Category Archives: STEM

Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics

On-chip liquid cooling promises revolutionary change

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The technique involves cutting microfluidic channels into the die of FPGA devices, which were chosen for the research and trials because of their flexible configuration and extensive use in the military. Effectively this locates the cooling just microns from the problem, and even allows for the possibility of chip-stacking, which very few devices currently have the room or efficiency to achieve, given the necessity to dissipate heat from a central locus of adjacent chips.

Source: On-chip liquid cooling promises revolutionary change

Edit Distance Reveals Hard Computational Problems

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As far as computer scientists know, the only general-purpose method to find the correct answer to a SAT problem is to try all possible settings of the variables one by one. The amount of time that this exhaustive or “brute-force” approach takes depends on how many variables there are in the formula. As the number of variables increases, the time it takes to search through all the possibilities increases exponentially. To complexity theorists and algorithm designers, this is bad. (Or, technically speaking, hard.)

SETH takes this situation from bad to worse. It implies that finding a better general-purpose algorithm for SAT — even one that only improves on brute-force searching by a small amount — is impossible.

Source: Edit Distance Reveals Hard Computational Problems | Quanta Magazine

The Jocks of Computer Code Do It for the Job Offers

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The Hacker Cup goes much the same way as other sport-coding contests: five puzzles to finish in any order over three hours. Keep the programming as efficient as possible. The cleanest, most accurate code in the fastest time takes first place. A common type of problem might ask for the shortest route between San Francisco and Los Angeles given a number of constraints. Or perhaps the problem is about how to tile a floor in a specific pattern. The questions typically revolve around a well-known algorithm or mathematical structure with a fresh twist. Elite sport coders must figure out the underlying logic quickly and then trust their abilities.

Source: The Jocks of Computer Code Do It for the Job Offers

‘Chatbot Rose’ wins Loebner AI competition, but $100,000 prize remains unclaimed

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The Loebner prize for artificial intelligence is a $100,000 award for the person or team that creates a computer that can hold a conversation with a human in such a way that the person can’t identify whether they’re talking to a computer or another person – an implementation of the Turing test.

Source: ‘Chatbot Rose’ wins Loebner AI competition, but $100,000 prize remains unclaimed

Economics Has a Math Problem

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Their overview stated that machine learning techniques emphasized causality less than traditional economic statistical techniques, or what’s usually known as econometrics. In other words, machine learning is more about forecasting than about understanding the effects of policy.

That would make the techniques less interesting to many economists, who are usually more concerned about giving policy recommendations than in making forecasts.

Source: Economics Has a Math Problem – Bloomberg View

Japan Launches Vital Supplies (and Mice) Toward International Space Station

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If all goes according to plan, the cargo ship will arrive at the space station early Monday morning (Aug. 24). Astronauts aboard the orbiting lab can then begin offloading HTV-5’s 6 tons (5.5 metric tons) of food, water, scientific gear and other supplies. [Japan’s Robotic Space Station Cargo Ship Fleet in Pictures (Photos)]

Source: Japan Launches Vital Supplies (and Mice) Toward International Space Station

Rosetta’s big day in the Sun

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The activity reaches its peak intensity around perihelion and in the weeks that follow – and is clearly visible in the spectacular images returned by the spacecraft in the last months. One image taken by Rosetta’s navigation camera was acquired at 01:04 GMT, just an hour before the moment of perihelion, from a distance of around 327 km.

Source: Rosetta’s big day in the Sun / Rosetta / Space Science / Our Activities / ESA

Neil Sloane, Connoisseur of Number Sequences

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A mathematician whose research generates a sequence of numbers can turn to the OEIS to discover other contexts in which the sequence arises and any papers that discuss it. The repository has spawned countless mathematical discoveries and has been cited more than 4,000 times.

Source: Neil Sloane, Connoisseur of Number Sequences | Quanta Magazine

the Online Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences (OEIS), often simply called “Sloane” by its users.

New Horizons Sharpens Our View of Pluto’s Icy Heart

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NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft is sending back images of Pluto taken during its Tuesday morning flyby. The images reveal a varied surface with ice mountains and frozen plains. The piano-size spacecraft traveled nine years and three billion miles to study the dwarf planet and its five moons.

Source: New Horizons Sharpens Our View of Pluto’s Icy Heart – The New York Times