Title
Topic
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Modeling floodplain lakes after extreme flooding
This study of floodplain lakes—which accumulate “sediments, organic matter, and pollutants”—adds to our understanding of their evolution, especially after flooding events. While pre-existing models of floodplain lake evolution exist, they are “not well suited to guide the interpretation of individual flood events in sedimentary records.” This paper “combine[s] sediment samples collected in and around a floodplain lake with hydraulic modelling simulations to examine inundation, flow velocity, and sedimentation patterns,” especially helpful after “extreme” flood events. Read “A Hydraulic Modelling Approach to Study Flood Sediment Deposition in Floodplain Lakes” and find the full list of authors in Earth Surface Processes and…
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‘Quench Dynamics in the One-Dimensional Mass-Imbalanced Ionic Hubbard Model’
“Using the time-dependent Lanczos method, we study the non-equilibrium dynamics of the one-dimensional ionic-mass imbalanced Hubbard chain driven by a quantum quench of the on-site Coulomb interaction, where the system is prepared in the ground state of the Hamiltonian with a different Hubbard interaction. A full exact diagonalization is adopted to study the zero temperature phase diagram in equilibrium, which is shown to be in good agreement with previous studies using density matrix renormalization group (DMRG).” See the full list of authors and read their research in ArXiv.
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Music is good for the brain, and not just among professionals
This study, “Musical Experience Relates to Insula-Based Functional Connectivity in Older Adults,” a collaboration between the department of physical therapy, the department of music and the department of psychology at Northeastern University, in addition to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, looked at “general musical experiences” across a subject’s lifespan, particularly in older adults. Their findings show that “older adults with more musical experience showed greater functional connectivity” between insulae and various regions of the brain. “Sensorimotor function and cognitive control” especially seem to benefit. See the full list of authors and read their research in Brain Sciences.
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Advances made against trypanosomiasis, ‘sleeping sickness’
Researchers compared the perturbations of proteins in response to two treatments to human African trypanosomiasis, or sleeping sickness. The workflow identified the differences between NEU-4438 (“a lead for the development of drugs against Trypanosoma brucei,” the parasite responsible for sleeping sickness) and acoziborole, a more common treatment. See the full list of authors and read their research paper at iScience: “Hypothesis-generating proteome perturbation to identify NEU-4438 and acoziborole modes of action in the African Trypanosome.”
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Photography for the past and present at San Francisco subway station
Mills photography professor Catherine Wagner installation “Arc Cycle” was on display at the Yerba Buena/Moscone Subway Station in San Francisco. The work “aims to reflect San Francisco’s past and present.” Professor Wagner was interviewed about the installation in the San Francisco Chronicle Datebook.
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Christie Chung speaks to undergraduates at Psychonomic Conference
Christie Chung spoke at the Advancing Cognitive Research with Undergraduates (ACRU) event at the Psychonomic Conference in Boston, Mass., on November 18, 2022.
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Eduardo Sontag wins IFAC Technical Committee Award
“University Distinguished Professor Eduardo Sontag received the International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC) Technical Committee Award on Non-Linear Control Systems, which is described as the ‘highest distinction on nonlinear control systems research.'”
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Josep Jornet is 2022 IEEE WTC Outstanding Young Researcher
“Associate Professor Josep Jornet received the 2022 IEEE WTC Outstanding Young Researcher Award for his pioneering contributions to the field of terahertz communications. Jornet’s contributions range from terahertz array architectures and propagation channel models to physical and link layer solutions for ultra-broadband and ultra-directional networks operating at frequencies above 100 GHz. He has published over 200 peer-reviewed papers and multiple patents.”
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Therese Pirozzi receives grant for ‘Active Brain, Healthy Brain Exercise Program’
“Therese Pirozzi, associate professor in Bouvé College’s Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, is a practicing speech-language pathologist with a focus on language and health literacy of low-income families, neuroplasticity of the brain, and the effects of brain injury on survivors and their families. Over the summer, she received a grant for the ‘Active Brain, Healthy Brain Exercise Program’ from the Community Endowment of Lexington—an endowed fund of the Foundation for MetroWest.”
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‘Scaling Laws for Two-Dimensional Dendritic Crystal Growth in a Narrow Channel’
“We investigate analytically and computationally the dynamics of 2D needle crystal growth from the melt in a narrow channel. Our analytical theory predicts that, in the low supersaturation limit, the growth velocity V decreases in time t as a power law V∼t−2/3, which we validate by phase-field and dendritic-needle-network simulations.” See the full list of authors and read this pre-print at ArXiv.
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Functional insights into protein signaling
This review in the journal Life provides “Functional Insights into Protein Kinase A (PKA) Signaling from C. elegans.” PhD. students Fereshteh Sadeghian and Perla Castaneda, along with postdoctoral researcher Mustafi Amin and professor of biology Erin Cram, write that Caenorhabditis elegans, an unsegmented nematode, “provides a powerful genetic platform for understanding how [PKA] can regulate an astounding variety of physiological responses.”
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Better diagnoses for visual vergence disorders
Common vergence disorders, characterized by instability between a subject’s eyes as they try to focus on an object (convergence and divergence), can be diagnosed by examining the horizontal fusional reserves of the eye. This study looks at “Infrared eyetracking technology [which] shows promise for obtaining automated and objective measurements of fusional reserves.” This paper is the result of an international collaboration with the University of Auckland, New Zealand. See the full list of authors and read their research, “Objective estimation of fusional reserves using infrared eye tracking: the digital fusion-range test,” in Clinical and Experimental Optometry.
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Record performance on display for named data networking delivery platform
Electrical and computer engineering professor Edmund Yeh, leading a multi-university project on named data networking for data-intensive science experiments (N-DISE), has “demonstrated a record average throughput of 50 Gbps and peak throughput of 63 Gbps for the N-DISE data delivery platform on a transcontinental wide area network testbed.” The project involves collaborators from Northeastern University, the California Institute of Technology, the University of California Los Angeles, and the Tennessee Technological University. Read more about their demonstrations at the College of Engineering.
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Coastal upwelling helps delicate species survive
This article is an important addition to our understanding of species abundance and distribution—a subject becoming ever more important with ongoing climate change. For this study, researchers used “wavelet analysis” to examine sixteen intertidal zones along the the coast of Europe. Results show that “upwelling”—a process that brings deep, cold water to the surface—produces refuges for thermally delicate species by mitigating rising temperatures. See the full list of authors and read “Coastal upwelling generates cryptic temperature refugia” in Nature.
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Yongmin Liu elected 2023 Fellow Member of Optica for research in nanophotonics
“Associate Professor Yongmin Liu was elected as a 2023 Fellow Member of Optica. Fellow membership in Optica is limited to no more than ten percent of the membership and is reserved for members who have served with distinction in the advancement of optics and photonics. Liu is being honored specifically for significant contributions to the fundamental and application of nanophotonics, particularly plasmonics and photonic metamaterials.”
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Northeastern researchers win ‘Invented Here!’ contest
“This year, the Center for Research Innovation is excited to share that multiple Northeastern researchers have been honored in the annual Invented Here! contest, held by the Boston Patent Law Association (BPLA). Established in 2010 by the BPLA, the Invented Here! contest is meant to celebrate local New England inventors, from their inventions to their own stories. Over 49 inventions and over 170 inventors have been recognized since 2010. These inventors are key to furthering innovation not only in our region, but across the world.”
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Student-centered climate work at the Marine Science Center
Professor of environmental sciences Kristina Faul came from Mills College at Northeastern to visit the Marine Science Center. She delivered a talk on student-centered climate change work in November 2022.
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‘Effect of Dissolved Humic Acids and Coated Humic Acids on Tetracycline Adsorption by K₂CO₃-Activated Magnetic Biochar’
“Humic acids (HAs) widely exist in water environment, and has an important impact on the adsorption of pollutants. Herein, HAs (both dissolved and coated) was employed to assess the effect on the removal of the organic contaminant tetracycline (TC) by K2CO3 modified magnetic biochar (KMBC). Results showed that low concentration of dissolved HAs promoted TC removal, likely due to a bridging effect, while higher concentration of dissolved HAs inhibited TC adsorption because of the competition of adsorption sites on KMBC.” Find the paper and the full list of authors in Scientific Reports.
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Nusbaum receives 2022 AESA Critics’ Choice Book Award
Emily Nusbaum and Jessica Nina Lester (Indiana University) have won the American Educational Studies Association 2022 award for their recent co-edited book, “Centering Diverse Bodyminds in Critical Qualitative Inquiry.” The editors approach “disability embodiment and the lived experience of disability [as] potential sources of method and methodological advancement.”
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What is ‘Wasta,’ and how does it affect business in the Arab world?
“Recent research examines business practices in the Arab world and how they differ from Western practices. Wasta is a practice in Arab society where people use their personal relationships to gain favor… Foreign firm managers operating in Arab societies will need to develop a solid understanding of the practice and its different perceptions among varying Arab groups in order to be successful in conducting business in the Arab world.” Find the paper and the full list of authors at the Insights @ Center for Emerging Markets.
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Bribery and the ‘new normal’ in transition economies
“Recent research examines 310 privately owned small and medium-sized companies from 22 transition economies in Eastern Europe and Former Soviet Republics to see how the payment of bribes affects entrepreneur perceptions of the business environment. Those who more frequently pay bribes create a “new normal” business environment that is perceived as increasingly harsh. However, for entrepreneurs who infrequently bribe, their ‘new normal’ is likely to be perceived as more supportive of business.” Read “How Bribe-Payers Create a ‘New Normal’ of Corruption in Transition Economies” and see the full list of authors at the Insights @ Center for Emerging Markets.
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Will eating (certain) plants increase cognitive health in children? This study hopes to find out
With “Enhancing children’s cognitive function and achievement through carotenoid consumption: The Integrated Childhood Ocular Nutrition Study (iCONS) protocol,” researchers hope to discover the effect of carotenoids (plant pigments) on preadolescence. Carotenoids have been shown to positively impact cognition in adults, and this proposed, placebo-controlled, double-blind study will by the first to study the effect of two of these pigments—lutein and zeaxanthin—on preadolescents. Their hypothesis states, “children receiving the carotenoid supplement will exhibit greater gains in cognitive function and achievement relative to the waitlist placebo group.” Find the full list of authors and their research in Contemporary Clinical Trials.