US Army Researchers Develop A New Framework For Collaborative Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning Systems

By Shilpi Anand -June 22, 202101627https://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=https://www.marktechpost.com/2021/06/22/us-army-researchers-develop-a-new-framework-for-collaborative-multi-agent-reinforcement-learning-systems/&layout=button_count&show_faces=false&width=105&action=like&colorscheme=light&height=21 Share Facebook Twitter Linkedin ReddIt Print

Centralized learning for multi-agent systems highly depends on information-sharing mechanisms. However, there have not been significant studies within the research community in this domain.

Army researchers collaborate to propose a framework that provides a baseline for the development of collaborative multi-agent systems. The team involved Dr. Piyush K. Sharma, Drs. Erin Zaroukian, Rolando Fernandez, Derrik Asherat, Michael Dorothy from DEVCOM, Army Research Laboratory, and Anjon Basak, a postdoctoral fellow from the Oak Ridge Associated Universities fellowship program.

The team’s survey in reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms and their information sharing paradigms serves as a basis to question centralized learning for multi-agent systems that would improve their ability to work together.Advertisement

Studies show that training various agents together is quite challenging. This is because the dynamic nature of complex environments suffers from dimensionality. So, increasing the number of agents while training can complicate the coordination. Moreover, information-sharing parameters are confusing and difficult to understand.

This study surpasses previous research by providing a consolidated view of the latest SOTA in RL algorithms and establishing a novel approach to define information shared during centralized learning.

Their paper, “Survey of recent multi-agent reinforcement learning algorithms utilizing centralized training,” introduces a model that can efficiently characterize the essential information-sharing parameters. The researchers suggest that centralization in training can provide us with a suitable solution with developing autonomous systems. They explain that consistent, centralized training can result in multi-agent systems that work more reliably together, increasing trust levels from the soldier of the AI.

The team investigated recent centralized learning algorithms and focused on identifying and characterizing the underlying mathematical framework. They believe these mathematical frameworks can help explore alternate centralized learning techniques to gauge their effect on learning and emergent collaborative behaviors. They surveyed the algorithms published in the last five to six years and stated that they have not yet been explored extensively as these algorithms are pretty recent. This was the major reason for exploring them.

Instead of focusing on how things are shared, they defined and categorized the mechanisms for sharing, orienting on what is being shared. They assert that they have identified gaps in the recent RL techniques that can improve the process of training agents. This work will help in training autonomous multi-agent systems. They also aim to investigate particular aspects of multi-agent RL methods that train agents in a centralized fashion.

Sharma states that centralized techniques have many limitations. Therefore, the plan to conduct an empirical analysis of existing decentralized learning techniques. They will model and simulate multi-agent RL training to validate and extend theories of agent learning, behavior, and coordination.

The team believes that their survey will help researchers develop RL techniques for collaborative multi-agent systems, including units of robots that could work along with soldiers in the future.

Source: https://www.army.mil/article/247261/army_researchers_develop_innovative_framework_for_training_ai

Paper: https://www.spiedigitallibrary.org/conference-proceedings-of-spie/11746/2585808/Survey-of-recent-multi-agent-reinforcement-learning-algorithms-utilizing-centralized/10.1117/12.2585808.short?SSO=1&tab=ArticleLinkCited

Smart panels help give sound night’s sleep in hospital

Tom Knowles, Technology CorrespondentFriday June 25 2021, 12.01am BST, The Times

Anyone who has spent time in a hospital will know that it is rarely a quiet place, with beeping machines, ringing phones, alarms, televisions and conversations all disrupting patients’ peace.

Now, however, scientists may have found the solution with an extremely lightweight panel that cancels out almost all ambient noise and can be placed round a patient’s bed.

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The panel is made of a “metamaterial” that can let in air and light while blocking out the same amount of sound as putting up a two-inch thick block of plywood that weighs four to six times as much.

The panels are being tested in the intensive care wards of St George’s Hospital in south London and the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton. The product was

‘The last energy source we’ll ever tame’: B.C. startup’s $400M U.K. plant aims to harness nuclear fusion technology

Jeff Bezos and Cenovus Energy-backed General Fusion aims to create a star on earth with its nuclear fusion technology — straight out of a sci-fi novelAuthor of the article:Gabriel FriedmanPublishing date:Jun 23, 2021  •  4 hours ago  •  6 minute read  •   13 Comments

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Burnaby-based General Fusion, a company backed by Jeff Bezos and Cenovus Energy Inc., harbours ambitions as big as they come: it wants to master nuclear fusion, essentially the same process that generates heat in the sun.

But nuclear fusion is still an emerging technology that has yet to be commercialized. As the name suggests, it involves the fusion of two hydrogen atoms, which produces massive energy: one pound of fusion fuel is said to be equivalent 10 million pounds of coal.https://www.youtube.com/embed/mBjpzT4-3NI?autoplay=0&cc_load_policy=1&color=white&controls=1&enablejsapi=1&origin=https%3A%2F%2Ffinancialpost.com&playsinline=1&rel=0&embed_config=%7B%22autonavRelatedVideos%22%3Atrue%2C%22relatedChannels%22%3A%5B%22%22%5D%7D&widgetid=1

Unlike conventional nuclear power, which involves fission or splitting atoms, the emerging fusion technology promises clean energy where the only emission would be helium, and importantly, no radioactive waste.

Now, after decades of largely government funded research, the industry is in the midst of a transition to the private realm with a couple dozen companies sprouting up around the world Investors say nuclear fusion would provide a baseload source of clean energy, that could be switched on or off, to complement renewable power, such as wind and solar.

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Last week, Chris Mowry, chief executive of the Burnaby-based company signed paperwork with the United Kingdom government to build a US$400 million nuclear fusion test plant at Culham in Oxfordshire. If construction on the proposed plant, announced on June 16, begins as expected next summer, it may be the first public-private nuclear fusion demonstration plant in the world.

“This is the commercialization of fusion,” Chris Mowry, chief executive of Burnaby-based General Fusion told the Financial Post as his triumphant week came to a close. “A great analogy is the commercialization of space over the past decade or two, which was historically just the focus of governments.”

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While the company remains private, Mowry acknowledged the company has ample funding needs and would likely access public markets as it seeks to commercialize its technology by 2030.

Other investors include Cenovus Energy Inc., The Business Development Bank of Canada and Sustainable Development Technology Canada, while collaborators include Microsoft Corp.

But Mowry also added that government grants account for roughly a third of the estimated US$300 million that his company has raised since being founded in 2020, with the Canadian government leading the way, followed by the U.S., U.K. and other countries.

By far, the largest nuclear fusion project is taking shape in southern France. Known as ITER, it is a product of the combined research and funds from 35 countries with the European Union leading the way and India, Japan, South Korea, Russia, and the US also contributing to a US$23.5 billion effort to build a nuclear fusion reactor.

Canada has contributed to the project and has a memorandum of understanding to explore future co-operation.

But the project is still in assembly phase, and not expected to begin producing energy until 2025. Meanwhile, the challenges to nuclear fusion remain formidable.

In February, the U.S.-based National Academy of the Sciences issued a report on nuclear fusion that concluded “successful operation of a pilot plant in the 2035-2040 timeframe requires urgent investments by (the U.S. Department of Energy) and private industry — both to resolve the remaining technical and scientific issues and to design, construct, and commission a pilot plant.”

Dennis Whyte, a Canadian scientist who is director of plasma science fusion center at MIT, said the U.S.-based Fusion Industry Association has grown from just a few companies two decades ago to more than 20, amid a proliferation of investor interest.

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He said General Fusion had come up with some interesting ways to make fusion more cost-effective.

“The overarching consideration here is, although there’s still science and innovation to come, it’s not whether it’s possible anymore,” he said, “it’s a pivot towards, ‘can we make it economically viable?’”

Scientifically, Whyte said fusion is more difficult to achieve than nuclear fission. Fusion mimics the process that takes place inside stars and the sun and generates heat.

“It sounds like a sci-fi novel,” he said. “We create a star on earth, it’s not quite as simple as that.”

Indeed, the technology being developed by General Fusion sounds like it could have been pulled from the pages of a fantasy or science fiction novel.

The General Fusion website explains that pneumatic pistons surround a cylindrical wall of liquefied lithium metal and hammer away until it changes shape from a cylinder to a sphere. Next, hydrogen plasma is injected into the sphere, compressed and heated to above 100 million degrees Celsius.

All that effort creates steam, which powers a turbine and produces energy.

“The way to think about this is a fusion version of a diesel engine,” Mowry said. “Obviously it’s a bit more complicated, but (that’s) the basic concept.”

Of course, there is a nuclear reaction at the heart of fusion, in which two hydrogen atoms are fused.

Unlike conventional nuclear power, which needs uranium as a fuel, nuclear fusion uses isotopes of hydrogen called “deuterium” and “tritium,” which can be extracted from water. Helium is the only emission from fusion, making it attractive as a means to decarbonize energy.

“The beauty of fusion is there’s no radioactive waste,” Mowry said.

The company’s proposed Fusion Demonstration Plant in the U.K., near that country’s national fusion research centre, would be about 70 per cent of the size of a commercial nuclear fusion reactor. It won’t produce power, but would instead serve to demonstrate the viability of its technology and could come online by 2025.

Mowry said that while the science around hydrogen plasma has advanced in the last two decades, a suite of other technology is also enabling fusion, citing things like 3-D printing and digital control systems.

Currently based in Burnaby, General Fusion is looking for a new headquarters in the Vancouver metropolitan area to house its 140 or so workers.

It continues to raise funds as well, Mowry said, who predicted the market would grow to US$1 trillion by 2030.

In Canada, nuclear power supplies about 15 per cent of the total electricity with 19 reactors, all but one of which are based in Ontario, according to the World Nuclear Association.

But ten of those reactors are coming offline in Ontario, so the plants can be refurbished in order to function for another 30 years. Nuclear power has been growing in recent years even as some countries such as Germany and Japan move away from the technology because of the dangers associated with using radioactive materials at extremely high temperatures.

Whyte, the MIT scientist who works on fusion, said it uses very little fuel — about 70 grams per day would be required for a plant for a small city. As a result, he argued it’s “inherently safe.”

“When you hear about it, you say ‘oh 100 million degrees,’” he said. “But there’s very few particles, so what this means is it’s like a pot of boiling water. It sounds strange … but if you were to blow on this thing, it just turns itself off.”

He described it as the ultimate energy, with some ironic laughter.

“It’s probably the last energy source we’ll ever tame,” said Whyte. “I think of the trajectory from taming fire and it finally completes in fusion, because we’ll have tamed the energy source of the stars.”

Are we ready? Advances in CRISPR means the era of germline gene editing has arrived

by Delthia Ricks , Medical Xpress

Quick, accurate and easy-to-use, CRISPR-Cas9 has made genomic editing more efficient—but at the same time has made human germline editing much more feasible, erasing many of the ethical barriers erected to prevent scientists from editing the genes of heredity.

“The ethical debate about what is now called human gene editing has gone on for more than 50 years,” writes Dr. John H. Evans, co-director of the Institute for Practical Ethics at the University of California, San Diego. “For nearly that entire time, there has been consensus that a moral divide exists between somatic and human germline editing.”

In an essay published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), Evans contends that many of the potent bioethical arguments that once made germline editing a verboten concept, have begun to dissolve in the era of CRISPR.

Evans—and a growing number of other ethicists—contend that the moral divide that long separated scientific thinking about germline versus somatic-cell editing is perceptibly weakening.

The 2018 announcement in China by He Jianqui who genetically altered human embryos via CRISPR—producing twins known as Lulu and Nana—helped strengthen policies about germline gene editing. Despite the worldwide scorn leveled against him for conducting a brazen act of human experimentation, his research also helped usher in a more moderate point of view regarding the manipulation of germline genes. Policy makers followed with a softer tone in guidelines on the feasibility of research involving the genes of heredity. As it turned out, a bourgeoning number of scientists were expressing interest in developing potential cures by manipulating genetic sequences in germline DNA.

“Currently, despite appearances, in the mainstream US and UK bioethical debate that has the greatest influence over what actually happens with science policy, the somatic/germline distinction has lost its power. For example, despite the uproar over He Jianqui’s facilitation of the gestation and birth of germline modified children in China, the leadership of the Second International Summit on Human Germline Editing implicitly agreed with him that it is in principle acceptable to engage in germline intervention, as long as it is safe and human subjects protections are followed,” Evans wrote in PNAS.https://googleads.g.doubleclick.net/pagead/ads?client=ca-pub-0536483524803400&output=html&h=188&slotname=7099578867&adk=4039075515&adf=1873531024&pi=t.ma~as.7099578867&w=750&fwrn=4&lmt=1624652000&rafmt=11&psa=1&format=750×188&url=https%3A%2F%2Fmedicalxpress.com%2Fnews%2F2021-06-ready-advances-crispr-era-germline.html&flash=0&wgl=1&uach=WyJtYWNPUyIsIjEwXzExXzYiLCJ4ODYiLCIiLCI5MS4wLjQ0NzIuMTE0IixbXSxudWxsLG51bGwsbnVsbF0.&dt=1624652000457&bpp=14&bdt=1433&idt=421&shv=r20210623&cbv=%2Fr20190131&ptt=9&saldr=aa&abxe=1&cookie=ID%3D159a91dc538ead62-22cf61eea6c20048%3AT%3D1596518137%3AR%3AS%3DALNI_Mbw-dfbnrOLWYH3Rv2C7X_TIML9VA&correlator=399927916860&frm=20&pv=2&ga_vid=1534776174.1526672041&ga_sid=1624652001&ga_hid=1605157993&ga_fc=0&ga_wpids=UA-73855-15&rplot=4&u_tz=-420&u_his=1&u_java=0&u_h=1050&u_w=1680&u_ah=980&u_aw=1680&u_cd=24&u_nplug=3&u_nmime=4&adx=335&ady=2144&biw=1680&bih=900&scr_x=0&scr_y=0&oid=3&pvsid=965938822493881&pem=424&ref=https%3A%2F%2Fnews.google.com%2F&eae=0&fc=896&brdim=0%2C23%2C0%2C23%2C1680%2C23%2C1680%2C980%2C1680%2C900&vis=1&rsz=%7C%7CpeEbr%7C&abl=CS&pfx=0&fu=128&bc=31&ifi=1&uci=a!1&btvi=1&fsb=1&xpc=WljP5LB18S&p=https%3A//medicalxpress.com&dtd=500

“Indeed, a commission of the National Academy of Medicine, National Academy of Science, and the Royal Society recently developed a “translational pathway” for the “responsible use” of germline applications,” Evans argued.

Genomic editing actually refers to several technologies that allow scientists to “rewrite” segments of an organism’s genetic code. Sequences of DNA can be deleted, or receive additions or altered at virtually any genomic location. Unlike other genomic editing technologies, CRISPR-Cas9 is faster, more efficient and easier to use. And CRISPR, biologists increasingly say, has opened a new frontier of possibilities in what can be achieved with a powerful biological tool.

But as high-tech as CRISPR may seem, it wasn’t invented in a laboratory. The editing technique actually is an adaptation of a naturally occurring genome editing system found in bacteria and archaea. These organisms literally grab infinitesimal sequences of genetic material from the viruses that invade them, and then use these captured sequences to create DNA segments called CRISPR arrays.

The arrays allow bacteria and archaea to recall the viral infiltrators should they invade in the future. When the viruses—bacteriophages—attack again, the bacteria or archaea produce RNA from the CRISPR arrays to zero in on the viral genes. Bacteria and archaea then rely on Cas9 to chop up the viral genes, which effectively destroys the virus. In many ways, this ability to remember infectious viruses amounts to a crude immune system, acting similarly to memory B and T cells of the far more sophisticated mammalian immune system.

Jennifer Doudna of the University of California at Berkeley and Emmanuelle Charpentier of the Pasteur Institute in Paris won the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their collaborative work involving CRISPR-Cas9. The technology was originally developed—and named—by Spanish biologist Francis Mojica, a professor at the University of Alicante in Spain. He was not included as a recipient of the prize.

Evans, meanwhile, underscores that by the time CRISPR emerged as a potent laboratory tool in the early 2010s, it still appeared that “germline modification was always going to be impossible.”

“After it became clear that some scientists were trying to use CRISPR to modify human embryos in the laboratory,” Evans wrote, “many scientific groups released position papers on human germline editing, mostly defending the somatic/germline barrier using the value of nonmaleficence (safety).”

For example, in August 2015, according to Evans, the American Society for Gene and Cell Therapy and the Japan Society of Gene Therapy released a statement noting that the “safety and ethical concerns” about human germline editing are “sufficiently serious to support a strong stance against gene editing in, or gene modification of, human cells to generate viable human zygotes with heritable germ-line modifications.”

He concluded his arguments by calling on the molecular biology community to take heed of the speed advances in gene editing have arrived in recent years. “The CRISPR revolution is making all sorts of intervention into the natural world possible, and these interventions all have their surrounding ethical debates.

“With genetic tools becoming more and more powerful, we must focus on why we are using the tools—on our values—or risk sliding into ‘what can be done should be done.’ “

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Explore furtherNew gene editing tools force renewed debate over therapeutic germline alteration

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More information: John H. Evans. Setting ethical limits on human gene editing after the fall of the somatic/germline barrier, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2021). doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2004837117Journal information:Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Why ‘nuclear batteries’ offer a new approach to carbon-free energy

by David L. Chandler, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

We may be on the brink of a new paradigm for nuclear power, a group of nuclear specialists suggested recently in The Bridge, the journal of the National Academy of Engineering. Much as large, expensive, and centralized computers gave way to the widely distributed PCs of today, a new generation of relatively tiny and inexpensive factory-built reactors, designed for autonomous plug-and-play operation similar to plugging in an oversized battery, is on the horizon, they say.

These proposed systems could provide heat for industrial processes or electricity for a military base or a neighborhood, run unattended for five to 10 years, and then be trucked back to the factory for refurbishment. The authors—Jacopo Buongiorno, MIT’s TEPCO Professor of Nuclear Science and Engineering; Robert Frida, a founder of GenH; Steven Aumeier of the Idaho National Laboratory; and Kevin Chilton, retired commander of the U.S. Strategic Command—have dubbed these small power plants “nuclear batteries.” Because of their simplicity of operation, they could play a significant role in decarbonizing the world’s electricity systems to avert catastrophic climate change, the researchers say. MIT News asked Buongiorno to describe his group’s proposal.

Q: The idea of smaller, modular nuclear reactors has been discussed for several years. What makes this proposal for nuclear batteries different?

A: The units we describe take that concept of factory fabrication and modularity to an extreme. Earlier proposals have looked at reactors in the range of 100 to 300 megawatts of electric output, which are a factor of 10 smaller than the traditional big beasts, the big nuclear reactors at the gigawatt scale. These could be assembled from factory-built components, but they still require some assembly at the site and a lot of site preparation work. So, it’s an improvement over the traditional plants, but it’s not a huge improvement.

This nuclear battery concept is really a different thing because of the physical scale of these machines—about 10 megawatts. It’s so small that the whole power plant is actually built in a factory and fits within a standard container. The idea is to fit the whole power plant, which comprises a microreactor and a turbine that converts the heat to electricity, into the container.

This provides several benefits from an economic point of view. You are completely decoupling your projects and your technology from the construction site, which has been the source of every possible schedule delay and cost overrun for nuclear projects over the past 20 years.

This way it becomes sort of energy on demand. If the customer wants either heat or electricity, they can get it within a couple of months, or even weeks, and then it’s plug and play. This machine arrives on the site, and just a few days later, you start getting your energy. So, it’s a product, it’s not a project. That’s how I like to characterize it.https://googleads.g.doubleclick.net/pagead/ads?client=ca-pub-0536483524803400&output=html&h=280&slotname=8459827939&adk=582299054&adf=2631371385&pi=t.ma~as.8459827939&w=750&fwrn=4&fwrnh=100&lmt=1624651746&rafmt=1&psa=1&format=750×280&url=https%3A%2F%2Ftechxplore.com%2Fnews%2F2021-06-nuclear-batteries-approach-carbon-free-energy.html&flash=0&fwr=0&rpe=1&resp_fmts=3&wgl=1&uach=WyJtYWNPUyIsIjEwXzExXzYiLCJ4ODYiLCIiLCI5MS4wLjQ0NzIuMTE0IixbXSxudWxsLG51bGwsbnVsbF0.&dt=1624651746239&bpp=14&bdt=1672&idt=341&shv=r20210623&cbv=%2Fr20190131&ptt=9&saldr=aa&abxe=1&cookie=ID%3D8cecdddede42abe1-2246f22ee1c400e5%3AT%3D1605309730%3AS%3DALNI_MbXUQ88FlVZk4TvUQhQ1Wc84dxy5w&correlator=1741278236210&frm=20&pv=2&ga_vid=836539722.1605309732&ga_sid=1624651747&ga_hid=1929033011&ga_fc=0&ga_wpids=UA-73855-17&u_tz=-420&u_his=1&u_java=0&u_h=1050&u_w=1680&u_ah=980&u_aw=1680&u_cd=24&u_nplug=3&u_nmime=4&adx=335&ady=2145&biw=1680&bih=900&scr_x=0&scr_y=0&eid=182982100%2C182982300&oid=3&pvsid=3877798771686930&pem=171&ref=https%3A%2F%2Fnews.google.com%2F&eae=0&fc=896&brdim=0%2C23%2C0%2C23%2C1680%2C23%2C1680%2C980%2C1680%2C900&vis=1&rsz=%7C%7ClEbr%7C&abl=CS&pfx=0&fu=128&bc=31&ifi=1&uci=a!1&btvi=1&fsb=1&xpc=tgzH09ZVqd&p=https%3A//techxplore.com&dtd=399

Q: You talk about potentially having such units widely distributed, including even in residential areas to power whole neighborhoods. How confident can people be as to the safety of these plants?

A: It’s exceptionally robust—that’s one of the selling points. First of all, the fact that it’s small is good for a variety of reasons. For one thing, the overall amount of heat that’s generated is proportional to the power, which is small. But more importantly, it has a high surface-to-volume ratio because, again, it’s small, which makes it a lot easier to keep cool under all circumstances. It’s passively cooled, to a point where nobody has to do anything. You don’t even need to open a valve or anything. The system takes care of itself.

It also has a very robust containment structure surrounding it to protect against any release of radiation. Instead of the traditional big concrete dome, there are steel shells that basically encapsulate the whole system. And as for security, at most sites, we envision that these would be located below grade. That provides some protection and physical security from external attackers.

As for other safety issues, you know, if you think about the famous nuclear accidents, Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, Fukushima, all three of these issues are mediated by the design of these nuclear batteries. Because they are so small, it’s basically impossible to get that type of outcome from any sequence of events.

Q: How do we know that these new kinds of reactors will work, and what would need to happen for such units to become widely available?

A: NASA and Los Alamos National Laboratory have done a similar demonstration project, which they called a microreactor, for space applications. It took them just three years from the start of design to fabrication and testing. And it cost them $20 million. It was orders of magnitude smaller than traditional large nuclear plants that easily cost a billion-plus and take a decade or more to build.

There are also different companies out there now developing their own designs, and every one is a bit different. Westinghouse is already working on a version of such nuclear batteries (though they are not using that term), and they plan to run a demonstration unit in two years.

The next step will be to build a pilot plant at one of the national laboratories that has extensive equipment for testing nuclear reactor systems, such as the Idaho National Laboratory. They have a number of facilities that are being modified to accommodate these microreactors, and they have extra layers of safety. Because it’s a demonstration project, you want to make sure that if something happens you didn’t foresee, that you don’t have any release to the environment.

Then, the plant could go through an accelerated program of testing, subjecting it to more extreme conditions than would ever be encountered in normal operation. You essentially abuse it and show by direct testing that it can take all those external loads or situations without exceeding any failure limits. And once it’s proven there under rigorous conditions, widespread commercial installations could begin quite quickly.

These nuclear batteries are ideally suited to create resilience in very different sectors of the economy, by providing a steady dependable source of power to back up the increasing reliance on intermittent renewable energy sources such as solar and wind. And, these highly distributed systems can also help to alleviate pressures on the grid by being sited just where their output is needed. This can provide greater resiliency against any disruptions to the grid and virtually eliminate the issue of transmission losses. If these become as widespread as we envision, they could make a significant contribution to reducing the world’s greenhouse gas emissions.

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Explore furtherSmall, modular reactors competitive in Washington’s clean energy future

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More information: A Strategy to Unlock the Potential of Nuclear Energy for a New and Resilient Global Energy-Industrial Paradigm. www.nae.edu/255810/A-Strategy- … yIndustrial-ParadigmProvided by Massachusetts Institute of Technology

How to Read Your Audiogram

• What is it?
• Who and how
• Symbol meanings
• Reading results
• What’s next?
• Takeaway

You can look at an audiogram to understand your ability to hear. This chart shows the quietest level that you can hear high and low pitches as noted by an audiologist or other health professional when conducting an audiometry hearing test.

An audiogram can diagnose your hearing loss as well as indicate what type of hearing loss you have. It can distinguish your hearing in each ear and whether you have hearing loss on one or both sides.

You should seek the guidance of a doctor or audiologist for treatment options, but understanding the basics of an audiogram can help you analyze what you hear in the world around you.

What is an audiogram? How does it measure hearing? 

An audiogram is the visual result of an audiometry hearing test administered by an audiologist or other health professional. This test measures potential hearing loss. The test uses a type of technology called an audiometer that can be connected to headphones, a speaker, or bone-conduction devices. The audiometer emits sounds that measure sound intensity and frequency.

You can get an audiometry hearing test in a quiet space at a doctor’s office. The test administrator will ask you to raise your hand or push a button when you hear a sound. The administrator will mark the sounds you hear on an audiogram.

Audiogram graph

The audiogram is a fairly simple graph:

• The Y-axis (vertical) measures the intensity, or loudness, of the sound. It’s measured in decibels (Db) and range from -10 to 110 on the audiogram. Low-decibel sounds include whispers. High-decibel sounds include jackhammers.
• The X-axis (horizontal) measures the frequency, or the pitch of the sound. The numbers run from 125 to 8,000 and measure hertz (Hz). Low-frequency sounds are the sounds of bullfrogs or thunder. High frequency sounds can include the sounds a cricket makes or a whistling noise.

The audiometer can measure different parts of the ear based on how you receive the sounds. Headphones, speakers, and bone-conduction devices can measure different parts of the ear to determine the type of hearing loss.

• Conductive hearing loss is hearing loss in the external ear or middle ear.
• Sensorineural hearing loss is inner ear hearing loss.

Hearing loss can occur from:

• noise
• injury
• infection
• wax blockage
• abnormal ossicles
• health conditions
• aging

You may even have several types of hearing loss. Some causes of hearing loss can be reversed and some cannot.

Who gets an audiogram done?

You may seek out an audiometry hearing test if you notice changes in your hearing, or your doctor may recommend it as part of routine wellness checks. You can get an audiogram at any age, but this test is best for adults and older children.

Children’s hearing is typically screened at birth. Children may need testing if they experience speech or other developmental delays.

Adults over age 50 may experience hearing loss with age. Some estimates state that 25 percent of adults over 50 years old and 50 percent of those over 80 years old experience hearing loss.

Where are hearing tests given?

Traditional audiograms occur in a doctor’s office, but there is newer technology that allows people to screen their hearing without the need to travel to a health professional.

These automated devices produce the same resultTrusted Source as traditional tests and can make it easier for someone with accessibility challenges like cost and travel to get diagnosed. Seek a doctor’s advice if you discover you have hearing loss through these automated devices.https://97fe264428e5fee85887e33c62b6a4de.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-38/html/container.htmlADVERTISEMENTSee a doctor from your phone

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Audiogram symbols and their meaning

There will be points on the audiogram marked with several notations. These symbols represent:

• O or a triangle (possibly in red) is the result from your right ear measured with headphones (air conduction)
• X or a square (possibly in blue) is the result from your left ear measured with headphones (air conduction)
• S is the result from listening through a speaker (air conduction)
• < or [ is the result from your right ear measured with bone conduction
• > or ] is the result from your left ear measured with bone conduction

The test administrator will note these marks when you indicate the lowest level of intensity at which you hear a frequency (pitch). This mark indicates your threshold level.

The audiogram will connect your various threshold levels for each ear. This line indicates your level of hearing ability across loudness and frequency.

Results and hearing range

You may be able to glance at your audiogram to determine whether you have hearing loss:

• A steady line connecting your threshold levels at the top of the chart indicates normal hearing.
• A line with rises and drops along the chart indicates hearing loss for particular frequencies.
• A line that slopes downward for higher frequencies is common in aging-related hearing loss.
• A line lower on the chart indicates more extreme hearing loss.

Normal hearing measures between -10 and 15 decibels for every threshold. You may have slight hearing loss between 16 and 25 decibels, but this may not require further correction. Your doctor may suggest a follow-up audiometry hearing test at a later date to make sure your hearing does not get worse.

There are other parts to audiometry testing that look at aspects of hearing such as:

• speech recognition
• word recognition percentage
• hearing threshold

Hearing loss levels defined

There are several levels of hearing loss:

• Mild refers to thresholds that range between 26–40 decibels; you may be able to talk with people face to face and understand them perfectly but struggle to hear sounds from far away, quiet talking, or conversations in louder spaces.
• Moderate refers to thresholds that range between 45–65 decibels; you struggle to hear conversations no matter the setting and have extreme difficulty hearing conversations in noisy spaces.
• Severe refers to thresholds that range between 66–85 decibels; you may only be able to hear someone if they are talking loudly and very close to you and cannot hear other sounds around you.
• Profound refers to thresholds greater than 85 decibels.

What to do with your test results and choosing a hearing solution

Seek the advice of a medical professional to examine your audiogram and provide you with treatment options for hearing loss. The audiogram will provide guidance on how to treat the condition by articulating what type of hearing loss you have, whether one or both ears have hearing loss, and how much hearing loss you have.

Complementing treatment with noise protection is always important.

Some treatments may include:

• hearing aids
• cochlear implants
• cleaning out earwax
• medication for wax removal or infections
• surgery

Your doctor may also recommend additional hearing tests or diagnostic procedures to better understand your condition, such as getting a tympanogram or middle ear exploration.

Bottom line

You can examine your audiogram to decipher whether you have hearing loss. The chart shows the thresholds where you can hear certain tones at the lowest possible sound. If the thresholds are at the top of the chart, you likely have normal hearing. Lines on the chart that curve, shift, or sit low could be a sign of hearing loss.

Your doctor or an audiologist can recommend treatment based on your type of hearing loss depicted on the audiogram and its severity.

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Natalie Silver is a writer, editor, and owner of Silver Scribe Editorial Services, a publishing services company. Natalie adores working in a profession that allows her to learn about many different topics all in a day’s work. She lives outside of Philadelphia with her husband and two children. You can learn more about Natalie’s work on her website.

Nanotech OLED electrode liberates 20% more light, could slash display power consumption

by University of Michigan

A new electrode that could free up 20% more light from organic light-emitting diodes has been developed at the University of Michigan. It could help extend the battery life of smartphones and laptops, or make next-gen televisions and displays much more energy efficient.

The approach prevents light from being trapped in the light-emitting part of an OLED, enabling OLEDs to maintain brightness while using less power. In addition, the electrode is easy to fit into existing processes for making OLED displays and light fixtures.

“With our approach, you can do it all in the same vacuum chamber,” said L. Jay Guo, U-M professor of electrical and computer engineering and corresponding author of the study.

Unless engineers take action, about 80% of the light produced by an OLED gets trapped inside the device. It does this due to an effect known as waveguiding. Essentially, the light rays that don’t come out of the device at an angle close to perpendicular get reflected back and guided sideways through the device. They end up lost inside the OLED.

A good portion of the lost light is simply trapped between the two electrodes on either side of the light-emitter. One of the biggest offenders is the transparent electrode that stands between the light-emitting material and the glass, typically made of indium tin oxide (ITO). In a lab device, you can see trapped light shooting out the sides rather than traveling through to the viewer.

“Untreated, it is the strongest waveguiding layer in the OLED,” Guo said. “We want to address the root cause of the problem.”

By swapping out the ITO for a layer of silver just five nanometers thick, deposited on a seed layer of copper, Guo’s team maintained the electrode function while eliminating the waveguiding problem in the OLED layers altogether.

“Industry may be able to liberate more than 40% of the light, in part by trading the conventional indium tin oxide electrodes for our nanoscale layer of transparent silver,” said Changyeong Jeong, first author and a Ph.D. candidate in electrical and computer engineering.

This benefit is tricky to see, though, in a relatively simple lab device. Even though light is no longer guided in the OLED stack, that freed-up light can still be reflected from the glass. In industry, engineers have ways of reducing that reflection—creating bumps on the glass surface, or adding grid patterns or particles that will scatter the light throughout the glass.

“Some researchers were able to free up about 34% of the light by using unconventional materials with special emission directions or patterning structures,” Jeong said.

In order to prove that they had eliminated the waveguiding in the light-emitter, Guo’s team had to stop the light trapping by the glass, too. They did this with an experimental set-up using a liquid that had the same index of refraction as glass, so-called index-matching fluid—an oil in this case. That “index-matching” prevents the reflection that happens at the boundary between high-index glass and low-index air.

Once they’d done this, they could look at their experimental set-up from the side and see whether any light was coming sideways. They found that the edge of the light-emitting layer was almost completely dark. In turn, the light coming through the glass was about 20% brighter.

The finding is described in the journal Science Advances, in a paper titled, “Tackling light trapping in organic light-emitting diodes by complete elimination of waveguide modes.”

This research was funded by Zenithnano Technology, a company that Guo co-founded to commercialize his lab’s inventions of transparent, flexible metal electrodes for displays and touchscreens.

The University of Michigan has filed for patent protection. The device was built in the Lurie Nanofabrication Facility.

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Explore furtherTextile-fiber-embedded multiluminescent device for future wearable devices

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More information: “Tackling light trapping in organic light-emitting diodes by complete elimination of waveguide modes” Science Advances (2021). advances.sciencemag.org/lookup … .1126/sciadv.abg0355Journal information:Science AdvancesProvided by University of Michigan

Why People Who Sleep On Their Left Side Are Far Healthier Than Those Who Sleep On The Right

Photo: Leszek Glasner / ShutterstockHigher PerspectiveContributorHealth And Wellness06/24/2021https://3864ac2277ea870ca70a40769442756c.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-38/html/container.html

When it’s time to finally go to sleep after a long day at work, school, or taking care of the kids, your bed may seem like the white light at the end of a tunnel.

You prep yourself for bed with your night-time routine, and satisfyingly lay down between the soft sheets.

Maybe you lay on your back or on your sides, but we don’t really pay much attention to the position we are sleeping in.

Mostly, we’re concerned about being able to drift off into dreamland, where we can escape from reality for eight hours and recharge for the next day.

RELATED: What Your Body’s Trying To Tell You When You Wake Up In The Middle Of The Night

When I go to bed, I usually fall asleep on my right side. There’s no specific reason for it, really. It’s just what I do, and I’ve been doing it for as long as I can remember.

But as it turns out, I might actually be doing myself a pretty major disservice by sleeping on my right side.

You can sleep in several ways: On your chest, back, left or right sides.

But did you know that each way you sleep can have a big impact on your health? https://www.yourtango.com/health-wellness/should-sleep-right-left-side-healthier

Sleeping on your back isn’t good for you if you have breathing issues, and sleeping on the right is said to worsen digestive disorders.https://3864ac2277ea870ca70a40769442756c.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-38/html/container.html

So, how should we sleep? Let’s find out the best position to sleep in to get the perfect zzz’s. 

RELATED: A Nightly Bedtime Routine To Follow So You Can Improve Sleep Quality & Banish Sluggishness

If you sleep on your left side…

Good news for left-side sleepers! Because when you sleep on your left side, you’re probably dramatically improving your health and maybe even saving your life.

Holistic medicine calls the left side the dominant lymphatic side, and when you sleep on that side, your body more effectively filters toxins through the lymph nodes. Sleeping on the left side can also improve circulation and help your brain filter out waste. https://3864ac2277ea870ca70a40769442756c.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-38/html/container.html

The reason why you can only get these benefits from your left side is because of the anatomy and location of your body’s internal organs.

RELATED: What Your Sleeping Position Says About Your Personality 

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If you sleep on your right side…

Sleeping on the right side can cause that entire system to slow down. This increases the chance of deadly diseases.

Sleeping on the left side makes your body’s disposal system stronger. It can also ease heartburn!

If you have trouble sleeping on your left side, consider sleeping with your back to a wall. A small pillow between you and the wall can make it more comfortable. It may take some time to get used to it at first.https://3864ac2277ea870ca70a40769442756c.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-38/html/container.html

You can also keep a dim light on your right side, making your body naturally want to turn away from it.

Helion passes 100 million degrees Celsius

23 June 2021Share

Fusion energy developer Helion Energy said yesterday it has become the first private company to announce exceeding 100 million degrees Celsius in its sixth fusion generator prototype, Trenta. It also announced its Trenta prototype recently finished a 16-month testing campaign, completing almost 10,000 high-power pulses.

The divertor of the Trenta fusion generator prototype (Image: Helion Energy)

The company said reaching this temperature is a critical engineering milestone as it is considered the ideal fuel temperature at which a commercial power plant would need to operate.

Everett, Washington-based Helion added that the 16-month testing campaign of Trenta “pushed fusion fuel performance to unprecedented levels and performed lifetime and reliability testing on key components of the fusion system”.

The company said reaching these temperatures and confirming system reliability are “vital milestones” that validate its plans to develop a cost-effective, zero-carbon electrical power plant using its pulsed, non-ignition-fusion device.

“These achievements represent breakthroughs with major implications for how the world meets its expanding future electricity needs while dramatically reducing climate impact on a relevant timescale,” said Helion Energy founder and CEO David Kirtley.

Helion says its approach to fusion energy differs in three main ways from other approaches. Firstly, it uses a pulsed fusion system, which helps overcome the hardest physics challenges, keeps its fusion device smaller than other approaches, and allows it to adjust the power output based on need. Secondly, its system is built to directly recover electricity, while other fusion systems heat water to create steam to turn a turbine which loses a lot of energy in the process. Thirdly, it uses deuterium and helium-3 as fuel, which helps keep its system small and efficient.