tag:beta.briefideas.org,2005:/all?page=26Journal of Brief Ideas: Ideas from the last week2016-10-11T10:46:33Ztag:beta.briefideas.org,2005:Idea/3402016-10-11T10:46:33Z2016-12-11T08:37:59ZA nanobattery based on biopolymershttps://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.160235Conventional batteries have been manufactured by top-down approach. It is believed that bottom-up approach offers better [efficiency](https://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.3442784.v1).
[Peptide](https://dx.doi.org/10.1021%2Fja00897a025)/[peptoid](https://dx.doi.org/10.1021%2Fja00052a076) synthesis method, being a method of bottom-up approach, allow to obtain biopolymers of precise sequences of its building blocks. By using this method it is possible to combine all the necessary parts of battery into a monolayer of peptoids/peptides. A nanosheet of vertically-aligned biopolymers is considered here.
To function properly a chain of the biopolymer has to have three distinct parts:
-First part is a sequence with the side chains that should have mobile charge carriers, for example, [benzenehexolate of lithium](https://dx.doi.org/10.1021/ja9024897). It can be reversibly oxidised to rhodizonate group liberating alkaline ions.
-Second part should facilitate ion transport. Its sequence can be analogous to the one of the [membrane ionic channels](http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08927020802433160)
-And finally, third part has to have a sequence of side chain residues with some charge carrier retaining properties. For example, [naphthalene](http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/cr940053x) or other [conjugated molecules](10.1038/http://dx.doi.org/nature08859). It is known that alkaline atoms can be intercalated into these molecules.
The chain of the biopolymer with above described sequence will be amphiphilic. In suitable conditions, it has to self assemble into a [monolayer](http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/ja106340f). Then this nanosheet can be sandwiched between electrodes.Aliev, Almaztag:beta.briefideas.org,2005:Idea/3372016-09-20T06:00:01Z2019-11-20T05:54:14ZSoap bar skin scanner for detection of early melanomahttps://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.154549Many scanners look inside the body, but none examine our whole skin because the ripples and folds of flesh need to be unfolded for camera access. The current approach assumes no cooperation from the person being examined, except to lie or stand in standard positions. It struck me while showering that active participation by the person, in the privacy of their own washroom, could be invoked, because most of us will run a bar of soap over our whole accessible and not so accessible surfaces. My suggested design is then a checkerboard soap bar holder, with a smooth, exterior surface. The squares would alternately allow the soap to contact the skin, and the other squares would be digital camera chips, for direct contact microscopy of the skin. Small LEDs could backlight nevi, allowing 3D lightfield imaging. After a shower or two, with appropriate montaging software, a map of our whole skin could be made and analyzed. Two such maps, 6 months apart, aligned and subtracted, could lead to detection of early melanoma: "...most ultimately fatal melanomas are visible on the surface of the skin at a curable phase in their evolution" (Weinstock, 2006). Melanoma incidence is rapidly increasing. See attached references.Gordon, Richardtag:beta.briefideas.org,2005:Idea/3362016-09-18T13:47:38Z2016-09-19T06:00:20ZCarbon concentrations in phytoliths and carbon sequestration in soilhttps://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.154351In recent years there has been much work on the possibility that carbon could be sequestered in phytoliths and contribute to solving global warming.<sup>[1](http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2486.2009.02118.x/full), [2](http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11368-016-1527-x)</sup> There have been a number of calculations of how much is sequestered globally. The crucial figure in these calculations is the concentration of carbon in the phytoliths that is used, so-called phytolith occluded carbon. These figures are derived from phytoliths that have been acid digested or dry ashed at 450-500<sup>o</sup>C. Values vary from less than 0.1% to 6% depending on the technique used. But are any of these measurements realistic? In native unprocessed material the lemma macrohair from *Phalaris canariensis* contained 40% silica, 55%, polysaccharides and 5% proteins.<sup>[3](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0176161787800287)</sup> At maturity these hairs consist entirely of wall material. I know of no data for lumen deposits, which undoubtedly have a higher percentage silica in the native state. Some of the carbon in both cell wall and lumen phytoliths cannot be accessed by hot acid or dry ashing. I suspect that more carbon is inaccessible to breakdown processes in soil than is estimated by our “occluded carbon” determinations. My question is whether these measurements are a good estimate of what is present in soil phytoliths?Hodson, Martintag:beta.briefideas.org,2005:Idea/3342016-08-27T13:10:44Z2022-03-27T13:28:30ZWhat do humans strive for, generally? A universal description of humans’ motivation to act.http://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.61065When one considers a general and universal description of humans’ motivation to act, probably reproduction, or biological fitness, comes to mind (Darwin, 1859). However, there is an abundance of residual behaviour, across humans’ life domains (e.g., cultural, social, occupational), which is unexplained by striving for biological fitness, not even in terms of inclusive fitness (Hamilton, 1964). Moreover, there are many otherwise successful people who decide to remain childless, despite having the necessary prerequisites (being fertile, having a suitable partner and other required resources; Keizer, Dyjkstra, & Jansen, 2008).
Hence, it seems that biological, or inclusive, fitness is not a suitable candidate for a general description of humans’ motivation to act. Instead, I would like to propose that what people strive for across social, cultural and biological domains could be described as “gaining and accumulating value”, or “having an impact or influence”, in a broad sense. These terms would include diverse behaviours and their motivations, such as biological reproduction or attaining a high social status.
This perspective, when fleshed out in more detail, could serve as a new descriptive framework in theoretical and empirical studies of human behaviour and motivation, in several social sciences, such as evolutionary and social psychology, sociology, and philosophy, by enriching both proximate and functional explanations of human behaviour.Kordsmeyer, Tobiastag:beta.briefideas.org,2005:Idea/3332016-08-15T21:57:38Z2016-09-01T14:11:31ZSearching for "Tabby's Star" Analogs in Stripe 82http://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.60308["Tabby's Star"](http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016MNRAS.457.3988B) is an anomalous F star with repeated short-term variability, and a steady [3% dimming over 4-years](http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016arXiv160801316M). The star spent [~8%](https://twitter.com/Nighthawk_Black/status/762410345411469312) of the Kepler 4-year light curve in the short-duration dimming state. As [LaCourse](/ideas/59bde655f99d29f685702717316e06f3) notes, no analog has been found with [Kepler](http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2010Sci...327..977B). Neither the short- or long-term variability in this object are currently understood so discoveries of additional examples are desperately needed.
[Stripe82](http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2007AJ....134..973I) was a 10-year multi-epoch photometric catalog by [SDSS](http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2000AJ....120.1579Y), covering ~300 sq deg with 70-90 epochs in *ugriz*. More than 10,000 objects were identified as [variable](http://www.astro.washington.edu/users/ivezic/sdss/catalogs/stripe82.html) with [F star colors](http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2007AJ....134.2398C) from Stripe82, with many likely pulsators or eclipsing binaries. The photometric precision of Stripe82 is sufficient to detect the long-term, non-stationary variability observed from "Tabby's Star". Additionally, the 8% duty cycle of short-term dimming events should stand out as several aperiodic outliers in the Stripe82 light curves. Finally, the near-simultaneous multi-band data from SDSS may provide important clues as to nature of this new class of variable star.Davenport, JamesRuan, Johntag:beta.briefideas.org,2005:Idea/3312016-08-15T06:55:29Z2022-03-27T13:21:25ZLinking authorship and reviewing activity in science publishinghttp://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.60164Everybody wants to publish, but peers for review are increasingly hard to find. Online systems that help journal editors handle submissions indicate how many invitations for review a person accepted or declined. Linking this information automatically to the names of the first and last author of any submission to a specific journal, and displaying it during the online submission process, would make submitters aware of their own reviewing history with this journal, and make them aware that the journal editor will also be automatically informed about this. Editors might justifiably be less inclined to allow a manuscript into review if the authors have a history of declining review invitations. Additionally, offering both authors and editors a ranking opportunity in the online system as commonplace with any online business ('how do you rate this review?' - corrected for the type of decision that is rated) would make submitters aware of their reviewing performance, as well as editors - at the time when submitters might want to make the best of impressions with editors, i.e. during submission of their own manuscript. Rather than rewarding reviewing activity by quantifying it in metrics, such practice might enhance effort put into peer review.Clauss, Marcustag:beta.briefideas.org,2005:Idea/3282016-08-04T08:44:54Z2016-08-16T06:00:24ZAlgorithms learning for large scale facilitieshttp://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.60165A large scale facility can be described as an object producing, as an output, datasets `D_i`, that scientists analyse to obtain results `R_i`. The ideal data analysis trajectory for an experiment is thus `D_i-->R-i-->P_i`, where `P_i` denotes the desired output: a publication.
Most of the times, something goes wrong along the way: there is no time to analyse the data, the analysis is harder than expected... To speed up the process and make it more efficient, I suggest using a new approach, including machine learning methods. Once developed, it could be applied to various industries.
With time, a large set of algorithms `A_ij` is developed to analyse the data collected at the considered large scale facility. I propose to profile the algorithms, translating them to a high-level formal language, so to create a platform that
- If the data collected during an experiment is similar to a previous dataset, suggests in a concise format which steps to follow.
- If the experiment is new, it searches how similar data have been treated, and uses machine learning techniques to suggest a possible data analysis approach.
The system would help to speed up data analysis both for well developed and new techniques.Cereser, Albertotag:beta.briefideas.org,2005:Idea/3272016-08-04T03:36:28Z2016-08-15T21:57:38ZThe NASA K2 Mission has yet to observe an analog of Tabby's Starhttp://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.59494Tabby's Star is a main sequence F-class star ([KIC 8462852](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KIC_8462852)) observed by the NASA Kepler spacecraft to undergo significant aperiodic dimming activity across a four year baseline. The light curve was noted as novel amongst a pool of ~150,000 targets through visual inspection performed by participants of the [PlanetHunters.org](https://www.planethunters.org/) project. [Boyajian, et al. (2015)](http://arxiv.org/abs/1509.03622) reported an analysis which attempted to model the enigmatic behavior under various scenarios, with a swarm of exo-comets offered as a potential (but problematic) leading explanation. Subsequent follow-up studies failed to detect a significant IR excess or the presence of close stellar companions. [Wright, et al. (2015)](http://arxiv.org/abs/1510.04606) offered an alternative explanation invoking transits of alien-megastructures, which may not produce a detectable IR excess or radial velocity signal.
To date, a robust model to explain the behavior of Tabby's Star remains elusive.
The Kepler spacecraft is now observing a series of new ecliptic fields ([K2](http://keplerscience.arc.nasa.gov/)) and has accumulated observations of ~165,000 additional targets. Continued visual inspection of these public data has failed to recover an analog to KIC 8462852. Lack of such a detection suggests that the aperiodic dimming indeed represents a rare astrophysical phenomenon, regardless of the true root cause mechanism involved. Future photometric surveys by K2 and TESS will offer additional opportunity to search for such analogs.
LaCourse, Darylltag:beta.briefideas.org,2005:Idea/3262016-08-01T15:59:25Z2016-08-02T06:00:40ZHeated volumetric extrusion mechanism with co-axial Auger and Moineau pumps for 3D printing from plastic pelletshttp://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.59241The higher cost and lower availability of the thermoplastic filaments -compared to pellets- make FDM 3D printers underutilized in developing countries.
We designed a solution to use easily sourced plastic pellets with precise volumetric control of the extrusion flow. This is done by a rotor made of a "Moineau" progressing cavity pump co-axially coupled with an Auger screw, both contained within a single heated stator.
Our extrusion mechanism works as follows:
1) plastic pellets/granules enter the Auger screw, they are melted by the heated stator and pushed forward by the rotation of the screw, entering the cavities of the Moineau pump;
2) the plastic is transported by the progressing cavities of the Moineau pump, proportionally to the amount of its rotation, to the extrusion nozzle.
To our knowledge, this technology -already used in food and oil industries- has not been applied to 3D printers, the main issue being the need to keep the system at 200-300 C, suitable for melting.
The final goal is to build a pellet extruder compatible with commonly used RepRap 3D printers at a low cost. It must be made out of metal and it can be driven by a stepper motor through a geared reduction.Fonda, Carlotag:beta.briefideas.org,2005:Idea/3212016-07-17T22:03:50Z2016-07-18T06:00:25ZDiabetes screening using home blood glucose meter testing during the Dawn Phenomenon periodhttp://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.58070The Dawn Phenomenon (DP) was first noted in diabetics as an unexpected increase in blood glucose beginning during sleep early in the morning<sup>[1](http://dx.doi.org/10.2337/diacare.4.6.579)</sup>. The glucose is derived from increased hepatic gluconeogenesis rather than reduced glucose use and the diabetic state is considered an exaggeration of a natural circadian rhythm<sup>[2](http://dx.doi.org/10.2337/diacare.7.1.32)</sup>. Non-diabetics exhibit an increase in insulin while remaining normoglycaemic<sup>[3]( http://dx.doi.org/10.2337/diab.33.12.1150)</sup>, but diabetics show little change in insulin secretion<sup>[2](http:// dx.doi.org/10.2337/diacare.7.1.32)</sup>. This suggests a failure in insulin secretion response to endogenous glucose supply rather than any change in insulin activity itself.
The glucose response period is most commonly from 7 – 9 a.m. The glucose increase in non-diabetics is subtle, up to 0.5 mmol/L (9.9 mg/dL), while for diabetics it is commonly 1 – 5 mmol/L (18 – 90 mg/dL)<sup>[2]( http://dx.doi.org/10.2337/diacare.7.1.32)</sup><sup>, [4]( http://dx.doi.org/10.2337/dc13-2088)</sup>. Home blood glucose monitors are precise enough to report a diabetic Dawn Phenomenon pattern. This raises the potential to reduce cost and inconvenience to patients by implementing a self-testing method for routine screening purposes. Two finger-prick tests 1 – 2 hours apart within the 7 – 9 a.m. period are likely to be sufficient, although 3 – 4 tests at half to one hour intervals would be better.
Nelson, Warrick