Google Science Fair 2015 what will you try

Posted by Miriam Schneider, Google for Education team

(Cross-posted from the Google for Education Blog)

Science is about observing and experimenting. It’s about exploring unanswered questions, solving problems through curiosity, learning as you go and always trying again.

That’s the spirit behind the fifth annual Google Science Fair, kicking off today. Together with LEGO Education, National Geographic, Scientific American and Virgin Galactic, we’re calling on all young researchers, explorers, builders, technologists and inventors to try something ambitious. Something imaginative, or maybe even unimaginable. Something that might just change the world around us.

From now through May 18, students around the world ages 13-18 can submit projects online across all scientific fields, from biology to computer science to anthropology and everything in between. Prizes include $100,000 in scholarships and classroom grants from Scientific American and Google, a National Geographic Expedition to the Galapagos, an opportunity to visit LEGO designers at their Denmark headquarters, and the chance to tour Virgin Galactic’s new spaceship at their Mojave Air and Spaceport. This year we’re also introducing an award to recognize an Inspiring Educator, as well as a Community Impact Award honoring a project that addresses an environmental or health challenge.

It’s only through trying something that we can get somewhere. Flashlights required batteries, then Ann Makosinski tried the heat of her hand. His grandfather would wander out of bed at night, until Kenneth Shinozuka tried a wearable sensor. The power supply was constantly unstable in her Indian village, so Harine Ravichandran tried to build a different kind of regulator. Previous Science Fair winners have blown us away with their ideas. Now it’s your turn.

Big ideas that have the potential to make a big impact often start from something small. Something that makes you curious. Something you love, you’re good at, and want to try.

So, what will you try?

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What we can learn about effective meaningful and diverse organizations

Posted by Beryl Nelson, Software Engineering Manager

By becoming more conscious of our own stereotypes and biases, and making use of the insights revealed by the research on bias and stereotype threat, unconscious decision making, and cognitive illusions, each of us can bring more to our work and create diverse, innovative, and meaningful organizations.

Since 2009, I’ve been reading literature about the challenges and successes in making diverse teams effective, and speaking about this research. My goal is to help everyone understand more about unconscious decision-making and other barriers to inclusion, and through knowledge, combat these effects.

A short summary:

• A team that is heterogeneous in meaningful ways is good for innovation, and good for business.
• There are many challenges to making such teams effective, such as unconscious decision making, stereotype threat, and other cognitive illusions.
• There is repeatable quantitative research which shows ways to combat some of these effects.
• The barriers to effectiveness may seem overwhelming, but there is hope! Meaningful change is possible, and some examples of successful change are cited below.

In a bit more detail:

1. Diversity is good for innovation and business. There is a correlation between financial success and the diversity of leadership teams, as shown in research by Catalyst, McKinsey and Cedric Herring. Further, research shows a strong correlation between having women on teams and innovation; concluding that there is a strong correlation between the presence of women and the social skills required to get ideas percolating into the open.
2. We all make decisions unconsciously, influenced by our implicit associations. As an example of these effects, a large proportion of CEOs are taller than the average population and height is strongly correlated with financial and career success. It’s long been argued that women and underrepresented minorities are not represented in CEO leadership because there aren’t enough qualified individuals in the labor pool. This “pipeline issue” argument can’t be made for short and average-height people, however. Simple, repeatable tests measure, via response time and error rate, the implicit associations we have between concepts. These associations are created as an adaptive response, but we must understand our own implicit biases in order to make better decisions.
3. Stereotype threat plays a role in preventing people from being fully effective. The low representation of women and minorities in Science has long been the source of a troubling question: is this an indication of a difference in innate ability (see Ben Barre’s response to Lawrence Summers’ remarks), or the result of some other effect? Claude Steele and his colleagues elegantly showed that two groups of people can have similar or opposite reactions, depending on the way a situation is presented. These and other experiments show that stereotype threat can compromise the performance of the subject of a stereotype, if he or she knows about the stereotype and cares about it.
4. Change is possible. The above and other challenges may make it seem nearly impossible to create a diverse and highly functioning organization, but dramatic change can be made. Take, for example, the discovery of biased decision making and effective changes made via the use of data in the MIT Science Faculty Study, or the amazing changes at Harvey Mudd college, which not only increased participation of women as Computer Science majors from 12% to 40% in five years, but also increased the total number of CS majors from 25 to 30 per year to 70 CS graduates in the class of 2014.

If you’re interested in learning more, watch the video about the data on diversity below. You can read the full research in the November issue of Communications of the Association of Computing Machinery. You can read even more using the full bibliography.

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What does Privacy Mean to New Zealanders in the Internet Age

This Thursday is the 1st lecture in the annual Gibbons Memorial lecture series. The first lecture is by Professor Miriam Lips of the School of Government, Victoria University of Wellington, titled: What does Privacy Mean to New Zealanders in the Internet Age?

When: 6pm (refreshments) for 6.30pm lecture start, Thursday 1st May, 2014
Where: Owen G Glenn Building, Room OGGB3/260-092
Note that there is public parking in the basement of the Owen G Glenn Building at 12 Grafton Road.

Miriam Lips is the first Professor of E-Government at Victoria University of Wellington. This chair is sponsored by industry - Datacom System, FX Networks, Microsoft New Zealand – and the NZ government - the State Services Commission and the Department of Internal Affairs.

Professor Lips holds a MSc and a PhD from Erasmus University Rotterdam and an EMPA from Erasmus University, Leiden University and the Hochschule für Verwaltungswissen-schaften, Speyer. She has held academic positions at the University of Oxford and Tilburg University. Her current research includes management of online identity, use of social media for public engagement, the use of e-campaigning and the use of new media in disaster management.

Synopsis: Based on a 2013 survey with a representative sample of the New Zealand population, this talk will explore how, and to what extent, different groups of the New Zealand population are disclosing and protecting their personal information in varying online relationships with the private sector, government, and family and friends through social networking. The meaning of privacy for people from different age groups, ethnicities, educational backgrounds, and income groups will be discussed, and the implications for a population which increasingly exchanges their identity information online, against the backdrop of new privacy challenges and risks emerging from the use of Big Data.

from The Universal Machine http://universal-machine.blogspot.com/

Put the internet to work for you.

via Personal Recipe 895909

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What happens if your Government unfriends you

Sounds crazy right? Perhaps not if youre Chinese. China is launching a system that gives a score to every citizen. This is partially similar to the credit scoring systems that Western nations have used for years, but it also includes a component that measures the political trustworthiness of citizens. If you are a political critic of the Government your score will go down. But, whats really sinister is that if your friends have low ratings, your rating will be reduced. This social network may encourage people to "unfriend" any friends that show dissent. We in the west are perhaps used to, and certainly aware of the fact, that our spy masters have access to our social media accounts. China is taking this a step further by building a social network into the states functioning. Read this article from the American Civil Liberties Union for more on this story. Thanks to my colleague Mark Wilson for this story.

from The Universal Machine http://universal-machine.blogspot.com/

Put the internet to work for you.

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Amazon at 20 what has the online giant ever done for retail

You may not have noticed but Amazon recently celebrated its 20th birthday. You may or not be a regular user (I certainly am). It was originally billed a the "Earths Biggest Bookstore" featuring over one million titles. Twenty years later it has over 270m active accounts and claims to have more than 2m third-party vendors selling millions of products through its marketplace platform. Amazon is comfortable with the term "disruptive." Its disrupted the bookshop and publishing industries and is disrupting other retail industries. The Guardian recently published an interesting article about the impact Amazon has had - recommended.




from The Universal Machine http://universal-machine.blogspot.com/

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What is Recycler Folder and How to remove it

You mus be wondering, Is recycler a virus? Is it a windows folder? why is it not deletable?
This article will give you a clear detail of this issue.
If you have used Windows for quite some time now then you must have seen this folder called RECYCLER. But many people don’t know what this folder is and what is it doing in the drive?

What is Recycler folder?

The Recycler folder is used only on NTFS partitions and is referred to as a location where all the deleted files go after they have been deleted by the user.

Now you may be wondering if it contains the deleted files then why we have the Recycle Bin.
When a file is deleted it goes to the Recycle Bin but when the Recycle Bin is emptied, the files are stored in this Recycler folder. This is the reason why we can still restore the deleted data in the Windows.

Difference between Recycle Bin and Recycler:

Recycle Bin stores the file that are deleted from the computer until it is emptied completely whereas the Recycler folder contains a Recycle Bin for each user that logs on to the computer.

Recycled Folder:

This is something different than the Recycler folder as Recycled is same as Recycle Bin. That is both Recycled and Recycle Bin are just two different names for the same memory location.

How to delete Recycler Folder:
Recycler is a read only folder and that is why it gave error if you tried to delete it. To view the folder, go to Tools -> Folder Options -> View tab and uncheck the option of Hide Protected operating System Files.
Now just right click on the folder, go to Properties and unselect the option of Read Only. Now it can be deleted.

Recycler Virus:
There has been identified a virus with the same name that is Recycler.exe which should not be confused with the Recycler folder.

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What of STEM Should Be Computer Science

We keep hearing in the media how many job vacancies there are for computer scientists and how the critical shortage is restricting the growth of many companies. Every one is agreed that we need more people with computing skills. This article from code.org provides an interesting insight into this skills shortage and offers some solutions.

from The Universal Machine http://universal-machine.blogspot.com/

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What is meaning of FAILSAFE Systems

 
It is not possible to design fail proof product. It can be designed to be failsafe. Design of atomic power plant is one example. There were many accidents in the plans. However these were contained safely. The design of fail safe systems can be subdivided in 

                                   1) component selection/use and 

                                   2)system design. 

The examples of component failure resulting in system failure are 

                                   1) push button opening after a long time 

                                   2) a potentiometer opening it’s wiper. 

The component selection examples are as follows.

A potentiometer in a feedback circuit should be connected as shown. 

While using it, it is natural for a used wiper to loose the contact with track. Right connection limits the fault. In other case, it may lead to total failure. For this reason it is better to adjust the reference to adjust the output than setting the feedback. This arrangement is used in DC drives. Battery chargers etc. 

One more example from instrumentation side is to break thermocouple protection. It is normal for a thermocouple to open after a long use. Since it is in the feedback path, output temperature shoots up to highest value. A small circuit used to detect break helps in avoiding this.

A set reset flip-fop, as shown in the figure can be set and reset by the push buttons. Note that a normally closed push button is used and it does not short on pressing, then the circuit will not reset. Also note that an inverter is used on Q-bar, to drive the relay. It was possible to use output Q directly. However if both inputs are present (signals from some other logic circuits) then both outputs will be high. For avoiding this and making sure that Q-bar (OFF) prevails, use of inverter is necessary.

In microprocessor based circuits, microprocessor is used for checking other circuit components failure in the system. The microprocessor’s own failure is detected by using watchdog timer. After the hardware detection circuit shuts off the system as per the requirements.

The system design examples are as follows:

A protection relay designed to switch ON, in case of fault, mat not come on if it’s power supply is bad or connections are loose. A single-phase preventer working on zero sequence is one such example. Hence protection relays are kept on in healthy condition and go off on fault. A fault-indicating lamp should go off on fault, for reasons explained above.

A three-phase motor is used in forward/reverse mode with two contractors. The control circuit below shows clearly that both contactors cannot be switched on simultaneously (thus avoiding short-circuiting the lines). If motor is switched on in forward direction (or reverse direction), it is necessary to switch it off before reversing.

In case of DC motor drives, dynamic breaking is used in case of power failure. The regenerative breaking requires power for line communication of thyristors and hence to operate in case of power failures.

PLC Redundancy is another method of making design fail-safe. The redundancy can be achieved in many cases by Oring the circuits, or paralleling them. Filament type indicating lamps have limited life. When these are used in fault annunciators, two lamps are connected in parallel. There are lesser chances of both lamps failing simultaneously, resulting in the redundancy. Similarly two battery cells can also be connected in parallel, with a series fuse for each cell for isolating the faulty cell. The cells can be Ored by using diodes (again this serves isolation of faulty cell).

When using fault tripping circuits, and avoiding nuisance tripping, these are Ored and majority voting is used.

In circuits where input signals change continuously, a standard signal is used for checking the operation and if found faulty, the other circuit is brought into picture. In C-Dot exchanges all control and power supply cards are used in redundancy mode.

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What Are The Advantages Of Cable Caddy

By Krystal Branch

Installing electrical wires and cables could certainly be challenging and sometimes even frustrating. However, there is a simple yet effective solution that drastically helps make the job easier. This is the cable caddy which makes handling and dispensing wires a whole lot easier and manageable.

Everyone who has been into the job of installing wires has been through the frustration of knotted and tangled wires. On top of that, there is the challenge of loading and unloading the wires. But that would be a thing of the past. This piece of equipment is designed to make is easier to transport and to systematically organize wires which therefore gets rid of the hassle of loading and unloading spools of wires.

These tools can be purchased in different designs, orientation and sizes, all designed to aid in specific needs. Which one you need to get depends on what specific wiring installation job needs to be done. The size of the wires and spools are also factors when purchasing the best one for you.

For outdoor electricians installing large wires outside the premises, large variants are the best options. These variants are designed to carry large spools of wires. These equipments typically carries spools with a height of 15 to 17 inches and a diameter of around eighteen to twenty inches.

To give it the exceptional strength required to dispense large and heavy spools of wires, metal or steel is usually used to manufacture them. The body is then treated with a coating that gives protection against corrosion and rust especially when placed outside. The body is also usually are made of hollow bars to keep it relatively light for easy handling. Also, light colors are used for these tools so that they remain highly visible on the roadside where they are usually placed when doing the installation.

Oftentimes, large variants holds the spool horizontally. This specific design makes it easier to setup the equipment and dispense the wires. When not in use, the piece could easily be folded. This makes it more convenient and easy to organize the tool after the installation is done.

Smaller variants are also available for indoor use. These holds smaller spools of wires that are used for indoor wiring. The design makes the variant more portable that large ones and can be placed horizontally or vertically whichever makes the installation easier.

As for the material, these types are not strictly made of steel. Materials used for these variants are light weight but strong. Also they are covered with materials or coatings that gives it smooth surface so that it does not scratch the walls or the paints while the equipment is being moved around. It small sized makes it portable and lighter so they usually come with only one handle for single hand lifting.

With the aid of a caddy, the job of installing wires has just become easier and lesser of a mess. Hence, it is now a must have if one wants to have the job finished without the hassle of tangled and knotted wires. This gets to show how a simple solution could assist in maximizing efficiency on the job.

About the Author:

If you are looking for information about a cable caddy, pay a visit to our web pages online today. You can see details at http://www.quickspooler.com now.

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