 30 year long history, the meetings are held about every 1½ years to showcase the progress made in theoretical and experimental studies of nuclear matter under extreme conditions. The 26th International Conference on Ultra-relativistic Nucleus-Nucleus Collisions (Quark Matter 2017) was held at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in downtown Chicago from Sunday, February 5th through Saturday, February 11th, 2017. The conference featured about 180 plenary and parallel presentations of the most significant recent results in the field, a poster session for additional presentations,more » and an evening public lecture. Following the tradition of previous Quark Matter meetings, the first day of the conference was dedicated entirely to a special program for young scientists (graduate students and postdoctoral researchers). This grant will provided financial support for 235 young physicists facilitating their attendance of the conference.« less

Finding Your Scientific Voice - Theatre Techniques for Physicists

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Dreyer-Lude, Melanie

Research talks can be dull. Scientists may be making important, ground-breaking discoveries, but their audience is often missing the message. Whether presenting a conference talk, pitching a congressman for funding, or participating in a job interview, scientists must learn how to tell their stories. Conducting research and talking about that research are separate skill sets. The curse of knowledge, too much information, or the inability to speak and move properly may all be standing in the way of turning a talk into a memorable event. Building on initiatives like those of the Alan Alda Center and Bruce Greenes theatrical productions, our workshop helps researchers connect performing skills to the reality of presenting complex research subjects. This talk reviews key aspects of the Finding Your Scientific Voice workshop. Using digital recordings of pre and post workshop presentations, we will demonstrate what is exceptional about our workshop process and how it uses theatrical tools like Great Beginnings, the Dramatic Arc, the Core Message and Strong Endings to transform a humdrum presentation into a dynamic speaking event.

Big Bang Day : The Great Big Particle Adventure - 1. Atom

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

None

2009-10-08

In this series, comedian and physicist Ben Miller asks the CERN scientists what they hope to find. The notion of atoms dates back to Greek philosophers who sought a natural mechanical explanation of the Universe, as opposed to a divine one. The existence what we call chemical atoms, the constituents of all we see around us, wasn't proved until a hundred years ago, but almost simultaneously it was realised these weren't the indivisible constituents the Greeks envisaged. Much of the story of physics since then has been the ever-deeper probing of matter until, at the end of the 20th century,more » a complete list of fundamental ingredients had been identified, apart from one, the much discussed Higgs particle. In this programme, Ben finds out why this last particle is so pivotal, not just to atomic theory, but to our very existence - and how hopeful the scientists are of proving its existence.« less

RIKEN BNL Research Center

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Samios, Nicholas

2014-09-01

Since its inception in 1997, the RIKEN BNL Research Center (RBRC) has been a major force in the realms of Spin Physics, Relativistic Heavy Ion Physics, large scale Computing Physics and the training of a new generation of extremely talented physicists. This has been accomplished through the recruitment of an outstanding non-permanent staff of Fellows and Research associates in theory and experiment. RBRC is now a mature organization that has reached a steady level in the size of scientific and support staff while at the same time retaining its vibrant youth. A brief history of the scientific accomplishments and contributions of the RBRC physicists will be presented as well as a discussion of the unique RBRC management structure.

PPPC 4 DM secondary: a Poor Particle Physicist Cookbook for secondary radiation from Dark Matter

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Buch, Jatan; Cirelli, Marco; Giesen, Gaëlle; Taoso, Marco

2015-09-01

We enlarge the set of recipes and ingredients at disposal of any poor particle physicist eager to cook up signatures from weak-scale Dark Matter models by computing two secondary emissions due to DM particles annihilating or decaying in the galactic halo, namely the radio signals from synchrotron emission and the gamma rays from bremsstrahlung. We consider several magnetic field configurations and propagation scenarios for electrons and positrons. We also provide an improved energy loss function for electrons and positrons in the Galaxy, including synchrotron losses in the different configurations, bremsstrahlung losses, ionization losses and Inverse Compton losses with an updated InterStellar Radiation Field.

Proceedings of the Annual Day of Scientific Lectures (17th), and Annual Meeting of the National Society of Black Physicists (13th), Held in Baton Rouge, LA on March 21-24, 1990

DTIC Science & Technology

1990-12-01

10- 3 per IR rms energy spread. inj/20 TeV 1.75/0.5x I0-’ lonp emittance, inj/20 TeV (rms area/ir) 0.035/0.233 eV.s arc lattice /total no. long-arc...facilities of the 1990’s. Y. Dokshitzer, V. Khoze, and S. Troyan studied coherence phenomena and physics of QCD jets. Ya. Asimov, V. Khoze, and N. Uraltsev...example computational lattice gauge theory. However, despite all of their difficulties, the Soviet physicists are highly motivated and quite productive

Basic instincts

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hutson, Matthew

2018-05-01

In their adaptability, young children demonstrate common sense, a kind of intelligence that, so far, computer scientists have struggled to reproduce. Gary Marcus, a developmental cognitive scientist at New York University in New York City, believes the field of artificial intelligence (AI) would do well to learn lessons from young thinkers. Researchers in machine learning argue that computers trained on mountains of data can learn just about anything—including common sense—with few, if any, programmed rules. But Marcus says computer scientists are ignoring decades of work in the cognitive sciences and developmental psychology showing that humans have innate abilities—programmed instincts that appear at birth or in early childhood—that help us think abstractly and flexibly. He believes AI researchers ought to include such instincts in their programs. Yet many computer scientists, riding high on the successes of machine learning, are eagerly exploring the limits of what a naïve AI can do. Computer scientists appreciate simplicity and have an aversion to debugging complex code. Furthermore, big companies such as Facebook and Google are pushing AI in this direction. These companies are most interested in narrowly defined, near-term problems, such as web search and facial recognition, in which blank-slate AI systems can be trained on vast data sets and work remarkably well. But in the longer term, computer scientists expect AIs to take on much tougher tasks that require flexibility and common sense. They want to create chatbots that explain the news, autonomous taxis that can handle chaotic city traffic, and robots that nurse the elderly. Some computer scientists are already trying. Such efforts, researchers hope, will result in AIs that sit somewhere between pure machine learning and pure instinct. They will boot up following some embedded rules, but will also learn as they go.

Crookes, carbolic and cattle plague.

PubMed

Brock, William H

2002-09-01

Forging a scientific career in 19th-century Britain was difficult for most middle-class scientists. Despite his discovery of thallium in 1861 and later distinction as an experimental physicist that led him to the Presidency of the Royal Society (1913-1915), William Crookes (1832-1919) never obtained one of the limited number of academic or official positions. Scientific journalism and commercial activities were eventually to bring him financial security, but before that he was an opportunist willing to try his hand at anything that would win him national publicity. This is illustrated by his intervention in the great cattle plague epidemic that swept the UK between 1865 and 1866.

Stopping time: Henry Fox Talbot and the origins of freeze-frame photography.

PubMed

Ramalingam, Chitra

2008-09-01

As an image-making tool for scientists studying the transient, instantaneous photography has long been seen as opening up a visual realm previously inaccessible to the inferior testimony of the human eye. But when photographic pioneer Henry Fox Talbot took the first photograph of a moving object by the light of an electric spark in 1851, he was guided by existing visual practices designed to create instantaneous vision in the eye itself. Exploring the background behind the peculiar subject of his experiment - a mechanically spinning disc - reveals a hidden prehistory of spark-illuminated photography: physicists' pre-photographic techniques for stopping time.

Gamma-Ray Detectors: From Homeland Security to the Cosmos (443rd Brookhaven Lecture)

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Bolotnikov, Aleksey

2008-12-03

Many radiation detectors are first developed for homeland security or industrial applications. Scientists, however, are continuously realizing new roles that these detectors can play in high-energy physics and astrophysics experiments. On Wednesday, December 3, join presenter Aleksey Bolotnikov, a physicist in the Nonproliferation and National Security Department (NNSD) and a co-inventor of the cadmium-zinc-telluride Frisch-ring (CdZnTe) detector, for the 443rd Brookhaven Lecture, entitled Gamma-Ray Detectors: From Homeland Security to the Cosmos. In his lecture, Bolotnikov will highlight two primary radiation-detector technologies: CdZnTe detectors and fluid-Xeon (Xe) detectors.

Angels and Demons: The Science Behind the Scenes

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Graf, Norman

Does antimatter really exist? How and why do scientists produce and use it? Does CERN exist and is there an underground complex deep beneath the Swiss/French border? Is truth stranger than fiction? Find out at the coming public lecture. On Tuesday, May 12, SLAC physicist Norman Graf will discuss the real science behind Angels & Demons, Dan Brown's blockbuster novel and the basis of an upcoming Tom Hanks movie. Graf's' talk is one in a series of public lectures across the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico to share the science of antimatter and the Large Hadron Collider, and the excitementmore » of particle physics research.« less

Approximations, idealizations and 'experiments' at the physics-biology interface.

PubMed

Rowbottom, Darrell P

2011-06-01

This paper, which is based on recent empirical research at the University of Leeds, the University of Edinburgh, and the University of Bristol, presents two difficulties which arise when condensed matter physicists interact with molecular biologists: (1) the former use models which appear to be too coarse-grained, approximate and/or idealized to serve a useful scientific purpose to the latter; and (2) the latter have a rather narrower view of what counts as an experiment, particularly when it comes to computer simulations, than the former. It argues that these findings are related; that computer simulations are considered to be undeserving of experimental status, by molecular biologists, precisely because of the idealizations and approximations that they involve. The complexity of biological systems is a key factor. The paper concludes by critically examining whether the new research programme of 'systems biology' offers a genuine alternative to the modelling strategies used by physicists. It argues that it does not. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Performance evaluation of three computed radiography systems using methods recommended in American Association of Physicists in Medicine Report 93

PubMed Central

Muhogora, Wilbroad; Padovani, Renato; Bonutti, Faustino; Msaki, Peter; Kazema, R.

2011-01-01

The performances of three clinical computed radiography (CR) systems, (Agfa CR 75 (with CRMD 4.0 image plates), Kodak CR 850 (with Kodak GP plates) and Kodak CR 850A (with Kodak GP plates)) were evaluated using six tests recommended in American Association of Physicists in Medicine Report 93. The results indicated variable performances with majority being within acceptable limits. The variations were mainly attributed to differences in detector formulations, plate readers’ characteristics, and aging effects. The differences of the mean low contrast scores between the imaging systems for three observers were statistically significant for Agfa and Kodak CR 850A (P=0.009) and for Kodak CR systems (P=0.006) probably because of the differences in ages. However, the differences were not statistically significant between Agfa and Kodak CR 850 (P=0.284) suggesting similar perceived image quality. The study demonstrates the need to implement quality control program regularly. PMID:21897559

Performance evaluation of three computed radiography systems using methods recommended in American Association of Physicists in Medicine Report 93.

PubMed

Muhogora, Wilbroad; Padovani, Renato; Bonutti, Faustino; Msaki, Peter; Kazema, R

2011-07-01

The performances of three clinical computed radiography (CR) systems, (Agfa CR 75 (with CRMD 4.0 image plates), Kodak CR 850 (with Kodak GP plates) and Kodak CR 850A (with Kodak GP plates)) were evaluated using six tests recommended in American Association of Physicists in Medicine Report 93. The results indicated variable performances with majority being within acceptable limits. The variations were mainly attributed to differences in detector formulations, plate readers' characteristics, and aging effects. The differences of the mean low contrast scores between the imaging systems for three observers were statistically significant for Agfa and Kodak CR 850A (P=0.009) and for Kodak CR systems (P=0.006) probably because of the differences in ages. However, the differences were not statistically significant between Agfa and Kodak CR 850 (P=0.284) suggesting similar perceived image quality. The study demonstrates the need to implement quality control program regularly.

The APS in Public Affairs

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lustig, Harry

2000-04-01

Although the American Physical Society was created for the interchange of scientific ideas, the call to the founding meeting included the observation that the organization "could not fail to have an important influence in all matters affecting the interest of physicists". However for most of its history APS did not behave like "just another interest group in American society". Instead, at the beginning, it limited itself to such successful initiatives as the creation of the Bureau of Standards and such unsuccessful ones as adoption of the metric system. After World War II, speaking out on behalf of the freedom of science and scientists, such as Astin, Condon, and Oppenheimer, became important. In the 1970's, pushed by members, the Society became more "political", sponsoring sessions and studies on defense issues, taking a stand for the Equal Rights Amendment and creating the Panel on Public Affairs and the Forum on Physics and Society. Only in the last fifteen years has the APS unabashedly lobbied for the economic interests of physics and physicists. Adopting this new, if unavoidable role may have unintended consequences for the willingness and effectiveness of APS in speaking out on other public issues.

Between Industry and Academia: A Physicist's Experiences at The Aerospace Corporation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Camparo, James

2005-03-01

The Aerospace Corporation is a nonprofit company whose purposes are exclusively scientific: to provide research, development, and advisory services for space programs that serve the national interest, primarily the Air Force's Space and Missile Systems Center and the National Reconnaissance Office. The corporation's laboratory has a staff of about 150 scientists who conduct research in fields ranging from Space Sciences to Material Sciences and from Analytical Chemistry to Atomic Physics. As a consequence, Aerospace stands midway between an industrial research laboratory, focused on product development, and academic/national laboratories focused on basic science. Drawing from Dr. Camparo's personal experiences, the presentation will discuss advantages and disadvantages of a career at Aerospace, including the role of publishing in peer-reviewed journals and the impact of work on family life. Additionally, the presentation will consider the balance between basic physics, applied physics, and engineering in the work at Aerospace. Since joining Aerospace in 1981, Dr. Camparo has worked as an atomic physicist specializing in the area of atomic clocks, and has had the opportunity to experiment and publish on a broad range of research topics including: the stochastic-field/atom interaction, radiation effects on semiconductor materials, and stellar scintillation.

EUTEMPE-RX, an EC supported FP7 project for the training and education of medical physics experts in radiology.

PubMed

Bosmans, H; Bliznakova, K; Padovani, R; Christofides, S; Van Peteghem, N; Tsapaki, V; Caruana, C J; Vassileva, J

2015-07-01

The core activity of the medical physics expert (MPE) is to ensure optimal use of ionising radiation in healthcare. It is essential that these healthcare professionals are trained to the highest level, defined as European Qualifications Framework for Lifelong Learning (EQF) level 8 by the European Commission's Radiation Protection Report 174 'Guidelines on the MPE'. The main objective of the EUTEMPE-RX project is to provide a model training scheme that allows the medical physicist in diagnostic and interventional radiology (D&IR) to reach this high level. A European network of partners was brought together in this FP7 EC project to ensure sufficient expertise in all aspects of the subject and to create a harmonised course programme. Targeted participants are medical physicists in D&IR in hospitals, engineers and scientists in medical device industries and officers working in regulatory authorities. Twelve course modules will be developed at EQF level 8, with radiation safety and diagnostic effectiveness being prevalent subjects. The modules will combine online with face-to-face teaching using a blended learning approach. © The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Facilities | Computational Science | NREL

Science.gov Websites

technology innovation by providing scientists and engineers the ability to tackle energy challenges that scientists and engineers to take full advantage of advanced computing hardware and software resources

An Analysis of Computer-Mediated Communication between Middle School Students and Scientist Role Models: A Pilot Study.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Murfin, Brian

1994-01-01

Reports on a study of the effectiveness of computer-mediated communication (CMC) in providing African American and female middle school students with scientist role models. Quantitative and qualitative data gathered by analyzing messages students and scientists posted on a shared electronic bulletin board showed that CMC could be an effective…

Scout: high-performance heterogeneous computing made simple

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Jablin, James; Mc Cormick, Patrick; Herlihy, Maurice

2011-01-26

Researchers must often write their own simulation and analysis software. During this process they simultaneously confront both computational and scientific problems. Current strategies for aiding the generation of performance-oriented programs do not abstract the software development from the science. Furthermore, the problem is becoming increasingly complex and pressing with the continued development of many-core and heterogeneous (CPU-GPU) architectures. To acbieve high performance, scientists must expertly navigate both software and hardware. Co-design between computer scientists and research scientists can alleviate but not solve this problem. The science community requires better tools for developing, optimizing, and future-proofing codes, allowing scientists to focusmore » on their research while still achieving high computational performance. Scout is a parallel programming language and extensible compiler framework targeting heterogeneous architectures. It provides the abstraction required to buffer scientists from the constantly-shifting details of hardware while still realizing higb-performance by encapsulating software and hardware optimization within a compiler framework.« less

Earthquake and failure forecasting in real-time: A Forecasting Model Testing Centre

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Filgueira, Rosa; Atkinson, Malcolm; Bell, Andrew; Main, Ian; Boon, Steven; Meredith, Philip

2013-04-01

Across Europe there are a large number of rock deformation laboratories, each of which runs many experiments. Similarly there are a large number of theoretical rock physicists who develop constitutive and computational models both for rock deformation and changes in geophysical properties. Here we consider how to open up opportunities for sharing experimental data in a way that is integrated with multiple hypothesis testing. We present a prototype for a new forecasting model testing centre based on e-infrastructures for capturing and sharing data and models to accelerate the Rock Physicist (RP) research. This proposal is triggered by our work on data assimilation in the NERC EFFORT (Earthquake and Failure Forecasting in Real Time) project, using data provided by the NERC CREEP 2 experimental project as a test case. EFFORT is a multi-disciplinary collaboration between Geoscientists, Rock Physicists and Computer Scientist. Brittle failure of the crust is likely to play a key role in controlling the timing of a range of geophysical hazards, such as volcanic eruptions, yet the predictability of brittle failure is unknown. Our aim is to provide a facility for developing and testing models to forecast brittle failure in experimental and natural data. Model testing is performed in real-time, verifiably prospective mode, in order to avoid selection biases that are possible in retrospective analyses. The project will ultimately quantify the predictability of brittle failure, and how this predictability scales from simple, controlled laboratory conditions to the complex, uncontrolled real world. Experimental data are collected from controlled laboratory experiments which includes data from the UCL Laboratory and from Creep2 project which will undertake experiments in a deep-sea laboratory. We illustrate the properties of the prototype testing centre by streaming and analysing realistically noisy synthetic data, as an aid to generating and improving testing methodologies in imperfect conditions. The forecasting model testing centre uses a repository to hold all the data and models and a catalogue to hold all the corresponding metadata. It allows to: Data transfer: Upload experimental data: We have developed FAST (Flexible Automated Streaming Transfer) tool to upload data from RP laboratories to the repository. FAST sets up data transfer requirements and selects automatically the transfer protocol. Metadata are automatically created and stored. Web data access: Create synthetic data: Users can choose a generator and supply parameters. Synthetic data are automatically stored with corresponding metadata. Select data and models: Search the metadata using criteria design for RP. The metadata of each data (synthetic or from laboratory) and models are well-described through their respective catalogues accessible by the web portal. Upload models: Upload and store a model with associated metadata. This provide an opportunity to share models. The web portal solicits and creates metadata describing each model. Run model and visualise results: Selected data and a model to be submitted to a High Performance Computational resource hiding technical details. Results are displayed in accelerated time and stored allowing retrieval, inspection and aggregation. The forecasting model testing centre proposed could be integrated into EPOS. Its expected benefits are: Improved the understanding of brittle failure prediction and its scalability to natural phenomena. Accelerated and extensive testing and rapid sharing of insights. Increased impact and visibility of RP and GeoScience research. Resources for education and training. A key challenge is to agree the framework for sharing RP data and models. Our work is provocative first step.

Navigating catastrophes: Local but not global optimisation allows for macro-economic navigation of crises

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Harré, Michael S.

2013-02-01

Two aspects of modern economic theory have dominated the recent discussion on the state of the global economy: Crashes in financial markets and whether or not traditional notions of economic equilibrium have any validity. We have all seen the consequences of market crashes: plummeting share prices, businesses collapsing and considerable uncertainty throughout the global economy. This seems contrary to what might be expected of a system in equilibrium where growth dominates the relatively minor fluctuations in prices. Recent work from within economics as well as by physicists, psychologists and computational scientists has significantly improved our understanding of the more complex aspects of these systems. With this interdisciplinary approach in mind, a behavioural economics model of local optimisation is introduced and three general properties are proven. The first is that under very specific conditions local optimisation leads to a conventional macro-economic notion of a global equilibrium. The second is that if both global optimisation and economic growth are required then under very mild assumptions market catastrophes are an unavoidable consequence. Third, if only local optimisation and economic growth are required then there is sufficient parametric freedom for macro-economic policy makers to steer an economy around catastrophes without overtly disrupting local optimisation.

Glance Information System for ATLAS Management

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Grael, F. F.; Maidantchik, C.; Évora, L. H. R. A.; Karam, K.; Moraes, L. O. F.; Cirilli, M.; Nessi, M.; Pommès, K.; ATLAS Collaboration

2011-12-01

ATLAS Experiment is an international collaboration where more than 37 countries, 172 institutes and laboratories, 2900 physicists, engineers, and computer scientists plus 700 students participate. The management of this teamwork involves several aspects such as institute contribution, employment records, members' appointment, authors' list, preparation and publication of papers and speakers nomination. Previously, most of the information was accessible by a limited group and developers had to face problems such as different terminology, diverse data modeling, heterogeneous databases and unlike users needs. Moreover, the systems were not designed to handle new requirements. The maintenance has to be an easy task due to the long lifetime experiment and professionals turnover. The Glance system, a generic mechanism for accessing any database, acts as an intermediate layer isolating the user from the particularities of each database. It retrieves, inserts and updates the database independently of its technology and modeling. Relying on Glance, a group of systems were built to support the ATLAS management and operation aspects: ATLAS Membership, ATLAS Appointments, ATLAS Speakers, ATLAS Analysis Follow-Up, ATLAS Conference Notes, ATLAS Thesis, ATLAS Traceability and DSS Alarms Viewer. This paper presents the overview of the Glance information framework and describes the privilege mechanism developed to grant different level of access for each member and system.

The Application of Computational Chemistry to Problems in Mass Spectrometry

EPA Science Inventory

Quantum chemistry is capable of calculating a wide range of electronic and thermodynamic properties of interest to a chemist or physicist. Calculations can be used both to predict the results of future experiments and to aid in the interpretation of existing results. This paper w...

WE-H-201-00: Opportunities for Physicists to Support Low and Mid-Income Countries

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

NONE

The desperate need for radiotherapy in low and mid-income countries (LMICs) has been well documented. Roughly 60 % of the worldwide incidence of cancer occurs in these resource-limited settings and the international community alongside governmental and non-profit agencies have begun publishing reports and seeking help from qualified volunteers. However, the focus of several reports has been on how dire the situation is and the magnitude of the problem, leaving most to feel overwhelmed and unsure as to how to help and why to get involved. This session will help to explain the specific ways that Medical Physicists can uniquely assistmore » in this grand effort to help bring radiotherapy to grossly-underserved areas. Not only can these experts fulfill an important purpose, they also can benefit professionally, academically, emotionally and socially from the endeavor. By assisting others worldwide with their skillset, Medical Physicists can end up helping themselves. Learning Objectives: Understand the need for radiotherapy in LMICs. Understand which agencies are seeking Medical Physicists for help in LMICs. Understand the potential research funding mechanisms are available to establish academic collaborations with LMIC researchers/physicians. Understand the potential social and emotional benefits for both the physicist and the LMIC partners when collaborations are made. Understand the potential for collaboration with other high-income scientists that can develop as the physicist partners with other large institutions to assist LMICs. Wil Ngwa - A recent United Nations Study reports that in developing countries more people have access to cell phones than toilets. In Africa, only 63% of the population has access to piped water, yet, 93% of Africans have cell phone service. Today, these cell phones, Skype, WhatsApp and other information and communication technologies (ICTs) connect us in unprecedented ways and are increasingly recognized as powerful, indispensable to global health. Thanks to ICTs, there are growing opportunities for Medical Physicists to reach out beyond the bunker and impact the world far beyond, without even having to travel. These growing opportunities in global health for Medical Physicists, powered by ICTs, will be highlighted in this presentation, illustrated by high impact examples/models across the globe that are improving patient safety and healthcare outcomes, saving lives. Learning Objectives: Published definitions of global health and the emerging field of global radiation oncology Learn about the transformative potential of ICTs in global radiation oncology care, research and education with focus on Medical Physics Learn about high impact examples of ICT-powered global radiation oncology and the increasing opportunities for participation by Medical Physicists. Yakov Pipman - The number and scope of volunteer Medical Physics activities in support of low-to-middle income countries has been increasing gradually. This happens through a variety of formal channels and to some extent through less formal but personal initiatives. A good deal of effort is dedicated by many, but many more could be recruited through a structured framework to volunteer. We will look into typical volunteer activities and how they fit with organizations already involved in advancing Medical Physics in LMIC. We will identify the range of these organizational activities and their scope to reveal areas of further need. We will point to a few key features of MPWB ( http://www.mpwb.org ) as a volunteering and collaborating structure and how members can get involved and contribute to these efforts at the grass roots level. The goal is that scarce resources can thus be channeled to complement rather than compete with those already in place. Learning Objectives: Understand the strengths and limitations of various organizations that support Medical Physics efforts in LMIC. Learn about ways to volunteer and contribute to Global Health through a grass roots organization focused on Medical Physics in LMIC. Perry Sprawls - With the growing capability and complexity of medical imaging methods in all countries of the world, the expanding role of medical physicists includes optimizing imaging procedures with respect to image quality, radiation dose, and other conflicting factors. With access to appropriate educational resources local medical physicists in all countries can provide direct clinical support and educational for other medical professionals. This is being supported through the process of Collaborative Teaching that combines the capabilities and experience of medical physicists in countries spanning the spectrum of economic, technological, and clinical development. The supporting resources are on the web at: http://www.sprawls.org/resources . Learning Objectives: Identify the medical physics educational needs to support effective and optimized medical imaging procedures. Use collaborative teaching resources to enhance the role of medical physicists in all countries of the world.« less

WE-H-201-02: Emerging Models and Opportunities in Global Health for Medical Physicists Powered by Information and Communication Technologies

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Ngwa, W.

The desperate need for radiotherapy in low and mid-income countries (LMICs) has been well documented. Roughly 60 % of the worldwide incidence of cancer occurs in these resource-limited settings and the international community alongside governmental and non-profit agencies have begun publishing reports and seeking help from qualified volunteers. However, the focus of several reports has been on how dire the situation is and the magnitude of the problem, leaving most to feel overwhelmed and unsure as to how to help and why to get involved. This session will help to explain the specific ways that Medical Physicists can uniquely assistmore » in this grand effort to help bring radiotherapy to grossly-underserved areas. Not only can these experts fulfill an important purpose, they also can benefit professionally, academically, emotionally and socially from the endeavor. By assisting others worldwide with their skillset, Medical Physicists can end up helping themselves. Learning Objectives: Understand the need for radiotherapy in LMICs. Understand which agencies are seeking Medical Physicists for help in LMICs. Understand the potential research funding mechanisms are available to establish academic collaborations with LMIC researchers/physicians. Understand the potential social and emotional benefits for both the physicist and the LMIC partners when collaborations are made. Understand the potential for collaboration with other high-income scientists that can develop as the physicist partners with other large institutions to assist LMICs. Wil Ngwa - A recent United Nations Study reports that in developing countries more people have access to cell phones than toilets. In Africa, only 63% of the population has access to piped water, yet, 93% of Africans have cell phone service. Today, these cell phones, Skype, WhatsApp and other information and communication technologies (ICTs) connect us in unprecedented ways and are increasingly recognized as powerful, indispensable to global health. Thanks to ICTs, there are growing opportunities for Medical Physicists to reach out beyond the bunker and impact the world far beyond, without even having to travel. These growing opportunities in global health for Medical Physicists, powered by ICTs, will be highlighted in this presentation, illustrated by high impact examples/models across the globe that are improving patient safety and healthcare outcomes, saving lives. Learning Objectives: Published definitions of global health and the emerging field of global radiation oncology Learn about the transformative potential of ICTs in global radiation oncology care, research and education with focus on Medical Physics Learn about high impact examples of ICT-powered global radiation oncology and the increasing opportunities for participation by Medical Physicists. Yakov Pipman - The number and scope of volunteer Medical Physics activities in support of low-to-middle income countries has been increasing gradually. This happens through a variety of formal channels and to some extent through less formal but personal initiatives. A good deal of effort is dedicated by many, but many more could be recruited through a structured framework to volunteer. We will look into typical volunteer activities and how they fit with organizations already involved in advancing Medical Physics in LMIC. We will identify the range of these organizational activities and their scope to reveal areas of further need. We will point to a few key features of MPWB ( http://www.mpwb.org ) as a volunteering and collaborating structure and how members can get involved and contribute to these efforts at the grass roots level. The goal is that scarce resources can thus be channeled to complement rather than compete with those already in place. Learning Objectives: Understand the strengths and limitations of various organizations that support Medical Physics efforts in LMIC. Learn about ways to volunteer and contribute to Global Health through a grass roots organization focused on Medical Physics in LMIC. Perry Sprawls - With the growing capability and complexity of medical imaging methods in all countries of the world, the expanding role of medical physicists includes optimizing imaging procedures with respect to image quality, radiation dose, and other conflicting factors. With access to appropriate educational resources local medical physicists in all countries can provide direct clinical support and educational for other medical professionals. This is being supported through the process of Collaborative Teaching that combines the capabilities and experience of medical physicists in countries spanning the spectrum of economic, technological, and clinical development. The supporting resources are on the web at: http://www.sprawls.org/resources . Learning Objectives: Identify the medical physics educational needs to support effective and optimized medical imaging procedures. Use collaborative teaching resources to enhance the role of medical physicists in all countries of the world.« less

WE-H-201-04: Models for Developing Medical Physics Educators and Education Programs in the Developing Countries and the Potential Role of US Universities and Individual Medical Physicists

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Sprawls, P.

The desperate need for radiotherapy in low and mid-income countries (LMICs) has been well documented. Roughly 60 % of the worldwide incidence of cancer occurs in these resource-limited settings and the international community alongside governmental and non-profit agencies have begun publishing reports and seeking help from qualified volunteers. However, the focus of several reports has been on how dire the situation is and the magnitude of the problem, leaving most to feel overwhelmed and unsure as to how to help and why to get involved. This session will help to explain the specific ways that Medical Physicists can uniquely assistmore » in this grand effort to help bring radiotherapy to grossly-underserved areas. Not only can these experts fulfill an important purpose, they also can benefit professionally, academically, emotionally and socially from the endeavor. By assisting others worldwide with their skillset, Medical Physicists can end up helping themselves. Learning Objectives: Understand the need for radiotherapy in LMICs. Understand which agencies are seeking Medical Physicists for help in LMICs. Understand the potential research funding mechanisms are available to establish academic collaborations with LMIC researchers/physicians. Understand the potential social and emotional benefits for both the physicist and the LMIC partners when collaborations are made. Understand the potential for collaboration with other high-income scientists that can develop as the physicist partners with other large institutions to assist LMICs. Wil Ngwa - A recent United Nations Study reports that in developing countries more people have access to cell phones than toilets. In Africa, only 63% of the population has access to piped water, yet, 93% of Africans have cell phone service. Today, these cell phones, Skype, WhatsApp and other information and communication technologies (ICTs) connect us in unprecedented ways and are increasingly recognized as powerful, indispensable to global health. Thanks to ICTs, there are growing opportunities for Medical Physicists to reach out beyond the bunker and impact the world far beyond, without even having to travel. These growing opportunities in global health for Medical Physicists, powered by ICTs, will be highlighted in this presentation, illustrated by high impact examples/models across the globe that are improving patient safety and healthcare outcomes, saving lives. Learning Objectives: Published definitions of global health and the emerging field of global radiation oncology Learn about the transformative potential of ICTs in global radiation oncology care, research and education with focus on Medical Physics Learn about high impact examples of ICT-powered global radiation oncology and the increasing opportunities for participation by Medical Physicists. Yakov Pipman - The number and scope of volunteer Medical Physics activities in support of low-to-middle income countries has been increasing gradually. This happens through a variety of formal channels and to some extent through less formal but personal initiatives. A good deal of effort is dedicated by many, but many more could be recruited through a structured framework to volunteer. We will look into typical volunteer activities and how they fit with organizations already involved in advancing Medical Physics in LMIC. We will identify the range of these organizational activities and their scope to reveal areas of further need. We will point to a few key features of MPWB ( http://www.mpwb.org ) as a volunteering and collaborating structure and how members can get involved and contribute to these efforts at the grass roots level. The goal is that scarce resources can thus be channeled to complement rather than compete with those already in place. Learning Objectives: Understand the strengths and limitations of various organizations that support Medical Physics efforts in LMIC. Learn about ways to volunteer and contribute to Global Health through a grass roots organization focused on Medical Physics in LMIC. Perry Sprawls - With the growing capability and complexity of medical imaging methods in all countries of the world, the expanding role of medical physicists includes optimizing imaging procedures with respect to image quality, radiation dose, and other conflicting factors. With access to appropriate educational resources local medical physicists in all countries can provide direct clinical support and educational for other medical professionals. This is being supported through the process of Collaborative Teaching that combines the capabilities and experience of medical physicists in countries spanning the spectrum of economic, technological, and clinical development. The supporting resources are on the web at: http://www.sprawls.org/resources . Learning Objectives: Identify the medical physics educational needs to support effective and optimized medical imaging procedures. Use collaborative teaching resources to enhance the role of medical physicists in all countries of the world.« less

Biophysics at the Boundaries: The Next Problem Sets

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Skolnick, Malcolm

2009-03-01

The interface between physics and biology is one of the fastest growing subfields of physics. As knowledge of such topics as cellular processes and complex ecological systems advances, researchers have found that progress in understanding these and other systems requires application of more quantitative approaches. Today, there is a growing demand for quantitative and computational skills in biological research and the commercialization of that research. The fragmented teaching of science in our universities still leaves biology outside the quantitative and mathematical culture that is the foundation of physics. This is particularly inopportune at a time when the needs for quantitative thinking about biological systems are exploding. More physicists should be encouraged to become active in research and development in the growing application fields of biophysics including molecular genetics, biomedical imaging, tissue generation and regeneration, drug development, prosthetics, neural and brain function, kinetics of nonequilibrium open biological systems, metabolic networks, biological transport processes, large-scale biochemical networks and stochastic processes in biochemical systems to name a few. In addition to moving into basic research in these areas, there is increasing opportunity for physicists in industry beginning with entrepreneurial roles in taking research results out of the laboratory and in the industries who perfect and market the inventions and developments that physicists produce. In this talk we will identify and discuss emerging opportunities for physicists in biophysical and biotechnological pursuits ranging from basic research through development of applications and commercialization of results. This will include discussion of the roles of physicists in non-traditional areas apart from academia such as patent law, financial analysis and regulatory science and the problem sets assigned in education and training that will enable future biophysicists to fill these roles.

From Both Sides, Now: Librarians Team up with Computer Scientist to Deliver Virtual Computer-Information Literacy Instruction

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Loesch, Martha Fallahay

2011-01-01

Two members of the library faculty at Seton Hall University teamed up with a respected professor of mathematics and computer science, in order to create an online course that introduces information literacy both from the perspectives of the computer scientist and from the instruction librarian. This collaboration is unique in that it addresses the…

How to Cool the Planet by Jeff Goodell

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Goodell, J.

2010-12-01

How to Cool the Planet is a narrative about the radical and controversial world of geoengineering - the deliberate, large-scale manipulation of the earth’s climate to reduce the risk of global warming. Unlike other books on this subject, it is not a polemic or historical review. It is the story of the author, a best-selling author and journalist for the New York Times Magazine, Rolling Stone, and other publications, to answer a not-so-simple question: is geoengineering a crazy idea or not? To answer this question, the author sets out on a quest to talk with - and test the sanity of - the leading scientists in this field, from David Keith, a physicist at the University of Calgary, to James Lovelock, independent scientist best known for his Gaia theory. Along the way, Goodell explores the science behind ideas like cloud brightening and the injection of sulfur particles into the stratosphere to deflect sunlight. But he is equally interested in the moral and ethical issues behind these ideas, as well the hopes and fears of the scientists who are exploring them. In the end, the book is a kind of radical experiment itself, exploring the not just the complexities of an emerging field of science, but the complexities of communicating such audacious thinking to non-scientific readers.

The Eye of a Mathematical Physicist

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hepp, Klaus

2009-03-01

In this essay we are searching for neural correlates of `doing mathematical physics'. We introduce a toy model of a mathematical physicist, a brain connected with the outside world only by vision and saccadic eye movements and interacting with a computer screen. First, we describe the neuroanatomy of the visuo-saccadic system and Listing's law, which binds saccades and the optics of the eye. Then we explain space-time transformations in the superior colliculus, the performance of a canonical cortical circuit in the frontal eye field and finally the recurrent interaction of both areas, which leads to a coherent percept of space in spite of saccades. This sets the stage in the brain for doing mathematical physics, which is analyzed in simple examples.

Towards the Big Data Strategies for EISCAT-3D

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Häggström, I.; Chen, Y.; Hardisty, A.; Sipos, G.; Krakowian, M.; Ferreira, N. L.; Savolainen, V.

2013-12-01

The design of the next generation incoherent scatter radar system, EISCAT-3D, opens up opportunities for physicists to explore many new research fields in the studies of the atmosphere and near-Earth space. On the other hand, it also introduces significant challenges in handling the large-scale experimental data which will be massively generated at great speeds and volumes. During its first operation stage in 2018, EISCAT-3D will produce 5PB data per year, and the total data volume will rise up to 40PB per year in its full operations stage in 2023. This refers to the so-called big data problem, whose size is beyond the capabilities of the current database technology [1]. To unlock the value from these data, new forms of processing and platforms of tools are needed. Advanced e-Science infrastructures such as, EGI, EUDAT, and PRACE, and their enabling technologies are making large-scale computational capacities more accessible to researchers of all scientific disciplines. The European Grid Infrastructure (EGI), a not-for-profit foundation created to manage the infrastructures on behalf of the National Grid Initiatives and European Intergovernmental Research Organisations, operates more than 370,000 logical CPUs, 248 PB disk and 176 PB of disk capacity (June 2013 statistics). EUDAT is a European project aiming to take the first steps towards building a Collaborative Data Infrastructure for European scientific data products. It will offer services for data storage and replication, data staging to computational resources (and vice versa) and services for data cataloguing and discovery. PRACE is the pan-European supercomputing infrastructure that forms the top-tier of HPC provision across Europe, with the aim of enabling high impact scientific discovery and engineering research and development across all disciplines to enhance European competitiveness. We propose e-Science approaches to tackle the challenges of processing and searching EISCAT-3D data, and will provide solutions for: 1. Staging EISCAT-3D lower-level data (voltage data) into the large-scale e-Science storage, such as EGI or EUDAT; 2. Providing various processing and mining facilities such as, auto-correlation and spatial/temporal integration, to allow individual scientists to analyse data as their will; 3. Providing advanced searching facilities to enable individual scientists to search through all level of data and identify specific signatures, e.g., plasma features, meteors, space debris, astronomical features. The new data processing and searching strategy will offer more flexible way for EISCAT users to analyse and discover interesting data patterns which are not yet available. Space physicists will be able to make better use of the observation data and exploit the growing wealth of them. This will eventually lead to a new data-centric way of conceptualising, organising and carrying out research activities which could lead to an introduction of new approaches to solve problems that were previously considered extremely hard or, in some cases, impossible to solve and also lead to serendipitous discoveries and significant breakthrough [1]. [1] C. Thanos, S. Manegold and M. Kersten, 'Big Data', ERCIM Special Theme: Big Data, No. 89, Apr. 2012.

Enabling drug discovery project decisions with integrated computational chemistry and informatics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tsui, Vickie; Ortwine, Daniel F.; Blaney, Jeffrey M.

2017-03-01

Computational chemistry/informatics scientists and software engineers in Genentech Small Molecule Drug Discovery collaborate with experimental scientists in a therapeutic project-centric environment. Our mission is to enable and improve pre-clinical drug discovery design and decisions. Our goal is to deliver timely data, analysis, and modeling to our therapeutic project teams using best-in-class software tools. We describe our strategy, the organization of our group, and our approaches to reach this goal. We conclude with a summary of the interdisciplinary skills required for computational scientists and recommendations for their training.

Distributing and storing data efficiently by means of special datasets in the ATLAS collaboration

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Köneke, Karsten; ATLAS Collaboration

2011-12-01

With the start of the LHC physics program, the ATLAS experiment started to record vast amounts of data. This data has to be distributed and stored on the world-wide computing grid in a smart way in order to enable an effective and efficient analysis by physicists. This article describes how the ATLAS collaboration chose to create specialized reduced datasets in order to efficiently use computing resources and facilitate physics analyses.

New technologies in radiation therapy: ensuring patient safety, radiation safety and regulatory issues in radiation oncology.

PubMed

Amols, Howard I

2008-11-01

New technologies such as intensity modulated and image guided radiation therapy, computer controlled linear accelerators, record and verify systems, electronic charts, and digital imaging have revolutionized radiation therapy over the past 10-15 y. Quality assurance (QA) as historically practiced and as recommended in reports such as American Association of Physicists in Medicine Task Groups 40 and 53 needs to be updated to address the increasing complexity and computerization of radiotherapy equipment, and the increased quantity of data defining a treatment plan and treatment delivery. While new technology has reduced the probability of many types of medical events, seeing new types of errors caused by improper use of new technology, communication failures between computers, corrupted or erroneous computer data files, and "software bugs" are now being seen. The increased use of computed tomography, magnetic resonance, and positron emission tomography imaging has become routine for many types of radiotherapy treatment planning, and QA for imaging modalities is beyond the expertise of most radiotherapy physicists. Errors in radiotherapy rarely result solely from hardware failures. More commonly they are a combination of computer and human errors. The increased use of radiosurgery, hypofractionation, more complex intensity modulated treatment plans, image guided radiation therapy, and increasing financial pressures to treat more patients in less time will continue to fuel this reliance on high technology and complex computer software. Clinical practitioners and regulatory agencies are beginning to realize that QA for new technologies is a major challenge and poses dangers different in nature than what are historically familiar.

Medical physics in 2020: will we still be relevant?

PubMed

Ng, K H

2008-06-01

From the time when Roentgen and other physicists made the discoveries which led to the development of radiology, radiotherapy and nuclear medicine, medical physicists have played a pivotal role in the development of new technologies that have revolutionized the way medicine is practiced today. Medical physicists have been transforming scientific advances in the research laboratories to improving the quality of life for patients; indeed innovations such as computed tomography, positron emission tomography and linear accelerators which collectively have improved the medical outcomes for millions of people. In order for radiation-delivery techniques to improve in targeting accuracy, optimal dose distribution and clinical outcome, convergence of imaging and therapy is the key. It is timely for these two specialties to work closer again. This can be achieved by means of cross-disciplinary research, common conferences and workshops, and collaboration in education and training for all. The current emphasis is on enhancing the specific skill development and competency of a medical physicist at the expense of their future roles and opportunities. This emphasis is largely driven by financial and political pressures for optimizing limited resources in health care. This has raised serious concern on the ability of the next generation of medical physicists to respond to new technologies. In addition in the background loom changes of tsunami proportion. The clearly defined boundaries between the different disciplines in medicine are increasingly blurred and those between diagnosis, therapy and management are also following suit. The use of radioactive particles to treat tumours using catheters, high-intensity focused ultrasound, electromagnetic wave ablation and photodynamic therapy are just some areas challenging the old paradigm. The uncertainty and turf battles will only explode further and medical physicists will not be spared. How would medical physicists fit into this changing scenario? We are in the midst of molecular revolution. Are we prepared to explore the newer technologies such as nanotechnology, drug discovery, pre-clinical imaging, optical imaging and biomedical informatics? How are our curricula adapting to the changing needs? We should remember the late Professor John Cameron who advocated imagination and creativity - these important attributes will make us still relevant in 2020 and beyond. To me the future is clear: "To achieve more, we should imagine together."

Separating science from propaganda

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Klepfish, Elyakum; Sugrue, Mark; Sloan, Terry; Wolfendale, Arnold

2010-03-01

In the old Soviet Union there was a periodical called The Propagandist's Notepad devoted to those whose path to happiness lay in "getting the message across". The demise of the socialist model of wealth creation brought an end to this magazine. In many ways, however, Liz Kalaugher's opinion article "Communicating climate change" (January pp16-17) is a tribute to the need for such a specialized publication today. The article describes ways in which climate scientists can improve how they transmit their message to the public. Unfortunately, physicists tend to be guided by Descartes's ubiquitous principle of the virtue of doubt, and are inclined to regard "the public becoming increasingly sceptical" as commendable. Indeed, I wish there were more examples of public scepticism.

Once a physicist: Christine Rice

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rice, Christine

2009-01-01

Why did you study physics? My father was a scientist and all my older siblings took science A levels, so it seemed the most obvious path for me to take. Plus, the careers advice we got was to avoid arts subjects as you would never get a job (happily, none of my "arty" friends at university ended up destitute). There was also a big drive to recruit more women into science and I was always one for a challenge. It meant something to me that girls could be as good at science as boys were. I did also enjoy the subject and one of my most satisfactory school experiences was preparing for the Oxford University entrance exam.

Proceedings of the Third International Workshop on the implementation of ALARA at nuclear power plants

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Khan, T.A.; Roecklein, A.K.

1995-03-01

This report contains the papers presented and the discussions that took place at the Third International Workshop on ALARA Implementation at Nuclear Power Plants, held in Hauppauge, Long Island, New York from May 8--11, 1994. The purpose of the workshop was to bring together scientists, engineers, health physicists, regulators, managers and other persons who are involved with occupational dose control and ALARA issues. The countries represented were: Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Japan, Korea, Mexico, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States. The workshop was organized into twelve sessions and three panel discussions. Individual papers have beenmore » cataloged separately.« less

A Passion for Discovery

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Freund, Peter

The human side of doing theoretical physics is explored through stories about the interactions between physicists and about the way world events can affect not only the scientists' behavior, but even their scientific interests and style.  These stories cluster nicely around certain bigger themes to create an overarching whole.  This happens both on account of some interesting narrative structures intrinsic to the science of Physics itself and on account of the way Physics integrates into the general culture. The stories concern Einstein, Schrödinger, Pauli, Heisenberg, Stueckelberg, Jordan and Fock and also involve some mathematicians like Emmy Noether, Teichmüller and Bersmore » and even the psychologist C.G. Jung.« less

Editorial

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

2006-01-01

This volume contains the Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Ion Beam Modification of Materials, IBMM 2004, and is published by Elsevier as a special issue of Nuclear Instruments and Methods B. The conference series is the major international forum to present and discuss recent research results and future directions in the field of ion beam modification, synthesis and characterization of materials. The first conference in the series was held in Budapest, Hungary, 1978, and subsequent conferences were held every two years at locations around the Globe, most recently in Japan, Brazil and the Netherlands. The series brings together physicists, materials scientists and ion beam specialists from all over the world. The official conference language is English.

The case for biophysics super-groups in physics departments.

PubMed

Hoogenboom, Bart W; Leake, Mark

2018-06-04

Increasing numbers of physicists engage in research activities that address biological questions from physics perspectives or strive to develop physics insights from active biological processes. The on-going development and success of such activities morph our ways of thinking about what it is to 'do biophysics' and add to our understanding of the physics of life. Many scientists in this research and teaching landscape are homed in physics departments. A challenge for a hosting department is how to group, name and structure such biophysicists to best add value to their emerging research and teaching but also to the portfolio of the whole department. Here we discuss these issues and speculate on strategies. Creative Commons Attribution license.

A Passion for Discovery

ScienceCinema

Freund, Peter

2017-12-11

The human side of doing theoretical physics is explored through stories about the interactions between physicists and about the way world events can affect not only the scientists' behavior, but even their scientific interests and style.  These stories cluster nicely around certain bigger themes to create an overarching whole.  This happens both on account of some interesting narrative structures intrinsic to the science of Physics itself and on account of the way Physics integrates into the general culture. The stories concern Einstein, Schrödinger, Pauli, Heisenberg, Stueckelberg, Jordan and Fock and also involve some mathematicians like Emmy Noether, Teichmüller and Bers and even the psychologist C.G. Jung.

Provenance-Powered Automatic Workflow Generation and Composition

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhang, J.; Lee, S.; Pan, L.; Lee, T. J.

2015-12-01

In recent years, scientists have learned how to codify tools into reusable software modules that can be chained into multi-step executable workflows. Existing scientific workflow tools, created by computer scientists, require domain scientists to meticulously design their multi-step experiments before analyzing data. However, this is oftentimes contradictory to a domain scientist's daily routine of conducting research and exploration. We hope to resolve this dispute. Imagine this: An Earth scientist starts her day applying NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) published climate data processing algorithms over ARGO deep ocean temperature and AMSRE sea surface temperature datasets. Throughout the day, she tunes the algorithm parameters to study various aspects of the data. Suddenly, she notices some interesting results. She then turns to a computer scientist and asks, "can you reproduce my results?" By tracking and reverse engineering her activities, the computer scientist creates a workflow. The Earth scientist can now rerun the workflow to validate her findings, modify the workflow to discover further variations, or publish the workflow to share the knowledge. In this way, we aim to revolutionize computer-supported Earth science. We have developed a prototyping system to realize the aforementioned vision, in the context of service-oriented science. We have studied how Earth scientists conduct service-oriented data analytics research in their daily work, developed a provenance model to record their activities, and developed a technology to automatically generate workflow starting from user behavior and adaptability and reuse of these workflows for replicating/improving scientific studies. A data-centric repository infrastructure is established to catch richer provenance to further facilitate collaboration in the science community. We have also established a Petri nets-based verification instrument for provenance-based automatic workflow generation and recommendation.

Center for computation and visualization of geometric structures. Final report, 1992 - 1995

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

NONE

1995-11-01

This report describes the overall goals and the accomplishments of the Geometry Center of the University of Minnesota, whose mission is to develop, support, and promote computational tools for visualizing geometric structures, for facilitating communication among mathematical and computer scientists and between these scientists and the public at large, and for stimulating research in geometry.

Final Report for "Implimentation and Evaluation of Multigrid Linear Solvers into Extended Magnetohydrodynamic Codes for Petascale Computing"

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Srinath Vadlamani; Scott Kruger; Travis Austin

Extended magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) codes are used to model the large, slow-growing instabilities that are projected to limit the performance of International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER). The multiscale nature of the extended MHD equations requires an implicit approach. The current linear solvers needed for the implicit algorithm scale poorly because the resultant matrices are so ill-conditioned. A new solver is needed, especially one that scales to the petascale. The most successful scalable parallel processor solvers to date are multigrid solvers. Applying multigrid techniques to a set of equations whose fundamental modes are dispersive waves is a promising solution to CEMM problems.more » For the Phase 1, we implemented multigrid preconditioners from the HYPRE project of the Center for Applied Scientific Computing at LLNL via PETSc of the DOE SciDAC TOPS for the real matrix systems of the extended MHD code NIMROD which is a one of the primary modeling codes of the OFES-funded Center for Extended Magnetohydrodynamic Modeling (CEMM) SciDAC. We implemented the multigrid solvers on the fusion test problem that allows for real matrix systems with success, and in the process learned about the details of NIMROD data structures and the difficulties of inverting NIMROD operators. The further success of this project will allow for efficient usage of future petascale computers at the National Leadership Facilities: Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Argonne National Laboratory, and National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center. The project will be a collaborative effort between computational plasma physicists and applied mathematicians at Tech-X Corporation, applied mathematicians Front Range Scientific Computations, Inc. (who are collaborators on the HYPRE project), and other computational plasma physicists involved with the CEMM project.« less

WE-H-201-03: Enthusiasm and Generosity of Spirit Necessitate a Volunteering Structure to Make Them More Meaningful

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Pipman, Y.

The desperate need for radiotherapy in low and mid-income countries (LMICs) has been well documented. Roughly 60 % of the worldwide incidence of cancer occurs in these resource-limited settings and the international community alongside governmental and non-profit agencies have begun publishing reports and seeking help from qualified volunteers. However, the focus of several reports has been on how dire the situation is and the magnitude of the problem, leaving most to feel overwhelmed and unsure as to how to help and why to get involved. This session will help to explain the specific ways that Medical Physicists can uniquely assistmore » in this grand effort to help bring radiotherapy to grossly-underserved areas. Not only can these experts fulfill an important purpose, they also can benefit professionally, academically, emotionally and socially from the endeavor. By assisting others worldwide with their skillset, Medical Physicists can end up helping themselves. Learning Objectives: Understand the need for radiotherapy in LMICs. Understand which agencies are seeking Medical Physicists for help in LMICs. Understand the potential research funding mechanisms are available to establish academic collaborations with LMIC researchers/physicians. Understand the potential social and emotional benefits for both the physicist and the LMIC partners when collaborations are made. Understand the potential for collaboration with other high-income scientists that can develop as the physicist partners with other large institutions to assist LMICs. Wil Ngwa - A recent United Nations Study reports that in developing countries more people have access to cell phones than toilets. In Africa, only 63% of the population has access to piped water, yet, 93% of Africans have cell phone service. Today, these cell phones, Skype, WhatsApp and other information and communication technologies (ICTs) connect us in unprecedented ways and are increasingly recognized as powerful, indispensable to global health. Thanks to ICTs, there are growing opportunities for Medical Physicists to reach out beyond the bunker and impact the world far beyond, without even having to travel. These growing opportunities in global health for Medical Physicists, powered by ICTs, will be highlighted in this presentation, illustrated by high impact examples/models across the globe that are improving patient safety and healthcare outcomes, saving lives. Learning Objectives: Published definitions of global health and the emerging field of global radiation oncology Learn about the transformative potential of ICTs in global radiation oncology care, research and education with focus on Medical Physics Learn about high impact examples of ICT-powered global radiation oncology and the increasing opportunities for participation by Medical Physicists. Yakov Pipman - The number and scope of volunteer Medical Physics activities in support of low-to-middle income countries has been increasing gradually. This happens through a variety of formal channels and to some extent through less formal but personal initiatives. A good deal of effort is dedicated by many, but many more could be recruited through a structured framework to volunteer. We will look into typical volunteer activities and how they fit with organizations already involved in advancing Medical Physics in LMIC. We will identify the range of these organizational activities and their scope to reveal areas of further need. We will point to a few key features of MPWB ( http://www.mpwb.org ) as a volunteering and collaborating structure and how members can get involved and contribute to these efforts at the grass roots level. The goal is that scarce resources can thus be channeled to complement rather than compete with those already in place. Learning Objectives: Understand the strengths and limitations of various organizations that support Medical Physics efforts in LMIC. Learn about ways to volunteer and contribute to Global Health through a grass roots organization focused on Medical Physics in LMIC. Perry Sprawls - With the growing capability and complexity of medical imaging methods in all countries of the world, the expanding role of medical physicists includes optimizing imaging procedures with respect to image quality, radiation dose, and other conflicting factors. With access to appropriate educational resources local medical physicists in all countries can provide direct clinical support and educational for other medical professionals. This is being supported through the process of Collaborative Teaching that combines the capabilities and experience of medical physicists in countries spanning the spectrum of economic, technological, and clinical development. The supporting resources are on the web at: http://www.sprawls.org/resources . Learning Objectives: Identify the medical physics educational needs to support effective and optimized medical imaging procedures. Use collaborative teaching resources to enhance the role of medical physicists in all countries of the world.« less

WE-H-201-01: The Opportunities and Benefits of Helping LMICs: How Helping Them Can Help You

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Pollard, J.

The desperate need for radiotherapy in low and mid-income countries (LMICs) has been well documented. Roughly 60 % of the worldwide incidence of cancer occurs in these resource-limited settings and the international community alongside governmental and non-profit agencies have begun publishing reports and seeking help from qualified volunteers. However, the focus of several reports has been on how dire the situation is and the magnitude of the problem, leaving most to feel overwhelmed and unsure as to how to help and why to get involved. This session will help to explain the specific ways that Medical Physicists can uniquely assistmore » in this grand effort to help bring radiotherapy to grossly-underserved areas. Not only can these experts fulfill an important purpose, they also can benefit professionally, academically, emotionally and socially from the endeavor. By assisting others worldwide with their skillset, Medical Physicists can end up helping themselves. Learning Objectives: Understand the need for radiotherapy in LMICs. Understand which agencies are seeking Medical Physicists for help in LMICs. Understand the potential research funding mechanisms are available to establish academic collaborations with LMIC researchers/physicians. Understand the potential social and emotional benefits for both the physicist and the LMIC partners when collaborations are made. Understand the potential for collaboration with other high-income scientists that can develop as the physicist partners with other large institutions to assist LMICs. Wil Ngwa - A recent United Nations Study reports that in developing countries more people have access to cell phones than toilets. In Africa, only 63% of the population has access to piped water, yet, 93% of Africans have cell phone service. Today, these cell phones, Skype, WhatsApp and other information and communication technologies (ICTs) connect us in unprecedented ways and are increasingly recognized as powerful, indispensable to global health. Thanks to ICTs, there are growing opportunities for Medical Physicists to reach out beyond the bunker and impact the world far beyond, without even having to travel. These growing opportunities in global health for Medical Physicists, powered by ICTs, will be highlighted in this presentation, illustrated by high impact examples/models across the globe that are improving patient safety and healthcare outcomes, saving lives. Learning Objectives: Published definitions of global health and the emerging field of global radiation oncology Learn about the transformative potential of ICTs in global radiation oncology care, research and education with focus on Medical Physics Learn about high impact examples of ICT-powered global radiation oncology and the increasing opportunities for participation by Medical Physicists. Yakov Pipman - The number and scope of volunteer Medical Physics activities in support of low-to-middle income countries has been increasing gradually. This happens through a variety of formal channels and to some extent through less formal but personal initiatives. A good deal of effort is dedicated by many, but many more could be recruited through a structured framework to volunteer. We will look into typical volunteer activities and how they fit with organizations already involved in advancing Medical Physics in LMIC. We will identify the range of these organizational activities and their scope to reveal areas of further need. We will point to a few key features of MPWB ( http://www.mpwb.org ) as a volunteering and collaborating structure and how members can get involved and contribute to these efforts at the grass roots level. The goal is that scarce resources can thus be channeled to complement rather than compete with those already in place. Learning Objectives: Understand the strengths and limitations of various organizations that support Medical Physics efforts in LMIC. Learn about ways to volunteer and contribute to Global Health through a grass roots organization focused on Medical Physics in LMIC. Perry Sprawls - With the growing capability and complexity of medical imaging methods in all countries of the world, the expanding role of medical physicists includes optimizing imaging procedures with respect to image quality, radiation dose, and other conflicting factors. With access to appropriate educational resources local medical physicists in all countries can provide direct clinical support and educational for other medical professionals. This is being supported through the process of Collaborative Teaching that combines the capabilities and experience of medical physicists in countries spanning the spectrum of economic, technological, and clinical development. The supporting resources are on the web at: http://www.sprawls.org/resources . Learning Objectives: Identify the medical physics educational needs to support effective and optimized medical imaging procedures. Use collaborative teaching resources to enhance the role of medical physicists in all countries of the world.« less

What do computer scientists tweet? Analyzing the link-sharing practice on Twitter.

PubMed

Schmitt, Marco; Jäschke, Robert

2017-01-01

Twitter communication has permeated every sphere of society. To highlight and share small pieces of information with possibly vast audiences or small circles of the interested has some value in almost any aspect of social life. But what is the value exactly for a scientific field? We perform a comprehensive study of computer scientists using Twitter and their tweeting behavior concerning the sharing of web links. Discerning the domains, hosts and individual web pages being tweeted and the differences between computer scientists and a Twitter sample enables us to look in depth at the Twitter-based information sharing practices of a scientific community. Additionally, we aim at providing a deeper understanding of the role and impact of altmetrics in computer science and give a glance at the publications mentioned on Twitter that are most relevant for the computer science community. Our results show a link sharing culture that concentrates more heavily on public and professional quality information than the Twitter sample does. The results also show a broad variety in linked sources and especially in linked publications with some publications clearly related to community-specific interests of computer scientists, while others with a strong relation to attention mechanisms in social media. This refers to the observation that Twitter is a hybrid form of social media between an information service and a social network service. Overall the computer scientists' style of usage seems to be more on the information-oriented side and to some degree also on professional usage. Therefore, altmetrics are of considerable use in analyzing computer science.

New Frontiers in Analyzing Dynamic Group Interactions: Bridging Social and Computer Science

PubMed Central

Lehmann-Willenbrock, Nale; Hung, Hayley; Keyton, Joann

2017-01-01

This special issue on advancing interdisciplinary collaboration between computer scientists and social scientists documents the joint results of the international Lorentz workshop, “Interdisciplinary Insights into Group and Team Dynamics,” which took place in Leiden, The Netherlands, July 2016. An equal number of scholars from social and computer science participated in the workshop and contributed to the papers included in this special issue. In this introduction, we first identify interaction dynamics as the core of group and team models and review how scholars in social and computer science have typically approached behavioral interactions in groups and teams. Next, we identify key challenges for interdisciplinary collaboration between social and computer scientists, and we provide an overview of the different articles in this special issue aimed at addressing these challenges. PMID:29249891

Human computers: the first pioneers of the information age.

PubMed

Grier, D A

2001-03-01

Before computers were machines, they were people. They were men and women, young and old, well educated and common. They were the workers who convinced scientists that large-scale calculation had value. Long before Presper Eckert and John Mauchly built the ENIAC at the Moore School of Electronics, Philadelphia, or Maurice Wilkes designed the EDSAC for Manchester University, human computers had created the discipline of computation. They developed numerical methodologies and proved them on practical problems. These human computers were not savants or calculating geniuses. Some knew little more than basic arithmetic. A few were near equals of the scientists they served and, in a different time or place, might have become practicing scientists had they not been barred from a scientific career by their class, education, gender or ethnicity.

New Frontiers in Analyzing Dynamic Group Interactions: Bridging Social and Computer Science.

PubMed

Lehmann-Willenbrock, Nale; Hung, Hayley; Keyton, Joann

2017-10-01

This special issue on advancing interdisciplinary collaboration between computer scientists and social scientists documents the joint results of the international Lorentz workshop, "Interdisciplinary Insights into Group and Team Dynamics," which took place in Leiden, The Netherlands, July 2016. An equal number of scholars from social and computer science participated in the workshop and contributed to the papers included in this special issue. In this introduction, we first identify interaction dynamics as the core of group and team models and review how scholars in social and computer science have typically approached behavioral interactions in groups and teams. Next, we identify key challenges for interdisciplinary collaboration between social and computer scientists, and we provide an overview of the different articles in this special issue aimed at addressing these challenges.

Ames Lab 101: Ultrafast Magnetic Switching

ScienceCinema

Wang; Jigang

2018-01-01

Ames Laboratory physicists have found a new way to switch magnetism that is at least 1000 times faster than currently used in magnetic memory technologies. Magnetic switching is used to encode information in hard drives, magnetic random access memory and other computing devices. The discovery potentially opens the door to terahertz and faster memory speeds.

A Noted Physicist's Contrarian View of Global Warming

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Goldstein, Evan R., Comp.

2008-01-01

According to Freeman Dyson, an emeritus professor of physics at the Institute for Advanced Study, the debate about global warming has become too narrow and opinions have become too entrenched. Relying on a computer model designed by the Yale University economist William D. Nordhaus, Dyson compared the effectiveness and economic feasibility of…

Fermilab | Science | Questions for the Universe | The Particle World | Why

Science.gov Websites

effects observed so far are insufficient to explain this predominance. The current program of experiments suggest significant effects in the bound state with the strange quark, Bs. Physicists at the Tevatron made . Lattice Computational Facilities offer great promise for the calculation of the effects of the strong

Medical Physicists and Health Physicists: Radiation Occupations

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

LaPointe, Jeffrey

2011-01-01

Physics is the study of matter and energy and the ways in which the two interact. Some physicists use their expertise in physics to focus on radiation. These specialists, called medical physicists and health physicists, work to help people or protect the environment. Medical physicists work with physicians, assisting patients who need imaging…

Marshak Lectureship Talk: Women in Physics in the Baltic States Region: Problems and Solutions

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Satkovskiene, Dalia

2008-03-01

In this contribution the gender equality problem in physics will be discussed on the basis of the results obtained implementing the project ``Baltic States Network: Women in Sciences and High Technology'' (BASNET) initiated by Lithuanian women physicists and financed by European Commission. The main goal of BASNET project was creation of the regional Strategy how to deal with women in sciences problem in the Baltic States. It has some stages and the contribution follows them. The first one was in depth sociological study aiming to find out disincentives and barriers women scientists face in their career and work at science and higher education institutions. Analysis of results revealed wide range of problems concerned with science organization, management and financing common for both counterparts. However it also proved the existence of women discrimination in sciences. As main factors influencing women under-representation in Physics was found: the stereotypes existing in the society where physics is assigned to the masculine area of activity; failings of the science management system, where highest positions are distributed not using the institutionalized objective criteria but by voting, where the correctness of majority solutions is anticipated implicitly. In physics where male scientists are the majority (they also usually compose executive boards, committees etc.) results of such a procedures often are unfavorable for women. The same reasons also influence women ``visibility'' in physicist's community and as the consequence possibility to receive needed recourses for their research as well as appropriate presentation of results obtained. The study revealed also the conservatism of scientific community- reluctance to face existing in the scientific society problems and to start solving them. On the basis of the results obtained as well practice of other countries the common strategy of solving women in physics (sciences) in the Baltic States region was formulated. As changing the stereotypes is long lasting process it was decided firstly to concentrate strategy implementation plans on changes in science management policy tackling the problem from the top and allowing receive the most quick results. For this we created the regional Baltic States Network among the corresponding international women working groups, professional organizations (Scientific societies) and corresponding departments of the governmental institutions. BASNET also became a full member of European Platform of Women Scientists (EPWS)-prestige women organization signally influencing the European Community science policy.

Building place-based collaborations to develop high school students' groundwater systems knowledge and decision-making capacity

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Podrasky, A.; Covitt, B. A.; Woessner, W.

2017-12-01

The availability of clean water to support human uses and ecological integrity has become an urgent interest for many scientists, decision makers and citizens. Likewise, as computational capabilities increasingly revolutionize and become integral to the practice of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) disciplines, the STEM+ Computing (STEM+C) Partnerships program seeks to integrate the use of computational approaches in K-12 STEM teaching and learning. The Comp Hydro project, funded by a STEM+C grant from the National Science Foundation, brings together a diverse team of scientists, educators, professionals and citizens at sites in Arizona, Colorado, Maryland and Montana to foster water literacy, as well as computational science literacy, by integrating authentic, place- and data- based learning using physical, mathematical, computational and conceptual models. This multi-state project is currently engaging four teams of six teachers who work during two academic years with educators and scientists at each site. Teams work to develop instructional units specific to their region that integrate hydrologic science and computational modeling. The units, currently being piloted in high school earth and environmental science classes, provide a classroom context to investigate student understanding of how computation is used in Earth systems science. To develop effective science instruction that is rich in place- and data- based learning, effective collaborations between researchers, educators, scientists, professionals and citizens are crucial. In this poster, we focus on project implementation in Montana, where an instructional unit has been developed and is being tested through collaboration among University scientists, researchers and educators, high school teachers and agency and industry scientists and engineers. In particular, we discuss three characteristics of effective collaborative science education design for developing and implementing place- and data- based science education to support students in developing socio-scientific and computational literacy sufficient for making decisions about real world issues such as groundwater contamination. These characteristics include that science education experiences are real, responsive/accessible and rigorous.

''After the Genome 5 Conference'' to be held October 6-10, 1999 in Jackson Hole, Wyoming

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Roger Brent

OAK B139 The postgenomic era is arriving faster than anyone had imagined--sometime during 2000 we'll have a large fraction of the human genome sequence. Heretofore, our understanding of function has come from non-industrial experiments whose conclusions were largely framed in human language. The advent of large amounts of sequence data, and of ''functional genomic'' data types such as mRNA expression data, have changed this picture. These data share the feature that individual observations and measurements are typically relatively low value adding. Such data is now being generated so rapidly that the amount of information contained in it will surpass themore » amount of biological information collected by traditional means. It is tantalizing to envision using genomic information to create a quantitative biology with a very strong data component. Unfortunately, we are very early in our understanding of how to ''compute on'' genomic information so as to extract biological knowledge from i t. In fact, some current efforts to come to grips with genomic information often resemble a computer savvy library science, where the most important issues concern categories, classification schemes, and information retrieval. When exploring new libraries, a measure of cataloging and inventory is surely inevitable. However, at some point we will need to move from library science to scholarship.We would like to achieve a quantitative and predictive understanding of biological function. We realize that making the bridge from knowledge of systems to the sets of abstractions that constitute computable entities is not easy. The After the Genome meetings were started in 1995 to help the biological community think about and prepare for the changes in biological research in the face of the oncoming flow of genomic information. The term ''After the Genome'' refers to a future in which complete inventories of the gene products of entire organisms become available.Since then, many more biologists have become cognizant of the issues raised by this future, and, in response, the organizers intend to distinguish this meeting from other ''postgenomic'' meetings by bringing together intellectuals from subject fields far outside of conventional biology with the expectation that this will help focus thinking beyond the immediate future. To this end, After the Genome 5 will bring together industrial and university researchers, including: (1) Physicists, chemists, and engineers who are devising and using new data gathering techniques, such as microarrays, protein mass spectrometry, and single molecule measurements (2) Computer scientists from fields as diverse as geology and wargames, who have experience moving from broad knowledge of systems to analysis that results in models and simulations (3) Neurobiologists and computer scientists who combine physiological experimentation and computer modeling to understand single cells and small networks of cells (4) Biologists who are trying to model genetic networks (5) All-around visionary thinkers (6) policy makers, to suggest how to convey any good ideas to organizations that can commit resources to them.« less

"After the Genome 5, Conference to be held October 6-10, 1999, Jackson Hole, Wyoming"

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Brent, Roger

The postgenomic era is arriving faster than anyone had imagined-- sometime during 2000 we'll have a large fraction of the human genome sequence. Heretofore, our understanding of function has come from non-industrial experiments whose conclusions were largely framed in human language. The advent of large amounts of sequence data, and of "functional genomic" data types such as mRNA expression data, have changed this picture. These data share the feature that individual observations and measurements are typically relatively low value adding. Such data is now being generated so rapidly that the amount of information contained in it will surpass the amountmore » of biological information collected by traditional means. It is tantalizing to envision using genomic information to create a quantitative biology with a very strong data component. Unfortunately, we are very early in our understanding of how to "compute on" genomic information so as to extract biological knowledge from it. In fact, some current efforts to come to grips with genomic information often resemble a computer savvy library science, where the most important issues concern categories, classification schemes, and information retrieval. When exploring new libraries, a measure of cataloging and inventory is surely inevitable. However, at some point we will need to move from library science to scholarship. We would like to achieve a quantitative and predictive understanding of biological function. We realize that making the bridge from knowledge of systems to the sets of abstractions that constitute computable entities is not easy. The After the Genome meetings were started in 1995 to help the biological community think about and prepare for the changes in biological research in the face of the oncoming flow of genomic information. The term "After the Genome" refers to a future in which complete inventories of the gene products of entire organisms become available. Since then, many more biologists have become cognizant of the issues raised by this future, and, in response, the organizers intend to distinguish this meeting from other "postgenomic" meetings by bringing together intellectuals from subject fields far outside of conventional biology with the expectation that this will help focus thinking beyond the immediate future. To this end, After the Genome 5 will bring together industrial and university researchers, including: 1) Physicists, chemists, and engineers who are devising and using new data gathering techniques, such as microarrays, protein mass spectrometry, and single molecule measurements 2) Computer scientists from fields as diverse as geology and wargames, who have experience moving from broad knowledge of systems to analysis that results in models and simulations 3) Neurobiologists and computer scientists who combine physiological experimentation and computer modeling to understand single cells and small networks of cells 4) Biologists who are trying to model genetic networks 5) All- around visionary thinkers 7) policy makers, to suggest how to convey any good ideas to organizations that can commit resources to them.« less

Sakharov Prize Talk: Creativity of Physicists in the Struggle for Human Rights

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Altshuler, Boris

2014-03-01

USSR was a totalitarian State with an almighty secret service - KGB. To save the repressed victim of regime, let it be dissident or scientists - Jewish refuzenik, was seemingly an absolutely impossible task. ``For success of our hopeless adventure!'', - as Andrei Sakharov used to say. There were no natural checks and balances in the Former USSR and there none in modern Russia - that is why the task to save the child in Russia is not less `hopeless' today. But the key word in Sakharov's motto is `success' - and we managed to reach it earlier in cooperation with the world scientific community, and we manage to reach it now in our work of protecting of rights of children. The Know How is creativity. To achieve something absolutely impossible needs unexpected `crazy' ideas (`it's not crazy enough to be true', - Niels Bohr). The same in science, in physics in particular, the Step to Unknown always demands `crazy' creative ideas. The Talk traces the parallels between creativity in physics and in human rights struggle. I acknowledge the support from the Committee of Concerned Scientists.

Careers in Government: Bench Scientist to Policy Wonk

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gebbie, Katharine B.

1998-04-01

The U.S. system for graduate education in physics is arguably the most effective system yet devised for advanced training in physics. Focused as it is on original research, it teaches students to identify significant problems, study them in depth, and communicate the results. Because it trains them to be analytical, adaptable, persevering, and pragmatic problem solvers, it prepares them for a wide variety of nontraditional careers. Hence the demand for physicists by Wall Street and management consultant teams. Yet, as stressed in the 1995 report by the Committee on Science, Engineering and Public Policy (COSEPUP)("Reshaping the Graduate Education of Scientists and Engineers," COSEPUP; National Academy of Sciences/National Academy of Engineering/Institute of Medicine. National Academy Press, 1995), what is lacking is exposure to career information and guidance. Many students appear to be unaware of the range and richness of opportunities outside academe. In an effort to fill this gap, illustrative examples of diverse careers and career changes in government will be presented, together with examples of cooperative programs that can enhance the student's appreciation of career possibilities.

Talking the Higgs Boson with Dr. Joseph Incandela: Third Lecture in the DOE Science Speaker Series (includes opening remarks from Dr. Bill Brinkman and introduction by Energy Secretary, Dr. Steven Chu)

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Incandela, Joseph

In July of 2012, scientists leading two different research teams, working independently of each other, announced that they had almost certain proof of the long-sought Higgs boson. Though Cern did not call the discovery "official", many physicists conceded the evidence was now so compelling they had surely found the missing particle. The formal confirmation will come over the next few months of further investigation. The experiments are taking place at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), and this third lecture in the DOE Science Speaker Series is given by one of those announcing scientists in July. He is Dr. Joseph Incandela,more » the current spokesperson for the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) Experiment at CERN. He was heavily involved in the search for the top quark at Fermi and is from the University of California, Santa Barbara. The title he gives his presentation is "Searching for the genetic code of our universe: Discovery at the LHC."« less

Jerrold Zacharias and PSSC

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Holbrow, Charles H.

2007-03-01

In 1956 with NSF support Jerrold Zacharias, a notable professor of physics at MIT, called into existence the Physical Sciences Study Committee and launched the largest effort ever to change and improve the teaching of physics in American high schools. Zacharias had a talent for eliciting bold ideas from the best physicists of his day and then inspiring them to put their ideas into action. PSSC was just one of many instances when he did this. He was a member of that cohort of physicists whose accomplishments in World War II empowered them with confidence and authority that they applied with great effect in the early years of the Cold War. More than passive agents of the government, they influenced it to respond to various crises with broader vision and higher idealism than were associated with conventional views of defense. PSSC exemplifies their ability to spin the straw of Cold War tension and fear into the gold of major educational reform. I will describe some memorable aspects of the man and his times, and how he and Francis Friedman shaped the early efforts of PSSC. Charles H. Holbrow, Scientists, Security, and Lessons from the Cold War, Physics Today 59(7), 39-44 (2006). PSSC Remembered -- An AAPT Online Publication at http://www.aapt-doorway.org.

The pedagogical implications of Maxwellian electromagnetic models: a case study from Victorian-Era physics.

PubMed

Bullock, Shawn Michael

2014-01-01

In the late Victorian Era, a group of British physicists devoted their time to interpreting and extending the work of James Clerk Maxwell. There has been considerable discussion about the ways in which these "Maxwellian" physicists used mechanical models by in the for research purposes; less attention has been paid to the relevance of their mechanical models for pedagogical purposes. Drawing from educational research literature, I begin from the premise that understanding a scientist's self-identity in its historical context is crucial to understanding how she or he enacts particular pedagogical approaches. I aim to extend Bruce Hunt's seminal work on the Maxwellians by providing a pedagogical analysis of one of Sir Oliver Lodge's lectures. In so doing, I claim that Lodge drew on his identity as a Maxwellian as an organizing framework for his lecture and that he attempted to engage his audience in Maxwellian thought by exposing them to many mechanical models. I conclude that Lodge's self-concept as a teacher and his apparent broad appeal as a public educationist were deeply embedded in his life history as a member of the Maxwellians. Sir Oliver Lodge's identities as a Maxwellian and a pedagogue are inextricably linked. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Morality of nuclear planning

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Dudley, H.C.

1976-01-01

One of the main objectives of this volume is to analyze certain bizarre developments in science, particularly physics, which have made their appearance since radioactivity was discovered, some 80 years ago. These changes in the basic ways of going about the business of science are the counterpart of the equally bizarre changes in political and economic climates which have occurred during the same period. This volume has three purposes: (1) to pose the question, ''Is it morally acceptable for the great majority of mankind to be forced to depend for their safety on a very special brand of mathematical gymnasticsmore » which physicists use in their solution of nuclear problems''; (2) to examine the historical development of the means by which physicists interpret the very visible effects of nuclear reactions; and (3) to focus attention on certain concepts that were universally accepted by older scientists as being logically necessary to explain much of the workings of the physical world. For many, many years there have been scientific arguments and learned discussions between ''etherists'' and ''non-etherists.'' This volume is an attempt to feed back into an earlier (pre 1920) climate of opinion, that which has developed out of the current ''Information Explosion.'' A scientific revolution of unprecendented magnitude, which had its beginning about 1950, is about at its mid-way point now. (MCW)« less

Future Directions in Medical Physics: Models, Technology, and Translation to Medicine

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Siewerdsen, Jeffrey

The application of physics in medicine has been integral to major advances in diagnostic and therapeutic medicine. Two primary areas represent the mainstay of medical physics research in the last century: in radiation therapy, physicists have propelled advances in conformal radiation treatment and high-precision image guidance; and in diagnostic imaging, physicists have advanced an arsenal of multi-modality imaging that includes CT, MRI, ultrasound, and PET as indispensible tools for noninvasive screening, diagnosis, and assessment of treatment response. In addition to their role in building such technologically rich fields of medicine, physicists have also become integral to daily clinical practice in these areas. The future suggests new opportunities for multi-disciplinary research bridging physics, biology, engineering, and computer science, and collaboration in medical physics carries a strong capacity for identification of significant clinical needs, access to clinical data, and translation of technologies to clinical studies. In radiation therapy, for example, the extraction of knowledge from large datasets on treatment delivery, image-based phenotypes, genomic profile, and treatment outcome will require innovation in computational modeling and connection with medical physics for the curation of large datasets. Similarly in imaging physics, the demand for new imaging technology capable of measuring physical and biological processes over orders of magnitude in scale (from molecules to whole organ systems) and exploiting new contrast mechanisms for greater sensitivity to molecular agents and subtle functional / morphological change will benefit from multi-disciplinary collaboration in physics, biology, and engineering. Also in surgery and interventional radiology, where needs for increased precision and patient safety meet constraints in cost and workflow, development of new technologies for imaging, image registration, and robotic assistance can leverage collaboration in physics, biomedical engineering, and computer science. In each area, there is major opportunity for multi-disciplinary collaboration with medical physics to accelerate the translation of such technologies to clinical use. Research supported by the National Institutes of Health, Siemens Healthcare, and Carestream Health.

Scientific Computing Paradigm

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

VanZandt, John

1994-01-01

The usage model of supercomputers for scientific applications, such as computational fluid dynamics (CFD), has changed over the years. Scientific visualization has moved scientists away from looking at numbers to looking at three-dimensional images, which capture the meaning of the data. This change has impacted the system models for computing. This report details the model which is used by scientists at NASA's research centers.

John Archibald Wheeler: A study of mentoring in modern physics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Christensen, Terry M.

This dissertation has two objectives. The first objective is to determine where best to situate the study of mentoring (i.e. the 'making of scientists') on the landscape of the history of science and science studies. This task is accomplished by establishing mentoring studies as a link between the robust body of literature dealing with Research Schools and the emerging scholarship surrounding the development, dispersion, and evolution of pedagogy in the training of twentieth century physicists. The second, and perhaps more significant and novel objective, is to develop a means to quantitatively assess the mentoring workmanship of scientific craftsmen who preside over the final stages of preparation when apprentices are transformed into professional scientists. The project builds upon a 2006 Master's Thesis that examined John Archibald Wheeler's work as a mentor of theoretical physicists at Princeton University in the years 1938--1976. It includes Wheeler's work as a mentor at the University of Texas and is qualitatively and quantitatively enhanced by virtue of the author having access to five separate collections with archival holdings of John Wheeler's papers and correspondence, as well as having access to thirty one tape recorded interviews that feature John Wheeler as either the interviewee or a prominent subject of discussion. The project also benefited from the opportunity to meet with and gather background information from a number of John Wheeler's former colleagues and students. Included in the dissertation is a content analysis of the acknowledgements in 949 Ph.D. dissertations, 122 Master's Theses, and 670 Senior Theses that were submitted during Wheeler's career as an active mentor. By establishing a census of the students of the most active mentors at Princeton and Texas, it is possible to tabulate the publication record of these apprentice groups and obtain objective measures of mentoring efficacy. The dissertation concludes by discussing the wider applicability of the quantitative methodology and the qualitative analysis for the history of science and science studies.

Message from the ISCB: 2015 ISCB Accomplishment by a Senior Scientist Award: Cyrus Chothia.

PubMed

Fogg, Christiana N; Kovats, Diane E

2015-07-01

The International Society for Computational Biology (ISCB; http://www.iscb.org) honors a senior scientist annually for his or her outstanding achievements with the ISCB Accomplishment by a Senior Scientist Award. This award recognizes a leader in the field of computational biology for his or her significant contributions to the community through research, service and education. Cyrus Chothia, an emeritus scientist at the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology and emeritus fellow of Wolfson College at Cambridge University, England, is the 2015 ISCB Accomplishment by a Senior Scientist Award winner.Chothia was selected by the Awards Committee, which is chaired by Dr Bonnie Berger of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He will receive his award and deliver a keynote presentation at 2015 Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology/European Conference on Computational Biology in Dublin, Ireland, in July 2015. dkovats@iscb.org. © The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Enabling Earth Science: The Facilities and People of the NCCS

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

2002-01-01

The NCCS's mass data storage system allows scientists to store and manage the vast amounts of data generated by these computations, and its high-speed network connections allow the data to be accessed quickly from the NCCS archives. Some NCCS users perform studies that are directly related to their ability to run computationally expensive and data-intensive simulations. Because the number and type of questions scientists research often are limited by computing power, the NCCS continually pursues the latest technologies in computing, mass storage, and networking technologies. Just as important as the processors, tapes, and routers of the NCCS are the personnel who administer this hardware, create and manage accounts, maintain security, and assist the scientists, often working one on one with them.

Big Data: An Opportunity for Collaboration with Computer Scientists on Data-Driven Science

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Baru, C.

2014-12-01

Big data technologies are evolving rapidly, driven by the need to manage ever increasing amounts of historical data; process relentless streams of human and machine-generated data; and integrate data of heterogeneous structure from extremely heterogeneous sources of information. Big data is inherently an application-driven problem. Developing the right technologies requires an understanding of the applications domain. Though, an intriguing aspect of this phenomenon is that the availability of the data itself enables new applications not previously conceived of! In this talk, we will discuss how the big data phenomenon creates an imperative for collaboration among domain scientists (in this case, geoscientists) and computer scientists. Domain scientists provide the application requirements as well as insights about the data involved, while computer scientists help assess whether problems can be solved with currently available technologies or require adaptaion of existing technologies and/or development of new technologies. The synergy can create vibrant collaborations potentially leading to new science insights as well as development of new data technologies and systems. The area of interface between geosciences and computer science, also referred to as geoinformatics is, we believe, a fertile area for interdisciplinary research.

TGeoCad: an Interface between ROOT and CAD Systems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Luzzi, C.; Carminati, F.

2014-06-01

In the simulation of High Energy Physics experiment a very high precision in the description of the detector geometry is essential to achieve the required performances. The physicists in charge of Monte Carlo Simulation of the detector need to collaborate efficiently with the engineers working at the mechanical design of the detector. Often, this collaboration is made hard by the usage of different and incompatible software. ROOT is an object-oriented C++ framework used by physicists for storing, analyzing and simulating data produced by the high-energy physics experiments while CAD (Computer-Aided Design) software is used for mechanical design in the engineering field. The necessity to improve the level of communication between physicists and engineers led to the implementation of an interface between the ROOT geometrical modeler used by the virtual Monte Carlo simulation software and the CAD systems. In this paper we describe the design and implementation of the TGeoCad Interface that has been developed to enable the use of ROOT geometrical models in several CAD systems. To achieve this goal, the ROOT geometry description is converted into STEP file format (ISO 10303), which can be imported and used by many CAD systems.

CREASE 6.0 Catalog of Resources for Education in Ada and Software Engineering

DTIC Science & Technology

1992-02-01

Programming Software Engineering Strong Typing Tasking Audene . Computer Scientists Terbook(s): Barnes, J. Programming in Ada, 3rd ed. Addison-Wesley...Ada. Concept: Abstract Data Types Management Overview Package Real-Time Programming Tasking Audene Computer Scientists Textbook(s): Barnes, J

Parallel computing in genomic research: advances and applications

PubMed Central

Ocaña, Kary; de Oliveira, Daniel

2015-01-01

Today’s genomic experiments have to process the so-called “biological big data” that is now reaching the size of Terabytes and Petabytes. To process this huge amount of data, scientists may require weeks or months if they use their own workstations. Parallelism techniques and high-performance computing (HPC) environments can be applied for reducing the total processing time and to ease the management, treatment, and analyses of this data. However, running bioinformatics experiments in HPC environments such as clouds, grids, clusters, and graphics processing unit requires the expertise from scientists to integrate computational, biological, and mathematical techniques and technologies. Several solutions have already been proposed to allow scientists for processing their genomic experiments using HPC capabilities and parallelism techniques. This article brings a systematic review of literature that surveys the most recently published research involving genomics and parallel computing. Our objective is to gather the main characteristics, benefits, and challenges that can be considered by scientists when running their genomic experiments to benefit from parallelism techniques and HPC capabilities. PMID:26604801

Parallel computing in genomic research: advances and applications.

PubMed

Ocaña, Kary; de Oliveira, Daniel

2015-01-01

Today's genomic experiments have to process the so-called "biological big data" that is now reaching the size of Terabytes and Petabytes. To process this huge amount of data, scientists may require weeks or months if they use their own workstations. Parallelism techniques and high-performance computing (HPC) environments can be applied for reducing the total processing time and to ease the management, treatment, and analyses of this data. However, running bioinformatics experiments in HPC environments such as clouds, grids, clusters, and graphics processing unit requires the expertise from scientists to integrate computational, biological, and mathematical techniques and technologies. Several solutions have already been proposed to allow scientists for processing their genomic experiments using HPC capabilities and parallelism techniques. This article brings a systematic review of literature that surveys the most recently published research involving genomics and parallel computing. Our objective is to gather the main characteristics, benefits, and challenges that can be considered by scientists when running their genomic experiments to benefit from parallelism techniques and HPC capabilities.

Andy Sessler: The Full Life of an Accelerator Physicist

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kim, Kwang-Je; Budnitz, Robert J.; Winick, Herman

2015-02-01

This article describes the distinguished career of Andrew M. Sessler, the visionary former director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), one of the most influential accelerator physicists, and a strong, dedicated human-rights activist. Andy died on 17 April 2014 from cancer at age 85. He grew up in New York City, and attended Harvard (BA in Mathematics, 1949) and then Columbia (PhD in Physics, 1953.) After an NSF postdoc at Cornell with Hans Bethe and a stint on the faculty at the Ohio State University in 1954-59, he joined the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory (now LBNL) in 1959, and spent the remainder of his career there. Although Andy l his mark on several areas of physics, including nuclear structure theory, elementary-particle physics, and many-body problems, his lasting and most important contributions came from his efforts in accelerator physics and engineering, to which he devoted most of his life's work. In collaboration with his colleagues of the legendary Midwestern Universities Research Association, he developed theories for the RF acceleration process and the collective instability phenomena, helping to realize the colliding-beam accelerators with which most of the high-energy-physics discoveries of the last few decades have been made. His work in connection with the free-electron-laser (FEL) amplifier for high-power microwave generation constructed at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory anticipated the optical-guiding and the self-amplified spontaneous-emission principles, upon which the success of the X-ray FELs as the fourth-generation light sources is based. Throughout his career Andy made major contributions to issues related to the impact of science and technology on society. He helped usher in a new era of research on energy efficiency and sustainable-energy technology and was instrumental in building the research agendas in those areas for the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) and later the Department of Energy. With a lifelong interest in promoting the human rights of scientists, Andy was instrumental in initiating the American Physical Society's Committee on International Freedom of Scientists and in raising funds to endow the APS Andrei Sakharov Prize. He and Moishe Pripstein cofounded Scientists for Sakharov, Orlov, and Sharansky; the group's protests along with those of other groups led to the release of the three Soviet dissidents. More importantly, Andy's voice and example became a major force in helping call the world's attention to the plight of scientists trapped in places where their human rights and their ability to do science were severely compromised. Andy received many honors, including the AEC's Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award in 1970, the APS's Dwight Nicholson Medal in 1994, and the Enrico Fermi Award from the US Department of Energy in 2014.

Andy Sessler: The Full Life of an Accelerator Physicist

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kim, Kwang-Je; Budnitz, Robert J.; Winick, Herman

2014-04-01

This article describes the distinguished career of Andrew M. Sessler, the visionary former director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), one of the most influential accelerator physicists, and a strong, dedicated human-rights activist. Andy died on 17 April 2014 from cancer at age 85. He grew up in New York City, and attended Harvard (BA in Mathematics, 1949) and then Columbia (PhD in Physics, 1953.) After an NSF postdoc at Cornell with Hans Bethe and a stint on the faculty at the Ohio State University in 1954-59, he joined the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory (now LBNL) in 1959, and spent the remainder of his career there. Although Andy l his mark on several areas of physics, including nuclear structure theory, elementary-particle physics, and many-body problems, his lasting and most important contributions came from his efforts in accelerator physics and engineering, to which he devoted most of his life's work. In collaboration with his colleagues of the legendary Midwestern Universities Research Association, he developed theories for the RF acceleration process and the collective instability phenomena, helping to realize the colliding-beam accelerators with which most of the high-energy-physics discoveries of the last few decades have been made. His work in connection with the free-electron-laser (FEL) amplifier for high-power microwave generation constructed at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory anticipated the optical-guiding and the self-amplified spontaneous-emission principles, upon which the success of the X-ray FELs as the fourth-generation light sources is based. Throughout his career Andy made major contributions to issues related to the impact of science and technology on society. He helped usher in a new era of research on energy efficiency and sustainable-energy technology and was instrumental in building the research agendas in those areas for the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) and later the Department of Energy. With a lifelong interest in promoting the human rights of scientists, Andy was instrumental in initiating the American Physical Society's Committee on International Freedom of Scientists and in raising funds to endow the APS Andrei Sakharov Prize. He and Moishe Pripstein cofounded Scientists for Sakharov, Orlov, and Sharansky; the group's protests along with those of other groups led to the release of the three Soviet dissidents. More importantly, Andy's voice and example became a major force in helping call the world's attention to the plight of scientists trapped in places where their human rights and their ability to do science were severely compromised. Andy received many honors, including the AEC's Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award in 1970, the APS's Dwight Nicholson Medal in 1994, and the Enrico Fermi Award from the US Department of Energy in 2014.

Andy Sessler: The Full Life of an Accelerator Physicist

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kim, Kwang-Je; Budnitz, Robert J.; Winick, Herman

This article describes the distinguished career of Andrew M. Sessler, the visionary former director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), one of the most influential accelerator physicists, and a strong, dedicated human-rights activist. Andy died on 17 April 2014 from cancer at age 85. He grew up in New York City, and attended Harvard (BA in Mathematics, 1949) and then Columbia (PhD in Physics, 1953.) After an NSF postdoc at Cornell with Hans Bethe and a stint on the faculty at the Ohio State University in 1954-59, he joined the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory (now LBNL) in 1959, and spent the remainder of his career there. Although Andy left his mark on several areas of physics, including nuclear structure theory, elementary-particle physics, and many-body problems, his lasting and most important contributions came from his efforts in accelerator physics and engineering, to which he devoted most of his life's work. In collaboration with his colleagues of the legendary Midwestern Universities Research Association, he developed theories for the RF acceleration process and the collective instability phenomena, helping to realize the colliding-beam accelerators with which most of the high-energy-physics discoveries of the last few decades have been made. His work in connection with the free-electron-laser (FEL) amplifier for high-power microwave generation constructed at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory anticipated the optical-guiding and the self-amplified spontaneous-emission principles, upon which the success of the X-ray FELs as the fourth-generation light sources is based. Throughout his career Andy made major contributions to issues related to the impact of science and technology on society. He helped usher in a new era of research on energy efficiency and sustainable-energy technology and was instrumental in building the research agendas in those areas for the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) and later the Department of Energy. With a lifelong interest in promoting the human rights of scientists, Andy was instrumental in initiating the American Physical Society's Committee on International Freedom of Scientists and in raising funds to endow the APS Andrei Sakharov Prize. He and Moishe Pripstein cofounded Scientists for Sakharov, Orlov, and Sharansky; the group's protests along with those of other groups led to the release of the three Soviet dissidents. More importantly, Andy's voice and example became a major force in helping call the world's attention to the plight of scientists trapped in places where their human rights and their ability to do science were severely compromised. Andy received many honors, including the AEC's Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award in 1970, the APS's Dwight Nicholson Medal in 1994, and the Enrico Fermi Award from the US Department of Energy in 2014.

An economic and financial exploratory

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cincotti, S.; Sornette, D.; Treleaven, P.; Battiston, S.; Caldarelli, G.; Hommes, C.; Kirman, A.

2012-11-01

This paper describes the vision of a European Exploratory for economics and finance using an interdisciplinary consortium of economists, natural scientists, computer scientists and engineers, who will combine their expertise to address the enormous challenges of the 21st century. This Academic Public facility is intended for economic modelling, investigating all aspects of risk and stability, improving financial technology, and evaluating proposed regulatory and taxation changes. The European Exploratory for economics and finance will be constituted as a network of infrastructure, observatories, data repositories, services and facilities and will foster the creation of a new cross-disciplinary research community of social scientists, complexity scientists and computing (ICT) scientists to collaborate in investigating major issues in economics and finance. It is also considered a cradle for training and collaboration with the private sector to spur spin-offs and job creations in Europe in the finance and economic sectors. The Exploratory will allow Social Scientists and Regulators as well as Policy Makers and the private sector to conduct realistic investigations with real economic, financial and social data. The Exploratory will (i) continuously monitor and evaluate the status of the economies of countries in their various components, (ii) use, extend and develop a large variety of methods including data mining, process mining, computational and artificial intelligence and every other computer and complex science techniques coupled with economic theory and econometric, and (iii) provide the framework and infrastructure to perform what-if analysis, scenario evaluations and computational, laboratory, field and web experiments to inform decision makers and help develop innovative policy, market and regulation designs.

Award-Winning Animation Helps Scientists See Nature at Work | News | NREL

Science.gov Websites

Scientists See Nature at Work August 8, 2008 A computer-aided image combines a photo of a man with a three -dimensional, computer-generated image. The man has long brown hair and a long beard. He is wearing a blue - simultaneously. "It is very difficult to parallelize the process to run even on a huge computer,"

Honors

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

The following AGU members have been elected as members to the National Academy of Sciences. Election to membership in the Academy is considered one of the highest honors that can be accorded a U.S. scientist or engineer.Sallie W. Chisholm is Lee and Geraldine Martin Professor of Environmental Studies, and co-director of the Earth System Initiative at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge.Jody W. Deming is professor of biological oceanography at the University of Washington, Seattle.James H. Dieterich is senior research scientist of the Earthquake Hazards Team at the U. S. Geological Survey, Menlo Park, California.William E. Dietrich is professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at the University of California, Berkeley.Lennard A. Fisk is professor and chair in the Department of Atmospheric, Oceanic, and Space Sciences at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.Isaac M. Held is senior research scientist and head of the Climate Dynamics Group at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Princeton, New Jersey.Judith L. Lean is a research physicist in the Space Science Division at the Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, D.C.Edward L. Miles is Virginia and Prentice Bloedel Professor of Marine and Public Affairs at the University of Washington, Seattle.William H. Schlesinger is James B. Duke Professor of Biogeochemistry and dean of the Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences at Duke University, Durham, North Carolina.

Physics and Education

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Quinn, Helen

2016-03-01

I make a distinction between science outreach work and science education work, and my stress in this talk will be on the latter, though I have done both. Using my own career in physics and education as an example, as well as some examples of the contributions of other physicists, I will discuss the variety of ways in which scientists can contribute to science education at the pre-college level. I will argue for the need for more scientists to undertake this work as a serious professional commitment. In order to do so effectively a scientist must take the time to learn about science education and research on learning, and about how the education systems and policies that one is trying to impact function and are controlled. While working with individual teachers and/or their students provides a valuable service to those individuals, working at the State and National policy level, or with those developing curriculum materials, professional development for teachers and assessment strategies aligned to the broadly adopted Next Generation Science Standards can have much broader impacts. These standards have been adopted by over 14 states and have strongly influenced the science standards of a number of others. I will talk about my role in developing the vision of ``three-dimensional'' science education embodied in those standards, explain the fundamental components of that vision, and discuss the work that still needs to be done to realize that vision over the coming years.

Recent technological advances in computed tomography and the clinical impact therein.

PubMed

Runge, Val M; Marquez, Herman; Andreisek, Gustav; Valavanis, Anton; Alkadhi, Hatem

2015-02-01

Current technological advances in CT, specifically those with a major impact on clinical imaging, are discussed. The intent was to provide for both medical physicists and practicing radiologists a summary of the clinical impact of each advance, offering guidance in terms of utility and day-to-day clinical implementation, with specific attention to radiation dose reduction.

From Years of Work in Psychology and Computer Science, Scientists Build Theories of Thinking and Learning.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wheeler, David L.

1988-01-01

Scientists feel that progress in artificial intelligence and the availability of thousands of experimental results make this the right time to build and test theories on how people think and learn, using the computer to model minds. (MSE)

BOOK REVIEW: Time, Quantum and Information

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Turner, Leaf

2004-04-01

Time, Quantum and Information, a paean to Professor Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker, commemorates his 90th birthday. The range of Professor Weizsäcker’s endeavours is an exhilarating example of what can be accomplished by one freely-soaring human spirit, who is at the same time a physicist, a philosopher, and a humanitarian. The editors, Lutz Castell and Otfried Ischebeck, have assembled an admirable collection of essays and articles written by Weizsäcker’s past students, collaborators, colleagues and acquaintances. Time, Quantum and Information offers the reader a panoply of unique insights into twentieth century science and history. Entangled with the stories about Weizsäcker’s influence on the lives of some of the contributors are discussions of the activities of German scientists during and following World War II, emphasizing their reluctance to work on atomic weapons following the war. By outlining Weizsäcker’s role in the early development of numerous tributaries of physical science, the book gives us a new glimpse into the origins of some of its disparate domains, such as nuclear physics, the physics of stellar nucleosynthesis, cosmic ray physics, fluid turbulence, and the formation of the solar system. We physicists have all studied Weizsäcker’s semi-empirical mass formula describing the binding energy of nuclei. We are aware too that both he and Hans Bethe independently discovered the nuclear cycles that provide stars with their enduring energy output. We have studied the Weizsäcker--Williams technique of calculating the bremsstrahlung of relativistic electrons. But how many of us know of Weizsäcker’s work in fluid turbulence that he, like Werner Heisenberg under whom he had earned his doctorate, pursued while holed up in Farm Hall? And how many of us are aware of his introduction of turbulent viscosity to account for the origin of planetary orbits, involving the migration of mass inwards and angular momentum outwards? Moreover, before finally turning his attention to philosophy in 1957, Weizsäcker became interested in nuclear fusion research and educated a generation of postwar German physicists in both plasma physics and astrophysics. Michael Frayn’s play `Copenhagen' has ignited worldwide interest in the mysterious meeting of Niels Bohr with Werner Heisenberg in September 1941. However, an article by R Lüst indicates that in 1951 Bohr enjoyed a friendly visit with Heisenberg in Göttingen. This 1941 meeting of Heisenberg and Bohr is discussed further in an article by Götz Neuneck, who also details the World War II and post-war research and interests of the Uranium Club, a group of 70--100 German physicists and chemists. Neuneck also discusses the resistance of individual scientists, such as Hahn, Heisenberg, and Bothe, to the Nazi regime. We learn that, unlike Wernher von Braun, no member of the Uranium Club was ever granted an audience with Hitler. After the war, German scientists renounced any role for German development of nuclear weapons in various manifestos, such as the Mainau and G\\"ottingen Declarations that were both influenced by Weizsäcker. Time, Quantum and Information contains much anecdotal material. Examples include a touching quotation in a letter from Edward Teller to Weizsäcker: `If I could share your religious belief, I would wish that you will one day come from a higher heaven and visit me in purgatory.' Another example, less complimentary, is a comment from Pauli after hearing from Weisskopf that Weizsäcker had made numerous errors in his habilitation thesis and realizing that Weizsäcker had accepted an offer from Peter Debye at Berlin: `The measure of sloppiness in Weizsäcker’s work exceeds altogether and by far the tolerable measure, and my pain of not having had him as an assistant has been alleviated by this.' Two-thirds of this compendium also explores the philosophical interests of Weizsäcker. This portion discusses his attempt to reconstruct quantum mechanics and build up a `theory of everything' based on his `ur' hypothesis. As stated by the mathematician G G Emch in this book, `Philosophers and physicists often fail to understand each other because they are speaking different languages which often happen to have the same words.' These articles will have value to readers interested in these areas. The inclusion of an index would have made the book much more useful. There are numerous minor typographical errors, the most amusing of which is the sign of the Coulomb energy of a uniform density sphere in the article by K v Meyenn. (The expression stated is -6(Ze)2/5R rather than the correct expression, 3(Ze)2/5R.) Another example is in the same article: when one looks for a reference to Jackson, #66, one finds instead a 1928 reference to Fermi! Despite such inconvenient quirks, this book is essential reading for anyone interested in Weizsäcker and his research, in twentieth-century physics and physicists, and in unique insights into German science during and immediately following World War II.

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

McCaskey, Alexander J.

Hybrid programming models for beyond-CMOS technologies will prove critical for integrating new computing technologies alongside our existing infrastructure. Unfortunately the software infrastructure required to enable this is lacking or not available. XACC is a programming framework for extreme-scale, post-exascale accelerator architectures that integrates alongside existing conventional applications. It is a pluggable framework for programming languages developed for next-gen computing hardware architectures like quantum and neuromorphic computing. It lets computational scientists efficiently off-load classically intractable work to attached accelerators through user-friendly Kernel definitions. XACC makes post-exascale hybrid programming approachable for domain computational scientists.

Holograms as Teaching Agents

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Walker, Robin A.

2013-02-01

Hungarian physicist Dennis Gabor won the Pulitzer Prize for his 1947 introduction of basic holographic principles, but it was not until the invention of the laser in 1960 that research scientists, physicians, technologists and the general public began to seriously consider the interdisciplinary potentiality of holography. Questions around whether and when Three-Dimensional (3-D) images and systems would impact American entertainment and the arts would be answered before educators, instructional designers and students would discover how much Three-Dimensional Hologram Technology (3DHT) would affect teaching practices and learning environments. In the following International Symposium on Display Holograms (ISDH) poster presentation, the author features a traditional board game as well as a reflection hologram to illustrate conventional and evolving Three-Dimensional representations and technology for education. Using elements from the American children's toy Operation® (Hasbro, 2005) as well as a reflection hologram of a human brain (Ko, 1998), this poster design highlights the pedagogical effects of 3-D images, games and systems on learning science. As teaching agents, holograms can be considered substitutes for real objects, (human beings, organs, and animated characters) as well as agents (pedagogical, avatars, reflective) in various learning environments using many systems (direct, emergent, augmented reality) and electronic tools (cellphones, computers, tablets, television). In order to understand the particular importance of utilizing holography in school, clinical and public settings, the author identifies advantages and benefits of using 3-D images and technology as instructional tools.

Science and Ultimate Reality

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Barrow, John D.; Davies, Paul C. W.; Harper, Charles L., Jr.

2004-06-01

This preview of the future of physics comprises contributions from recognized authorities inspired by the pioneering work of John Wheeler. Quantum theory represents a unifying theme within the book, as it relates to the topics of the nature of physical reality, cosmic inflation, the arrow of time, models of the universe, superstrings, quantum gravity and cosmology. Attempts to formulate a final unification theory of physics are also considered, along with the existence of hidden dimensions of space, hidden cosmic matter, and the strange world of quantum technology. John Archibald Wheeler is one of the most influential scientists of the twentieth century. His extraordinary career has spanned momentous advances in physics, from the birth of the nuclear age to the conception of the quantum computer. Famous for coining the term "black hole," Professor Wheeler helped lay the foundations for the rebirth of gravitation as a mainstream branch of science, triggering the explosive growth in astrophysics and cosmology that followed. His early contributions to physics include the S matrix, the theory of nuclear rotation (with Edward Teller), the theory of nuclear fission (with Niels Bohr), action-at-a-distance electrodynamics (with Richard Feynman), positrons as backward-in-time electrons, the universal Fermi interaction (with Jayme Tiomno), muonic atoms, and the collective model of the nucleus. His inimitable style of thinking, quirky wit, and love of the bizarre have inspired generations of physicists.

"Ask Argonne" - Charlie Catlett, Computer Scientist, Part 2

ScienceCinema

Catlett, Charlie

2018-02-14

A few weeks back, computer scientist Charlie Catlett talked a bit about the work he does and invited questions from the public during Part 1 of his "Ask Argonne" video set (http://bit.ly/1joBtzk). In Part 2, he answers some of the questions that were submitted. Enjoy!

"Ask Argonne" - Charlie Catlett, Computer Scientist, Part 2

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Catlett, Charlie

2014-06-17

A few weeks back, computer scientist Charlie Catlett talked a bit about the work he does and invited questions from the public during Part 1 of his "Ask Argonne" video set (http://bit.ly/1joBtzk). In Part 2, he answers some of the questions that were submitted. Enjoy!

The Science Training Program for Young Italian Physicists and Engineers at Fermilab

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Barzi, Emanuela; Bellettini, Giorgio; Donati, Simone

2015-03-12

Since 1984 Fermilab has been hosting a two-month summer training program for selected undergraduate and graduate Italian students in physics and engineering. Building on the traditional close collaboration between the Italian National Institute of Nuclear Physics (INFN) and Fermilab, the program is supported by INFN, by the DOE and by the Scuola Superiore di Sant`Anna of Pisa (SSSA), and is run by the Cultural Association of Italians at Fermilab (CAIF). This year the University of Pisa has qualified it as a “University of Pisa Summer School”, and will grant successful students with European Supplementary Credits. Physics students join the Fermilabmore » HEP research groups, while engineers join the Particle Physics, Accelerator, Technical, and Computing Divisions. Some students have also been sent to other U.S. laboratories and universities for special trainings. The programs cover topics of great interest for science and for social applications in general, like advanced computing, distributed data analysis, nanoelectronics, particle detectors for earth and space experiments, high precision mechanics, applied superconductivity. In the years, over 350 students have been trained and are now employed in the most diverse fields in Italy, Europe, and the U.S. In addition, the existing Laurea Program in Fermilab Technical Division was extended to the whole laboratory, with presently two students in Master’s thesis programs on neutrino physics and detectors in the Neutrino Division. And finally, a joint venture with the Italian Scientists and Scholars North-America Foundation (ISSNAF) provided this year 4 professional engineers free of charge for Fermilab. More details on all of the above can be found below.« less

Hunger strike for science

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Carlowicz, Michael

Lamenting the degenerating working conditions for scientists in Russia, geophysicist Vladimir Strakhov and physicist Igor Naumenko-Bondarenko of the United Institute of Physics of the Earth (UIPE) at the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) have begun a hunger strike. Strakhov is General Director of UIPE, and Naumenko-Bondarenko is chairman of the Trade Union Committee of UIPE.In a press statement released on September 30 in Moscow, the geophysicists stated that they are striking to “protest the policy of the Government of the Russian Federation with regard to Russian science in general and to the Russian Academy of Sciences in particular.” They blame governmental neglect and, specifically, “the non-payment of funds that were in the 1996 budget” for the “virtual collapse of Russian science.”

Science & Technology Review May 2006

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Aufderheide III, M B

2006-04-03

This month's issue has the following articles: (1) Science and Technology Help the Nation Counter Terrorism--Commentary by Raymond J. Juzaitis; (2) Imagers Provide Eyes to See Gamma Rays--Gamma-ray imagers provide increased radiation detection capabilities and enhance the nation's arsenal for homeland security; (3) Protecting the Nation's Livestock--Foot-and-mouth disease could devastate America's livestock; a new assay provides a rapid means to detect it; (4) Measures for Measures--Laboratory physicists combine emissivity and reflectivity to achieve highly accurate temperature measurements of metal foils; and (5) Looping through the Lamb Shift--Livermore scientists measured a small perturbation in the spectra of highly ionized uranium--the firstmore » measurement of the two-loop Lamb shift in a bound state.« less

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Racah, Evan; Ko, Seyoon; Sadowski, Peter

Experiments in particle physics produce enormous quantities of data that must be analyzed and interpreted by teams of physicists. This analysis is often exploratory, where scientists are unable to enumerate the possible types of signal prior to performing the experiment. Thus, tools for summarizing, clustering, visualizing and classifying high-dimensional data are essential. Here in this work, we show that meaningful physical content can be revealed by transforming the raw data into a learned high-level representation using deep neural networks, with measurements taken at the Daya Bay Neutrino Experiment as a case study. We further show how convolutional deep neural networksmore » can provide an effective classification filter with greater than 97% accuracy across different classes of physics events, significantly better than other machine learning approaches.« less

German for physicists

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Stein, Ben

2009-04-01

"German is the language of science" I remember my father telling me as a boy growing up in the Bronx in New York during the 1970s. As I watched astronomy programmes on TV with my father and older brothers, I imagined having to speak ceaselessly in fluent German if I was ever to become a scientist as a grown-up. But when I started my studies at university in New York in the 1980s, I realized my father's advice - sought from weekly trips to the neighbourhood public library - was way out of date. Not only did my physics professors present their research in English at conferences all around the world, but they also published in English-language journals - thus seemingly not needing a single word of German.

32nd International Conference on the Physics of Semiconductors

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Chelikowsky, James

The International Conference on the Physics of Semiconductors (ICPS) continues a series of biennial conferences that began in the 1950's. ICPS is the premier meeting for reporting all aspects of semiconductor physics including electronic, structural, optical, magnetic and transport properties with an emphasis on new materials and their applications. The meeting will reflect the state of art in the semiconductor physics field and will serve as a forum where scholars, researchers, and specialists can interact to discuss future research directions and technological advancements. The conference typically draws 1,000 international physicists, scientists, and students. This is one of the largest sciencemore » meetings on semiconductors and related materials to be held in the United States.« less

Narrow Scale Flow and a Weak Field by the Top of Earth's Core: Evidence from Orsted, Magsat and Secular Variation

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Voorhies, Coerte V.

2004-01-01

As Earth's main magnetic field weakens, our magnetic shield against the onslaught of the solar wind thins. And the field strength needed to fend off battering by solar coronal mass ejections is decreasing, just when the delicate complexity of modem, vulnerable, electro-technological systems is increasing at an unprecedented rate. Recently, a working group of distinguished scientist from across the nation has asked NASA's Solid Earth and Natural Hazards program a key question: What are the dynamics of Earth s magnetic field and its interactions with the Earth system? Paleomagnetic studies of crustal rocks magnetized in the geologic past reveal that polarity reversals have occurred many times during Earth s history. Networked super-computer simulations of core field and flow, including effects of gravitational, pressure, rotational Coriolis, magnetic and viscous forces, suggest how this might happen in detail. And space-based measurements of the real, time-varying magnetic field help constrain estimates of the speed and direction of fluid iron flowing near the top of the core and enable tests of some hypotheses about such flow. Now scientists at NASA s Goddard Space Flight Center have developed and applied methods to test the hypotheses of narrow scale flow and of a dynamically weak magnetic field near the top of Earth s core. Using two completely different methods, C. V. Voorhies has shown these hypotheses lead to specific theoretical forms for the "spectrum" of Earth s main magnetic field and the spectrum of its rate of change. Much as solar physicists use a prism to separate sunlight into its spectrum, from long wavelength red to short wavelength blue light, geophysicists use a digital prism, spherical harmonic analysis, to separate the measured geomagnetic field into its spectrum, from long to short wavelength fields. They do this for the rate of change of the field as well.

From Lived Experiences to Game Creation: How Scaffolding Supports Elementary School Students Learning Computer Science Principles in an After School Setting

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Her Many Horses, Ian

2016-01-01

The world, and especially our own country, is in dire need of a larger and more diverse population of computer scientists. While many organizations have approached this problem of too few computer scientists in various ways, a promising, and I believe necessary, path is to expose elementary students to authentic practices of the discipline.…

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Tan, J; Yan, Y; Hager, F

Purpose: Radiation therapy has evolved to become not only more precise and potent, but also more complicated to monitor and deliver. More rigorous and comprehensive quality assurance is needed to safeguard ever advancing radiation therapy. ICRU standards dictate that an ever growing set of treatment parameters are manually checked weekly by medical physicists. This “weekly chart check” procedure is laborious and subject to human errors or other factors. A computer-assisted chart checking process will enable more complete and accurate human review of critical parameters, reduce the risk of medical errors, and improve the efficiency. Methods: We developed a web-based softwaremore » system that enables a thorough weekly quality assurance checks. In the backend, the software retrieves all machine parameters from a Treatment Management System (TMS) and compares them against the corresponding ones from the treatment planning system. They are also checked for validity against preset rules. The results are displayed as a web page in the front-end for physicists to review. Then a summary report is generated and uploaded automatically to the TMS as a record for weekly chart checking. Results: The software system has been deployed on a web server in our department’s intranet, and has been tested thoroughly by our clinical physicists. A plan parameter would be highlighted when it is off the preset limit. The developed system has changed the way of checking charts with significantly improved accuracy, efficiency, and completeness. It has been shown to be robust, fast, and easy to use. Conclusion: A computer-assisted system has been developed for efficient, accurate, and comprehensive weekly chart checking. The system has been extensively validated and is being implemented for routine clinical use.« less

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Ayer, Vidya M.; Miguez, Sheila; Toby, Brian H.

Scientists have been central to the historical development of the computer industry, but the importance of software only continues to grow for all areas of scientific research and in particular for powder diffraction. Knowing how to program a computer is a basic and useful skill for scientists. The article introduces the three types of programming languages and why scripting languages are now preferred for scientists. Of them, the authors assert Python is the most useful and easiest to learn. Python is introduced. Also presented is an overview to a few of the many add-on packages available to extend the capabilitiesmore » of Python, for example, for numerical computations, scientific graphics and graphical user interface programming.« less

Long live the Data Scientist, but can he/she persist?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wyborn, L. A.

2011-12-01

In recent years the fourth paradigm of data intensive science has slowly taken hold as the increased capacity of instruments and an increasing number of instruments (in particular sensor networks) have changed how fundamental research is undertaken. Most modern scientific research is about digital capture of data direct from instruments, processing it by computers, storing the results on computers and only publishing a small fraction of data in hard copy publications. At the same time, the rapid increase in capacity of supercomputers, particularly at petascale, means that far larger data sets can be analysed and to greater resolution than previously possible. The new cloud computing paradigm which allows distributed data, software and compute resources to be linked by seamless workflows, is creating new opportunities in processing of high volumes of data to an increasingly larger number of researchers. However, to take full advantage of these compute resources, data sets for analysis have to be aggregated from multiple sources to create high performance data sets. These new technology developments require that scientists must become more skilled in data management and/or have a higher degree of computer literacy. In almost every science discipline there is now an X-informatics branch and a computational X branch (eg, Geoinformatics and Computational Geoscience): both require a new breed of researcher that has skills in both the science fundamentals and also knowledge of some ICT aspects (computer programming, data base design and development, data curation, software engineering). People that can operate in both science and ICT are increasingly known as 'data scientists'. Data scientists are a critical element of many large scale earth and space science informatics projects, particularly those that are tackling current grand challenges at an international level on issues such as climate change, hazard prediction and sustainable development of our natural resources. These projects by their very nature require the integration of multiple digital data sets from multiple sources. Often the preparation of the data for computational analysis can take months and requires painstaking attention to detail to ensure that anomalies identified are real and are not just artefacts of the data preparation and/or the computational analysis. Although data scientists are increasingly vital to successful data intensive earth and space science projects, unless they are recognised for their capabilities in both the science and the computational domains they are likely to migrate to either a science role or an ICT role as their career advances. Most reward and recognition systems do not recognise those with skills in both, hence, getting trained data scientists to persist beyond one or two projects can be challenge. Those data scientists that persist in the profession are characteristically committed and enthusiastic people who have the support of their organisations to take on this role. They also tend to be people who share developments and are critical to the success of the open source software movement. However, the fact remains that survival of the data scientist as a species is being threatened unless something is done to recognise their invaluable contributions to the new fourth paradigm of science.

Integration of Openstack cloud resources in BES III computing cluster

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Li, Haibo; Cheng, Yaodong; Huang, Qiulan; Cheng, Zhenjing; Shi, Jingyan

2017-10-01

Cloud computing provides a new technical means for data processing of high energy physics experiment. However, the resource of each queue is fixed and the usage of the resource is static in traditional job management system. In order to make it simple and transparent for physicist to use, we developed a virtual cluster system (vpmanager) to integrate IHEPCloud and different batch systems such as Torque and HTCondor. Vpmanager provides dynamic virtual machines scheduling according to the job queue. The BES III use case results show that resource efficiency is greatly improved.

VarPy: A python library for volcanology and rock physics data analysis

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Filgueira, Rosa; Atkinson, Malcom; Bell, Andrew; Snelling, Brawen; Main, Ian

2014-05-01

The increasing prevalence of digital instrumentation in volcanology and rock physics is leading to a wealth of data, which in turn is increasing the need for computational analyses and models. Today, these are largely developed by each individual or researcher. The introduction of a shared library that can be used for this purpose has several benefits: 1. when an existing function in the library meets a need recognised by a researcher it is usually much less effort than developing ones own code; 2. once functions are established and multiply used they become better tested, more reliable and eventually trusted by the community; 3. use of the same functions by different researchers makes it easier to compare results and to compare the skill of rival analysis and modelling methods; and 4. in the longer term the cost of maintaining these functions is shared over a wide community and they therefore have greater duration. Python is a high-level interpreted programming language, with capabilities for object-oriented programming. Often scientists choose this language to program their programs because of the increased productivity it provides. Although, there are many software tools available for interactive data analysis and development, there are not libraries designed specifically for volcanology and rock physics data. Therefore, we propose a new Python open-source toolbox called "VarPy" to facilitate rapid application development for rock physicists and volcanologists, which allow users to define their own workflows to develop models, analyses and visualisations. This proposal is triggered by our work on data assimilation in the NERC EFFORT (Earthquake and Failure Forecasting in Real Time) project, using data provided by the NERC CREEP 2 experimental project and volcanic experiments from INVG observatory Etna and IGN observatory Hierro as a test cases. In EFFORT project we are developing a scientist gateway which offers services for collecting and sharing volcanology and rock physics data with the intent of stimulating sharing, collaboration and comparison of methods among the practitioners in the two fields. As such, it offers facilities for running analyses and models either under a researcher's control or periodically as part of an experiment and to compare the skills of predictive methods. The gateway therefore runs code on behalf of volcanology and rock physics researchers. Varpy library is intended to make it much easier for those researchers to set up the code they need to run. The library also makes it easier to arrange that code is in a form suitable for running in the EFFORT computational services. Care has been taken to ensure that the library can also be used outside of EFFORT systems, e.g., on a researcher's own laptop, providing two variants of the library: the gateway version and developer's version, with many of the functions completely identical. The library must fulfill two purposes simultaneously: • by providing a full repertoire of commonly required actions it must make it easy for volcanologist and rock physicists to write the python scripts they need to accomplish their work, and • by wrapping operations it must enable the EFFORT gateway to maintain the integrity of its data. Notice that proposal of VarPy library does not attempt to replace the functions provided by other libraries, such as NumpY and ScipY. VarPy is complementary to them.

Status and Future Manpower Needs of Physicists in Medicine in the United States.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Food and Drug Administration (DHEW), Rockville, MD. Bureau of Radiological Health.

This study describes the duties and responsibilities of the medical physicist and estimates the number of medical physicists needed in the next decade. A questionnaire, sent to members of the American Association of Physicists in Medicine, was designed to cover: characteristics of medical physicists, nature of work in medical physics, distribution…

Computer Supported Collaborative Rocketry: Teaching Students to Distinguish Good and Bad Data Like Expert Physicists

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

d'Alessio, Matthew; Lundquist, Loraine

2013-01-01

Each year our physical science class for pre-service elementary teachers launches water-powered rockets based on the activity from NASA. We analyze the rocket flight using data from frame-by-frame video analysis of the launches. Before developing the methods presented in this paper, we noticed our students were mired in calculation details while…

Computational tools for Breakthrough Propulsion Physics: State of the art and future prospects

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Maccone, Claudio

2000-01-01

To address problems in Breakthrough Propulsion Physics (BPP) one needs sheer computing capabilities. This is because General Relativity and Quantum Field Theory are so mathematically sophisticated that the amount of analytical calculations is prohibitive and one can hardly do all of them by hand. In this paper we make a comparative review of the main tensor calculus capabilities of the three most advanced and commercially available ``symbolic manipulator'' codes: Macsyma, Maple V and Mathematica. We also point out that currently one faces such a variety of different conventions in tensor calculus that it is difficult or impossible to compare results obtained by different scholars in General Relativity and Quantum Field Theory. Mathematical physicists, experimental physicists and engineers have each their own way of customizing tensors, especially by using the different metric signatures, different metric determinant signs, different definitions of the basic Riemann and Ricci tensors, and by adopting different systems of physical units. This chaos greatly hampers progress toward the chief NASA BPP goal: the design of the NASA Warp Drive. It is thus concluded that NASA should put order by establishing international standards in symbolic tensor calculus and enforcing anyone working in BPP to adopt these NASA BPP Standards. .

How to Cloud for Earth Scientists: An Introduction

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Lynnes, Chris

2018-01-01

This presentation is a tutorial on getting started with cloud computing for the purposes of Earth Observation datasets. We first discuss some of the main advantages that cloud computing can provide for the Earth scientist: copious processing power, immense and affordable data storage, and rapid startup time. We also talk about some of the challenges of getting the most out of cloud computing: re-organizing the way data are analyzed, handling node failures and attending.

Interactomes to Biological Phase Space: a call to begin thinking at a new level in computational biology.

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Davidson, George S.; Brown, William Michael

2007-09-01

Techniques for high throughput determinations of interactomes, together with high resolution protein collocalizations maps within organelles and through membranes will soon create a vast resource. With these data, biological descriptions, akin to the high dimensional phase spaces familiar to physicists, will become possible. These descriptions will capture sufficient information to make possible realistic, system-level models of cells. The descriptions and the computational models they enable will require powerful computing techniques. This report is offered as a call to the computational biology community to begin thinking at this scale and as a challenge to develop the required algorithms and codes tomore » make use of the new data.3« less

The origins of the research on the foundations of quantum mechanics (and other critical activities) in Italy during the 1970s

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Baracca, Angelo; Bergia, Silvio; Del Santo, Flavio

2017-02-01

We present a reconstruction of the studies on the Foundations of Quantum Mechanics carried out in Italy at the turn of the 1960s. Actually, they preceded the revival of the interest of the American physicists towards the foundations of quantum mechanics around mid-1970s, recently reconstructed by David Kaiser in a book of 2011. An element common to both cases is the role played by the young generation, even though the respective motivations were quite different. In the US they reacted to research cuts after the war in Vietnam, and were inspired by the New Age mood. In Italy the dissatisfaction of the young generations was rooted in the student protests of 1968 and the subsequent labour and social fights, which challenged the role of scientists. The young generations of physicists searched for new scientific approaches and challenged their own scientific knowledge and role. The criticism to the foundations of quantum mechanics and the perspectives of submitting them to experimental tests were perceived as an innovative research field and this attitude was directly linked to the search for an innovative and radical approach in the history of science. All these initiatives gave rise to booming activity throughout the 1970s, contributing to influence the scientific attitude and the teaching approach.

A new form of strange matter and new hope for finding it

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Flam, F.

Deep in the dense cores of collapsed stars even atoms don't survive. The force of gravity crushes them into particle mushes weighing megatons per teaspoon. But even these alien forms of matter don't hold a candle to another possible end product of a collapsing star: something physicists justifiably call strange matter. This strangeness comes from an exotic particle not associated with ordinary matter: the strange quark. It belongs to a six-member quark family, along with up, down, charm, top, and bottom, each of which carries a different combination of charge and mass. The only ones that make up matter asmore » we know it are up and down quarks, but in theory, matter could form out of strange quarks as well. In nature, it would turn up most probably in interiors of collapsed stars. Scientists originally imagined strange matter as a sort of disorganized mixed bag of strange quarks, but this summer a group proposed that the quarks could form a sort of mutant atomic nucleus that could conceivably grow to the size of a star. For the moment this is speculation, but it may not be theoretical musing for long. Physicists are preparing to try making strange matter here on Earth, in experiments at Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York and Switzerland's CERN, next summer.« less

The Rayleigh Papers

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Miller, Thomas; Bederson, Benjamin

2005-04-01

The Third Lord Rayleigh (1842-1919), aka John William Strutt, was among the most stellar physicists of the Nineteenth Century, in both theory and experiment. He spent most of his mature years in his own laboratory, self-funded, on his family estate. One of the consequences was the fact that all of his papers remained at the estate upon his death. After his son's (Robert John Strutt, 1875-1947) death both their scientific papers ended up on the auction block. (Robert John was himself an atmospheric physicist.) Part of the Strutt collection went to the Burndy Library of the Dibner Institute at MIT, but most landed in the library at the US Air Force Cambridge Research Laboratory (now the Air Force Research Laboratory at Hansom AFB), purchased from the auctioneer out of library funds, for 9,000. The individual most responsible for preserving these papers was John N. Howard, the laboratory Chief Scientist, who was a founding editor of the journal Applied Optics. Recently the authors examined first hand the Rayleigh papers. Included in these are a complete set of his handwritten scientific notes, taken over the period 1862-1919, from the time he was a student at Trinity College, Cambridge until just months before his death. We will show a number of interesting examples from these notes, including his first identification of argon, as well as some other fascinating items from the collection.

The Physics of Vibration

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pippard, A. B.

1989-11-01

The study of vibration in physical systems is an important part of almost all fields in physics and engineering. This work, originally published in two volumes, examines the classical aspects in Part I and the quantum oscillator in Part II. The classical linear vibrator is treated first and the underlying unity of all linear oscillations in electrical, mechanical and acoustic systems is emphasized. Following this the book turns to the treatment of nonlinear vibrations, a field with which engineers and physicists are generally less familiar. In Part II the emphasis turns to quantum systems, that is those systems which can only be adequately described by quantum mechanics. The treatment concentrates on vibrations in atoms and molecules and their interaction with electromagnetic radiation. The similarities of classical and quantum methods are stressed and the limits of the classical treatment are examined. Throughout the book, each phenomenon discussed is illustrated with many examples and theory and experiment are compared. Although the reader may find that the physics discussed is demanding and the concepts are subtle in places, all mathematics used is familiar to both engineers and experimental scientists. Although not a textbook this is a useful introduction to the more advanced mathematical treatment of vibrations as it bridges the gap between the basic principles and more specialized concepts. It will be of great interest to advanced undergraduates and postgraduates as well as applied mathematicians, physicists and engineers in university and industry.

[Training of medical physicists in radiation therapy at the International Educational Center of the Association of Medical Physicists in Russia].

PubMed

Kostylev, V A; Lysenko, M N; Zhgutov, A V; Ulanov, D V; Kislyakova, M V; Kazantsev, P V; Kostylev, D V; Narkevich, B Y

2015-01-01

The efficiency of radiotherapy treatment for cancer patients and use of the state-of-the-art accelerator facilities, in the first place, depends on the qualification and number of medical physicists. The need for the training and continuing professional development (CPD) of medical radiation physicists in Russia and CIS countries has dramatically increased today. The article considers the system of refresher training which should provide the continuing professional development and advance training of medical radiation physicists. The authors analyze the experience of the International Educational Center of the Association of Medical Physicists in Russia involved in the CPD of medical physicists under the IAEA TC projects, RMAPO and N.N. Blokhin RCRC joint educational programs.

The IT in Secondary Science Book. A Compendium of Ideas for Using Computers and Teaching Science.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Frost, Roger

Scientists need to measure and communicate, to handle information, and model ideas. In essence, they need to process information. Young scientists have the same needs. Computers have become a tremendously important addition to the processing of information through database use, graphing and modeling and also in the collection of information…

75 FR 64996 - Takes of Marine Mammals Incidental to Specified Activities; Marine Geophysical Survey in the...

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2010-10-21

... cruises. A laptop computer is located on the observer platform for ease of data entry. The computer is... lines, the receiving systems will receive the returning acoustic signals. The study (e.g., equipment...-board assistance by the scientists who have proposed the study. The Chief Scientist is Dr. Franco...

Quantum physics reimagined for the general public

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bobroff, Julien

2015-03-01

Quantum Physics has always been a challenging issue for outreach. It is invisible, non-intuitive and written in sophisticated mathematics. In our ``Physics Reimagined'' research group, we explore new ways to present that field to the general public. Our approach is to develop close collaborations between physicists and designers or graphic artists. By developing this new kind of dialogue, we seek to find new ways to present complex phenomena and recent research topics to the public at large. For example, we created with web-illustrators a series of 3D animations about basic quantum laws and research topics (graphene, Bose-Einstein condensation, decoherence, pump-probe techniques, ARPES...). We collaborated with designers to develop original setups, from quantum wave animated models or foldings to a superconducting circus with levitating animals. With illustrators, we produced exhibits, comic strips or postcards displaying the physicists in their labs, either famous ones or even our own colleagues in their daily life as researchers. With artists, we recently made a stop-motion picture to explain in an esthetic way the process of discovery and scientific publication. We will discuss how these new types of outreach projects allowed us to engage the public with modern physics both on a scientific and cultural level and how the concepts and process can easily be replicated and expanded by other physicists. We are at the precise time when creative tools, interfaces, and ways of sharing and learning are rapidly evolving (wikipedia, MOOCs, smartphones...). If scientists don't step forward to employ these tools and develop new resources, other people will, and the integrity of the science and underlying character of research risks being compromised. All our productions are free to use and can be downloaded at www.PhysicsReimagined.com (for 3D quantum videos, specific link: www.QuantumMadeSimple.com) This work benefited from the support of the Chair ``Physics Reimagined'' (Paris-Sud University/Air Liquide).

Networking: the view from HEP

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

McKee, Shawn

2017-10-01

Networks have played a critical role in high-energy physics (HEP), enabling us to access and effectively utilize globally distributed resources to meet the needs of our physicists. National and global-scale collaborations that characterize HEP would not be feasible without ubiquitous capable networks. Because of their importance in enabling our grid computing infrastructure many physicists have taken leading roles in research and education (R&E) networking, participating in, and even convening, network related meetings and research programs with the broader networking community worldwide. This has led to HEP benefiting from excellent global networking capabilities for little to no direct cost. However, as other science domains ramp-up their need for similar networking it becomes less clear that this situation will continue unchanged. This paper will briefly discuss the history of networking in HEP, the current activities and challenges we are facing, and try to provide some understanding of where networking may be going in the next 5 to 10 years.

Special issue on "Frontiers in Materials Science: Condensed matters"

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hoang, Nam-Nhat; Yamamoto, Tomoyuki; Pham, Duc-Thang

2018-03-01

This special issue includes the editor-invited and selected papers from 3rd International Symposium on Frontiers in Materials Science (FMS2016), held in Hanoi, Vietnam, from the 28th to 30th of September 2016, which coincided with the 65th anniversary of the Faculty of Physics, Hanoi University of Education. The FMS2016 is a continuation of a series of meetings starting from 2010. A first event was a bilateral Vietnamese-German meeting in Hanoi, Vietnam, in 2010, and the second one was held in Frankfurt, Germany, in 2011. The idea at that time was to initiate interactions between scientists from both countries and to further develop the field of materials science in Southeast Asia. After these successful bilateral meetings, a next step was taken by advancing the format of the symposium into an international event. In 2013, the 1st International Symposium on Frontiers in Materials Science (FMS2013) was successfully organized in Hanoi, which followed 2nd symposium, FMS2015, in Tokyo, in 2015. The FMS2016 continues this idea of providing an international forum for physicists, material scientists and chemists for discussing their latest results and the recent developments in the important field of materials science.

Benefit from NASA

NASA Image and Video Library

1999-06-01

Two scientists at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center,atmospheric scientist Paul Meyer and solar physicist Dr. David Hathaway, developed promising new software, called Video Image Stabilization and Registration (VISAR). VISAR may help law enforcement agencies catch criminals by improving the quality of video recorded at crime scenes. In this photograph, the single frame at left, taken at night, was brightened in order to enhance details and reduce noise or snow. To further overcome the video defects in one frame, Law enforcement officials can use VISAR software to add information from multiple frames to reveal a person. Images from less than a second of videotape were added together to create the clarified image at right. VISAR stabilizes camera motion in the horizontal and vertical as well as rotation and zoom effects producing clearer images of moving objects, smoothes jagged edges, enhances still images, and reduces video noise or snow. VISAR could also have applications in medical and meteorological imaging. It could steady images of ultrasounds, which are infamous for their grainy, blurred quality. The software can be used for defense application by improving recornaissance video imagery made by military vehicles, aircraft, and ships traveling in harsh, rugged environments.

Expanding Earth and declining gravity: a chapter in the recent history of geophysics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kragh, H.

2015-05-01

Although speculative ideas of an expanding Earth can be found before World War II, it was only in the 1950s and 1960s that the theory attracted serious attention among a minority of earth scientists. While some of the proponents of the expanding Earth adopted an empiricist attitude by disregarding the physical cause of the assumed expansion, others argued that the cause, either fully or in part, was of cosmological origin. They referred to the possibility that the gravitational constant was slowly decreasing in time, as first suggested by P. Dirac in 1937. As a result of a stronger gravitation in the past, the ancient Earth would have been smaller than today. The gravitational argument for an expanding Earth was proposed by P. Jordan and L. Egyed in the 1950s and during the next 2 decades it was discussed by several physicists, astronomers and earth scientists. Among those who for a period felt attracted by "gravitational expansionism" were A. Holmes, J. Tuzo Wilson and F. Hoyle. The paper examines the idea of a varying gravitational constant and its impact on geophysics in the period from about 1955 to the mid-1970s.

Video Image Stabilization and Registration (VISAR) Software

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1999-01-01

Two scientists at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center,atmospheric scientist Paul Meyer and solar physicist Dr. David Hathaway, developed promising new software, called Video Image Stabilization and Registration (VISAR). VISAR may help law enforcement agencies catch criminals by improving the quality of video recorded at crime scenes. In this photograph, the single frame at left, taken at night, was brightened in order to enhance details and reduce noise or snow. To further overcome the video defects in one frame, Law enforcement officials can use VISAR software to add information from multiple frames to reveal a person. Images from less than a second of videotape were added together to create the clarified image at right. VISAR stabilizes camera motion in the horizontal and vertical as well as rotation and zoom effects producing clearer images of moving objects, smoothes jagged edges, enhances still images, and reduces video noise or snow. VISAR could also have applications in medical and meteorological imaging. It could steady images of ultrasounds, which are infamous for their grainy, blurred quality. The software can be used for defense application by improving recornaissance video imagery made by military vehicles, aircraft, and ships traveling in harsh, rugged environments.

What do computer scientists tweet? Analyzing the link-sharing practice on Twitter

PubMed Central

Schmitt, Marco

2017-01-01

Twitter communication has permeated every sphere of society. To highlight and share small pieces of information with possibly vast audiences or small circles of the interested has some value in almost any aspect of social life. But what is the value exactly for a scientific field? We perform a comprehensive study of computer scientists using Twitter and their tweeting behavior concerning the sharing of web links. Discerning the domains, hosts and individual web pages being tweeted and the differences between computer scientists and a Twitter sample enables us to look in depth at the Twitter-based information sharing practices of a scientific community. Additionally, we aim at providing a deeper understanding of the role and impact of altmetrics in computer science and give a glance at the publications mentioned on Twitter that are most relevant for the computer science community. Our results show a link sharing culture that concentrates more heavily on public and professional quality information than the Twitter sample does. The results also show a broad variety in linked sources and especially in linked publications with some publications clearly related to community-specific interests of computer scientists, while others with a strong relation to attention mechanisms in social media. This refers to the observation that Twitter is a hybrid form of social media between an information service and a social network service. Overall the computer scientists’ style of usage seems to be more on the information-oriented side and to some degree also on professional usage. Therefore, altmetrics are of considerable use in analyzing computer science. PMID:28636619

Analysis of severe storm data

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Hickey, J. S.

1983-01-01

The Mesoscale Analysis and Space Sensor (MASS) Data Management and Analysis System developed by Atsuko Computing International (ACI) on the MASS HP-1000 Computer System within the Systems Dynamics Laboratory of the Marshall Space Flight Center is described. The MASS Data Management and Analysis System was successfully implemented and utilized daily by atmospheric scientists to graphically display and analyze large volumes of conventional and satellite derived meteorological data. The scientists can process interactively various atmospheric data (Sounding, Single Level, Gird, and Image) by utilizing the MASS (AVE80) share common data and user inputs, thereby reducing overhead, optimizing execution time, and thus enhancing user flexibility, useability, and understandability of the total system/software capabilities. In addition ACI installed eight APPLE III graphics/imaging computer terminals in individual scientist offices and integrated them into the MASS HP-1000 Computer System thus providing significant enhancement to the overall research environment.

NASA/DOD Aerospace Knowledge Diffusion Research Project. Paper 19: Computer and information technology and aerospace knowledge diffusion

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Pinelli, Thomas E.; Kennedy, John M.; Barclay, Rebecca O.; Bishop, Ann P.

1992-01-01

To remain a world leader in aerospace, the US must improve and maintain the professional competency of its engineers and scientists, increase the research and development (R&D) knowledge base, improve productivity, and maximize the integration of recent technological developments into the R&D process. How well these objectives are met, and at what cost, depends on a variety of factors, but largely on the ability of US aerospace engineers and scientists to acquire and process the results of federally funded R&D. The Federal Government's commitment to high speed computing and networking systems presupposes that computer and information technology will play a major role in the aerospace knowledge diffusion process. However, we know little about information technology needs, uses, and problems within the aerospace knowledge diffusion process. The use of computer and information technology by US aerospace engineers and scientists in academia, government, and industry is reported.

Introduction to the Space Physics Analysis Network (SPAN)

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Green, J. L. (Editor); Peters, D. J. (Editor)

1985-01-01

The Space Physics Analysis Network or SPAN is emerging as a viable method for solving an immediate communication problem for the space scientist. SPAN provides low-rate communication capability with co-investigators and colleagues, and access to space science data bases and computational facilities. The SPAN utilizes up-to-date hardware and software for computer-to-computer communications allowing binary file transfer and remote log-on capability to over 25 nationwide space science computer systems. SPAN is not discipline or mission dependent with participation from scientists in such fields as magnetospheric, ionospheric, planetary, and solar physics. Basic information on the network and its use are provided. It is anticipated that SPAN will grow rapidly over the next few years, not only from the standpoint of more network nodes, but as scientists become more proficient in the use of telescience, more capability will be needed to satisfy the demands.

Gravitation, Symmetry and Undergraduates

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jorgensen, Jamie

2001-04-01

This talk will discuss "Project Petrov" Which is designed to investigate gravitational fields with symmetry. Project Petrov represents a collaboration involving physicists, mathematicians as well as graduate and undergraduate math and physics students. An overview of Project Petrov will be given, with an emphasis on students' contributions, including software to classify and generate Lie algebras, to classify isometry groups, and to compute the isometry group of a given metric.

Using the Scroll Wheel on a Wireless Mouse as a Motion Sensor

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Taylor, Richard S.; Wilson, William R.

2010-01-01

Since its inception in the mid-80s, the computer mouse has undergone several design changes. As the mouse has evolved, physicists have found new ways to utilize it as a motion sensor. For example, the rollers in a mechanical mouse have been used as pulleys to study the motion of a magnet moving through a copper tube as a quantitative demonstration…

From MAGIC to CTA: the INAF participation to Cherenkov Telescopes experiments for very high energy astrophysics .

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Antonelli, L. A.; INAF MAGIC Collaboration

The next decade can be considered the "golden age" of the Gamma Ray Astronomy with the two satellites for Gamma Ray Astronomy (AGILE and GLAST) in orbit. Therefore, thanks to many other X-ray experiments already in orbit (e.g. Swift, Chandra, NewtonXMM, etc.) it will be possible to image the Universe for the first time all over the electromagnetic spectrum almost contemporarily. The new generations of ground-based very high gamma-ray instruments are ready to extend the observed band also to the very high frequencies. Scientists from the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF) are involved in many, both space- and ground- based gamma ray experiments, and recently such an involvement has been largely improved in the field of the Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes (IACT). INAF is now member of the MAGIC collaboration and is participating to the realization of the second MAGIC telescope. MAGIC, as well other IACT experiments, is not operated as an observatory so a proper guest observer program does not exist. A consortium of European scientists (including INAF scientists) is thus now thinking to the design of a new research infrastructure: the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA). CTA is conceived to provide 10 times the sensitivity of current instruments, combined with increased flexibility and increased coverage from some 10 GeV to some 100 TeV. CTA will be operated as an observatory to serve a wider community of astronomer and astroparticle physicists.

Engineering Education in K-12 Schools

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Spence, Anne

2013-03-01

Engineers rely on physicists as well as other scientists and mathematicians to explain the world in which we live. Engineers take this knowledge of the world and use it to create the world that never was. The teaching of physics and other sciences as well as mathematics is critical to maintaining our national workforce. Science and mathematics education are inherently different, however, from engineering education. Engineering educators seek to enable students to develop the habits of mind critical for innovation. Through understanding of the engineering design process and how it differs from the scientific method, students can apply problem and project based learning to solve the challenges facing society today. In this talk, I will discuss the elements critical to a solid K-12 engineering education that integrates science and mathematics to solve challenges throughout the world.

The Jefferson Science Fellows (JSF) program at the US Department of State

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Peterson, Roy

2014-09-01

In 2004 the US Department of State and the National Academies established the Jefferson Science Fellows program, to bring tenured faculty in sciences, engineering, and medicine to the Department of State or USAID for a year in residence, with continuing connections. Over twenty physical scientists have been Fellows, working in a wide variety of offices on a broad range of topics. The main advantage to Fellows is the opportunity to make an impact on important national and international issues, applying skills and judgments gained through their research, teaching, and service. The JSF experience can also create broader horizons for physicists, especially beyond the laboratory. The selection process and examples, including my own, will be described. Information can be found at //sites.nationalacademies.org/PGA/Jefferson/.

Science for the Public Through Collaboration and Humor

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wargo, Richard

2013-03-01

The transformation of all things media and information into a dynamic environment of user access has created what seems infinite possibilities to inform the public in many different ways - as well as seemingly infinite possibilities to confuse. This talk will describe a rather non-conventional collaboration between two different creative cultures and its significance to maintaining scientific accuracy and devising strategies important to audience engagement - among them humor. While focusing on the award-winning effort ``When Things Get Small'' created by University of California Television producer R. Wargo in collaboration with condensed matter physicist I.K. Schuller and actor Adam J. Smith, with both NSF and private support, the case study provides insight into a model and modes which can be used successfully by other scientists to engage the public in what they do.

Science For The Public: Collaboration and Humor

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wargo, Richard

2013-04-01

The transformation of all things media and information into a dynamic environment of user access has created what seems infinite possibilities to inform the public in many different ways - as well as seemingly infinite possibilities to confuse. This talk will describe a rather non-conventional collaboration between two different creative cultures and its significance to maintaining scientific accuracy and devising strategies important to audience engagement - among them, humor. While focusing on the award-winning effort ``When Things Get Small'' created by University of California Television producer R. Wargo in collaboration with condensed matter physicist I.K. Schuller and actor Adam J. Smith, with both NSF and private support, the case study provides insight into a model and modes which can be used successfully by other scientists to engage the public in what they do.

Exotic Superconductivity in Correlated Electron Systems

DOE PAGES

Mu, Gang; Sandu, Viorel; Li, Wei; ...

2015-05-25

Over the past decades, the search for high-T c superconductivity (SC) and its novel superconducting mechanisms is one of the most challenging tasks of condensed matter physicists and material scientists, wherein the most striking achievement is the discovery of high- c and unconventional superconductivity in strongly correlated 3d-electron systems, such as cuprates and iron pnictides/chalcogenides. Those exotic superconductors display the behaviors beyond the scope of the BCS theory (in the SC states) and the Landau-Fermi liquid theory (in the normal states). In general, such exotic superconductivity can be seen as correlated electron systems, where there are strong interplays among charge,more » spin, orbital, and lattice degrees of freedom. Thus, we focus on the exotic superconductivity in materials with correlated electrons in the present special issue.« less

Boltzmann: The Genius of Disorder

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mussardo, G.; Merlone, A.

2010-07-01

The tragedy and greatness of the contribution of Ludwig Boltzmann cannot be understood without taking into account for the relevant scientific developments that took place in the nineteenth century, one of the most eventful periods in the history of science. The kinetic theory opened a new theoretical perspective in understanding natural phenomena. The introduction of new categories of order and disorder changed radically the point of view of those physicists that accepted Boltzmann’s thesis and led, at the same time, to strong opposition to the Viennese Scientist. In this article, we present the academic situation, scientific theories, and disputes involving the Boltzmann’s theories. A short introduction on the birth of the atomistic theories opens the article, while a view on the evolution of the concept of temperature and the definition of its unit quantity closes it.

FROM THE HISTORY OF PHYSICS: Georgii L'vovich Shnirman: designer of fast-response instruments

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bashilov, I. P.

1994-07-01

A biography is given of the outstanding Russian scientist Georgii L'vovich Shnirman, whose scientific life had been 'top secret'. He was an experimental physicist and instrument designer, the founder of many branches of the Soviet instrument-making industry, the originator of a theory of electric methods of integration and differentiation, a theory of astasisation of pendulums, and also of original measurement methods. He was the originator and designer of automatic systems for the control of the measuring apparatus used at nuclear test sites and of automatic seismic station systems employed in monitoring nuclear tests. He also designed the first loop oscilloscopes in the Soviet Union, high-speed photographic and cine cameras (streak cameras, etc.), and many other unique instruments, including some mounted on moving objects.

Ettore Majorana: The scientist and the man

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Recami, Erasmo

2014-12-01

Ettore Majorana was the brightest Italian theoretical physicist of the XX century (actually, Enrico Fermi regarded him as the brightest in the world of his time, and compared him to Galileo and Newton), even if to some people Majorana is often known mainly for his mysterious disappearance, in 1938, when he was 31. In this paper, we present a panoramic view of the main scientific articles published by him, as well as their significance. We also briefly outline his life, the biographical data being based on letters, documents, testimonies discovered or collected by the author during more than four decades, and contained since 1986 in Recami's book quoted in the text. Finally, extensive information and comments are added with regard to the scientific manuscripts left unpublished by Majorana. Two pictures complete the paper.

Brief, Embedded, Spontaneous Metacognitive Talk Indicates Thinking Like a Physicist

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sayre, Eleanor C.; Irving, Paul W.

2015-01-01

Instructors and researchers think "thinking like a physicist" is important for students' professional development. However, precise definitions and observational markers remain elusive. We reinterpret popular beliefs inventories in physics to indicate what physicists think thinking like a physicist entails. Through discourse analysis of…

Most Social Scientists Shun Free Use of Supercomputers.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kiernan, Vincent

1998-01-01

Social scientists, who frequently complain that the federal government spends too little on them, are passing up what scholars in the physical and natural sciences see as the government's best give-aways: free access to supercomputers. Some social scientists say the supercomputers are difficult to use; others find desktop computers provide…

The Unified English Braille Code: Examination by Science, Mathematics, and Computer Science Technical Expert Braille Readers

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Holbrook, M. Cay; MacCuspie, P. Ann

2010-01-01

Braille-reading mathematicians, scientists, and computer scientists were asked to examine the usability of the Unified English Braille Code (UEB) for technical materials. They had little knowledge of the code prior to the study. The research included two reading tasks, a short tutorial about UEB, and a focus group. The results indicated that the…

Meet EPA Scientist Valerie Zartarian, Ph.D.

EPA Pesticide Factsheets

Senior exposure scientist and research environmental engineer Valerie Zartarian, Ph.D. helps build computer models and other tools that advance our understanding of how people interact with chemicals.

Hot, Hot, Hot Computer Careers.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Basta, Nicholas

1988-01-01

Discusses the increasing need for electrical, electronic, and computer engineers; and scientists. Provides current status of the computer industry and average salaries. Considers computer chip manufacture and the current chip shortage. (MVL)

PREFACE: 2nd International Workshop on Theoretical and Computational Physics (IWTCP-2): Modern Methods and Latest Results in Particle Physics, Nuclear Physics and Astrophysics and the 39th National Conference on Theoretical Physics (NCTP-39)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hoang, Trinh Xuan; Ky, Nguyen Anh; Lan, Nguyen Tri; Viet, Nguyen Ai

2015-06-01

This volume contains selected papers presented at the 2nd International Workshop on Theoretical and Computational Physics (IWTCP-2): Modern Methods and Latest Results in Particle Physics, Nuclear Physics and Astrophysics and the 39th National Conference on Theoretical Physics (NCTP-39). Both the workshop and the conference were held from 28th - 31st July 2014 in Dakruco Hotel, Buon Ma Thuot, Dak Lak, Vietnam. The NCTP-39 and the IWTCP-2 were organized under the support of the Vietnamese Theoretical Physics Society, with a motivation to foster scientific exchanges between the theoretical and computational physicists in Vietnam and worldwide, as well as to promote high-standard level of research and education activities for young physicists in the country. The IWTCP-2 was also an External Activity of the Asia Pacific Center for Theoretical Physics (APCTP). About 100 participants coming from nine countries participated in the workshop and the conference. At the IWTCP-2 workshop, we had 16 invited talks presented by international experts, together with eight oral and ten poster contributions. At the NCTP-39, three invited talks, 15 oral contributions and 39 posters were presented. We would like to thank all invited speakers, participants and sponsors for making the workshop and the conference successful. Trinh Xuan Hoang, Nguyen Anh Ky, Nguyen Tri Lan and Nguyen Ai Viet

The Science of Computing: Virtual Memory

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Denning, Peter J.

1986-01-01

In the March-April issue, I described how a computer's storage system is organized as a hierarchy consisting of cache, main memory, and secondary memory (e.g., disk). The cache and main memory form a subsystem that functions like main memory but attains speeds approaching cache. What happens if a program and its data are too large for the main memory? This is not a frivolous question. Every generation of computer users has been frustrated by insufficient memory. A new line of computers may have sufficient storage for the computations of its predecessor, but new programs will soon exhaust its capacity. In 1960, a longrange planning committee at MIT dared to dream of a computer with 1 million words of main memory. In 1985, the Cray-2 was delivered with 256 million words. Computational physicists dream of computers with 1 billion words. Computer architects have done an outstanding job of enlarging main memories yet they have never kept up with demand. Only the shortsighted believe they can.

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Shankar, Arjun

Computer scientist Arjun Shankar is director of the Compute and Data Environment for Science (CADES), ORNL’s multidisciplinary big data computing center. CADES offers computing, networking and data analytics to facilitate workflows for both ORNL and external research projects.

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Lapidus, Alla L.

From the date its role in heredity was discovered, DNA has been generating interest among scientists from different fields of knowledge: physicists have studied the three dimensional structure of the DNA molecule, biologists tried to decode the secrets of life hidden within these long molecules, and technologists invent and improve methods of DNA analysis. The analysis of the nucleotide sequence of DNA occupies a special place among the methods developed. Thanks to the variety of sequencing technologies available, the process of decoding the sequence of genomic DNA (or whole genome sequencing) has become robust and inexpensive. Meanwhile the assembly ofmore » whole genome sequences remains a challenging task. In addition to the need to assemble millions of DNA fragments of different length (from 35 bp (Solexa) to 800 bp (Sanger)), great interest in analysis of microbial communities (metagenomes) of different complexities raises new problems and pushes some new requirements for sequence assembly tools to the forefront. The genome assembly process can be divided into two steps: draft assembly and assembly improvement (finishing). Despite the fact that automatically performed assembly (or draft assembly) is capable of covering up to 98% of the genome, in most cases, it still contains incorrectly assembled reads. The error rate of the consensus sequence produced at this stage is about 1/2000 bp. A finished genome represents the genome assembly of much higher accuracy (with no gaps or incorrectly assembled areas) and quality ({approx}1 error/10,000 bp), validated through a number of computer and laboratory experiments.« less

Jungle Computing: Distributed Supercomputing Beyond Clusters, Grids, and Clouds

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Seinstra, Frank J.; Maassen, Jason; van Nieuwpoort, Rob V.; Drost, Niels; van Kessel, Timo; van Werkhoven, Ben; Urbani, Jacopo; Jacobs, Ceriel; Kielmann, Thilo; Bal, Henri E.

In recent years, the application of high-performance and distributed computing in scientific practice has become increasingly wide spread. Among the most widely available platforms to scientists are clusters, grids, and cloud systems. Such infrastructures currently are undergoing revolutionary change due to the integration of many-core technologies, providing orders-of-magnitude speed improvements for selected compute kernels. With high-performance and distributed computing systems thus becoming more heterogeneous and hierarchical, programming complexity is vastly increased. Further complexities arise because urgent desire for scalability and issues including data distribution, software heterogeneity, and ad hoc hardware availability commonly force scientists into simultaneous use of multiple platforms (e.g., clusters, grids, and clouds used concurrently). A true computing jungle.

On the Late Development and Possible Astronomical Origin of the Gyroscope

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Brecher, Kenneth

2013-01-01

The invention of the gyroscope is usually attributed to the French physicist Jean-Bernard-Leon Foucault in the year 1852. He certainly created the word and also used his gyroscope to demonstrate the rotation of the Earth. However, the gyroscope was actually invented around 1812 by the German scientist Johann Bohnenberger who called his device simply the “machine”. Bohnenberger was a professor of astronomy and mathematics and published a book about astronomy in 1811. Several other scientists, including American physicist Walter R. Johnson (who called his apparatus the “rotascope”), independently invented the gyroscope. Each of these devices employed a central object (sphere or disc) that could spin on a shaft. This object was placed between three independent gimbals, two of which could move freely. Bohnenberger’s “machine” has much the same appearance as an armillary sphere. Those astronomical devices had been produced for at least the preceding three centuries and were widely dispersed and well known throughout Europe. They were used to display the apparent motion of celestial bodies. However, armillary spheres were used only as simulations of celestial appearances, not as actual demonstrations of physical phenomena. It is not known if the inertial properties of armillary spheres (and also of terrestrial and celestial globes) had been studied before about 1800. Nonetheless, as a matter of practice, gimbal systems similar to those found in gyroscopes were used on ships to level oil lamps at least as early as the sixteenth century AD. And the ideas behind armillary spheres date back at least a millennium before that. So why did the invention of the gyroscope in its modern form take such a long time when the individual underlying components had been around and utilized for some two millennia? Perhaps because the understanding of angular momentum, including its conservation, was not developed until the start of the 19th century and also because the technologies necessary to make practical gyroscopes were only developed later in the 19th century. This study was supported in part by NSF Grant # DUE-0715975 for Project LITE.

The Many Worlds of Leo Szilard: Physicist, Peacemaker, Provocateur

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lanouette, William

2014-03-01

Best known for being the first to conceive and patent the nuclear chain reaction in the 1930s, Leo Szilard should also be remembered for other insights in both physics and biology, and for historical initiatives to control the A-bomb he helped create. In physics, Szilard applied entropy to data in a seminal 1929 paper that laid the basis for ``information theory.'' Szilard co-designed an electromagnetic refrigerator pump with Einstein in the 1920s, in 1939 he co-designed the first nuclear reactor with Enrico Fermi, and he later thought up and named the nuclear ``breeder'' reactor. Biologist Francois Jacob called Szilard an ``intellectual bumblebee'' for the many novel ideas he shared, including one that earned Jacob and others the Nobel Prize. James D. Watson said that for intellectual stimulation he liked being around Szilard because ``Leo got excited about something before it was true.'' A political activist, Szilard proposed and drafted the 1939 letter Einstein sent to President Franklin Roosevelt that warned of German A-bomb work and led to the Manhattan Project - where Szilard was ``Chief Physicist.'' Yet Szilard then worked tirelessly to curb nuclear weapons, organizing a scientists' petition to President Truman and lobbying Congress for civilian control of the atom. Szilard loved dreaming up new institutions. He helped to create the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, and founded the Council for a Livable World - the first political action committee for arms control. In biology, Szilard proposed the European Molecular Biology Organization modeled on CERN, and helped create the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, where he was one of the first fellows. Shy, witty, and eccentric, Szilard wrote a political satire in 1960 that predicted when the US-Soviet nuclear arms race would end in the late 1980s. Another satire, ``My Trial as a War Criminal'' about scientists' responsibilities for weapons of mass destruction, is credited with prompting Andrei Sakharov to the heroic political activism that earned him the Nobel Peace Prize. This year marks the 50th anniversary of Szilard's death, and the 75th anniversary of the Einstein letter. This talk will discuss other notable events in Szilard's life as well.

The current status of education and career paths of students after completion of medical physicist programs in Japan: a survey by the Japanese Board for Medical Physicist Qualification.

PubMed

Kadoya, Noriyuki; Karasawa, Kumiko; Sumida, Iori; Arimura, Hidetaka; Yamada, Syogo

2015-07-01

To standardize educational programs and clinical training for medical physics students, the Japanese Board for Medical Physicist Qualification (JBMP) began to accredit master's, doctorate, and residency programs for medical physicists in 2012. At present, 16 universities accredited by the JBMP offer 22 courses. In this study, we aimed to survey the current status of educational programs and career paths of students after completion of the medical physicist program in Japan. A questionnaire was sent in August 2014 to 32 universities offering medical physicist programs. The questionnaire was created and organized by the educational course certification committee of the JBMP and comprised two sections: the first collected information about the university attended, and the second collected information about characteristics and career paths of students after completion of medical physicist programs from 2008 to 2014. Thirty universities (16 accredited and 14 non-accredited) completed the survey (response rate 94 %). A total of 209, 40, and 3 students graduated from the master's, doctorate, and residency programs, respectively. Undergraduates entered the medical physicist program constantly, indicating an interest in medical physics among undergraduates. A large percentage of the students held a bachelor's degree in radiological technology (master's program 94 %; doctorate program 70 %); graduates obtained a national radiological technologist license. Regarding career paths, although the number of the graduates who work as medical physicist remains low, 7 % with a master's degree and 50 % with a doctorate degree worked as medical physicists. Our results could be helpful for improving the medical physicist program in Japan.

MO-E-213-02: Medical Physicist Involvement in Implementing Patient Protection Standards

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Seibert, J.

The focus of work of medical physicists in 1980’s was on quality control and quality assurance. Radiation safety was important but was dominated by occupational radiation protection. A series of over exposures of patients in radiotherapy, nuclear medicine and observation of skin injuries among patients undergoing interventional procedures in 1990’s started creating the need for focus on patient protection. It gave medical physicists new directions to develop expertise in patient dosimetry and dose management. Publications creating awareness on cancer risks from CT in early part of the current century and over exposures in CT in 2008 brought radiation risks inmore » public domain and created challenging situations for medical physicists. Increasing multiple exposures of individual patient and patient doses of few tens of mSv or exceeding 100 mSv are increasing the role of medical physicists. Expansion of usage of fluoroscopy in the hands of clinical professionals with hardly any training in radiation protection shall require further role for medical physicists. The increasing publications in journals, recent changes in Safety Standards, California law, all increase responsibilities of medical physicists in patient protection. Newer technological developments in dose efficiency and protective devices increase percentage of time devoted by medical physicists on radiation protection activities. Without radiation protection, the roles, responsibilities and day-to-day involvement of medical physicists in diagnostic radiology becomes questionable. In coming years either medical radiation protection may emerge as a specialty or medical physicists will have to keep major part of day-to-day work on radiation protection. Learning Objectives: To understand how radiation protection has been increasing its role in day-to-day activities of medical physicist To be aware about international safety Standards, national and State regulations that require higher attention to radiation protection than in past To be aware about possible emergence of medical radiation protection as a specialty and challenges for medical physicists.« less

MO-E-213-01: Increasing Role of Medical Physicist in Radiation Protection

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Rehani, M.

The focus of work of medical physicists in 1980’s was on quality control and quality assurance. Radiation safety was important but was dominated by occupational radiation protection. A series of over exposures of patients in radiotherapy, nuclear medicine and observation of skin injuries among patients undergoing interventional procedures in 1990’s started creating the need for focus on patient protection. It gave medical physicists new directions to develop expertise in patient dosimetry and dose management. Publications creating awareness on cancer risks from CT in early part of the current century and over exposures in CT in 2008 brought radiation risks inmore » public domain and created challenging situations for medical physicists. Increasing multiple exposures of individual patient and patient doses of few tens of mSv or exceeding 100 mSv are increasing the role of medical physicists. Expansion of usage of fluoroscopy in the hands of clinical professionals with hardly any training in radiation protection shall require further role for medical physicists. The increasing publications in journals, recent changes in Safety Standards, California law, all increase responsibilities of medical physicists in patient protection. Newer technological developments in dose efficiency and protective devices increase percentage of time devoted by medical physicists on radiation protection activities. Without radiation protection, the roles, responsibilities and day-to-day involvement of medical physicists in diagnostic radiology becomes questionable. In coming years either medical radiation protection may emerge as a specialty or medical physicists will have to keep major part of day-to-day work on radiation protection. Learning Objectives: To understand how radiation protection has been increasing its role in day-to-day activities of medical physicist To be aware about international safety Standards, national and State regulations that require higher attention to radiation protection than in past To be aware about possible emergence of medical radiation protection as a specialty and challenges for medical physicists.« less

Computer Tensor Codes to Design the War Drive

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Maccone, C.

To address problems in Breakthrough Propulsion Physics (BPP) and design the Warp Drive one needs sheer computing capabilities. This is because General Relativity (GR) and Quantum Field Theory (QFT) are so mathematically sophisticated that the amount of analytical calculations is prohibitive and one can hardly do all of them by hand. In this paper we make a comparative review of the main tensor calculus capabilities of the three most advanced and commercially available “symbolic manipulator” codes. We also point out that currently one faces such a variety of different conventions in tensor calculus that it is difficult or impossible to compare results obtained by different scholars in GR and QFT. Mathematical physicists, experimental physicists and engineers have each their own way of customizing tensors, especially by using different metric signatures, different metric determinant signs, different definitions of the basic Riemann and Ricci tensors, and by adopting different systems of physical units. This chaos greatly hampers progress toward the design of the Warp Drive. It is thus suggested that NASA would be a suitable organization to establish standards in symbolic tensor calculus and anyone working in BPP should adopt these standards. Alternatively other institutions, like CERN in Europe, might consider the challenge of starting the preliminary implementation of a Universal Tensor Code to design the Warp Drive.

Developing a strategy for computational lab skills training through Software and Data Carpentry: Experiences from the ELIXIR Pilot action

PubMed Central

Pawlik, Aleksandra; van Gelder, Celia W.G.; Nenadic, Aleksandra; Palagi, Patricia M.; Korpelainen, Eija; Lijnzaad, Philip; Marek, Diana; Sansone, Susanna-Assunta; Hancock, John; Goble, Carole

2017-01-01

Quality training in computational skills for life scientists is essential to allow them to deliver robust, reproducible and cutting-edge research. A pan-European bioinformatics programme, ELIXIR, has adopted a well-established and progressive programme of computational lab and data skills training from Software and Data Carpentry, aimed at increasing the number of skilled life scientists and building a sustainable training community in this field. This article describes the Pilot action, which introduced the Carpentry training model to the ELIXIR community. PMID:28781745

Developing a strategy for computational lab skills training through Software and Data Carpentry: Experiences from the ELIXIR Pilot action.

PubMed

Pawlik, Aleksandra; van Gelder, Celia W G; Nenadic, Aleksandra; Palagi, Patricia M; Korpelainen, Eija; Lijnzaad, Philip; Marek, Diana; Sansone, Susanna-Assunta; Hancock, John; Goble, Carole

2017-01-01

Quality training in computational skills for life scientists is essential to allow them to deliver robust, reproducible and cutting-edge research. A pan-European bioinformatics programme, ELIXIR, has adopted a well-established and progressive programme of computational lab and data skills training from Software and Data Carpentry, aimed at increasing the number of skilled life scientists and building a sustainable training community in this field. This article describes the Pilot action, which introduced the Carpentry training model to the ELIXIR community.

Secret Lives of the Hidden Physicists---from Spandex to Spintronics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

White, Gary

2006-10-01

What is a physicist? A case is made for defining a physicist as anyone with a bachelor's degree (or higher) in physics. Under this definition, a large fraction of physicists are hidden, that is, they have left, or never belonged to, the traditional lot of Ph.D. academicians. Data from the Statistical Research Center at the American Institute of Physics and from a survey of members of the national physics honor society, Sigma Pi Sigma, show the vast array of actual career paths taken by physicists. From spandex to blackberries to bioinformatics to flight control to wind energy to spintronics, physicists can be found in nearly every job sector in some of the coolest and most farfetched careers imaginable.

Mechanical Properties of Semiconductors and Their Alloys

DTIC Science & Technology

1992-02-01

Sher, Associate Director M.A. Berding, Research Physicist A.T. Paxton, International Fellow S. Krishnamurthy, Research Physicist Physical Electronics...Laboratory A.-B. Chen Auburn University Auburn, Alabama SRI Project 6682 Prepared for: . - Office of Scientific Research United States Air Force...THEIR ALLOYS A. Sher, Associate Director M.A. Berding, Research Physicist A.T. Paxton, International Fellow S. Knshnamurthy, Research Physicist Physical

Nuclear Physicists in Finance

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mattoni, Carlo

2017-01-01

The financial services industry presents an interesting alternative career path for nuclear physicists. Careers in finance typically offer intellectual challenge, a fast pace, high caliber colleagues, merit-based compensation with substantial upside, and an opportunity to deploy skills learned as a physicist. Physicists are employed at a wide range of financial institutions on both the ``buy side'' (hedge fund managers, private equity managers, mutual fund managers, etc.) and the ``sell side'' (investment banks and brokerages). Historically, physicists in finance were primarily ``quants'' tasked with applying stochastic calculus to determine the price of financial derivatives. With the maturation of the field of derivative pricing, physicists in finance today find work in a variety of roles ranging from quantification and management of risk to investment analysis to development of sophisticated software used to price, trade, and risk manage securities. Only a small subset of today's finance careers for physicists require the use of advanced math and practically none provide an opportunity to tinker with an apparatus, yet most nevertheless draw on important skills honed during the training of a nuclear physicist. Intellectually rigorous critical thinking, sophisticated problem solving, an attention to minute detail and an ability to create and test hypotheses based on incomplete information are key to both disciplines.

The Entangled Histories of Physics and Computation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rodriguez, Cesar

2007-03-01

The history of physics and computation intertwine in a fascinating manner that is relevant to the field of quantum computation. This talk focuses of the interconnections between both by examining their rhyming philosophies, recurrent characters and common themes. Leibniz not only was one of the lead figures of calculus, but also left his footprint in physics and invented the concept of a universal computational language. This last idea was further developed by Boole, Russell, Hilbert and G"odel. Physicists such as Boltzmann and Maxwell also established the foundation of the field of information theory later developed by Shannon. The war efforts of von Neumann and Turing can be juxtaposed to the Manhattan Project. Professional and personal connections of these characters to the development of physics will be emphasized. Recently, new cryptographic developments lead to a reexamination of the fundamentals of quantum mechanics, while quantum computation is discovering a new perspective on the nature of information itself.

NUCLEAR ESPIONAGE: Report Details Spying on Touring Scientists.

PubMed

Malakoff, D

2000-06-30

A congressional report released this week details dozens of sometimes clumsy attempts by foreign agents to obtain nuclear secrets from U.S. nuclear scientists traveling abroad, ranging from offering scientists prostitutes to prying off the backs of their laptop computers. The report highlights the need to better prepare traveling researchers to safeguard secrets and resist such temptations, say the two lawmakers who requested the report and officials at the Department of Energy, which employs the scientists.

Working (And Sparring) With Luis: Some Personal Recollections

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pripstein, Moishe

2011-04-01

Luis Alvarez was the most remarkable physicist I have ever worked with. As a member of his bubble chamber group at the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory in Berkeley and subsequently as a leader of that group for several years, I could appreciate his outstanding attributes as a physicist and his forceful and colorful personality. Each day at the lab seemed exciting. Although he created the largest research group in particle physics in the world at the time, Luis was an ardent foe of group-think, which he characterized as ``intellectual phase-lock''. He had an uncanny intuition about physics and technology, coupled with an insatiable curiosity about the world around him. He is justly renowned as a member of the Inventors Hall of Fame for his myriad inventions and as a Nobel Laureate in physics for his contributions to particle physics through his development of the hydrogen bubble chamber technique, leading to the discovery of a large number of resonance states. However, it was his wide-ranging curiosity which led him to one of his finest achievements, while working with his son Walter - developing the asteroid impact theory as the explanation of the extinction of the dinosaurs. I will offer some personal recollections of Luis and the group in this period, including some of his other intriguing efforts which illustrate the breadth of his interests, pertaining to the Kennedy assassination and x-raying the pyramids, among them. All in all, a brilliant and most unusual scientist and stimulating colleague.

Satellites, scientists track storm from Sun to surface

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Carlowicz, Michael

1997-02-01

On January 6, the Sun spat a coronal mass ejection (CME) into the solar wind and toward Earth; by January 10, a cloud of charged particles buffeted the face of the planet. It was, by several accounts, a run-of-the-mill space weather event. But the scientific work surrounding the storm was anything but run-of-the-mill. For the first time, space physicists observed and recorded a space weather event from start to finish, from solar surface to earthly impact. Researchers are calling it the first true success story of the four-year-old International Solar Terrestrial Physics program (ISTP), which includes NASA's WIND and POLAR spacecraft; the joint Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) mission of NASA and the European Space Agency; the joint Geotail mission of NASA and Japan's Institute of Space and Aeronautical Science; and Russia's Interball satellites.

Joint STFC Futures/BIR workshop "Cancer care: new detector and sensor technologies and their potential impact", Harwell Oxford, 5-6 October 2011.

PubMed

Camanzi, B; Green, S

2012-12-01

The workshop "Cancer care: new detector and sensor technologies and their potential impact", organised jointly by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) and the British Institute of Radiology, brought together representatives from the cancer community (clinicians, medical physicists, National Health Service representatives and general practitioners with an interest in cancer) and STFC-supported scientists involved in basic research in physics and technology. The workshop aimed to raise awareness of the cancer challenge, share knowledge and identify novel solutions in the area of detectors and sensors to addressing the cancer challenge. A further aim of this workshop was to commence discussion on the formation of new multidisciplinary community networks. The workshop identified the synergies between the two communities and the potential for developing new collaborative ideas and projects.

Creative Turbulence: Experiments in Art and Physics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fonda, Enrico; Dubois, R. Luke; Camnasio, Sara; Porfiri, Maurizio; Sreenivasan, Katepalli R.; Lathrop, Daniel P.; Serrano, Daniel; Ranjan, Devesh

2016-11-01

Effective communication of basic research to non-experts is necessary to inspire the public and to justify support for science by the taxpayers. The creative power of art is particularly important to engage an adult audience, who otherwise might not be receptive to standard didactic material. Interdisciplinarity defines new trends in research, and works at the intersection of art and science are growing in popularity, even though they are often isolated experiments. We present a public-facing collaboration between physicists/engineers performing research in fluid dynamics, and audiovisual artists working in cutting-edge media installation and performance. The result of this collaboration is a curated exhibition, with supporting public programming. We present the artworks, the lesson learned from the interactions between artists and scientists, the potential outreach impact and future developments. This project is supported by the APS Public Outreach Mini Grant.

Viva La Ciencia: Cuba’s Creative Scientists Aim to Make Knowledge Their Country’s Sugar Substitute

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Reid, Rosalind; Hayes, Brian

At first, peas served as particles in Ernesto Altshuler's experiment. A mechanical dispenser would drop the chícharos one by one into the space between two glass plates, forming a tidy two-dimensional approximation of a sand pile. Lattice structure appeared, then vanished, as the pile self-organized and went critical—avalanche! But Havana's insects soon found the peas in Altshuler's physics lab. For a physicist working under harsh economic conditions of Cuba in the early 1990s, options were few. Yet Altshuler's solution came as a byproduct of the crisis: Because of fuel shortages, the country had begun importing Chinese bicycles, and ball bearings were available in abundance. Thus the peas have been replaced by steel beads, but Altshuler and his students still call their machine the chícharotron.

Big Bang Day : The Great Big Particle Adventure - 3. Origins

ScienceCinema

None

2017-12-09

In this series, comedian and physicist Ben Miller asks the CERN scientists what they hope to find. If the LHC is successful, it will explain the nature of the Universe around us in terms of a few simple ingredients and a few simple rules. But the Universe now was forged in a Big Bang where conditions were very different, and the rules were very different, and those early moments were crucial to determining how things turned out later. At the LHC they can recreate conditions as they were billionths of a second after the Big Bang, before atoms and nuclei existed. They can find out why matter and antimatter didn't mutually annihilate each other to leave behind a Universe of pure, brilliant light. And they can look into the very structure of space and time - the fabric of the Universe

Editorial

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Al-Sheikhly, Mohamad; Varca, Gustavo H. C.

2018-02-01

We are very proud and delighted to introduce this special issue of Radiation Physics and Chemistry (RPC). It is indeed the fruit of an outstanding, collective effort by radiation chemists and physicists, as well as radiation processing and nuclear engineers, who presented their research at the 18th International Meeting of Radiation Processing (IMRP) 2016 in Vancouver, Canada. This valuable issue covers a wide range of reported new results in the field of radiation chemistry, physics, and processing. Eminent scientists carefully selected these invited papers, followed by a thorough reviewing process. This issue presents the selected sixteen invited papers. These papers cover fundamental radiation chemistry mechanisms and kinetics, radiation-induced polymerization and kinetics, radiation effects on synthetic and natural polymers, radiation processing control and quality assurances, radiation-induced preservation of food, radiation sterilization, radiation dosimetry, and radiation synthesis of various fabrics for remediation of nuclear isotopes such as cesium.

Revealing Fundamental Physics from the Daya Bay Neutrino Experiment Using Deep Neural Networks

DOE PAGES

Racah, Evan; Ko, Seyoon; Sadowski, Peter; ...

2017-02-02

Experiments in particle physics produce enormous quantities of data that must be analyzed and interpreted by teams of physicists. This analysis is often exploratory, where scientists are unable to enumerate the possible types of signal prior to performing the experiment. Thus, tools for summarizing, clustering, visualizing and classifying high-dimensional data are essential. Here in this work, we show that meaningful physical content can be revealed by transforming the raw data into a learned high-level representation using deep neural networks, with measurements taken at the Daya Bay Neutrino Experiment as a case study. We further show how convolutional deep neural networksmore » can provide an effective classification filter with greater than 97% accuracy across different classes of physics events, significantly better than other machine learning approaches.« less

SPECIAL SEMINAR - The NOTTE experiment, or how to become a Total Solar Eclipse chaser

ScienceCinema

None

2017-12-09

The NOTTE experiment (Neutrino Oscillations with Telescope during Total Eclipse) aims at searching for visible photons emitted through a possible radiative decay of solar neutrinos. The experiment and the expeditions organized by a group of physicists and astrophysicists from INFN and INAF Bologna hunting for Total Solar Eclipses from 1998 to 2006 wil be described. The results of observations performed during total solar eclipse expeditions in 2001 (Zambia) and 2006 (Sahara desert, Libya) are presented and a beautiful photo gallery will be shown. Other peculiar observations that can be made during a solar eclipse are also illustrated. The seminar will be followed by a brief presentation of future camps for solar eclipse chasers and scientists organized in 2008 in Russia, Kazakhstan, China and Mongolia, in 2009 in Shanghai and on the Easter Island in 2010.

Double-shell target fabrication workshop-2016 report

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Wang, Y. Morris; Oertel, John; Farrell, Michael

On June 30, 2016, over 40 representatives from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), General Atomics (GA), Laboratory for Laser Energetics (LLE), Schafer Corporation, and NNSA headquarter attended a double-shell (DS) target fabrication workshop at Livermore, California. Pushered-single-shell (PSS) and DS metalgas platforms potentially have a large impact on programmatic applications. The goal of this focused workshop is to bring together target fabrication scientists, physicists, and designers to brainstorm future PSS and DS target fabrication needs and strategies. This one-day workshop intends to give an overall view of historical information, recent approaches, and future research activitiesmore » at each participating organization. Five topical areas have been discussed that are vital to the success of future DS target fabrications, including inner metal shells, foam spheres, outer ablators, fill tube assembly, and metrology.« less

Developing state-of-the-art Cosmology courses for undergraduate non-science students

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lopez-Aleman, Ramon

2007-04-01

All undergraduate students at the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras are required to take a General Studies interdisciplinary science course as a requisite for graduation. We have successfully developed a new course for non-science majors that deal in current topics of interest including Big Bang cosmology, the uses and misuses of anthropic principle as a philosophical guide for scientists, dark energy and accelerated expansion, string theory and quantum gravity, and the current controversy of Intelligent Design vs Evolution by Natural Selection as explanations for the origins of life on Earth, intelligence and free will in sentient beings. The course was designed with help of philosophers, neuroscientists, biologists and physicists to present science as interesting, exciting, and socially useful sets of ``stories'' to people who usually dislike and misunderstand traditional science courses.

Final Report. Center for Scalable Application Development Software

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Mellor-Crummey, John

2014-10-26

The Center for Scalable Application Development Software (CScADS) was established as a part- nership between Rice University, Argonne National Laboratory, University of California Berkeley, University of Tennessee – Knoxville, and University of Wisconsin – Madison. CScADS pursued an integrated set of activities with the aim of increasing the productivity of DOE computational scientists by catalyzing the development of systems software, libraries, compilers, and tools for leadership computing platforms. Principal Center activities were workshops to engage the research community in the challenges of leadership computing, research and development of open-source software, and work with computational scientists to help them develop codesmore » for leadership computing platforms. This final report summarizes CScADS activities at Rice University in these areas.« less

Characterization of real-time computers

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Shin, K. G.; Krishna, C. M.

1984-01-01

A real-time system consists of a computer controller and controlled processes. Despite the synergistic relationship between these two components, they have been traditionally designed and analyzed independently of and separately from each other; namely, computer controllers by computer scientists/engineers and controlled processes by control scientists. As a remedy for this problem, in this report real-time computers are characterized by performance measures based on computer controller response time that are: (1) congruent to the real-time applications, (2) able to offer an objective comparison of rival computer systems, and (3) experimentally measurable/determinable. These measures, unlike others, provide the real-time computer controller with a natural link to controlled processes. In order to demonstrate their utility and power, these measures are first determined for example controlled processes on the basis of control performance functionals. They are then used for two important real-time multiprocessor design applications - the number-power tradeoff and fault-masking and synchronization.

Computational physics of the mind

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Duch, Włodzisław

1996-08-01

In the XIX century and earlier physicists such as Newton, Mayer, Hooke, Helmholtz and Mach were actively engaged in the research on psychophysics, trying to relate psychological sensations to intensities of physical stimuli. Computational physics allows to simulate complex neural processes giving a chance to answer not only the original psychophysical questions but also to create models of the mind. In this paper several approaches relevant to modeling of the mind are outlined. Since direct modeling of the brain functions is rather limited due to the complexity of such models a number of approximations is introduced. The path from the brain, or computational neurosciences, to the mind, or cognitive sciences, is sketched, with emphasis on higher cognitive functions such as memory and consciousness. No fundamental problems in understanding of the mind seem to arise. From a computational point of view realistic models require massively parallel architectures.

Some Interesting Data About Women Physicists in Cuba (abstract)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

de Fuentes, Olimpia Arias

2009-04-01

Although the number of women physicists in Cuba, as in the entire world, is less than men physicists, their presence in the academic leadership is strong, unlike the limited women's role in many other countries. Some interesting numeral data are presented to demonstrate this affirmation. This fact emphasizes the advantages reached by women and the increasing prestige obtained by women physicists in our country.

Physicist's simple access to protein structures: the computer program WHAT IF

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Altenberg-Greulich, Brigitte; Zech, Stephan G.; Stehlik, Dietmar; Vriend, Gert

2001-06-01

We describe the computer program WHAT IF and its application to two physical examples. For the DNA binding protein, OCT-1 (pou domain) the location of amino acids with a sidechain amino group is shown. Such knowledge is required when staining this molecule with a fluorescence dye, which binds chemically to the amino terminus as well as amino groups in sidechains. The program shows that most sidechain amino groups are protected when DNA is bound to OCT-1, allowing selective staining of the amino terminal NH2 group. A protein stained this way can be used in fluorescence spectroscopic studies on function aspects of OCT-1.

PPPC 4 DMν: a Poor Particle Physicist Cookbook for Neutrinos from Dark Matter annihilations in the Sun

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Baratella, Pietro; Cirelli, Marco; Hektor, Andi; Pata, Joosep; Piibeleht, Morten; Strumia, Alessandro

2014-03-01

We provide ingredients and recipes for computing neutrino signals of TeV-scale Dark Matter (DM) annihilations in the Sun. For each annihilation channel and DM mass we present the energy spectra of neutrinos at production, including: state-of-the-art energy losses of primary particles in solar matter, secondary neutrinos, electroweak radiation. We then present the spectra after propagation to the Earth, including (vacuum and matter) flavor oscillations and interactions in solar matter. We also provide a numerical computation of the capture rate of DM particles in the Sun. These results are available in numerical form.

MO-E-213-03: Newer Radiation Protection Requirements in Last Decade

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Clements, J.

The focus of work of medical physicists in 1980’s was on quality control and quality assurance. Radiation safety was important but was dominated by occupational radiation protection. A series of over exposures of patients in radiotherapy, nuclear medicine and observation of skin injuries among patients undergoing interventional procedures in 1990’s started creating the need for focus on patient protection. It gave medical physicists new directions to develop expertise in patient dosimetry and dose management. Publications creating awareness on cancer risks from CT in early part of the current century and over exposures in CT in 2008 brought radiation risks inmore » public domain and created challenging situations for medical physicists. Increasing multiple exposures of individual patient and patient doses of few tens of mSv or exceeding 100 mSv are increasing the role of medical physicists. Expansion of usage of fluoroscopy in the hands of clinical professionals with hardly any training in radiation protection shall require further role for medical physicists. The increasing publications in journals, recent changes in Safety Standards, California law, all increase responsibilities of medical physicists in patient protection. Newer technological developments in dose efficiency and protective devices increase percentage of time devoted by medical physicists on radiation protection activities. Without radiation protection, the roles, responsibilities and day-to-day involvement of medical physicists in diagnostic radiology becomes questionable. In coming years either medical radiation protection may emerge as a specialty or medical physicists will have to keep major part of day-to-day work on radiation protection. Learning Objectives: To understand how radiation protection has been increasing its role in day-to-day activities of medical physicist To be aware about international safety Standards, national and State regulations that require higher attention to radiation protection than in past To be aware about possible emergence of medical radiation protection as a specialty and challenges for medical physicists.« less

MO-E-213-00: What Is Medical Physics Without Radiation Safety?

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

NONE

The focus of work of medical physicists in 1980’s was on quality control and quality assurance. Radiation safety was important but was dominated by occupational radiation protection. A series of over exposures of patients in radiotherapy, nuclear medicine and observation of skin injuries among patients undergoing interventional procedures in 1990’s started creating the need for focus on patient protection. It gave medical physicists new directions to develop expertise in patient dosimetry and dose management. Publications creating awareness on cancer risks from CT in early part of the current century and over exposures in CT in 2008 brought radiation risks inmore » public domain and created challenging situations for medical physicists. Increasing multiple exposures of individual patient and patient doses of few tens of mSv or exceeding 100 mSv are increasing the role of medical physicists. Expansion of usage of fluoroscopy in the hands of clinical professionals with hardly any training in radiation protection shall require further role for medical physicists. The increasing publications in journals, recent changes in Safety Standards, California law, all increase responsibilities of medical physicists in patient protection. Newer technological developments in dose efficiency and protective devices increase percentage of time devoted by medical physicists on radiation protection activities. Without radiation protection, the roles, responsibilities and day-to-day involvement of medical physicists in diagnostic radiology becomes questionable. In coming years either medical radiation protection may emerge as a specialty or medical physicists will have to keep major part of day-to-day work on radiation protection. Learning Objectives: To understand how radiation protection has been increasing its role in day-to-day activities of medical physicist To be aware about international safety Standards, national and State regulations that require higher attention to radiation protection than in past To be aware about possible emergence of medical radiation protection as a specialty and challenges for medical physicists.« less

A Microwave Method for Measuring Moisture Content, Density, and Grain Angle of Wood.

DTIC Science & Technology

1985-03-01

Livermore, CA 94550. James, William L; Yen , You - Hsin ; King, Ray J. A microwave method for measuring moisture content,density, and grain angle of wood...Note S FPL-0250 March 1985 Density, and Grain 8 Angle of Wood William L. James, Physicist Forest Products Laboratory, Madison, WI You -Hain Yen ... Yen . You -1tsin. Microwave electromagnetic nondestructive testing of wood in real- time. Madison. WI: Department of Electronic and Computer

Development and Evaluation of Strong-Campbell Interest Inventory Scales to Measure Interests of Military Occupational Specialties of the Marine Corps.

DTIC Science & Technology

1982-08-01

though the two groups were different in terms of SC!I scientific interests and academic orientation scores (the aviation supply sample scored higher on...51 Chemists/Physicists 50 MARINE OFFICERS- COMUNICATION 49 MARINE OFFICERS-DATA SYSTEMS 48 Engineers 47 Biologists 46 Systems Analysts/Computer...Base ( Scientific and Technical Information Office) Commander, Air Force Human Resources Laboratory, Lowry Air Force Base (Technical Training Branch

Nuclear energy in the service of biomedicine: the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission's radioisotope program, 1946-1950.

PubMed

Creager, Angela N H

2006-01-01

The widespread adoption of radioisotopes as tools in biomedical research and therapy became one of the major consequences of the "physicists' war" for postwar life science. Scientists in the Manhattan Project, as part of their efforts to advocate for civilian uses of atomic energy after the war, proposed using infrastructure from the wartime bomb project to develop a government-run radioisotope distribution program. After the Atomic Energy Bill was passed and before the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) was formally established, the Manhattan Project began shipping isotopes from Oak Ridge. Scientists and physicians put these reactor-produced isotopes to many of the same uses that had been pioneered with cyclotron-generated radioisotopes in the 1930s and early 1940s. The majority of early AEC shipments were radioiodine and radiophosphorus, employed to evaluate thyroid function, diagnose medical disorders, and irradiate tumors. Both researchers and politicians lauded radioisotopes publicly for their potential in curing diseases, particularly cancer. However, isotopes proved less successful than anticipated in treating cancer and more successful in medical diagnostics. On the research side, reactor-generated radioisotopes equipped biologists with new tools to trace molecular transformations from metabolic pathways to ecosystems. The U.S. government's production and promotion of isotopes stimulated their consumption by scientists and physicians (both domestic and abroad), such that in the postwar period isotopes became routine elements of laboratory and clinical use. In the early postwar years, radioisotopes signified the government's commitment to harness the atom for peace, particularly through contributions to biology, medicine, and agriculture.

Future trends in the supply and demand for radiation oncology physicists.

PubMed

Mills, Michael D; Thornewill, Judah; Esterhay, Robert J

2010-04-12

Significant controversy surrounds the 2012 / 2014 decision announced by the Trustees of the American Board of Radiology (ABR) in October of 2007. According to the ABR, only medical physicists who are graduates of a Commission on Accreditation of Medical Physics Education Programs, Inc. (CAMPEP) accredited academic or residency program will be admitted for examination in the years 2012 and 2013. Only graduates of a CAMPEP accredited residency program will be admitted for examination beginning in the year 2014. An essential question facing the radiation oncology physics community is an estimation of supply and demand for medical physicists through the year 2020. To that end, a Demand & Supply dynamic model was created using STELLA software. Inputs into the model include: a) projected new cancer incidence and prevalence 1990-2020; b) AAPM member ages and retirement projections 1990-2020; c) number of ABR physics diplomates 1990-2009; d) number of patients per Qualified Medical Physicist from Abt Reports I (1995), II (2002) and III (2008); e) non-CAMPEP physicists trained 1990-2009 and projected through 2014; f) CAMPEP physicists trained 1993-2008 and projected through 2014; and g) working Qualified Medical Physicists in radiation oncology in the United States (1990-2007). The model indicates that the number of qualified medical physicists working in radiation oncology required to meet demand in 2020 will be 150-175 per year. Because there is some elasticity in the workforce, a portion of the work effort might be assumed by practicing medical physicists. However, the minimum number of new radiation oncology physicists (ROPs) required for the health of the profession is estimated to be 125 per year in 2020. The radiation oncology physics community should plan to build residency programs to support these numbers for the future of the profession.

Postdoctoral Opportunities in Medical Physics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hogstrom, Kenneth

2006-04-01

The medical physicist is a professional who specializes in the application of the concepts and methods of physics to the diagnosis and treatment of human disease. Medical physicists identify their primary discipline to be radiation therapy (78%), medical imaging (16%), nuclear medicine (3%), or radiation safety (2%). They state their primary responsibility to be clinical (78%), academic (9%), research (4%), etc. Correspondingly, medical physicists reveal their primarily employment to be a private hospital (42%), university hospital (32%), physicist's service group (9%), physician's service group (9%), industry (5%), and government (3%). The most frequent job of medical physicists is clinical radiation therapy physicist, whose clinical duties include: equipment acquisition, facility design, commissioning, machine maintenance, calibration and quality assurance, patient treatment planning, patient dose calculation, management of patient procedures, development of new technology, radiation safety, and regulatory compliance. The number of medical physicists in the United States can be estimated by the number of members of the American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM), which has increased 5.5% annually since 1969, currently being 5,000. New positions plus retirements create a current need >300 new medical physicists per year, which exceeds supply. This is supported by the steady growth in average salaries, being 100,000 for PhDs entering the field and reaching 180,000. Graduate programs alone cannot meet demand, and physicists entering the field through postdoctoral training in medical physics remain important. Details of postdoctoral research programs and medical physics residency programs will provide direction to physics PhD graduates interested in medical physics. [The AAPM, its annual Professional Information Report, and its Public Education Committee are acknowledged for information contributing to this presentation.

Medical physics aspects of cancer care in the Asia Pacific region

PubMed Central

Kron, T; Cheung, KY; Dai, J; Ravindran, P; Soejoko, D; Inamura, K; Song, JY; Bold, L; Srivastava, R; Rodriguez, L; Wong, TJ; Kumara, A; Lee, CC; Krisanachinda, A; Nguyen, XC; Ng, KH

2008-01-01

Medical physics plays an essential role in modern medicine. This is particularly evident in cancer care where medical physicists are involved in radiotherapy treatment planning and quality assurance as well as in imaging and radiation protection. Due to the large variety of tasks and interests, medical physics is often subdivided into specialties such as radiology, nuclear medicine and radiation oncology medical physics. However, even within their specialty, the role of radiation oncology medical physicists (ROMPs) is diverse and varies between different societies. Therefore, a questionnaire was sent to leading medical physicists in most countries/areas in the Asia/Pacific region to determine the education, role and status of medical physicists. Answers were received from 17 countries/areas representing nearly 2800 radiation oncology medical physicists. There was general agreement that medical physicists should have both academic (typically at MSc level) and clinical (typically at least 2 years) training. ROMPs spent most of their time working in radiotherapy treatment planning (average 17 hours per week); however radiation protection and engineering tasks were also common. Typically, only physicists in large centres are involved in research and teaching. Most respondents thought that the workload of physicists was high, with more than 500 patients per year per physicist, less than one ROMP per two oncologists being the norm, and on average, one megavoltage treatment unit per medical physicist. There was also a clear indication of increased complexity of technology in the region with many countries/areas reporting to have installed helical tomotherapy, IMRT (Intensity Modulated Radiation Therapy), IGRT (Image Guided Radiation Therapy), Gamma-knife and Cyber-knife units. This and the continued workload from brachytherapy will require growing expertise and numbers in the medical physics workforce. Addressing these needs will be an important challenge for the future. PMID:21611001

Brief, embedded, spontaneous metacognitive talk indicates thinking like a physicist

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sayre, Eleanor C.; Irving, Paul W.

2015-12-01

[This paper is part of the Focused Collection on Upper Division Physics Courses.] Instructors and researchers think "thinking like a physicist" is important for students' professional development. However, precise definitions and observational markers remain elusive. We reinterpret popular beliefs inventories in physics to indicate what physicists think thinking like a physicist entails. Through discourse analysis of upper-division students' speech in natural settings, we show that students may appropriate or resist these elements. We identify a new element in the physicist speech genre: brief, embedded, spontaneous metacognitive talk (BESM talk). BESM talk communicates students' in-the-moment enacted expectations about physics as a technical field and a cultural endeavor. Students use BESM talk to position themselves as physicists or nonphysicists. Students also use BESM talk to communicate their expectations in four ways: understanding, confusion, spotting inconsistencies, and generalized expectations.

A Browser-Based Multi-User Working Environment for Physicists

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Erdmann, M.; Fischer, R.; Glaser, C.; Klingebiel, D.; Komm, M.; Müller, G.; Rieger, M.; Steggemann, J.; Urban, M.; Winchen, T.

2014-06-01

Many programs in experimental particle physics do not yet have a graphical interface, or demand strong platform and software requirements. With the most recent development of the VISPA project, we provide graphical interfaces to existing software programs and access to multiple computing clusters through standard web browsers. The scalable clientserver system allows analyses to be performed in sizable teams, and disburdens the individual physicist from installing and maintaining a software environment. The VISPA graphical interfaces are implemented in HTML, JavaScript and extensions to the Python webserver. The webserver uses SSH and RPC to access user data, code and processes on remote sites. As example applications we present graphical interfaces for steering the reconstruction framework OFFLINE of the Pierre-Auger experiment, and the analysis development toolkit PXL. The browser based VISPA system was field-tested in biweekly homework of a third year physics course by more than 100 students. We discuss the system deployment and the evaluation by the students.

Consistent Quantum Theory

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Griffiths, Robert B.

2001-11-01

Quantum mechanics is one of the most fundamental yet difficult subjects in physics. Nonrelativistic quantum theory is presented here in a clear and systematic fashion, integrating Born's probabilistic interpretation with Schrödinger dynamics. Basic quantum principles are illustrated with simple examples requiring no mathematics beyond linear algebra and elementary probability theory. The quantum measurement process is consistently analyzed using fundamental quantum principles without referring to measurement. These same principles are used to resolve several of the paradoxes that have long perplexed physicists, including the double slit and Schrödinger's cat. The consistent histories formalism used here was first introduced by the author, and extended by M. Gell-Mann, J. Hartle and R. Omnès. Essential for researchers yet accessible to advanced undergraduate students in physics, chemistry, mathematics, and computer science, this book is supplementary to standard textbooks. It will also be of interest to physicists and philosophers working on the foundations of quantum mechanics. Comprehensive account Written by one of the main figures in the field Paperback edition of successful work on philosophy of quantum mechanics

The Fermilab Connection

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Fermilab

More than 4,000 scientists in 53 countries use Fermilab and its particle accelerators, detectors and computers for their research. That includes about 2,500 scientists from 223 U.S. institutions in 42 states, plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.