Wednesday, September 13, 2006 1:46:31 PM
Learning from bees has resulted in an "efficiency" algorithm for improving business processess or even the output of a single machine. Amazing what mother nature knew all along.
When a bee finds a source of nectar, it returns to the hive and performs a dance to show other bees the direction and distance of the flower patch and how plentiful it is. The other workers then decide how many of them will fly off to find the new source, depending on its distance and quality.
The MEC team's Bees Algorithm mimics this behaviour. A computer can be set up to calculate the results of different settings on a manufacturing process. More computing power is then devoted to searching around the most successful settings, in the same way as more bees are sent to the most promising flower patches.
The Algorithm has been shown to cope with up to 3,000 variables and is faster than existing calculations. By entering basic data about all or part of a company, or even just one machine, the MEC team can calculate the best outcome for a wide range of business processes. They have already used the Bees Algorithm to work out the most efficient settings on welding systems and for the design of springs.
Friday, September 8, 2006 1:55:07 PM
Check out the article about THE connection
"This is an entirely new approach," Firestein said. ¡§Instead of targeting enzymes at the actual site of disease, our hypothesis is that the central nervous system is a controlling influence for the body and can regulate peripheral inflammation and immune responses."
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/09/060905084830.htm
Friday, September 8, 2006 10:51:10 AM
My young grandson called the other day to wish me Happy Birthday. He asked me how old I was, and I told him, "62." He was quiet for a moment, and then he asked, "Did you start at 1?"
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After putting her grandchildren to bed, a grandmother changed into old slacks and a droopy blouse and proceeded to wash her hair. As she heard the children getting more and more rambunctious, her patience grew thin. At last she threw a towel around her head and stormed into their room, putting them back to bed with stern warnings. As she left the room, she heard the three-year-old say with a trembling voice, "Who was THAT?"
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A grandmother was telling her little granddaughter what her own childhood was like: "We used to skate outside on a pond. I had a swing made from a tire; it hung from a tree in our front yard. We rode our pony. We picked wild raspberries in the woods." The little girl was wide-eyed, taking this in. At last she said, "I sure wish I'd gotten to know you sooner!"
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My grandson was visiting one day when he asked, "Grandma, do you know how you and God are alike?" I mentally polished my halo while I asked, "No, how are we alike?" "You're both old," he replied.
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A little girl was diligently pounding away on her grandfather's word processor. She told him she was writing a story. "What's it about?" he asked. "I don't know," she replied. "I can't read."
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I didn't know if my granddaughter had learned her colors yet, so I decided to test her. I would point out something and ask what color it was. She would tell me, and always she was correct. But it was fun for me, so I continued. At last she headed for the door, saying sagely, "Grandma, I think you should try to figure out some of these yourself!"
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When my grandson Billy and I entered our vacation cabin, we kept the lights off until we were inside to keep from attracting pesky insects. Still, a few fireflies followed us in. Noticing them before I did, Billy whispered, "It's no use, Grandpa. The mosquitoes are coming after us with flashlights."
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When my grandson asked me how old I was, I teasingly replied, "I'm not sure." "Look in your underwear, Grandma," he advised. "Mine says I'm four to six."
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A second grader came home from school and said to her grandmother, "Grandma, guess what? We learned how to make babies today." The grandmother, more than a little surprised, tried to keep her cool. "That's interesting," she said, "How do you make babies?" "It's simple," replied the girl. "You just change 'y' to 'i' and add 'es'"
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Children's Logic: "Give me a sentence about a public servant," said a teacher. The small boy wrote: "The fireman came down the ladder pregnant." The teacher took the lad aside to correct him. "Don't you know what pregnant means?" she asked. Sure," said the young boy confidently. "It means carrying a child."
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A nursery school teacher was delivering a station wagon full of kids home one day when a fire truck zoomed past. Sitting in the front seat of the fire truck was a Dalmatian dog. The children started discussing the dog's duties. They use him to keep crowds back," said one youngster. "No, said another, "he's just for good luck." A third child brought the argument to a close. "They use the dogs", she said firmly, "to find the fire hydrant."
Wil Welsh
Wai`Oli Properties, Inc.
1353 Kuhio Highway
Sunday, September 3, 2006 12:45:07 AM
Rules of Our Home
If you sleep on it………………….make it up
If you wear it……………………...hang it up
If you drop it………………………pick it up
If you empty it…………………….fill it up
If you step in it……………………wipe it off
If you eat on it…………………….wash it off
If you open it……………………….close it
If it rings…………………………..answer it
If it howls……………………………feed it
If It cries……………………………….love it
Saturday, September 2, 2006 9:18:47 PM
Some scientific folk have managed to make a camera see some things like bugs do. Seems that when a camera snaps a person next to a window full of light, the person is blacked out by all the light. The camera has only one setting for exposure.
Bug eyes (and Ours too) have individual cells which respond to the different light levels on the person as well as the yard outside the window. So, being "bug eyed" means having many light settings.
Now, these guys have made a camera work in a similar manner, allowing the picture to show a great deal of differntly lighted surfaces. Big advantage for things like surveillance cameras.
Amazing.
Friday, September 1, 2006 1:37:28 PM
It seems some curious scientists believe they have found that our bodies are "programmed" for keeping weight on and are also programmed to stop weight loss at a "plateau". So now we know why losing weight is so hard...........our body is fighting us. Supposedly it's a protection against famine.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/08/060830220440.htm
Saturday, August 26, 2006 3:30:35 PM
Here's a coupe of researchers who have figured out a way to convert fuel alcohol to bar alcohol......and cheap too!!! I'm not gonna try to calculate the cost but it seems that "tailgate booze" might sell for nickels a gallon.
Guess we better tighten up on these ethanol cars. Just think, drive to the game with 30 gallons of ethanol and then convert about 3 gallons...pour out the unused and drive home with lots for the next time....and no "open container" violation either. Aint't we smart?
"Van Leeuwen said the researchers are working to develop technologies that can purify fuel into beverage alcohol for less than an additional penny per gallon."
"That's the whole point," van Leeuwen said. "And based on my experience treating water and wastewater with these technologies, this could cost a lot less than a cent per gallon."
Wednesday, August 23, 2006 1:53:13 AM
A species of tropical ant snaps its jaws together at an astonishing 145 miles an hour (233 kilometers an hour), using the force of that motion not only to capture prey but also to catapult to safety, according to a new study.
"In terms of basic engineering, ants have solved this incredible problem of producing force using very simple structures at a very small scale," said Brian Fisher, co-author of the study and curator of entomology at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco.
"They use their mandibles [jaws] to feed, of course, but they've also turned this feeding mechanism into a mechanism to escape predators," he added. Fisher and his colleagues published the study today in the early online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
In one behavior, called a bouncer defense, the ant charges toward an intruder with its head angled at the animal, striking it with its jaws and tossing the intruder up to 8 inches (20 centimeters) away.
If the intruder is significantly larger than the ant, the ant may instead bounce itself off the intruder, careering nearly 16 inches (40 centimeters) backward. If a human were to ricochet off Godzilla with the same acceleration, he or she would sail 132 feet (40 meters) away, the scientists estimate.
In a second defensive move, called an escape jump, the ant angles its head down and snaps its jaws into the ground. The force launches the ant straight into the air up to 3.2 inches (8.3 centimeters).
The human equivalent of that launch would send a 5-foot-6-inch (1.6 meter) person bounding over a 44-foot (13.5-meter) building.
"How much force would we have to apply to the ground to achieve that acceleration? It would be 100,000 times the force of gravity—that's basically what ants are doing. Not even the space shuttle gets that many Gs [units of gravitational force]."
We don't know enough about ants. "It shows that when we get the right technology and ask the right questions, we get a very different answer."
Tuesday, August 22, 2006 11:56:29 AM
Yesterday, the Associated Press ran a piece that had some good information.
Bob Woodward, famed reporter, admitted that he had received written permission from his confidential source in the Valerie Plame mess to divulge the identity of the source. Also, Woodward admitted that the source had also called and asked to be outed. Woodward still refuses to divulge the source identity. Wonder why?
Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor said there would be no further indictments of officials other than Libby.
Karl Rove has testified on 5 different occaisions, numerous others have testified and the prosecutor has had unlimited time and money to find a criminal. The only indictment is of Libby and it's for telling lies, not for outing Valerie Plame. There is no indictment for the crime itself......and apparently there won't be one.
So now it seems we have wasted untold hours of time, tons of newspaper and ink just for the political smirching of the administration. There was no crime committed.
Politics is a nasty, dirty business and this is an example of just how dirty and wasteful the politics of today have become. Each side would do the same...no integrity shown here on either side. Just vindictive money wasting red herrings.
Sunday, August 20, 2006 11:46:27 AM
http://www.gigapxl.org/gallery.htm
If you want to see some impressive zooms from a neat camera, go to the site shown above. It's pictures taken with a gigapixel camera...that's right 1 gigapixel!! Mine is 3 megapixels.
The zooms show things not visible in the original.....and it probably costs less than $1,000,000!
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