EurekAlert! - Mathematics/Statistics

Public Release: 20-Nov-2009

SC 09
More than powerful! German research computer QPACE is the most energy efficient in the world
At the 2009 Supercomputing Conference in Portland, Ore., the high-performance computer QPACE (QCD Parallel Computing on the Cell) was recognized today as the most energy-efficient supercomputer in the world. QPACE is at the head of the Green500 list, which provides a global ranking of energy-efficient supercomputers.

Public Release: 20-Nov-2009

Electronic Health Information and Privacy Conference 2009

Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association
Novel K-anonymity algorithm safeguards access to data
As electronic health records become more widely deployed, increasing amounts of health information are being collected. This data has many beneficial applications, such as research, public health, and health system planning. In a recent study, Dr. Khaled El Emam, the Canada Research Chair in Electronic Health Information at the CHEO Research Institute argues that there is a need for robust de-identification of patient data to avoid the negative impact that individual consent requirements have on studies using health record data for secondary purposes.

Canadian Institutes for Health Research, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council

Public Release: 19-Nov-2009

Developmental Cell
Technique finds gene regulatory sites without knowledge of regulators
A new statistical technique developed by researchers at the University of Illinois allows scientists to scan a genome for specific gene-regulatory regions without requiring prior knowledge of the relevant transcription factors. The technique has been experimentally validated in both the mouse genome and the fruit fly genome.

National Institutes of Health, Illinois Sociogenomics Initiative, Leukemia Research Fund, Leukemia and Lymphoma Society

Public Release: 19-Nov-2009

Defining Pragmatics
Finding more in 'most'
Prof. Mira Ariel of Tel Aviv University has scientifically quanitifed the common interpretation of the word "most," finding it to be a measurement of 80 to 95 percent of a sample.

Public Release: 19-Nov-2009

Journal of the Royal Society Interface
Active hearing process in mosquitoes
A mathematical model has explained some of the remarkable features of mosquito hearing. In particular, the male can hear the faintest beats of the female's wings and yet is not deafened by loud noises.

Public Release: 19-Nov-2009

Significance
'Hobbits' are a new human species -- according to the statistical analysis of fossils
Researchers from Stony Brook University Medical Center in New York have confirmed that Homo floresiensis is a genuine ancient human species and not a descendant of healthy humans dwarfed by disease. Using statistical analysis on skeletal remains of a well-preserved female specimen, researchers determined the "hobbit" to be a distinct species and not a genetically flawed version of modern humans. Details of the study appear in the December issue of Significance, the magazine of the Royal Statistical Society, published by Wiley-Blackwell.

Public Release: 18-Nov-2009

Molecular & Cellular Proteomics
Beyond genomics, biologists and engineers decode the next frontier
A team of biologists and engineers has dramatically improved the speed and accuracy of measuring histones, an enigmatic set of proteins that influences almost every aspect of how cells and tissues function. The new method offers a long-sought tool for studying stem cells, cancer and other problems of fundamental importance to biology and medicine.

National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, American Society for Mass Spectrometry, US Environmental Protection Agency

Public Release: 18-Nov-2009

Management Science
Future for Internet retailers: Compete on niche products advises management insights study
In their competition with brick-and-mortar stores, online retailers will do best if they promote the ability to search out and obtain niche products online, according to the Management Insights feature in the current issue of Management Science, the flagship journal of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences.

Public Release: 17-Nov-2009
Rice ties in race for atomic-scale breakthrough
Everybody loves a race to the wire, even when the result is a tie. The great irony is the ultraprecise clocks that could result from this competition could probably break any tie. The Rice lab of physicist Tom Killian published a paper online this month demonstrating the long-sought creation of a Bose-Einstein condensate of strontium atoms.

National Science Foundation, Welch Foundation, Keck Foundation

Public Release: 17-Nov-2009

Physical Review Journals
Spotting evidence of directed percolation
Convincing experimental evidence has finally been found for directed percolation, a phenomenon that turns up in computer models of the ways diseases spread through a population or how water soaks through loose soil.

Public Release: 17-Nov-2009

BMC Public Health
Immediate, aggressive spending on HIV/AIDS could end epidemic
Money available to treat HIV/AIDS is sufficient to end the epidemic globally, but only if we act immediately to control the spread of the disease, according to research published in BMC Public Health. This approach defies conventional thinking, which recommends gradual spending over 15-20 years. The study was based on a mathematical model developed by mathematicians and biologists, who recently earned acclaim for a study on how best to handle a planetary invasion by zombies.

Public Release: 17-Nov-2009

150th Anniversary Celebration of the Riemann Hypothesis
Putting math problems in proper order
The American Institute of Mathematics announces a new online tool for creating and maintaining lists of unsolved mathematics problems. This tool has the potential to change mathematics research by bringing a wider range of people and expertise in contact with research questions. The tool is being released on the same day as a worldwide celebration of the 150th anniversary of the most important problem in mathematics: the Riemann Hypothesis.

National Science Foundation

Public Release: 16-Nov-2009

SC 09
UT's Kraken named world's third fastest computer, ORNL's Jaguar is No. 1
East Tennessee is now home to two of the world's three fastest computers, according to new rankings released today. The Top 500 list of the world's fastest supercomputers places University of Tennessee supercomputer Kraken in third place, where it also holds the title of world's fastest academic supercomputer, while Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Jaguar computer took first place overall.

National Science Foundation

Public Release: 15-Nov-2009
Today's children decide their school and career path early
Children as young as 12 have a strong sense of their personal futures and can reflect thoughtfully on what life might hold for them, according to new research funded by the Economic and Social Research Council and led by Professor Paul Croll of Reading University and Professor Gaynor Attwood of the University of the West of England.

Economic and Social Research Council

Public Release: 11-Nov-2009

Journal of the Operational Research Society
Underground lines that bypass monuments
A team of mathematicians from the Engineering and Architecture Schools of the University of Seville has created a method to design underground lines whereby a city's historical buildings are unaffected. The results of the study, which has just been published in the Journal of the Operational Research Society, offer possible solutions for the future underground line 2 in Seville.

Public Release: 10-Nov-2009

Journal of Business Finance & Accounting
Implications of past forecasting errors often underestimated
When managers issue a forecast of their firm's earnings, they do not always take into account prior forecasting errors, according to research in the current issue of the Journal of Business Finance & Accounting.

Public Release: 9-Nov-2009

Journal of Accounting Research
Failing the sniff test: Researchers find new way to spot fraud
Companies that commit fraud can find innovative ways to fudge the numbers, making it hard to tell something is wrong by looking at their financial statements. But a new warning system sees through accounting tricks by evaluating things that are easily verifiable, such as the number of employees or the square footage a company owns. If a company says its profits are up, but these nonfinancial measures are down, something is wrong.

Institute of Internal Auditors Research Foundation, Financial Industry Regulatory Authority Investor Education Foundation

Public Release: 5-Nov-2009
Keeping hearts pumping with 'LifeFlow'
LifeFlow, a new device from Tel Aviv University's Professor Ofer Barnea, applies a sophisticated algorithm to a computer-controlled IV drip to improve the efficiency of disaster response in the field.

Public Release: 5-Nov-2009

Perception
Dartmouth professor finds that iconic Oswald photo was not faked
Computer Scientist Hany Farid has new evidence regarding a photograph of accused JFK assassin Lee Harvey Oswald. Farid digitally analyzed the iconic image of Oswald pictured in a backyard setting holding a rifle in one hand and Marxist newspapers in the other, and he says the photo almost certainly was not altered.

Public Release: 3-Nov-2009

Physical Review B
Capturing those in-between moments: NIST solves timing problem in molecular modeling
A theoretical physicist at NIST has developed a method for calculating the motions and forces of thousands of atoms simultaneously over a wider range of time scales than previously possible. The method overcomes a longstanding timing gap in modeling nanometer-scale materials and many other physical, chemical and biological systems at atomic and molecular levels.

Public Release: 2-Nov-2009

Journal of Physical Chemistry C
Rice U. lab leads hunt for new zeolites
In all the world, there are about 200 types of zeolite, a compound of silicon, aluminum and oxygen that gives civilization such things as laundry detergent, kitty litter and gasoline. But thanks to computations by Rice University professor Michael Deem and his colleagues, it appears there are -- or could be -- more types of zeolites than once thought.

US Department of Energy, National Science Foundation

Public Release: 2-Nov-2009

51st Annual Meeting of the APS Division of Plasma Physics
Laser-plasma accelerators ride on Einstein's shoulders
Using Einstein's theory of special relativity to speedup computer simulations, scientists have designed laser-plasma accelerators with energies of 10 billion electron volts (GeV) and beyond. These systems, which have not been simulated in detail until now, could in the future serve as a compact new technology for particle colliders and energetic light sources.

Public Release: 29-Oct-2009

PLoS Pathogens
Whooping cough immunity lasts longer than previously thought
Immunity to whooping cough lasts at least 30 years on average, much longer than previously thought, according to a new study by researchers based at the University of Michigan and the University of New Mexico. Details are published Oct. 30 in the open-access journal PLoS Pathogens.

Public Release: 27-Oct-2009

2009 International Society for Music Information Retrieval Conference
Electrical engineers go head to head with Genius on music playlists
Electrical engineers recently pitted Genius -- the music recommendation system in Apple's iTunes -- against two experimental music recommender systems. Genius appears to capture acoustic similarities among songs within the same playlist, the researchers found. The University of California, San Diego, electrical engineers also discovered that the music recommender they built from scratch can generate song playlists that human subjects thought were as good as those that Genius generates.

National Science Foundation

Public Release: 27-Oct-2009
NJIT prof sees 70 percent chance for Yanks to win the 2009 World Series
NJIT's Bruce Bukiet, a mathematician who has applied mathematical modeling techniques to elucidate the dynamics of run scoring in baseball, has computed the probability of the Yankees and Phillies winning the World Series. He also has computed the most deserving of Major League Baseball's prestigious 2009 Most Valuable Player and Cy Young awards.


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