Smart Economy

Study looks at better prediction for epileptic seizures through adaptive learning approach

 

 

Thursday, November 21, 2013

 

Media Contact: Herb Booth, Office:817-272-7075, Cell:214-546-1082, [email protected]

News Topics: computer science, engineering, research

A UT Arlington assistant engineering professor has developed a computational model that can more accurately predict when an epileptic seizure will occur next based on the patient’s personalized medical information.

Shouyi Wang, assistant professor of Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering

The research conducted by Shouyi Wang, an assistant professor in the Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering, has been in the paper “Online Seizure Prediction Using an Adaptive Learning Approach” in IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering.

Wang’s model analyzes electroencephalography, or EEG, readings from an individual, to predict future seizures. Early warnings could lead a patient to use medicine to combat an oncoming seizure, he said.

“The challenge with seizure prediction has been that every epileptic is different. Some patients suffer several seizures a day. Others will go several years without experiencing a seizure,” Wang said. “But if we use the EEG readings to build a personalized data profile, we’re better able to understand what’s happening to that person.”

Epilepsy is one of the most common neurological disorders, characterized by recurrent seizures. Epilepsy and seizures affect nearly 3 million Americans at an estimated annual cost of $17.6 billion in direct and indirect costs, according to the national Epilepsy Foundation,  About 10 percent of the American population will experience a seizure in their lifetime, the agency says.

Wang teamed with Wanpracha Art Chaovalitwongse of the University of Washington and Stephen Wong of the Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School for the research.

Wang said early indications are that the new computational model could provide 70 percent accuracy or better and give a prediction horizon of about 30 minutes before the actual seizure would occur.

The current model collects data through a cap embedded with EEG wires. Wang’s team is working to develop a less obtrusive EEG cap that will record and transmit readings to a box for easy data download or transmission.

Victoria Chen, professor and chairwoman of the Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering Department, said Wang’s work in the area of bioinformatics offers hope for the many people who suffer from epilepsy.

“This computational model might be used to predict other life-threatening episodes of diseases,” Chen said.

Wang said his model builds upon an adaptive learning framework and is capable of achieving more and more accurate prediction performance for each individual patient by collecting more and more personalized medical data.

“As a society, we’ve gotten really good at looking at the big picture,” Wang said. “We can tell you the likelihood of suffering a heart attack if you’re over a certain age, of a certain weight and if you smoke. But we have only started to personalize that data for individuals who are all different.”

Wang’s work is representative of excellence at The University of Texas at Arlington, a comprehensive research institution of more than 33,300 students and 2,200 faculty members in the epicenter of North Texas. It is the second largest institution in The University of Texas System. Total research expenditures reached almost $78 million last year. Visit www.uta.edu to learn more.

Possibility of surfaces that can be manipulated

Using new combinations of well-known polymers is one way of producing new materials.For this work, the use of polymers that respond to external stimuli are of particular interest, and is the line followed by the chemist Leire Ruiz-Rubio in the research for her PhD thesis. She has studied the blending of certain polymers that can be controlled when the conditions of their medium (the pH or temperature, for example) have been altered.Once the behaviour of these polymers is known, it is possible to design new materials to use in many different applications.“We do basic chemistry; in other words, we study the behaviour of these polymers in more and more advanced conditions, and then the applications that can be developed thanks to these materials will be sought.” Ruiz has in fact studied the polymer blends first of all in solution and then when they are on a solid surface.

 

The aim was to find out the conditions in which polymer chains disperse and when they end up joined together.Having examined that, Ruiz went on to study how the conditions can be manipulated, so that the material formed by the polymer blend can be altered from a dense layer to one with holes.

The blends in this research were produced by adding one of eachof thetwo polymer groups.In one group there were polyacids, in other words, proton donors (acrylic polyacid and methacrylicpolyacid and phenolic polyvinyl). In the second group there are several poly(N-vinylamides), in other words, polymers that can create hydrogen bridges with the protons of the ones before them.

“We have studied the relationship between polymers.In other words, to see whether polymers of one blend move away from each other, or whether, by contrast they become adhered to each other."And they studied that relationship first in solution, because the solvent can greatly influence that.Polymer chains will move away from each other if they have a greater tendency to attach themselves to the molecules of the solvent (dispersive tendency).By contrast, if the hydrogen bridges between the polymers are more stable than the relationship towards the solvent, the polymer chains will tend to stay together (associative behaviour).

The balance is a tricky one, because there are all kinds of interactions.“That’s the problem,” says Ruiz.“Polyacids, for example, not only interact with the solvent and other polymers, they also interact with themselves, but some polyamides, for example, prefer to join with other polymers.The same thing happens depending on the quality of the solvent.If the solvent is very good, the polymers tend to join with it.”

 

Most of the solvents used in this work are alcohols, (methanol, ethanol, propanol, etc.) and the effect of their molecule size has been studied.In fact, the size has a lot to do with whether the solvent is good or bad:small alcohols are better solvents that large ones.

Ruiz and her colleagues repeated their solution-based research in the conditions of a surface.They wanted to know what kind of behaviour was displayed by these polymer blends on a surface.They used silicon surfaces covered with a co-polymer layer and added a number of functional groups to that layer.“They end up as if they were strands of hair," says Ruiz.The polymer blends were placed on top and they formed a second layer.These kinds of systems can be manipulated, for example by changing the pH or the temperature, and the chemical and physical properties of the surface change.And in the end, the polymer blend will behave in one way or another according to that.

“We do basic chemistry, but you always have applications in mind.For example, drugs can be inserted between these layers and attached to the hairs of the surface.With the drugas the filling, it would end up like a kind of sandwich.”In that case, by manipulating the pH or temperature, the polymer blend can be dismantled and the drug released at the desired moment.So, one potential application is a capsule that opens at the desired moment.“But that’s still a long way off.We have studied what happens in the solution, and then in a more complex medium, on a surface.When you have studied that, you’ll be able to go one step further.”But the capsule application is still a long way away.The aim of this thesis was to study the behaviour of certain polymers.

Leire Ruiz-Rubio (Bilbao, 1979) graduated in Chemistry at the Faculty of Science and Technology of the UPV/EHU-University of the Basque Country.She did her PhD in the same place under the supervision of the lecturer Maria Teresa Garay-Perez.Today, she works as a researcher in the Department of Physical Chemistry.She also lectures in chemistry at the Faculty of Science and Technology.

 

Do-it-yourself viruses: How viruses self assemble

Do-it-yourself viruses: How viruses self assemble

		IMAGE:The capsid enveloping a virus is essential for protection and propagation of the viral genome. Many viruses have evolved a self-assembly method which is so successful that the viral capsid...Click here for more information.

A new model of the how the protein coat (capsid) of viruses assembles, published in BioMed Central's open access journal BMC Biophysics,  shows that the construction  of intermediate structures prior to final capsid production (hierarchical assembly) can be more efficient than constructing the capsid protein by protein (direct assembly). The capsid enveloping a virus is essential for protection and propagation of the viral genome. Many viruses have evolved a self-assembly method which is so successful that the viral capsid can self assemble even when removed from its host cell.

The construction of large protein structures has been observed experimentally but the mechanism behind this is not well understood. Even the 'simple' icosahedral protein coat of the T1 virus requires integration of 60 protein components. Computational models of the physical interactions of component proteins are used to investigate the dynamics and physical constraints that regulate whether the components assemble correctly.

Using computer simulations a team from the Institute for Theoretical Physics and the Center for Quantitative Biology (BioQuant), University of Heidelberg, has compared direct and hierarchical assembly methods for T1 and T3 viruses. The  team led by Ulrich S Schwarz, realised that direct assembly often led to the formation of unfavorable intermediates, especially when the dissociation rate was low, which hindered further assembly, causing the process to stall. In contrast, for many conditions hierarchical assembly was more reliable, especially if the bonds involved had a low dissociation rate.

Discussing the practical applications of these results, Dr Schwarz commented, "Hierarchical assembly has not been systematically investigated before. Theoretical models and computer simulations, like ours, can be used to understand the mechanism behind assembly of complex viruses and give an indication of how other large protein complexes assemble."

He continued, " With our computer simulations, we are now in a position to investigate systems which are too large to be studied by molecular resolution. This rational approach might have many applications not only in biomedicine, but also in materials science, where many researchers strive to learn from nature how to assembly complex structures."

 

###

Media Contact

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Scientific Press Officer, BioMed Central
Tel:  +44 (0) 20 3192 2370
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Notes

1. Stochastic Dynamics of Virus Capsid Formation: Direct versus Hierarchical Self-Assembly Johanna E Baschek, Heinrich CR Klein and Ulrich S SchwarzBMC Biophysics (Section: Computational and theoretical biophysics) (in press)

Please name the journal in any story you write. If you are writing for the web, please link to the article. All articles are available free of charge, according to BioMed Central's open access policy.

Article citation and URL available on request on the day of publication.

Please credit images to Johanna E Baschek, Heinrich CR Klein and Ulrich S Schwarz. More images and videos are available on request.

2. BMC Biophysics is an open access journal publishing original peer-reviewed research articles in experimental and theoretical aspects of biological processes from the microscopic to macroscopic level, including thermodynamics, structural stability and dynamics, molecular biophysics, signalling, novel biophysical methods and computational biophysics.

3. BioMed Central is an STM (Science, Technology and Medicine) publisher which has pioneered the open access publishing model. All peer-reviewed research articles published by BioMed Central are made immediately and freely accessible online, and are licensed to allow redistribution and reuse. BioMed Central is part of Springer Science+Business Media, a leading global publisher in the STM sector. @BioMedCentral

 

 

 

Smart liquid (acoustic resonant) nano sensor can detect cancer or other diseases in real time in body fluids

The problem with today's medical tests is that they don't happen in real time. They are asynchronous-there is often a time delay between the test and the actual results- HIV, HIN1, biopsies, influenza etc.

But we now get a breaktrhough by applying a new approach/application with an old  technology-previously used for touch sensors....from a University of Missouri press release:

What if it were possible to go to the store and buy a kit to quickly and accurately diagnose cancer, similar to a pregnancy test?  A University of Missouri researcher is developing a tiny sensor, known as an acoustic resonant sensor, that is smaller than a human hair and could test bodily fluids for a variety of diseases, including breast and prostate cancers.

“Many disease-related substances in liquids are not easily tracked,” said Jae Kwon, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at MU.  “In a liquid environment, most sensors experience a significant loss of signal quality, but by using highly sensitive, low-signal-loss acoustic resonant sensors in a liquid, these substances can be effectively and quickly detected — a brand-new concept that will result in a noninvasive approach for breast cancer detection.”

Kwon’s real-time, special acoustic resonant sensor uses micro/nanoelectromechanical systems (M/NEMS), which are tiny devices smaller than the diameter of a human hair, to directly detect diseases in body fluids.  The sensor doesn’t require bulky data reading or analyzing equipment and can be integrated with equally small circuits, creating the potential for small stand-alone disease-screening systems.  Kwon’s sensor also produces rapid, almost immediate results that could reduce patient anxiety often felt after waiting for other detection methods, such as biopsies, which can take several days or weeks before results are known.

“Our ultimate goal is to produce a device that will simply and quickly diagnose multiple specific diseases, and eventually be used to create ‘point of care’ systems, which are services provided to patients at their bedsides,” researchers said.  “The sensor has strong commercial potential to be manifested as simple home kits for easy, rapid and accurate diagnosis of various diseases, such as breast cancer and prostate cancer.”

Kwon’s sensor research has been published in the IEEE International Conference on Solid-state, Sensors, Actuators and Microsystems and the IEEE Conference on Sensors.

WalterDerzko,   Smart Economy, Toronto

Slime mould mimics Tokyo's rail system; Could be used to detect improvised explosive devices (IED's)

Who do think is better at creating an efficent, cost-effective and resilient network...1) communication network engineers designing the Tokyo railway system or 2) Nature i.e. the ordinary slime mould?

Well if you picked choice number 2).. Nature... you'd be right.

In an experiment comparing the growth of Physarum polycephalum (slime mould) against an existing man-made network, the slime mould performed admirably, as good as or better then human designed networks.

Researchers from Hokkaido University in Japan and Oxford University in England were able to demonstrate that slime mould can navigate its way to a number of food sources, using the most efficient route and minimal growth. Dr. Mark Fricker, in the Department of Plant Sciences at Oxford, and colleagues plotted this growth against the Tokyo rail network. The researchers believe that slime mould mimicry can be useful by inspiring greater efficiency in real life technology, including computer systems or communications networks

Scientists conclude:  

"Physarum is a large, single-celled amoeboid organism that forages for patchily distributed food sources... [It] can find the shortest path through a maze or connect different arrays of food sources in an efficient manner with low total length yet short average minimum distance between pairs of food sources, with a high degree of fault tolerance to accidental disconnection."

The researchers knew that capturing the essence of this biological system in simple rules could be useful to inform the construction of self-organizing and cost-efficient networks in the real world. They captured the core mechanisms needed by the slime mold to connect its food sources in an efficient manner and incorporated them into a mathematical model.

Since the slime mold has been subjected to countless rounds of evolutionary selection, this formula based on its feeding habits might provide a route to more efficient and adaptive network designs for transportation and communication.

Others offer similar opinions:

"The model captures the basic dynamics of network adaptability through interaction of local rules, and produces networks with properties comparable to or better than those of real-world infrastructure networks... This work  provides a fascinating and convincing example that biologically inspired pure mathematical models can lead to completely new, highly efficient algorithms able to provide technical systems with essential features of living systems, for applications in such areas as computer science."

The model provides a starting point for improving efficiency and decreasing costs for self-organized networks without centralized control, like remote sensor arrays (smart dust), mobile ad hoc networks, and wireless mesh networks.

A practical application of this can be used in war to save lives.

I always thought that our troops in Afghanistan should be using "smart dust" or wireless mesh networks sprinkled  along the roadside to identify suspicious movements along roads, as proxy indicator for terrorists, who regularly plant improvised explosive devices ( IED's) at night. Algorithms could be designed to distinguish between expected and unexpected incidents/ movements (humans vs animals). These sensors are inexpensive, now costing pennies each and have a range of 50 feet.

Full story here

Walter Derzko, Smart Economy, Toronto

 

Author of the soon-to-be published book- Opportunity 45 Scenarios to Drive Your Business in Challenging Times, published by J. Wiley and Sons

ISBN13: 978-0-470-73761-3

ISBN10: 0-470-73761-1

 

Nanostructured Integrated Circuit Detects Type and Severity of Cancer

A team of investigators from the University of Toronto have used nanomaterials to develop an inexpensive microchip sensitive enough to quickly determine the type and severity of a patient's cancer so that the disease can be detected earlier for more effective treatment. Their work, reported in two papers published in the journals ACS Nano and Nature Nanotechnology, could herald an era when inexpensive yet sophisticated molecular diagnostics will become commonplace.

The researchers' new device can readily detect the signature biomarkers that indicate the presence of cancer at the cellular level, even though these biomolecules - genes that indicate aggressive or benign forms of the disease and differentiate subtypes of the cancer - are generally present only at low levels in biological samples. Analysis can be completed in 90 minutes, a significant improvement over the existing diagnostic procedures that generally take days.

"Today, it takes a room filled with computers to evaluate a clinically relevant sample of cancer biomarkers and the results aren't quickly available," said team co-leader Shana Kelley. "Our team was able to measure biomolecules on an electronic chip the size of your fingertip and analyse the sample within half an hour. The instrumentation required for this analysis can be contained within a unit the size of a BlackBerry."

The nanoelectrode device that Kelley, collaborator Edward Sargent, and their students created is able to detect disease-related genes without the use of PCR to amplify low-level DNA. The electrodes, which are the key component of the device, have a novel highly-branched nanostructured shape that can detect attomolar concentrations of DNA. Using arrays of electrodes, each differing in the degree of nanostructured branching, the investigators were able to construct a device capable of sensing DNA molecules over six orders of magnitude, overcoming the dynamic range issue - the ability to detect both common and rare molecules - that has plagued other devices

Using their device, the investigators analyzed messenger RNA samples from prostate cancer biopsies. Their analysis showed that the device can detect gene fusions characteristic of prostate cancer. More importantly, the device was able to distinguish between gene fusions associated with either fast- or slow-growing forms of prostate cancer.

The paper describing the construction of this nanobiosensor is titled, "Programming the detection limits of biosensors through controlled nanostructuring." An abstract of this paper is available at the journal's Web site.

The paper detailing the use of the nanobiosensor to detect and characterize cancers is titled, "Direct Profiling of Cancer Biomarkers in Tumor Tissue Using a Multiplexed Nanostructured Microelectrode Integrated Circuit." An abstract of this paper is available at the journal's Web site

 

Walter Derzko

 

When will the Recession / depression end? Part 19 Put Infrastructure Where it's Needed; Ontario on the Move

Put Infrastructure Where it's Needed-Ontario on the Move

Last December I posted a series of suggestions for Canadian Prime Minister Harper and US

President Obama to consider when funding infrastructure. See Top 10 smart technologies for Obama and Harper to consider for their infrastructure / cyberstructure / cognistructure program

Now Richard Florida & his team weighs into the game. This comes from a press release from the Martin Prosperity Institute at the University of Toronto this morning--Walter Derzko

Ontario on the Move - Put Infrastructure Where it's Needed

Economic history has shown that changes in infrastructure systems have often underlain phases of significant economic growth. Railroads in the 19th century, highway systems of the 1960s, and the internet infrastructure of the late 20th century are prime examples.  The innovation that gives rise to new infrastructure systems is often a response to severe stress and is often driven by desperate circumstances.  Ontario's opportunity lies not in reacting to a crisis but in proactively investing in the infrastructure necessary for future success.

 
This Week's Working Papers:

 

These working papers highlight the diverse array of challenges and opportunities Ontario

faces as it transitions toward the creative age. They represent the next three of twenty working papers that we commissioned to support the core analysis of our report: Ontario in the Creative Age. We hope you find them engaging.

• Infrastructure and the Economy: Future directions for Ontario by Chris Kennedy, Bryan Karney, Eric Miller, and Marianne Hatzopoulou
• Ontario's South Asian Transnationals: Unlocking the Potential of an Untapped Resource by Azmi Haq
• Learning from the Past - Volume 1: The Automotive Industry and Economic Development in Ontario; a Historical Perspective (1904 to the Present) by Stewart Melanson

READ MORE >>

 

Walter Derzko, Smart Economy. Toronto

Author of the soon-to-be-released book: Hard Times Golden Opportunities.. about opportunity recognition in a recession/ depression features 45 opportunity scenarios.

Related Recession / Depression Posts

When will the recession / depression end? Part 19 Put Infrastructure Where it's Needed; Ontario on the Move

When will the recession/ depression end? Part 18 Hormones and Boom and Bust Cycles

When will the recession / depression end ? Part 17 Recap from the World Economic Forum in Davos

When will the recession end? Part 16 It's all over, well sort of.

When will the recession end? Part 15 Year-end predictions for 2009 starting to come true

When will the recession end? Part 14 Four options for America's race to the bottom

When will the recession end? Part 13 Thirteen economic questions that economists can't answer

When will the recession end? Part 12 Bad times are good times for startups

When will the recession end? Part 11 Bank of Canada optimism

When will the recession end? Part 10, The Conformity Trap or Don't count on your economist for advise

When will the recession end? Part 9 Humor will signal recession /depression bottom

When will the recession end? Part 8 Lessons Learned from the last Post 9/11 recession; designing brilliant winning business models

When will the recession end? Part 7 False signals of recovery

When will this recession end? Part 6 The USA Paradox; Cheer vs Fear vs Transformation

When will the recession end? Part 5 Stop Auto Industry Bailouts, start buying Electric

When will the recession end? Part 4 The double dip housing crash in the USA

When will the recession end? Part 3 The coming collapse of the American Middle Class into an Underclass

When will this recession end ? Part 2 Do you listen to the Optimists or the Pessimists in 2009?

When will this recession end?

82 Signposts to the current Recession Depression Summary from 2008

 

© 2005-2009

Walter Derzko -"Changing the world, one idea at a time"©

Expert, Consultant and Keynote Speaker on Emerging Smart Technologies, Innovation, Strategic Foresight, Business Development, Lateral Creative Thinking and author of an upcoming book on the Smart Economy "

The Smart Technology Blog: The Smart Economy -- Read, enjoy, explore, speculate, comment !!

To arrange for an in house presentation or briefing on smart technology see here

To explore the opportunities and threats of any new smart technology in your industry - Contact Me or explore how we can work together

• ".....Strategy without action is a day-dream; action without strategy is a nightmare"-old Japanese proverb
• ".......Ours is the age that is proud of machines that think and suspicious of men who try to." -- H. Mumford Jones
• ".......Without changing our patterns of thought, we will not be able to solve the problems we created with our current pattern of thought."  --A. Einstein
• ".......Change is difficult, but complacency and stagnation are surefire showstoppers..." --Walter Derzko

• ".......Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."  -- Margaret Mead

• ".......Small minds discuss people; Average minds discuss events; Great minds discuss ideas; --Anon

P. S. if this is your first visit to my blog, please go to our Welcome page

The Opportunity Clinic - 28 Tactics for Managing Your Business in a Recession Part 3 of 28 Design Opportunities- Hope or Nostalgia

Mention the word design and what do you think of? Most people associate it with product design-creating functional differentiation through novel features, effectiveness through ergonomic principles, superior performance, convenience,etc. Think Apple iPod, iPhone or the Dyson vacuum cleaner.

In difficult economic times people turn back to nostalgia and comfort foods. I saw the following advertisement in the subway last night.

 

“Eating Kraft Peanut Butter makes you feel great but you can’t narrow it down to just one feeling,” said Jordan Fietje, senior product manager, marketing, for Kraft Canada. “We are reminding our consumers of all the good feelings you get when you have peanut butter.” ....A heart, happy face, peace sign and sunshine are among the 10 symbols used throughout the campaign.

Design is increasingly being acknowledged as an important strategic tool in creating preference and deeper emotional value for the consumer. Different design elements may be used strategically to create two very different outcomes or value chains from a consumer’s perspective. Certain design elements are more likely to create functional product differentiation and transactional consumer outcomes, while other design strategies tap into a more emotional form of value creation. An emotional focus in value creation is more likely to create desired and powerful outcomes such as loyalty, joy of use, delight and even passion. Given current business trends towards relationship-based customer management, this emphasis on emotional value creation through product design is becoming particularly relevant and a growing opportunity window. Entrepreneurs need to consider product design strategies that can use to enhance the transactional as well as relational values in their customer relationships...so you can design nostalgia or hope into a product. Wonder if Olbama is listening?

From the Opportunity Clinic ™ ©  1981-2009

Walter Derzko, Smart Economy, Toronto

Author of the soon-to-be-released book: Hard Times Golden Opportunities.. about opportunity recognition in a recession/ depression featuring 45 opportunity scenarios.

Realted posts in this series:

The Opportunity Clinic; 28 Tactics for managing your Business in a recession Part 6 of 28 What's in your Recession Playbook?

The Opportunity Clinic; 28 Tactics for Managing your Business in a Recession Part 5 of 28 Category Killer Innovation-India's $10 laptop

The Opportunity Clinic - 28 Tactics for Managing Your Business in a Recession Part 4 of 28 “Left Behind “Opportunities- Go Green & Go Slow

The Opportunity Clinic - 28 Tactics for Managing Your Business in a Recession Part 3 of 28 Design Opportunities- Hope or Nostalgia

The Opportunity Clinic - 28 Tactics for Managing Your Business in a Recession Part 2 of 28 Innovation or Efficiency?

The Opportunity Clinic - 28 Tactics for Managing Your Business (& surviving and thriving) in a Recession Part 1of 28

 

Related Posts over that past year:

·         Opportunity Recognition in Difficult Times

·         Recession - Proofing your Business - Spotting & Designing Opportunities in a Downturn

·         Recession - Proofing your Business - Spotting & Designing Opportunities in a Downturn – June 25, 2008, Ontario College of Art Design, Toronto, ON

·         Recession-Proofing your Business-Strategies and Tactics for smoother sailing in turbulent seas

·         Master Class in Opportunity Recognition for entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs> May 30th 2008> University of Toronto

·         Turning Misery into Opportunity

·         Vacuum leaves pullout opportunities;

·         How will baby boomers handle the recession? Zoomers, Doomers, Gloomers, Opportuneurs

·         Recession, Depression and Shortages as Opportunities

·         Restructuring of American Business-A New Business Model?

·         Using New Yorker Cartoons for Opportunity Recognition /Sense-making & Pattern Recognition

·         Text Mining for S&T Scouting, Foresight and Opportunity Recognition

·         The Opportunity Clinic-swapping opportunity scenarios 08-002

© 2005-2009

Walter Derzko -"Changing the world, one idea at a time"©

Expert, Consultant and Keynote Speaker on Emerging Smart Technologies, Innovation, Strategic Foresight, Business Development, Lateral Creative Thinking and author of an upcoming book on the Smart Economy "

The Smart Technology Blog: The Smart Economy -- Read, enjoy, explore, speculate, comment !!

To arrange for an in house presentation or briefing on smart technology see here

To explore the opportunities and threats of any new smart technology in your industry - Contact Me or explore how we can work together

• ".....Strategy without action is a day-dream; action without strategy is a nightmare"-old Japanese proverb
• ".......Ours is the age that is proud of machines that think and suspicious of men who try to." -- H. Mumford Jones
• ".......Without changing our patterns of thought, we will not be able to solve the problems we created with our current pattern of thought."  --A. Einstein
• ".......Change is difficult, but complacency and stagnation are surefire showstoppers..." --Walter Derzko

• ".......Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."  -- Margaret Mead

• ".......Small minds discuss people; Average minds discuss events; Great minds discuss ideas; --Anon

P. S. if this is your first visit to my blog, please go to our Welcome page

Sporting equipment intellivating by getting a smarter grip

 

Today's sporting gear is dumb and benign.

 

But sports equipment is about to get a lot smarter soon --not just from a style point of view but literally.

 

The sports industry (along with porn) has always been a bellwether sector for new technology applications. First it was new  composite materials (graphite) and then nanotechnology (carbon nanotubes), Now hand-held  sporting gear is about to intellivate* (a word I coined that’s a combination of intelligence +elevate) or become “dynamic or responsive”

Apple has patented a process of wrapping electronic touch sensitive (hepatic) material around sports gear, from hockey sticks, tennis rackets and golf clubs, to baseball bats and even darts. Think of it as a smart grip, where the user’s grip (correct or incorrect) can be monitored for training and improving the consistency of shots or hits.

 

Consequences? Adapting an old saying, "Smart practise leads to perfection sooner." Armchair athletes, weekend warriors  and professionals alike will improve their proficiency in sports a lot quicker and earlier in age, increasing the talent pool for professional sports clubs to choose from.

 

ETA: 2010-2013

 

 

In the future footballs, baseballs, hockey pucks and golf balls may be next on the list of objects that will be able to give you direct feedback

© 2005-2009

Walter Derzko -"Changing the world, one idea at a time"©

Expert, Consultant and Keynote Speaker on Emerging Smart Technologies, Innovation, Strategic Foresight, Business Development, Lateral Creative Thinking and author of an upcoming book on the Smart Economy "

The Smart Technology Blog: The Smart Economy -- Read, enjoy, explore, speculate, comment !!

To arrange for an in house presentation or briefing on smart technology see here

To explore the opportunities and threats of any new smart technology in your industry - Contact Me or explore how we can work together

• ".....Strategy without action is a day-dream; action without strategy is a nightmare"-old Japanese proverb
• ".......Ours is the age that is proud of machines that think and suspicious of men who try to." -- H. Mumford Jones
• ".......Without changing our patterns of thought, we will not be able to solve the problems we created with our current pattern of thought."  --A. Einstein
• ".......Change is difficult, but complacency and stagnation are surefire showstoppers..." --Walter Derzko

• ".......Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."  -- Margaret Mead

• ".......Small minds discuss people; Average minds discuss events; Great minds discuss ideas; --Anon

P. S. if this is your first visit to my blog, please go to our Welcome page

Top 10 smart technologies for Obama and Harper to consider for their infrastructure / cyberstructure / cognistructure program

Both US president elect Obama and Canadian Prime Minister Steven Harper have promised "New Deal" like infrastructure programs for the USA and Canada to spend their way out of a depression / recession (pick one). A new term is needed to describe this type of new intelligence-infused infrastructure. I call it the cognistructure-an infrastructure that thinks for itself.

Here's my list of top 10 smart technologies that both Olbama and Harper should have their eye on and on their planning radar screens; (Niche applications 10-6, more ubiquitous applications 5-1)

10. Smart home fabrication (supersized 3D printer that prints your home on site) to improve construction efficiency and effectiveness and waste reduction in conventional house building (but there is little chance of seeing North American building codes reformed any time soon)

9. Smart sensors in bridges, levees, roads, buildings, vehicles, satellites  etc (smart dust) to provide a dynamic sense and respond environment- eco cities-earth with a fast track  nervous system

8. Move toward the electrification of transportation (GM, Ford, Chysler shifts production to electric cars and trucks)and smart road networks (ie smart retractable speed bumps, movable road mediums that adjust to traffic flow and congestion)

7.Biomimicry -- designing systems, objects and surfaces  based on natural biological models

6. Smart "emergent and self-organizing" traffic congestion systems that deal with natural complexity in unconventional ways

5.Infrastructure / congnistructure for Smart cities, that address and enforce  "system resilience" and mitigates the consequences future potential catastrophies (climate change, severe weather, man-made disasters, riots, etc)

4.Modermizing the electrical grid to accept consumer and commercial inputs from alternate energy and reducing power loss during distribution ( via super conductors and nanowires)

3.Adoption of smart alternate energy technologies (wind, water and sun) that approach price parity with gas, coal, nuclear and electricity. Move toward distributed and diversified energy production vs centralised energy production.

2. Energy harvesting- various smart technologies that convert latent heat, all light spectra and mechanical vibration into electricity. Objects that create their own energy

1. Internet of things (IofT) (or ObjectNet or O-Net) & the Internet of Services (IofS) or S-Net -Intelligent objects, systems and environments have their own unique IP address and are connected together, just like web pages are linked on the web today.

© 2005-2008

Walter Derzko

Expert, Consultant and Guest Speaker on emerging Smart Technologies, Strategic Planning, Business Development, Lateral Creative Thinking and author of an upcoming book on the Smart Economy "

To explore the opportunities and threats of any new smart technology in your industry - Contact Me

.....Strategy without action is a day-dream; action without strategy is a nightmare"

- old Japanese proverb

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