Content about Asia

Seismologists have always relied on surface observation to piece together models of what they thought Earth’s interior looked like. These models served them well for years, but they were unable to map out the planet’s interior with certainty, until now. A team of scientists is using the powerful US Titan supercomputer to do just that.

Hannah Kuper, co-director of the International Centre for Evidence in Disability at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in the UK, explains how cheap smartphone adapters can be used to diagnose ear and eye conditions. Since over half of the world's population has a mobile phone, this technology, she argues, can ensure patients in all areas get appropriate treatment.  

Have you ever thought about using acoustics to collect data? The EAR-IT project has explored this possibility with various pioneering applications that impact on our daily lives. Monitoring traffic density in cities and assisting energy-saving devices in houses, for example, could enable the development of smart cities and buildings.

The EAR-IT project has taken intelligent acoustic technology developed in laboratories and modified and adapted it to real-life environments. The project, involving both research institutes and market advisors, has focused on outdoor and indoor applications: traffic flow monitoring and controling the use of energy indoors based on the number of people in a room.

Rainforest Connection uses simple devices created from discarded cellphones to listen out for illegal logging activities and provide rangers with real-time alerts. The organization was founded in 2012 by Topher White, who gave a talk about his work at TEDxCERN last month. White’s system has already helped stop illegal logging in Indonesia and further pilot projects are set to be launched soon in both Brazil and Cameroon.

Last week, iSGTW attended the International Supercomputing Conference (ISC’14) in Leipzig, Germany. The event featured a range of speakers representing a wide variety of research domains. Awards given by PRACE and Germany’s Gauss Centre for Supercomputing highlighted some of the outstanding research on show at the event. And, of course, the new TOP500 list of the world’s fastest supercomputers was announced.

Urban regions around the world are aiming to offer a more efficient, sustainable, and better quality life for their citizens. ICT plays a substantial role in achieving these aims and thus in meeting the growing demand for smarter and more efficient cities.

Predicting where and when tsunamis are likely to hit shore has the potential to save many lives. At last month's International Symposium for Grids and Cloud Computing in Taipei, Taiwan, researchers presented iCOMCOT, a web-based portal which can be used to model the progression of tsunamis as they approach land.

How do scientists use supercomputers to predict complex things like weather, climate, earthquakes, and the formation of galaxies? Watch this video to see how supercomputers handle mathematical modeling.

As the second anniversary of the largest earthquake in Japanese history approaches, Ben Katsumi explains how cloud computing helped the relief effort following the natural disaster.

Plus: Discover how reseachers at the Japanese Atomic Energy Agency are using HPC to develop improved chemicals for cleaning up radioactive cesium isotopes.

To improve understanding of cosmic radiation, high-speed research networks are enabling astrophysicists to send terabytes of data across continents, between China and Italy.