Cultural biases are still hindering the progress of women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) careers, according to an American Association of University Women report supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation. The report analyzed decades of research to accumulate recommendations for getting more women interested in STEM fields. Lead author Catherine Hill says that although the study recognizes differences in male and female brains, “none of the research convincingly links those differences to specific skills.” However, the report found several cultural factors, such as the fact that female postdoctoral applicants had to publish three more papers in prestigious journals, or 20 more in less-known publications, in order to be considered as productive as their male counterparts. The study also found research indicating that girls’ performance declines as a result of any suggestion that they are poor at math. The report says that girls are less confident about their math skills than boys with equal levels of achievement.
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The European Union-funded Cooperative Vehicle-Infrastructure Systems (CVIS) project has developed applications for a totally integrated, open-source Internet of cars. The CVIS project is part of the larger international movement to develop an intelligent transport system (ITS). “Right now, I’d say Europe has something of a lead in technology development and validation across a wide range of test sites,” says CVIS project coordinator Paul Kompfner. CVIS is tackling issues such as a mobile platform for infrastructure-to-car communication, car-to-car communication, mobile ITS, and mapping. The project has developed a complete communications infrastructure; a platform that can use any known communications infrastructure; attached a scalable, open, and partly open-source software chain to a scalable hardware chain; and created a series of application programming interfaces and an open application development suite for third-party software developers.
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Stanford University computer scientist Debashis Sahoo and computer science professor David Dill recently completed a study of a program based on Boolean logic that can locate specific genes. Starting with two known B-cell genes, Sahoo searched through databases with thousands of gene products in milliseconds and found 62 genes that matched the patterns he would expect to see for genes that got turned on in between the activation of the two genes he started with. He then examined databases involving 41 strains of laboratory mice that were known to be deficient in one or more of the 62 genes. Of those 41 strains, 26 had defects in B-cell development. “Biologists are really amazed that, with just a computer algorithm, in milliseconds I can find genes that it takes them a really long time to isolate in the lab,” Sahoo says. He is currently using the technique to try to find new genes that contribute to cancer development. “This shows that computational analysis of existing data can provide clues about where researchers should look next,” Sahoo says.
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Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) computer scientists have developed V3D, a software suite that features tools for visualizing, analyzing, and measuring complex, three-dimensional (3D) biological and biomedical images. The free software promises to greatly accelerate scientists’ ability to assemble and manipulate extremely detailed images. The digital reconstruction tools are 17 times more reliable than those created using commercially available software, according to HHMI computer scientist Hanchuan Peng. The HHMI team wrote algorithms to accelerate the rendering of the images on the screen. V3D allows the user to drag and drop the images to be analyzed, and to pinpoint a location in a 3D image with a mouse click. “Since we have a very fast renderer for 3D images, we were able to design new approaches to manipulate very large images freely in real time,” Peng says.
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Robotics researchers recently have focused on multiple-robot systems that work together and react to each other, with the goal of one day performing dangerous or menial tasks that machines, in combination, might do better than humans. One way researchers are getting robots to work together is by designing all-robotic soccer teams. “When we started this, the main research question was … how do you get multiple robots to coordinate?” says Carnegie Mellon University professor Manuela Veloso. Researchers also are studying insects, such as ants, bees, and termites, that work together to accomplish complex goals such as building an intricate nest. “These collective behaviors are very powerful and arise from very simple individuals,” says Harvard University professor Radhika Nagpal. Nagpal is part of a project to create robotic bees that mimic those in nature. Rice University’s James McLurkin is developing a swarm of robots that can seek out the boundaries of an area, which could be useful in exploration.
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Microsoft and researchers from the University of Konstanz in Germany are collaborating to create Videomap, navigation software that incorporates videos of driving routes. The program gives drivers visual cues by highlighting landmarks and emphasizing one side of the road before a turn. Videomap uses algorithms for “turn anticipation”–essentially, the video slows before a turn and points out key images where the turn must be made. The program points out landmarks in the same way. “As we pass a landmark, the field of view will expand to encompass that landmark and create a landmark thumbnail,” says Microsoft’s Billy Chen. The image is held for a few seconds so that the driver can commit it to memory. Video speed varies depending on whether the driver wants to note landmarks or get an idea of the length of the trip. To test the system, 20 volunteers read normal driving instructions for five minutes. Then they were shown a simulation of the route and were asked several times to state where the car would turn next. The second time participants used Videomap instructions. With normal directions, the drivers were correct 60 percent of the time; with Videomap, the number rose to 80 percent. Chen calls the study “pretty conclusive,” and points out that drivers relied less on text instructions after using Videomap and most of them preferred the software. Chen plans to test participants a second time using a new video simulation to see how the program holds up in different environments. He also wants to develop the program so that users will look only at the video when it covers a landmark, rather than looking equally at both the moving map and video. University of Zurich researcher Arzu Coltekin says that Videomap could potentially be useful for bikers and pedestrians as well.

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Yale University researchers have led a research effort to develop the first rudimentary solid-state quantum processor, a major step toward the creation of a quantum computer. The researchers used a two-qubit superconducting chip to successfully run simple algorithms, including a search, marking the first demonstration of quantum information processing with a solid-state device. “Our processor can perform only a few very simple quantum tasks, which have been demonstrated before with single nuclei, atoms, and photons,” says Yale professor Robert Schoelkopf. “But this is the first time they’ve been possible in an all-electronic device that looks and feels much more like a regular microprocessor.” Yale postdoctoral associate Leonardo DiCarlo, the lead author of a paper on the discovery, says the key that made the two-qubit processor possible was getting the qubits to rapidly switch between the on and off states so they exchanged information quickly but only when the researchers wanted them to do so. This has not been possible using solid-state qubits because scientists could not get the qubits to maintain a specific quantum state long enough. The first qubits created about a decade ago were able to maintain specific quantum states for about a nanosecond, but the new qubits can maintain theirs for a microsecond, a thousand times longer. The researchers are now working to increase the amount of time the qubits maintain their quantum states so they can run more complicated algorithms. Schoelkopf says processing power increases exponentially with each qubit added, so the potential for advanced quantum computing is huge. However, he says it will still be a while before quantum computers can be used to solve complex problems.

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The Chinese government has postponed its mandate that manufacturers embed Web-filtering software in all new PCs sold in the country, in the wake of fervent opposition inside and outside China. The Xinhua news agency quoted a Ministry of Industry and Information Technology representative as saying that some PC makers claimed they did not have sufficient time to meet the July 1 deadline, in which case a delay was permissible. The postponement alleviates global PC companies’ worries that complying with the rules would make them susceptible to legal liability and allegations of aiding censorship, yet they also were reluctant to openly challenge China’s government, given the heavy concentration of both PC production and PC sales in the country. The Chinese government has said the purpose of implementing the Web-filtering software is to prevent youngsters from viewing online pornography and other “harmful content,” and it insists that the software “definitely has no capability for collecting users’ information or monitoring their Internet behavior.” Information Technology Industry Council (ITIC) president Dean Garfield says the computer industry is in favor of enabling parents to block access to objectionable online material, but is against any requirement that specifies a particular company’s product. Isaac Mao with Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society says the Chinese initiative “has lost legitimacy” and that the government’s enforcement of the rule would be impossible. There also are indications that the plan has broadened public interest in China regarding questions about government inquisitiveness and censorship. The postponement does not signal the end of the issue, and a Hewlett-Packard representative said the company is collaborating with the ITIC “to seek additional information, clarify open questions, and monitor developments on this matter.”

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European scientists have developed a new robot that navigates using human-like visual processing and object detection as a tool for investigating how the brain responds to its environment while the body is moving. “It seems to be a trend, from neuroscience to computer science, to look at the brain for designing new systems,” says Tomaso Poggio of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Center for Biological and Computational Learning. The wheeled machine features a movable head that sees stereoscopically with a pair of cameras, and is controlled by algorithms designed to imitate different components of the human visual system. The device employs a simulated neural network to update its position relative to its surroundings, continually adjusting to each new input in a mimicry of human visual processing and movement planning. The robot mirrors object recognition, motion estimation, and decision making to navigate around a room, moving toward specific targets while evading walls and impediments. Heiko Neumann with the University of Ulm’s Vision and Perception Lab says neuroscientists typically concentrate on a specific aspect of vision and motion, but the creation of a real, human-like computer navigation model requires the integration of these various aspects into a “coherent model architecture.” Project coordinator Mark Greenlee of Germany’s University of Regensburg says that potential applications of the robot’s technology could include intelligent wheelchairs capable of easy indoor navigation. Poggio says that we are “on the cusp of a new stage where artificial intelligence is getting information from neuroscience.”

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Researchers in Germany believe organic computing has the potential to solve the problems of urban traffic systems, which rely on sensors and controllers. Using an organic approach, Holger Prothmann of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and colleagues have developed a decentralized traffic control system. “The organic approach is based on industry-standard traffic light controllers,” Prothmann says. The researchers developed an observer/controller architecture, which enables the traffic light to respond to traffic flow and to forward information to traffic lights on nearby roads. Current systems use fixed timers that are unable to respond directly to traffic, and centralized systems are unable to respond optimally to changes in traffic on the roads. Working with colleagues at Karlsruhe and at Leibniz Universitat Hannover, Prothmann tested the decentralized traffic control system on roads in Hamburg, and found that it can reduce vehicle stops, delays, and the time needed to reach destinations. “The environmental and economic importance of traffic control systems combined with the distributed nature of traffic nodes and their constantly changing traffic demands make traffic light control an ideal test case for organic computing approaches,” Prothmann says.

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