Credit: SMART FM
E-scooters as a new micro-mobility service: SMART researchers explore the potential of e-scooter sharing as a replacement for short-distance transit in Singapore
SMART researchers found that e-scooters are not only a last-mile solution to complement transit services, but also provide a mobility service for short-distance transit trips
- Through a stated preference survey and mixed logit models, SMART researchers found that fare, transit transfer, and transit walking distance are significant factors driving the use of e-scooters as an alternative means of transit. The uncertainty is higher in predicting e-scooter usage preferences of male, young and high-income groups.
E-Mail
The Research Training Group (RTG) 2670 Beyond Amphiphilicity: Self-organisation of soft matter via multiple noncovalent interactions has begun its work at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU). Amphiphilicity, a fundamental ordering principle for molecules, will be the starting point of the future research projects. The Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Foundation, DFG) will provide a first round of funding for the project of around 4.5 million euros until 2025.
Oil and water do not mix; no matter how much they are stirred together they always separate. But by adding a few drops of soap to the mixture, the two liquids are suddenly able to mix, explains Professor Dariush Hinderberger from the Institute of Chemistry at MLU and spokesperson for the new RTG. Soap is an amphiphilic substance, in other words, it is soluble in both fat and water.
E-Mail
IMAGE: Computational modeling shows that mutations on SARS-CoV-2 s spike protein that enhance the virus ability to bind to the ACE2 receptor occur in two clusters or mutation hotspots. view more
Credit: Image courtesy of Hin Hark Gan and Kristin Gunsalus, NYU s Department of Biology
SARS-CoV-2 has evolved to acquire mutations on the spike protein the part of the virus that protrudes from its surface and latches onto cells to infect them that enhance the coronavirus ability to bind to human cells or evade antibodies. A new study from the Centers for Genomics and Systems Biology at New York University and NYU Abu Dhabi uses computational modeling to assess the biological significance of spike protein mutations, uncovering versions of the virus that bind more tightly or resist antibodies and offering a promising public health surveillance tool.
E-Mail
IMAGE: Visualization of the percentage of a building s repair cost to its replacement value after a magnitude 7.0 earthquake in San Francisco. view more
Credit: Chaofeng Wang, SimCenter, UC Berkeley
Artificial intelligence is providing new opportunities in a range of fields, from business to industrial design to entertainment. But how about civil engineering and city planning? How might machine- and deep-learning help us create safer, more sustainable, and resilient built environments?
A team of researchers from the NSF NHERI SimCenter, a computational modeling and simulation center for the natural hazards engineering community based at the University of California, Berkeley, have developed a suite of tools called BRAILS Building Recognition using AI at Large-Scale that can automatically identify characteristics of buildings in a city and even detect the risks that a city s structures would face in an earthquake, hurricane, or tsunami.
E-Mail
IMAGE: Topology-based machine learning classifies how human cells organize into spatial patterns based on the presence of persistent topological loops around empty regions, which can be used to infer cellular behaviors. view more
Credit: Wong lab/Brown University
PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] The field of mathematical topology is often described in terms of donuts and pretzels.
To most of us, the two differ in the way they taste or in their compatibility with morning coffee. But to a topologist, the only difference between the two is that one has a single hole and the other has three. There s no way to stretch or contort a donut to make it look like a pretzel at least not without ripping it or pasting different parts together, both of which are verboten in topology. The different number of holes make two shapes that are fundamentally, inexorably different.