Beachcombing in Academia

Can software automatically recognise celebrities? Hewlett-Packard (motto: Let’s do Amazing) believes so, and has recently published a paper on the feasibility of ‘Wikipedia-based Online Celebrity Recognition’.Researchers Demiao Lin, Jianming Jin, and Yuhong Xiong, from HP Labs China have been investigating so-called Smart-Browsing on the www, and point out that : “Obviously, recognizing celebrity names is important for smart browsing.”

It was back in 2005 that inventor  Boris Volfson was granted a US patent for a device which has been erroneously summarised by some as a 'Flying Saucer'. But which is more accurately described as a Space Vehicle Propelled by the Pressure of Inflationary Vacuum State. Although the patent explained at length how  “A levitating, rotating, superconducting disk“ might be able to develop a temporary egg-shaped space-time anomaly sufficient to allow a passenger vehicle to travel faster than light, the exact physics behind the crucial component known as the ‘Phonon Maser’ may have remained opaque to many readers.

The number of scholarly authors who have formally studied the significance of verbal (and physical) interactions at Fawlty Towers is very limited. Nonetheless, professor Annjo Klungervik Greenall, of the Department of Modern Foreign Languages, at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, has recently done so – examining in detail the many (often heated) exchanges between Manuel and Basil Fawlty, and asking how they might contribute to the idea of Linguicism.

“Viewing a stressful soccer match more than doubles the risk of an acute cardiovascular event.”This disturbing conclusion was published in a 2008 study based on data regarding 4,279 Bavarian medical emergency cases. The number, and character, of adverse cardiovascular events which occurred during the FIFA World Cup (held in Germany from June 9 to July 9, 2006) were compared with those in a control period. Not only was there double the incidence of cardiac problems, but their time of onset starkly correlated with the beginning of the matches. [see graph at right]

A recent discovery regarding injuries to baseball pitchers’ elbows can be described, in round terms, thus : the faster the pitch, the more likely the injury.Brandon (Brad) Bushnell M.D. (pictured) and colleagues at the Harbin Clinic Orthop(a)edics and Sports Medicine, Rome, GA. explain the background:

Can people tell how appetizingly fresh a cabbage is, just by looking at photos of the leaves?

“Body odor sampling is an essential tool in human chemical ecology research.”

“This study outlines a corpus comparison of British and New Zealander speakers’ use of the phrases ‘I don’t know’ and ‘I dunno’. ”Dr. Lynn Grant, who is a Senior Lecturer at the School of Languages and Social Sciences at the Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand ('The University for Changing the World') has recently completed a study which examined the linguistic properties of ‘I don’t know’ and ‘I dunno’. Finding that the phrases often find use as 'hedges', markers of uncertainty, and as politeness devices.

“In this paper, we consider musical cell-phone ringtones as virtual, communicative and cultural performances.”  - say the authors of a paper entitled ‘The Musical Madeleine: Communication, Performance, and Identity in Musical Ringtones’ - which is published in the journal Popular Music and Society, Volume 33, Issue 1 February 2010.

It may have been predictable, but shortly after the introduction of automated fingerprint recognition systems came the invention of fake fingers. As this research paper from May 2009 explains, fake fingers made from gelatine soon appeared, quickly followed by Play-Doh™. The authors review the “…state-of-the-art of fake finger materials and disclose the power of a, let’s say, brand new material in this field: Glycerin.“

“There exists no gold standard for the measurement of snoring.”

There have been several implementations of two wheeled balancing robots [example]. And several which can read sheet music via a camera [example]. Others can ‘sing’ [example] – but the number of two-wheeled balancing robots that can autonomously read music and sing songs is low – possibly numbering just one.