Science & Technology

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 06 sep 2014

From Henry Ford, to whom manufacturing efficiency was paramount, to Steve Jobs, who valued the working of a product over its looks, design has always been an important component of the products delivered to consumers. During craftsmen era, individuals both designed & created the products. Industrial revolution focused on multiple specialized processes to finish products in large quantity with little room for errors. Autodesk pioneered computer-aided design (CAD) software, to enhance collaboration among highly skilled teams of designers, engineers etc. But today design is becoming critical for product performance and everybody needs to have a basic understanding of design. Autodesk is now promoting design literacy and participating in its democratization process. The gap between design, production and distribution is narrowing with technologies of sharing & collaboration, 3D printing etc and in future it will totally disappear. In the design economy the firms will have to perform in real time and the design will become the product itself. Autodesk predicts the demand for STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Maths) professionals will rise to 8.65 million in 2018. It created 'Design the Future' program to fulfill this demand and provides free software to students and curricula & training to educators. Diego Tamburini of Autodesk says, 'design no longer just applies to physical systems, but has permeated to other non-physical areas such as software, services, and the overall "emotional experience" of using a product that also require designers.' Read on...

Forbes: Why Autodesk Is Investing In The Democratization Of Design
Author: Greg Satell

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 29 aug 2014

'Digital Transformation' is happening in the pharmaceutical industry with 'Internet of Things' getting personalized with wearables, injectables and even plantables. As pharma landscape is going through turbulent times, with fewer chances of blockbuster drugs coming to market and hightened competition with cheaper generic drugs, big pharma is looking for new opportunities beyond the drugs that is termed as 'beyond-the-pill' strategy. According to Joseph Jeminez of Novartis, 'Beyond-the-pill is a logical and inevitable path forward for all. Creating value by embedding products into a holistic offering with the aim to improve patient outcomes and provide tangible competitive advantages.' Companies intend to pursue long-term relationships with patients through holistic offerings like telehealth servies, wellness programs and improved chronic disease management. Big data plays an important role in 'beyond-the-pill' strategy as devices create large amount of information. This information facilitates the higher level of engagement between the pharma companies and individual patients. Joseph Kvedar of Center for Connected Health at Partners Healthcare says, 'The engagement becomes the product. The therapeutic is almost a giveaway or marketing expense. There aren't many better ways to develop a relationship with a patient than through a prescription for a medication to treat a chronic illness.' For success of the strategy companies have to overcome challenges related to patients feeling comfortable with sharing their private medical information, internal organizational changes that require multidisciplinary approach and collaboration, successfully managing increased interactions with customers and achieving improved long-term health outcomes. Read on...

Forbes: Digital Transformation Moves Pharma 'Beyond the Pill'
Author: Jason Bloomberg

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 18 jun 2014

As with any other business, innovative technologies hold a promise to transform the ways agriculture and farming are pursued by bringing better efficiency and economy. According to James Andrews of Farmers Weekly, 'Farming is becoming increasingly technical and high-tech machines allow farmers to be more accurate, decrease wastage and boost productivity and their profits margins, which are increasingly tight these days.' The recent survey of British farmers by Farmers Weekly provides list of top 10 favorite technologies - (1) GPS Steering Systems (36% votes): Guides tractors in straight lines to save seed, fertilizer & fuel; (2) Robot Milking Machines (19% votes): Save farmers time & give cows the freedom to be milked when they want; (3) Smartphones (13% votes): Used by farmers to communicate, check soil depth, register animals etc; (4) Combine Harvester Yield Meters (5% votes): Monitor, display & record grain yield; (5) Cow heat detection devices (5% votes): Increase pregnancy rates; (6) Driverless Tractors (2% votes): Not yet commercially available but could save farmers time; (7) Aerial Drones (2% votes): Used to spot weeds, calculate fertilizer needs and scare pigeons; (8) Electronic Ear Tags (2% votes): Identify domestic livestock; (9) Farm Management Software (2% votes): Used to manage all aspects of a farm; (10) Robot Livestock Feeders (2% votes): Save farms money & consistently feed a herd. Read on...

Mail Online: From robotic milk maids to self-driving tractors and drones that monitor crops - Scientists reveal the future of farming
Author: Sarah Griffiths

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 11 jun 2014

Education and learning are continuous evolving fields and in the present world there is a debate regarding the role of technologies to improve and enhance the learning experience of students, impart required knowledge & skills and better prepare them for the future. According to Juan Lopez-Valcarcel, Chief Digital Officer of Pearson, 46 percent of US college students do not graduate, and those that do, 40 percent are told that they do not have the right skills for a job they are applying for. Moreover there is lack of availability of courses and programs in colleges and universities that can prepare students for in-demand jobs of today and tomorrow. He suggests 7 technologies that are capable of revolutionizing education - (1) Invisible Computers (Classroom objects serve as computers & all data is availablee when needed); (2) Body Language Assessment (By becoming aware & to determine whether student is able to follow classroom learning); (3) Robot-Assisted Learning (Kids respond better with robots than a tablet); (4) Global Rockstar Teachers (Best teachers available for anyone in the world); (5) Stealth Learning (By making popular games more educational); (6) Social Learning (Use social media to deliver educational material); (7) Open Hardware (Give access to developer-aimed devices to students). Read on...

Silicon Angle: 7 Technologies that Could Revolutionize Education
Author: Mellisa Tolentino

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 05 jun 2014

Team of researchers from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Professors Scott White, Jeffrey S. Moore & Nancy Sottos and graduate students Brett Krull, Windy Santa Cruz & Ryan Gergely, have developed materials that not only heal, but regenerate. The new regenerating materials are capable to fill in large cracks and holes by regrowing materials. The team advanced their previous research on vascular materials and using specially formulated fibers that disintegrate, the researchers can create materials with networks of capillaries similar to biological circulatory systems. For regenerating materials, two adjoining, parallel capillaries are filled with regenerative chemicals that flow out as a result of damage. A gel is formed when the two liquids mix with each other, spreads and fills the gap created by the damage. Finally the gel hardens into a strong polymer and restores plastic's mechanical strength. In addition to variety of commercial usage, these self-repair materials will find particular use for parts and products that are difficult to replace or repair, like in aerospace applications. Read on...

University of Illinois News Bureau: Regenerating plastic grows back after damage
Author: Liz Ahlberg

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 31 may 2014

Researchers from MIT, Lisa Freed and Martin Kolewe, used fabrication techniques from microelectronics industry to make thin sheets of biorubber with microscale rectangular holes of uniform dimensions and then stacked these with precise positions of pores one over the other. The stacking process was done with the help of a programmable machine adapted from electronics industry used to stack thin material layers to build circuit boards and integrated circuit (IC) packages. Researchers demonstrated pore patterns that could produce 'interwoven musle-like bundles' out of mouse muscle cells and rat neonatal heart cells. According to Professor Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic of Columbia University, this new scaffolding allowed the researchers to form tissue that mimics an important structural quality of heart tissue called 'anisotropy'. Freed and Kolewe say that their research provides unprecedented level of control over arrangement of pore networks and can lead to 'a whole new design space' to further experiment the 3-dimensional factors that influence cell alignment and tissue formation and could serve as a platform for the development of implantable organ tissue. Read on...

MIT Technology Review: A Manufacturing Tool Builds 3-D Heart Tissue
Author: Mike Orcutt

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 25 may 2014

Eric Topol, in his book 'The Creative Destruction of Medicine', explores and explains the transformatory shifts taking place in healthcare with more democratization and power in the hands of patients as compared to caregivers and healthcare providers. Present state of our world with technological advancements and digital devices becoming part of our daily lives, has totally altered and transformed our communications and interactions. In other words, our world has been 'Schumpetered', based on the theory of 'creative destruction' by Joseph Schumpeter that describes transformation that is brought about by radical innovation. Similar transformations are beginning to happen in healthcare. The digitization process of human life is made possible due to the convergence of digital technologies and processes - remote and continuous health monitoring with wearable smart devices, three dimensional reconstruction of any part of the body, hand-held high resolution imaging devices to capture information anywhere, determination of a person's genome sequence, advance health information systems, availability of downloadable laboratory reports and medical records etc. The healthcare can now be individualized and personalized contrary to the traditional population-level model of practicing medicine. With genome and DNA sequencing, it is possible to dissect, decode and define individual granularity at the molecular level, from the beginning to the end of life. David Gelernter introduced the concept of WikiWatson computer that could bring the world's medical literature and clinical expertise at one platform for global health improvement. Medical community, government and life science industry have to converge and consolidate their efforts to embrace, adopt and facilitate healthcare innovation for the benefit of society. Read on...

US News & World Report: How Technology Is Transforming Health Care
Author: Eric Topol

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 28 apr 2014

Most robotic components that are currently used are hard, large and heavy and therefore limit their speed and motion. But researchers like Saul Griffith are trying to change that. He is using soft, inflatable materials that are lighter, faster and even substantially strong. Soft in this context would signify lighter weight, lower cost, more efficient, more resilient, higher dynamic range, and tunable. Some of the examples of soft engineered robots in the current research include gripping eggs (George Whitesides at Harvard University), inflatable robotic arm, inflatable vehicle etc. Moreover the research have potential to be utilized in medical applications - prosthetics, aiding stroke victims, lessening spinal cord injuries, soft external muscles for aging population etc. Read on...

Engineering: Rethinking Rigidity in Design
Author: Tom Spendlove

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 27 apr 2014

Healthcare collaborations work towards bringing academia and industry together by pooling their resources and expertise to save costs and to bring breakthrough research, products and services for the benefit of society. To create such a collaborative ecosystem, three entities - Spectrum Health, Michigan State University and Van Andel Research Institute - have come together. A new lab is being developed to have basic and translational research to already existing Spectrum's competence in patient care and clinical trials. It brings academic focus as biomedical research is essential for medical advancements and developing novel treatments. According to Jeff Dwyer of Michigan State University, 'Life sciences and biomedical research linked to the clinical healthcare environment has really been growing already. It's been going so well, there is just need for more of this kind of space.' VP of research for Spectrum, Dr. Sandra Rempel says, 'The ability for us to bring new doctors opens up the door for future growth. The whole aim is to be able to come up with new discoveries we can publish and disseminate to the world and bring new information to enhance the field and cure illness.' In addition to their duty as clinicians they would now have an opportunity to focus more on research as principal investigators. Another goal is to create and build an academic framework for physician-scientists, medical students and graduate and undergraduate students to work together through established partnerships with VARI and MSU's College of Human Medicine. Dr. Rempel further explains, 'One of the things that really attracted me here is a very strong collaboration that already exists between all of the institutions. That kind of synergy allows us to grow beyond what each of us can do on our own. From collecting data to securing grants, the collaborations go beyond practical lab experience. We now have researchers who can take them into their labs. We see this as a great win-win situation for all the institutions involved. The whole idea is that when we collaborate, we get together as a group and exchange all our clinical and scientific ideas. We can write papers together, put grants together. MSU might get a grant, or we might get the grant and they would help... If we had a project, postdocs and students would come in and work on that project.' Read on...

Rapid Growth: Good Medicine - Medical research collaboration booms
Author: Marla R. Miller

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 25 apr 2014

In today's world there are diverse technologies that make social collaboration happen both at personal and professional level. These technologies provide workers ability to interact, participate and collaborate anytime and anywhere more efficiently without the need for their physical presence. Over the years this process of social collaboration has been consistently improving due to advancements in communication technologies. Autodesk has developed an infographic depicting and explaining the evolution of social collaboration. The main stages of this development include - Ray Dolby, Charles Ginsburg and Charles Anderson invented the first video camera with both image and sound recording (1956); Samuel Morse created Morse Code (1836); Alexander Graham Bell created telephone (1876); ENIAC was invented as the first all purpose computer (1946); Computer-aided design created for Watergate structure (1962); Xerox photocopying machine developed (1959); Doug Engelbart and Bill English invent computer mouse (1960); PLATO computer system developed at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign had started providing innovative communication tools like email, chatrooms, instant messaging, remote screen sharing, emoticons (1976); First network email sent by Ray Tomlinson on ARPANET (1971); First mobile phone call made by Martin Cooper on Motorola DynaTAC prototype (1973); PARC's Knowledge System Area created CoLab with workstations for group meetings and to collaborate on projects (late 1980s); Internet TCP/IP by Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn (1982); First commercial mobile phone DynaTAC 8000x (1983); Mac Portable by Apple (1989); Microsoft Outlook 97 as a communication hub with email, scheduling, contact management, task management etc (1997); World Wide Web made available that was developed by Robert Cailliau and Tim Berners-Lee (1991); WWW made free to anyone by CERN (1993); AOL connects email system to Internet and allowed users to chat and IM in real time (1997); GoToMeeting is launched for online meeting, desktop sharing and video conferencing (2004); Growth of social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest etc (2010s); 2.5 billion people are using Internet worldwide (2012). Read on...

Online Social Media: Evolution of social collaboration from 1950 to present
Author: Mark Chubb

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