EurekAlert! - Mathematics and Statistics

Aerospace business leader, supreme problem solver

Fri, 09 May 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(National Science Foundation) The National Science Foundation and its policy arm, the National Science Board, this week presented its annual awards, the Alan T. Waterman Award, the Vannevar Bush Award and the Public Service Award.

Federal polar bear research critically flawed, says study in INFORMS journal

Thu, 08 May 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences) Research done by the US Department of the Interior to determine if global warming threatens the polar bear population is so flawed that it cannot be used to justify listing the polar bear as an endangered species, according to a study being published later this year in Interfaces, a journal of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences.The Interior Department has been ordered to make a determination by May 15.

KAUST announces inaugural Global Research Partnership center grants

Thu, 08 May 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(King Abdullah University of Science & Technology (KAUST)) Research proposals from four universities selected for global significance and potential economic impact in the areas of applied mathematics, molecular photovoltaics, nanomaterials and computational science. Cornell University, the University of Oxford, Stanford University, and Texas A&M University will be the inaugural KAUST Global Research Partnership centers.

Newest GREET model updates environmental impacts

Thu, 08 May 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(DOE/Argonne National Laboratory) The newest version of the Greenhouse gases, Regulated Emissions and Energy use in Transportation model from the US Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory will provide researchers with even more tools to evaluate and compare the environmental impacts of new transportation fuels and advanced vehicle technologies.

Global climate models both agree and disagree with actual Antarctic data

Wed, 07 May 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(Ohio State University) Scientists who compared recorded Antarctic temperatures and snowfall accumulation to predictions by major computer models of global climate change offer both good and bad news. The models' predictions covering the last 50 years broadly follow the actual observed temperatures and snowfall for the southernmost continent, although the observations are very variable. That's the good news.

Rainfall and river networks prove accurate predictors of fish biodiversity

Wed, 07 May 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(Princeton University, Engineering School) Princeton researchers have invented a method for turning simple data about rainfall and river networks into accurate assessments of fish biodiversity, allowing better prediction of the effects of climate change and the ecological impact of man-made structures like dams.

Space is 'current frontier' for engineer working on next-gen wireless technologies

Tue, 06 May 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(University of California - San Diego) For his leadership in cutting edge areas of digital signal processing, UC San Diego electrical engineering professor Bhaskar Rao has been named the inaugural holder of the Ericsson Endowed Chair in Wireless Access Networks in the Jacobs School. This chair is part of Ericsson's ongoing support of the UCSD division of the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology.

NJIT applauds students for studies on brain injury, glaucoma and more

Tue, 06 May 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(New Jersey Institute of Technology) A better understanding of brain injury, a way to rejuvenate dead nerve endings and a device allowing patients to monitor their glaucoma at home, number among this year's nine winners at NJIT's annual provost's student research day.

Hebrew University scientists named fellows of American Academy

Tue, 06 May 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(The Hebrew University of Jerusalem) Two Hebrew University of Jerusalem professors have been elected as new members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. They are Professor Haim Sompolinsky, director of the Interdisciplinary Center for Neural Computation, and Professor David Kazhdan of the Einstein Institute of Mathematics.

There's a hole in my -- and in the data as well!

Mon, 05 May 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(University of California - San Diego) Like the popular children's song "There's a Hole in My Bucket," in which Liza and Henry try to patch a leaking pail, researchers with the San Diego Supercomputer Center at UC-San Diego are plugging a hole in the data management process by creating a universally accepted cyberinfrastructure to study our most valuable natural resource -- water.

Nature paper describes technique for extracting hierarchical structure of networks

Thu, 01 May 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(Santa Fe Institute) Santa Fe Institute researchers Aaron Clauset, Cristopher Moore, and Mark Newman show that many real-world networks can be understood as a hierarchy of modules, where nodes cluster together to form modules, which themselves cluster into larger modules -- arrangements similar to the organization of sports players into teams, teams into conferences, and conferences into leagues, for example.

Women whistleblowers suffer more discrimination, INFORMS-published study suggests

Thu, 01 May 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences) Women who alert authorities to their organizations' wrongdoing perceive they suffer more retaliation than do men, reports an initial study published in the current issue of Organization Science, a journal of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences.

Carnegie Mellon technique accelerates biological image analysis

Thu, 01 May 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(Carnegie Mellon University) Researchers in Carnegie Mellon University's Lane Center for Computational Biology have discovered how to significantly speed up critical steps in an automated method for analyzing cell cultures and other biological specimens.

2 NYU faculty elected to National Academy of Sciences

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(New York University) Two New York University professors, Helmut Hofer of NYU's Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences and Anthony Movshon, director of the university's Center for Neural Science, have been elected to the National Academy of Sciences, the Washington, D.C.-based organization announced today.

72 new members chosen by Academy

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(The National Academies) The National Academy of Sciences today announced the election of 72 new members and 18 foreign associates from 9 countries in recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research.

Christopher Hoffman receives AMS Centennial Fellowship

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(American Mathematical Society) Christopher Hoffman of the University of Washingtonhas been awarded the prestigious AMS Centennial Fellowship for the2008-2009 academic year. The fellowship is presented annually tooutstanding mathematicians who have held the doctoral degree forbetween three and twelve years. The primary selection criterion isexcellence in research achievement.

Study links low-frequency hearing to shape of the cochlea

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(Vanderbilt University) A new study establishes a direct link between the cochlea's curvature and the low-frequency hearing limit of more than a dozen different mammals.

Researchers at UCLA engineering discover theoretical model to predict jamming

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(University of California - Los Angeles) Researchers at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science have come up with a theoretical model to predict when granular materials become jammed. This advancement not only broadens fundamental knowledge, it also provides new avenues to a number of practical areas that ranges from materials innovation to medicine. The study, currently available on the Nature Physics Web site, will be published in the journal's print edition on May 1.

Finding God with biocomplexity

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(University of Calgary) In "Reinventing the Sacred," University of Calgary physicist, biologist and philosopher Stuart Kauffman argues that nature's infinite creativity should be the basis for a new worldview and spirituality.

'Discovering Patterns in Mathematics and Poetry' invites readers to make surprising connections

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(Rochester Institute of Technology) What do Fibonacci Numbers, the Golden Ratio and poetry have in common? Patterns and analogies that help us to make new discoveries and comprehend the mysterious, say a mathematician and a poet who have searched their disciplines for points of similarity and areas of overlap for more than 25 years. Marcia Birken and Anne Coon's unlikely partnership has resulted in a book written for a general audience, "Patterns in Mathematics and Poetry."

European light research opens door for optical storage and computing

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(European Science Foundation) The goal of replacing electronics with optics for processing data in computers is coming closer through cutting-edge European research into the mysterious properties of "fast and slow" light. The long-term aim is to boost processing speeds and data storage densities by several orders of magnitude and take the information technology industry into a new era, combining greatly improved performance with dramatically lower energy consumption.

A first: researchers apply efficient coding principle to sense of smell

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(Public Library of Science) For the first time, researchers have demonstrated that the efficient coding principle regarding neurobiological processes applies to sense of smell. The team, comprised of researchers from the Czech Academy of Sciences and the French National Institute for Agricultural Research, displays this quantitative relationship in a study of male moths and pheromone plumes, published April 25 in the open-access journal PLoS Computational Biology.

Concrete examples don't help students learn math, study finds

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(Ohio State University) A new study challenges the common practice in many classrooms of teaching mathematical concepts by using "real-world," concrete examples. Researchers at Ohio State University's Center for Cognitive Science, found that college students who learned a mathematical concept with concrete examples couldn't apply that knowledge to new situations.

BP funds scholarship for University of Houston to help fill industry ranks

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(University of Houston) A $750,000 grant from one of the world's largest energy companies, BP America, will help the University of Houston recruit and offer scholarships to students in engineering, sciences, mathematics and business.

Best practice for engineering science faculties

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 00:00:00 EDT

(Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft) This DFG workshop presents international, exemplary management models.