mynewhopeumc.org

Wednesday, May 11, 2005

For the Chesapeake Bay, the largest estuary in the United States, a first-time-ever “water quality forecast” was issued Monday for the upcoming summer season by the Chesapeake Bay Program. The eastern mid-Atlantic region’s heavy spring rainfalls are predicted to increase nutrient levels in bay waters, leading to oxygen eating algae blooms and leaving deep water dead zones.

Project leader William Dennison, of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Studies said, “The forecast indicates that recent weather conditions and heavy pollutant loads could lead to a bad summer for the Bay.” The prediction is for this to be the fourth-worst season for dissolved oxygen in two decades.

The Chesapeake Bay Program launched the new forecast to build on a base of environmental data gathered over the last two decades as water quality concerns have grown. The forecast is meant to be a proactive tool that provides resource managers with information that can be used to guide policies for the bay’s protection and restoration.

Cars, fertilizer, human and animal wastes, industrial and agricultural pollutants all play a part. “This means that we need to do a lot more to reduce phosphorus and nitrogen pollution from getting into the bay,” said Beth McGee, of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. “The biggest source of pollution in the bay is agriculture, and we’ve got to find a way to provide farmers with more resources to manage the land better.”

Nutrient rich pollutants composed mainly of nitrogen and phosphorous come from far away places carried by rivers, and nearby the bay from farm and metropolitan runoff. They collect in the huge bay and meet tidal flows from the ocean.

Algae feed off the nutrients, and they are either consumed by aquatic life or sink at the end of their life cycle. With such an abundant food source, algae blooms can cover large surfaces of water and choke off sunlight to underwater plants. Later when the plants die, the process of their decomposition on the bottom consumes oxygen to a state where the water becomes anoxic, and unable to support life.

As notorious as weather forecasters are for often being wrong, it should come as no surprise if this first forecasting step by the federally funded program misses its mark. Forces such as heavy storms or hurricanes, which churn water, would have an effect. Excessive wind and unexpected precipitation, or nutrient level jumps, would also contribute.

Thursday, June 29, 2006

The Ontario Liberal Party created a new Ontario trillium logo at a cost of $219,000 dollars. Many people and the PC Party of Ontario call it a waste of time and money. They replaced the logo with a version of the flower similar to the party’s trademark. The picture can be seen here [1].

Now the Progressive Conservatives have started a new website. The website is a petition to save the old trillium logo. The website just started yesterday. PC leader John Tory had lots of interviews today.

“You just don’t arbitrarily tamper with it under cover of darkness,” PC Leader John Tory said yesterday, launching the website savethetrillium.ca. “It survived more or less intact through seven governments under all parties until Dalton McGuinty and his partisan pork barrellers got their hands on it,” said John Tory. He also said “it is wasting time and money fiddling with marketing and logos while gun violence and energy problems go unattended”. Tory calls it a useless use of funds and an inappropriate change because the new logo too closely resembles the flower seen in the Liberal Party banner.

The logo was introduced in 1964. It has undergone minor redesigns, but always remained a stylized T-shaped trillium. The latest version, designed by Toronto advertising agency Bensimon Byrne, is more angular and has no border.

“It’s awful,” Keith Rushton, a professor of design at the Ontario College of Art and Design. “It was a drastic change. It’s a very aggressive, hostile logo.”

The Liberals have defended the logo revamp saying “it was time to modernize the symbol in order to attract new business to the province”.

For now, the Torys will leave it to the Canadian public.

Monday, March 20, 2006

Scott David Dover, 45, a father of two young boys in Cedar City, Utah, was arrested on Thursday and charges against the father could be filed today.

Police say he used electric dog collars to discipline his children. Conviction could result in up to 15 years in prison. Dover is being held in Iron County Jail; bail was set at ten thousand dollars.

Police Sgt. Jerry Womack said that the boys, both about six years old, did not have any burns or marks on them and that it was not known whether the collars had ever been placed around their necks. He also said, however, that Dover admitted to using the collars on his sons.

“It sounds bad, but it actually administers a mild shock. He just felt that was an option for discipline. We disagree vehemently,” said Womack.

Cedar City Police were contacted on Wednesday by the Department of Child and Family Services.

“The kids are OK. Try to always remember that this child needs guidance, protection and someone to show them the way. To us, discipline means guidance, working with children on their strengths or showing them that some things could be done differently,” said Carol Sisco, spokeswoman for the Utah Department of Human Services.

The “shock-collars” emit small electrical currents and are used for training dogs.

So far, the mother has not been charged. Latest reports said the boys were still living with her. Police are still deciding whether to file charges against her.

Sunday, April 5, 2009

Adam is a robot developed by Welsh Aberystwyth University researchers which combines artificial intelligence (AI), robotics and automation to independently conduct and analyse biological laboratory research.

“What’s new and exciting about Adam is [it is] the first time we’ve managed to show that a computer can not only think up new scientific ideas, but experimentally test them and decide whether they’re true,” said Ross King, a computer science professor and lead researcher at Aberystwyth University, “Adam makes up its own mind what to do. It decides what experiments to do, what to test.” He says that for other lab experiments the hardware is already in place, the only step needed is to change the software.

The artificial intelligence alone spans three computers which holds the databases and analytical software to enable Adam to think. For the yeast experiment, Adam was loaded with databases which hold known information relating to yeasts and organisms. Adam compared all fields in the database to find the areas of missing information from which he devised 20 hypotheses.

Adam’s AI is connected to robotic arms, sensors, incubators and cameras which enable Adam to start over 1,000 individual experiments every day and follow their progress over a week.

A part of the process is that Adam’s AI can cycle and analyze the results of the experiments as well doing routine repetitious lab work. Following Adam’s testing, King’s team manually tested three of Adam’s hypotheses and found that the robot’s conclusions were correct, and each was a breakthrough to the scientific community.

Adam has spawned discussion amongst researchers. William Melek, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Ontario’s University of Waterloo, has noted that to set up the AI needed for subsequent experiments involving new biological variables and criteria, the human expertise would be time consuming to customize it. The usefulness would be limited therefore to the allotment of human input needed to set up Adam.

David Waltz of Columbia University and Bruce Buchanan of the University of Pittsburgh say that “For the foreseeable future, the prospect of using automated systems as assistants holds vast promise as these assistants are becoming not only faster but much broader in their capabilities — more knowledgeable, more creative, and more self-reflective,” They note the potential of such lab assistants which may more efficiently process the research data.

It was reported that Adam cost about $1million in production costs and this was weighed against the costs of hiring lab techs. King said, We made many mistakes and learned from Adam. Eve is a much cleaner design.”

Eve is the second AI computer under development by Professor King’s research team. Eve’s artificial intelligence will be enhanced to analyze compounds needed for medicinal drugs which may treat killer diseases such as malaria.