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From the brittle to ductile |
 Scientists have made a breakthrough in understanding how the element silicon changes its properties at high temperature, when it changes from being brittle to becoming ductile. Professor Christian Thaulow at NTNU and Professor Mark J. Buehler at MIT in the US have used a model at the atomic level to reach a technological understanding of why silicon changes.
The model has been featured in the prestigious US journal Physical Review Letters. Silicon is used in solar cells, electronics and computers, among other things. The picture shows industrially produced polysilicon.
SINTEF and NTNU are partners in one of the three new national centres for research in environmentally friendly energy (FMEs) which were launched in February. The CenSES virtual research centre (http://www.censes.no/) will focus on studies and decision-support systems that will underpin the development of a new sustainable energy system.
Antibiotics and allergies |
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Photo: Marit Hommedal/Scanpix
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Respiratory infections and the use of antibiotics in children in their first year of life appear to affect the incidence of asthma and allergies later on. This finding is from a study of 3300 children conducted by researchers at NTNU, SINTEF and several Swedish hospitals.
The children were followed for eight years. The researchers concluded that allergies in children are at least partly related to early respiratory infections and antibiotics.
Risk analysis in practice |
 Ketil Stølen, Bjørnar Solhaug and Mass
Soldal Lund: Model-Driven Risk Analysis – The CORAS Approach
Publishing House: Springer Verlag, 2011
The authors believe that exposure to risk through hacking and leaks from data networks is inevitable in modern society, not only for individuals, but also for industry, commerce and the public sector. Current ISO security and risk analysis standards offer data-security managers in the public and private sectors a framework for analysing and dealing with risk, but say nothing about how this can be done in practice.
This book deals with risk analysis, which in turn is a matter of identifying and dealing with data-security risks. The book describes methods, risk-modelling techniques, guidelines and tools for performing risk analyses, and for updating and maintaining the results of such analyses over time. The CORAS software package is free and can be obtained by getting in touch with Ketil Stølen at http://coras.sourceforge.net/
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Efficiency before personal data protection |
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Photo: NTNU SA/Kim Nygård
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A recent SINTEF report describes how various actors perceive the risk of personal data protection regulations being violated when transport services are being used.
The scientists studied how the authorities, suppliers of transport services and users of such services evaluate personal data protection in intelligent transport systems.
Almost four out of five travellers prefer solutions that offer automatic payment of toll fees and ferry tickets, even when these involve handing over personal data.
The study shows that there is a high level of faith in CCTV monitoring as a traffic-safety measure, and technological solutions that are advantageous for the individual user, such as rapid payment systems and efficient toll-station passage, are widely accepted.
Fighting salmon parasites |
Rotenone is a compound used to rid streams of the salmon parasite Gyrodactylus salaris. But it is not always easy to know how much rotenone should be used to treat a river effectively, and how much the substance will spread. Too much rotenone is both expensive and environmentally harmful, while too little allows the parasite to survive. The entire Vefsna watercourse must now be treated with rotenone. In this context, the Norwegian Veterinary Institute and NTNU are working together to simulate rotenone treatment by using harmless fluorescent dyes.
After the dye is released, the researchers can then accurately measure how the substance spreads and how quickly. Thus, the location, amount and timing of rotenone treatment can be planned and customized to the river. The idea of simulation using dyes to trace the movement of substances is not new, but this is the first time this information has been combined with a data series that provides comprehensive information for an entire river system.
Optimal routes for heavy transport |
A new speed model that can calculate realistic travel times between destinations has been developed by SINTEF scientists; in due course, the new model will replace the one in the EFFEKT simulation program used by the Norwegian Public Roads Administration. The new model can be used in map-based navigation systems for the transport market and in digital road networks in route-planning and vehicle fleet control applications.
The project entitled "Speed model for industrial transportation" estimates travel times for heavy goods vehicle transport between destinations on the basis of the state of the highway network. In order to obtain optimal routes for heavy vehicle transport, measurements of heavy vehicle speeds were linked to road descriptions obtained from the National Highways Databank. The equipment used in the vehicles that carried out the trials consisted of relatively inexpensive GPS and data-logging instruments.
Published March, 2011
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