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Calling all couch potatoes: This finger wrap can let you power electronics while you sleep

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A new wearable device turns the touch of a finger into a source of power for small electronics and sensors. Engineers at the University of California San Diego developed a thin, flexible strip that can be worn on a fingertip and generate small amounts of electricity when a person’s finger sweats or presses on it.

What’s special about this sweat-fueled device is that it generates power even while the wearer is asleep or sitting still. This is potentially a big deal for the field of wearables because researchers have now figured out how to harness the energy that can be extracted from human sweat even when a person is not moving.

This type of device is the first of its kind, said co-first author Lu Yin, a nanoengineering Ph.D. student at the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering. “Unlike other sweat-powered wearables, this one requires no exercise, no physical input from the wearer in order to be useful. This work is a step forward to making wearables more practical, convenient and accessible for the everyday person.” [Read more…] about Calling all couch potatoes: This finger wrap can let you power electronics while you sleep

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  • Small generator captures heat given off by skin to power wearable devices
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    Small generator captures heat given off by skin to power wearable devicesScientists in China have developed a small, flexible device that can convert heat emitted from human skin to electrical power. In their research, presented April 29 in the journal Cell Reports Physical Science, the team showed that the device could power an LED light in real time when worn on…
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  • Smart devices to schedule electricity use may prevent blackouts
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    Smart devices to schedule electricity use may prevent blackoutsPower plants generate electricity and send it into power lines that distribute energy to nodes, or sites, where it can be used. But if the electricity load is more than the system's capacity, transmission can fail, leading to a cascade of failures throughout the electric grid. This domino effect was…
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  • New wearable device turns the human body into a battery
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    New wearable device turns the human body into a batteryResearchers at the University of Colorado Boulder have developed a new, low-cost wearable device that transforms the human body into a biological battery. The device, described today in the journal Science Advances, is stretchy enough that you can wear it like a ring, a bracelet or any other accessory that touches…
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Rude behavior at work not an epidemic, new study shows

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Rude behavior at work has come to be expected, like donuts in the breakroom. Two decades of research on employee relationships shows that 98 percent of employees experience rude behavior at work, but now a new study suggests a large majority of workplace relationships are not characterized by rudeness.

Isolated incidents of rude behavior at work, although somewhat common, do not point to widespread incivility between employees and their colleagues, according to a new UCF study.

“Because prior research suggests workplace mistreatment is harmful and widespread, it is often called an epidemic, but our findings show that rude behavior is less like the flu and more like cholera,” says Shannon Taylor, an associate professor of management and co-author of the report. [Read more…] about Rude behavior at work not an epidemic, new study shows

The job you want versus the job you get

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When it comes to career aspirations for teenagers, a University of Houston psychology researcher believes it’s best to shoot for the moon, so you can at least land in the stars. The truth is the moon may sometimes be unreachable.

In the Journal of Career Assessment, Kevin Hoff, assistant professor of psychology, reports the existence of important discrepancies between young people’s dream jobs and employment realities.

“Almost 50% of adolescents aspired to investigative or artistic careers, which together account for only 8% of the U.S. labor market,” reports Hoff, whose research examined the career aspirations of 3,367 adolescents (age 13-18 years) from 42 U.S. states. Investigative jobs include those in the field of science and research. [Read more…] about The job you want versus the job you get

Men doing more family caregiving could lower their risk of suicide

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Colorado State University Professor of Psychology Silvia Sara Canetto has spent many years researching patterns and meanings of suicide by culture, trying to make sense of the variability in women’s and men’s suicide mortality around the world. Suicide rates are generally higher in men than in women, but not everywhere – which suggests cultural influences.

Canetto and colleagues have completed a new study that provides insight into what may contribute to men’s suicide vulnerability. The study tests Canetto’s theory that men’s suicide mortality is related to men’s private-life behaviors, specifically their low engagement in family care work – not just the adversities they may encounter in aspects of their public lives, such as employment. [Read more…] about Men doing more family caregiving could lower their risk of suicide

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A better way to introduce digital tech in the workplace

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When bringing technologies into the workplace, it pays to be realistic. Often, for instance, bringing new digital technology into an organization does not radically improve a firm’s operations.

Despite high-level planning, a more frequent result is the messy process of frontline employees figuring out how they can get tech tools to help them to some degree.

That task can easily fall on overburdened workers who have to grapple with getting things done, but don’t always have much voice in an organization. So isn’t there a way to think systematically about implementing digital technology in the workplace? [Read more…] about A better way to introduce digital tech in the workplace

Food home delivery companies need up to 8,000 daily services to be profitable in a big city

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Various platforms which offer food home delivery services through courier services, such as riders or other types of distributors, have proliferated very quickly in recent years, especially in big cities.

Due to this boom in last-mile delivery or logistics, UOC experts have studied the operation of the main food home delivery platforms, such as Just Eat, Glovo and Deliveroo, which work in the city of Barcelona, to analyse the profitability of these business models and estimate the number of orders needed to achieve this profitability.

“It’s very difficult for these business models to be profitable by themselves”, said Eduard J. Álvarez Palau, a researcher from the SUMA research group of the UOC’s Faculty of Economics and Business, the main author of this work together with Ángel A. Juan, principal investigator of the ICSO research group of the UOC’s IN3. [Read more…] about Food home delivery companies need up to 8,000 daily services to be profitable in a big city

Researchers create world’s most power-efficient high-speed ADC microchip

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To meet soaring demand for lightning-quick mobile technology, each year tech giants create faster, more powerful devices with longer-lasting battery power than previous models.

A major reason companies like Apple and Samsung can miraculously pull this off year after year is because engineers and researchers around the world are designing increasingly power-efficient microchips that still deliver high speeds.

To that end, researchers led by a team at Brigham Young University have just built the world’s most power-efficient high-speed analog-to-digital converter (ADC) microchip. An ADC is a tiny piece of technology present in almost every electronic piece of equipment that converts analog signals (like a radio wave) to a digital signal. [Read more…] about Researchers create world’s most power-efficient high-speed ADC microchip

‘We’re playing Moneyball with building assets’

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Researchers have developed a tool to help governments and other organizations with limited budgets spend money on building repairs more wisely.

The new tool uses artificial intelligence and text mining techniques to analyze written inspection reports and determine which work is most urgently needed.

“Those assessments are now largely subjective, the opinions of people based on experience and training,” said Kareem Mostafa, an engineering PhD student at the University of Waterloo who led the project. “We’re using actual data on buildings to make spending decisions more objective.” [Read more…] about ‘We’re playing Moneyball with building assets’

Partnerships between researchers, policymakers and practitioners improve early childhood education

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Research-practice partnerships (RPPs), long-term collaborations between researchers, policy makers and practitioners, represent an especially promising strategy for making sure that all children benefit from early childhood education, according to a journal released today by Princeton University and the Brookings Institution.

The journal, Future of Children, edited by Daphna Bassok of the University of Virginia and Pamela Morris of New York University’s Steinhardt School, argues that RPPs are crucial for solving today’s most pressing question in early childhood education – how to deliver high-quality prekindergarten programs at scale.

“Too often there is a disconnect between the questions researchers tackle and the ones that are more urgent and salient for policy makers or practitioners,” said Bassok. “The findings from rigorous, well-designed research studies may not be particularly useful for addressing the real-life complexity that educators and policymakers face.” [Read more…] about Partnerships between researchers, policymakers and practitioners improve early childhood education

Astronomers detect first ever hydroxyl molecule signature in an exoplanet atmosphere

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An international collaboration of astronomers led by a researcher from the Astrobiology Center and Queen’s University Belfast, and including researchers from Trinity College Dublin, has detected a new chemical signature in the atmosphere of an extrasolar planet (a planet that orbits a star other than our Sun).

The hydroxyl radical (OH) was found on the dayside of the exoplanet WASP-33b. This planet is a so-called “ultra-hot Jupiter”, a gas-giant planet orbiting its host star much closer than Mercury orbits the Sun and therefore reaching atmospheric temperatures of more than 2,500° C (hot enough to melt most metals).

The lead researcher based at the Astrobiology Center and Queen’s University Belfast, Dr Stevanus Nugroho, said: “This is the first direct evidence of OH in the atmosphere of a planet beyond the Solar System. It shows not only that astronomers can detect this molecule in exoplanet atmospheres, but also that they can begin to understand the detailed chemistry of this planetary population.” [Read more…] about Astronomers detect first ever hydroxyl molecule signature in an exoplanet atmosphere

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