Monthly Archives: December 2013

Shining a light on the women scientists at the US National Institute of Occupational Health and Safety (NIOSH)

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A few days ago while researching another NIOSH (US National Institute of Occupational Health and Safety) story to be published later today, I stumbled across this Nov. 12, 2013 US National Institute of Occupational Health Safety (NIOSH) news release about their women and science video series,

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) announces the availability of a new series of videos highlighting the stories of NIOSH women scientists. These “Women in Science” videos place the spotlight on the talented and diverse women researchers at NIOSH who provide encouragement for future occupational safety and health professionals, both men and women.

The development of world-class talent in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) is critical to America’s global leadership. Scientists and policy makers see a particular need to engage young women in STEM careers, to address the fact that disproportionately fewer women than men currently work in STEM fields. These video spotlights touch upon the value placed by NIOSH on nurturing the rising generation of women scientists, and encouraging a new generation of scientific talent.

“At NIOSH, the mission of world-class research for preventing work-related injuries, illnesses, and deaths engages talented women, such as those highlighted in this series,” said NIOSH Director John Howard, M.D. “We hope the stories of these women will serve to encourage aspiring young scientists in their search for a field with which to serve.”

The “Women in Science” videos feature seven NIOSH scientists who share their personal journeys into various fields, describing interests while acknowledging duties, challenges, and balancing family life. The scientists include two epidemiologists, a U.S. Public Health Service officer and medical epidemiologist, a health communication specialist, a medical officer, a research civil and environmental health engineer, and a research psychologist. Between them are stories describing their career paths, the importance of research in protecting the American workforce, and advice for aspiring young scientists. Viewers will hear how a love of mystery books as a child led to a career as a “disease detective,” how adventures abroad were the driving force to a fulfilling career, how an experience with a severe head trauma patient guided the switch from neurosurgery to occupational medicine, and how research projects can involve breaking things and redesigning them to make them better.

A Nov. 13, 2013 posting by Alyssa Llamas (a Health Communication Specialist in the NIOSH Communication & Research Translation Office) on the NIOSH Science Blog gives the reasons for this video series (as for the fun facts included there, they weren’t quite as much fun as I hoped),

“When I grow up, I want to be an industrial hygienist.” Hearing a ten-year-old girl say those words would probably warrant a double take. While there might be some little girls out there dreaming about one day conducting research and working in a laboratory, studies suggest that more often, it’s a ten-year-old boy who will have the dream and will realize it when he grows up. The reality is that a disproportionately smaller number of women than men follow careers in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). Scientific organizations agree that a better balance is needed. Perhaps, when asked what they want to be when they grow up, more girls will one day enthusiastically say, “epidemiologist, health communication specialist, medical officer, engineer, psychologist!”

In order to remain competitive and innovative in science and technology, we must close the gender gap and harness the full potential of the female STEM workforce in the United States. …

You can find the videos on this NIOSH page titled, Science Speaks: A Focus on NIOSH Women in Science.

Battery-powered invisibiity cloak

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You’d never guess it from the title of their paper but researchers at the University of Texas at Austin have conceptualized and designed a battery-operated invisibility cloak, according to a Dec. 18, 2013 news item on Nanowerk,

Researchers at The University of Texas at Austin have proposed the first design of a cloaking device that uses an external source of energy to significantly broaden its bandwidth of operation.

Andrea Alù, associate professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Cockrell School of Engineering, and his team have proposed a design for an active cloak that draws energy from a battery, allowing objects to become undetectable to radio sensors over a greater range of frequencies.

The Dec. 18, 2013 University of Texas at Austin news release (also on EurekAlert), which originated the news item, describes the current state of cloaking technology,

Cloaks have so far been realized with so-called passive technology, which means that they are not designed to draw energy from an external source. They are typically based on metamaterials (advanced artificial materials) or metasurfaces (a flexible, ultrathin metamaterial) that can suppress the scattering of light that bounces off an object, making an object less visible. When the scattered fields from the cloak and the object interfere, they cancel each other out, and the overall effect is transparency to radio-wave detectors. They can suppress 100 times or more the detectability at specific design frequencies. Although the proposed design works for radio waves, active cloaks could one day be designed to make detection by the human eye more difficult.

“Many cloaking designs are good at suppressing the visibility under certain conditions, but they are inherently limited to work for specific colors of light or specific frequencies of operation,” said Alù, David & Doris Lybarger Endowed Faculty Fellow in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. In this paper, on the contrary, “we prove that cloaks can become broadband, pushing this technology far beyond current limits of passive cloaks. I believe that our design helps us understand the fundamental challenges of suppressing the scattering of various objects at multiple wavelengths and shows a realistic path to overcome them.”

The news release details the new battery-powered design,

The proposed active cloak uses a battery, circuits and amplifiers to boost signals, which makes possible the reduction of scattering over a greater range of frequencies. This design, which covers a very broad frequency range, will provide the most broadband and robust performance of a cloak to date. Additionally, the proposed active technology can be thinner and less conspicuous than conventional cloaks.

In a related paper, published in Physical Review X in October, Alù and his graduate student Francesco Monticone proved that existing passive cloaking solutions are fundamentally limited in the bandwidth of operation and cannot provide broadband cloaking. When viewed at certain frequencies, passively cloaked objects may indeed become transparent, but if illuminated with white light, which is composed of many colors, they are bound to become more visible with the cloak than without. The October paper proves that all available cloaking techniques based on passive cloaks are constrained by Foster’s theorem, which limits their overall ability to cancel the scattering across a broad frequency spectrum.

In contrast, an active cloak based on active metasurfaces, such as the one designed by Alù’s team, can break Foster’s theorem limitations. The team started with a passive metasurface made from an array of metal square patches and loaded it with properly positioned operational amplifiers that use the energy drawn from a battery to broaden the bandwidth.

“In our case, by introducing these suitable amplifiers along the cloaking surface, we can break the fundamental limits of passive cloaks and realize a ‘non-Foster’ surface reactance that decreases, rather than increases, with frequency, significantly broadening the bandwidth of operation,” Alù said.

The researchers are continuing to work both on the theory and design behind their non-Foster active cloak, and they plan to build a prototype.

Alù and his team are working to use active cloaks to improve wireless communications by suppressing the disturbance that neighboring antennas produce on transmitting and receiving antennas. They have also proposed to use these cloaks to improve biomedical sensing, near-field imaging and energy harvesting devices.

Here’s a link to and a citation for the team’s paper about active cloaking,

Broadening the Cloaking Bandwidth with Non-Foster Metasurfaces by Pai-Yen Chen, Christos Argyropoulos, and Andrea Alù. Phys. Rev. Lett. 111, 233001 (2013) [5 pages] DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.111.233001

This paper is behind a paywall.

Here’s a link to and a citation for the related and previously published paper (authors: Alù and Monticone),

Do Cloaked Objects Really Scatter Less? by Francesco Monticone and Andrea Alù. Phys. Rev. X 3, 041005 (2013) [10 pages] DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevX.3.041005

The authors have included both an abstract and a popular summary. I’ve excerpted the popular summary,

From ancient times, humanity has been fascinated by the concept of invisibility, and recently, scientists have moved a step closer to bringing this idea to reality by exploiting engineered artificial materials, or metamaterials. Several recent studies have indeed shown that a properly tailored metamaterial cover can, in principle, render an object invisible when illuminated by an electromagnetic wave oscillating at the specific frequency of interest. Yet, experimental realizations and theoretical investigations have consistently shown that reducing the visibility of an object with a passive cloak in a specific window of the electromagnetic spectrum is generally accompanied by a drastic increase of its visibility in other frequency ranges. Making an object invisible to red light, for instance, may actually make it bright blue, increasing its overall visibility.

In this paper, we quantitatively assess the potentials and limitations of passive cloaks in terms of overall visibility, integrated over the entire frequency spectrum. Quite surprisingly, our results show that any linear, causal, and passive invisibility cloak, without special superconducting features, is deemed to increase the scattering and visibility of the original uncloaked object, when integrated over all frequencies. This result confirms that the most popular cloaking devices actually scatter more, not less, when considered over a sufficiently broad frequency range, allowing easy detection using, e.g., pulsed excitation.

Our general theorem holds a relevant exception if specific covers with a strong static diamagnetism are considered, and, based on this principle, we propose a technique to reduce the global scattering, as well as the local response around a frequency of interest, using diamagnetic and superconducting thin cloaking layers. More generally, our results provide a quantitative measure to compare the overall performance of different cloaking devices and generally assess their detectability. These findings may open important research directions in the quest for invisibility, not only in the electromagnetic domain but also for acoustic, mechanical, and matter waves.

This is an open access paper.

Regulators not prepared to manage nanotechnology risks according to survey

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The focus of the survey mentioned in the heading is on the US regulatory situation regarding nanotechnology and, interestingly, much of the work was done by researchers at the University of British Columbia (UBC; Vancouver, Canada). A Dec. 19, 2013 news item on Nanowerk provides an overview,

In a survey of nanoscientists and engineers, nano-environmental health and safety scientists, and regulators, researchers at the UCSB Center for Nanotechnology in Society (CNS) and at the University of British Columbia found that those who perceive the risks posed by nanotechnology as “novel” are more likely to believe that regulators are unprepared. Representatives of regulatory bodies themselves felt most strongly that this was the case. “The people responsible for regulation are the most skeptical about their ability to regulate,” said CNS Director and co-author Barbara Herr Harthorn.

“The message is essentially,” said first author Christian Beaudrie of the Institute for Resources, Environment, and Sustainability at the University of British Columbia, “the more that risks are seen as new, the less trust survey respondents have in regulatory mechanisms. That is, regulators don’t have the tools to do the job adequately.”

The Dec. (?), 2013 University of California at Santa Barbara news release (also on EurekAlert), which originated the news item, adds this,

The authors also believe that when respondents suggested that more stakeholder groups need to share the responsibility of preparing for the potential consequences of nanotechnologies, this indicated a greater “perceived magnitude or complexity of the risk management challenge.” Therefore, they assert, not only are regulators unprepared, they need input from “a wide range of experts along the nanomaterial life cycle.” These include laboratory scientists, businesses, health and environmental groups (NGOs), and government agencies.

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Expert Views on Regulatory Preparedness for Managing the Risks of Nanotechnologies by Christian E. H. Beaudrie, Terre Satterfield, Milind Kandlikar, Barbara H. Harthorn. PLOS [Public Library of Science] ONE Published: November 11, 2013 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0080250

All of the papers on PLOS ONE are open access.

I have taken a look at this paper and notice there will be a separate analysis of the Canadian scene produced at a later date. As for the US analysis, certainly this paper confirms any conjectures made based on my observations and intuitions about the situation given the expressed uneasiness from various groups and individuals about the regulatory situation.

I would have liked to have seen a critique of previous studies rather than a summary, as well as, a critique of the survey itself in its discussion/conclusion. I also would have liked to have seen an appendix with the survey questions listed in the order in which they were asked and seen qualitative research (one-on-one interviews) rather than 100% dependence on an email survey. That said, I was glad to see they reversed the meaning of some of the questions to doublecheck for someone who might indicate the same answers (e.g., 9 [very concerned]) throughout as a means of simplifying their participation,

Onward to the survey with an excerpt from the description of how it was conducted,

Subjects were contacted by email in a three-step process, including initial contact and two reminders at two-week intervals. Respondents received an ‘A’ or ‘B’ version of the survey at random, where the wording of several survey questions were modified to reverse the meaning of the question. Questions with alternate wording were reversed-coded during analysis to enable direct comparison of responses. Where appropriate the sequence of questions was also varied to minimize order effects.

Here’s how the researchers separated the experts into various groups (excerpted from the study),,

This study thus draws from a systematic sampling of US-based nano-scientists and engineers (NSE, n=114), nano-environmental health and safety scientists (NEHS, n=86), and regulatory decision makers and scientists (NREG, n=54), to characterize how well-prepared different experts think regulatory agencies are for the risk management of nanomaterials and applications. We tested the following hypothesis:

  1. (1) Expert views on whether US federal agencies are sufficiently prepared for managing any risks posed by nanotechnologies will differ significantly across classes of experts (NSE vs. NEHS. vs. NREG).

…

This difference across experts was anticipated and so tested in reference to four additional hypotheses:

  1. (2) Experts who see nanotechnologies as novel (i.e., as a new class of materials or objects) will view US federal regulatory agencies as unprepared for managing risks as compared to those who see nanotechnologies as not new (i.e., as little different from their bulk chemical form)
  2. (3) Experts who deem US federal regulatory agencies as less trustworthy will also view agencies as less prepared compared to those with more trust in agencies
  3. (4) Experts who attribute greater collective stakeholder responsibility (e.g. who view a range of stakeholders as equally responsible for managing risks) will see agencies as less prepared compared to those who attribute less responsibility.
  4. (5) Experts who are more socially and economically conservative will see regulatory agencies as more prepared compared to those with a more liberal orientation.

The researchers included Index Variables of trust, responsibility, conservatism, novelty-risks, and novelty-benefits in relationship to education, gender, field of expertise, etc. for a regression analysis. In the discussion (or conclusion), the authors had this to say (excerpted from the study),

Consistent differences exist between expert groups in their views on agency preparedness to manage nanotechnology risks, yet all three groups perceive regulatory agencies as unprepared. What is most striking however is that NREG experts see regulatory agencies as considerably less prepared than do their NSE or NEHS counterparts. Taking a closer look, the drivers of experts’ concerns over regulator preparedness tell a more nuanced story. After accounting for other differences, the ‘expert group’ classification per se does not drive the observed differences in preparedness perceptions. Rather a substantial portion of this difference results from differing assessments of the perceived novelty of risks across expert groups. Of the remaining variables, trust in regulators is a small but significant driver, and our findings suggest a link between concerns over the novelty of nanomaterials and the adequacy of regulatory design. Experts’ views on stakeholder responsibility are not particularly surprising since greater reliance on a collective responsibility model would need the burden to move away exclusively from regulatory bodies to other groups, and result presumptively in a reduced sense of preparedness.

Experts’ reliance in part upon socio-political values indicates that personal values also play a minor role in preparedness judgments.

I look forward to seeing the Canadian analysis. The paper is worth reading for some of the more subtle analysis I did not include here.

Mathematics of Planet Earth lives on past 2013

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A Université de Montréal (Québec, Canada) Dec. 11, 2013 news release (also on EurekAlert) proclaims a new life for a worldwide mathematics initiative (Note: I have added paragraph breaks for this formerly single paragraph excerpt),

Although you might not know it, mathematics is able to shed light on many of the issues facing Planet Earth – from the structure of the core of our planet to the understanding of biodiversity, from finding ways to advance cutting edge solar technology to better understanding the Earth’s climate system, and from earthquakes and tsunamis to the spread of infectious diseases – and so mathematicians around the world have decided to launch an international project, Mathematics of Planet Earth (MPE), to demonstrate how their field of expertise contributes directly to our well being.

Mathematics of Planet Earth is growing out of a year-long initiative that was the brainchild of Christiane Rousseau, professor of mathematics at Université de Montréal and vice-president of the International Mathematics Union.

Beginning in 2014, the program will continue under the same name with the same objectives: identify fundamental research questions about Planet Earth and reach out to the general public. As Prof Rousseau observed, “Mathematics of Planet Earth has been a great start. But identifying the research problems is not enough. Mathematics moves slowly, the planetary problems are very challenging, and we cannot expect great results in just one year.” “The International Mathematical Union enthusiastically supports the continuation of Mathematics of Planet Earth. The success of this initiative attests to the foundational role of the mathematical sciences and interdisciplinary partnerships in research into global challenges, increasingly valued by society,” says Ingrid Daubechies, President of the International Mathematical Union.

How did I not hear about this project before now? Well, it’s better to get there late then never get to the party at all. From the news release,

Under the patronage of UNESCO, the MPE initiative brought together over 100 scientific societies, universities, research institutes, and foundations from around the world to research fundamental questions about Planet Earth, nurture a better understanding of global issues, and help inform the public about the essential mathematics of the challenges facing our planet. “The Mathematics of Planet Earth (MPE) initiative resonates strongly with UNESCO’s work to promote the sciences and science education, especially through our International Basic Sciences Programme. Math advances fundamental research and plays an important role in our daily life. More than ever we need to develop relevant learning materials and to spark in every student, especially girls, a sense of joy in the wondrous universe of mathematics and the immense potential unleashed by this discipline. In this spirit, we commend this initiative and fully endorse the proposal to continue this programme beyond 2013,” said Irena Bokova, Director-General of UNESCO.

It’s not about preaching to the converted. “The curriculum material developed for Mathematics of Planet Earth provides schools and educators a free-of-charge wealth of material for and will be used for many years to come. The initiative has presented the public, schools and the media with challenging applications of mathematics, with significant answers to questions like ‘What is mathematics useful for?'” said Mary Lou Zeeman, MPE coordinator for Education. “Mathematics of Planet Earth wonderfully contributed to diffuse an informed culture of environment and helps to get a common mathematical toolkit necessary to deal the dramatic challenges faced today by our planet,” said Ferdinando Arzarello, President of the International Commission of Mathematical Instruction (ICMI).

It’s not only the mathematicians and mathematics pedagogues who’ve gotten excited about this initiative,

MPE2013 has drawn the attention of other disciplines as well. Among its partners are the American Geophysical Union, the International Association for Mathematical Geosciences, and the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics (IUGG). The research on planetary issues is interdisciplinary, and collaboration and networking are essential for progress. “Great mathematicians understood the importance of research into planet Earth many centuries ago,” said Alik Ismail-Zadeh, a mathematical geophysicist and the Secretary General of the IUGG. “Pierre Fermat studied the weight of the Earth; Carl Friedrich Gauss contributed to the development of geomagnetism and together with Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel made significant contribution to geodesy; Andrei Tikhonov developed regularization techniques intensively used in studies of inverse problems in many areas of geophysics. Mathematics of Planet Earth 2013 highlighted again the importance of international multidisciplinary cooperation and stimulated mathematicians and geoscientists to work together to uncover Earth’s mysteries.”

The news release closes with these interesting bits of information,

About Mathematics of Planet Earth

On January 1, 2014, Mathematics of Planet Earth 2013 (MPE2013) will continue as “Mathematics of Planet Earth” (MPE). The objectives remain unchanged – identify fundamental research questions about Planet Earth and reach out to the general public. With support from the U.S. National Science Foundation, MPE will maintain a website where additional educational and outreach materials will be posted. New modules will be developed and added to the MPE Exhibition. Plans for more MPE activities exist in several countries in the form of workshops, summer schools, and even the creation of new graduate programs in Mathematics of Planet Earth.

About Christiane Rousseau

Christian Rousseau is a professor at Université de Montréal’s Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Vice-President of the International Mathematics Union, and a member of the Centre de recherches mathématiques. Professor Rousseau conceived and coordinated Mathematics of Planet Earth 2013.

About Mathematics of Planet Earth 2013’s Achievements

MPE2013 activities have included more than 15 long-term programs at mathematical research institutes all over the world, 60 workshops, dozens of special sessions at society meetings, two major public lecture series, summer and winter schools for graduate students, research experiences for undergraduates, an international competition, and an Open Source MPE Exhibition. In addition, MPE2013 has supported the development of high-quality curriculum materials for all ages and grades available on the MPE2013 Web site.

Encouraging Research

The scientific activities of MPE2013 were directed both to the mathematical sciences community, whose members are encouraged to identify fundamental research questions about Planet Earth and their potential collaborators in other disciplines. The program provides evidence that many issues related to weather, climate, sustainability, public health, natural hazards, and financial and social systems lead to interesting mathematical problems. Several summer and winter schools have offered training opportunities for junior researchers in these areas.

Reaching Out

The outreach activities of MPE2013 were as important as the scientific activities. More than sixty public lectures have been given with audiences on all five continents. Particularly noteworthy were the MPE Simons Public Lectures, now posted on the MPE2013 Web site, which were supported financially by the Simons Foundation. MPE2013 has maintained a speakers bureau, supported the development of curriculum materials, maintained a collection of posters, and produced special issues of mathematical magazines and other educational materials. Many activities took place at schools in several countries. The permanent MPE Open Source Exhibition is now hosted on the website of IMAGINARY and can be used and adapted by schools and museums.

Daily Blog

The dual mission of MPE2013 – stimulating the mathematics research community and reaching out to the general public – is reflected in the Daily Blogs (one in English, the other in French), each of which has featured more than 250 posts on topics ranging from astronomy to uncertainty quantification. The blog gets several hundred hits a day.

You can find out more about MPE 2013 and its future here. (English language version website) or go here for the French language version. For those who prefer to read the news release about the ‘morphing’ MPE in French, go here.

Big bucks for soft materials research at Simon Fraser University (Canada)

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4D Labs at Simon Fraser University (SFU; Vancouver), one of Canada’s nanoscienceish labs, will be hosting a new centre, according to a Dec. 18, 2013 SFU news release,

A new Centre for Soft Materials for Simon Fraser University’s 4D LABS facility will be established with a federal government investment of more than $4.3 million. The Honourable Michelle Rempel, Minister of State for Western Economic Diversification, made the announcement today [Dec. 18, 2013] at SFU.

The Western Economic Diversification Canada support will enhance SFU’s research infrastructure by creating an applications-driven research institute for the design, development, demonstration and delivery of advanced functional materials and nanoscale devices aimed at soft materials.

Here’s what they expect to be receiving and what they will be doing with it (from the news release),

The suite of sophisticated equipment includes two electron microscopes. These will allow local companies and innovators from a variety of sectors to more accurately visualize and analyze their advanced soft materials, while preserving nano-scale features within these materials. [emphasis mine]

These capabilities are critical to understanding and improving the performance of soft materials in real-world conditions, while also enabling a detailed understanding of new materials and products that will greatly reduce their time to market.

The Centre will also provide students with hands-on training and use of advanced microscopy and complementary tooling that was previously unavailable in Canada. [emphasis mine]

It would seem the first order of importance is industry (local companies and innovators) with students falling into second place. Some years ago I commented on a possible conflict of interest when universities attempt to cater to industry/business needs and student needs. It’s a situation where business can afford to pay more or offer incentives that students (and professors) cannot hope to match in a potential competition for access to equipment and resources.

This project has attracted matching funds (from the news release),

The Automotive Fuel Cell Cooperation (AFCC) is contributing an additional $1.9 million to the project and funding is being further matched by $2.4 million from SFU.

…

AFCC Chief Financial Officer Tim Bovich says the partnership “sets an example of how cooperation among government, industry and academia can promote Canada, and British Columbia in particular, as the premier location for fuel cell stack producers and their many suppliers.” These technologies will also be accessible to many other sectors, including lighting, information technology, medicine, measurement and controls, electronics, clean energy, and security.

“Through this investment from the Government of Canada, and SFU’s ongoing partnership with the Automotive Fuel Cell Cooperation, 4D LABS is now able to expand its capabilities. We can enable a more accurate nano-scale visualization and chemical analysis of a diverse range of soft materials, that include biological tissues, composites and membranes, whose function depends on the distribution of water, polymers, and other matrices within the material,” says SFU Chemistry Associate Professor Byron Gates, who holds a Canada Research Chair in Surface Chemistry.

“Academic, industrial and government researchers across Western Canada will benefit from the addition of this Centre, which will facilitate further product innovation and economic development in the region.” {emphasis mine]

Congratulations to the folks at 4D Labs!

Vodka-powered wireless communications featured Canada’s national anthem

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In a joint project between Warwick University (UK) and York University (Canada), researchers sent a text message featuring O Canada (national anthem) in a system that relies on vodka molecules. From the Dec. 18, 2013  news item on Nanowerk,

After successfully text messaging ‘O Canada’ using evaporated vodka, two York University researchers and their UK-based counterpart say their simple system can be used where conventional wireless technology fails.

“Chemical signals can offer a more efficient way of transmitting data inside tunnels, pipelines or deep underground structures. For example, the recent massive clog in London sewer system could have been detected earlier on, and without all the mess workers had to deal with, sending robots equipped with a molecular communication system,” says Professor Andrew Eckford, in whose lab in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science located in Lassonde School of Engineering, the experiment was conducted.

The Dec. 18, 2013 York University news release (also on EurekAlert), which originated the news item, details how the signaling was achieved (Note: A link has been removed),

The chemical signal, using the alcohol found in vodka in this case, was sent four metres across the lab with the aid of a tabletop fan. It was then demodulated by a receiver which measured the rate of change in concentration of the alcohol molecules, picking up whether the concentration was increasing or decreasing.

“We believe we have sent the world’s first text message to be transmitted entirely with molecular communication, controlling concentration levels of the alcohol molecules, to encode the alphabets with single spray representing bit 1 and no spray representing the bit 0,” says York U doctoral candidate Nariman Farsad, who led the experiment.

Though use of chemical signals is a new method in human communication technology, the biocompatible method is very common in the animal kingdom. Bees for example use chemicals in pheromones when there is a threat to the hive, and so do the Canadian lnyx, when marking territories.

In an article, Tabletop Molecular Communication: Text Messages Through Chemical Signals, in the peer-reviewed journal PLOS ONE, the researchers say their system also fills a major gap in the molecular communication literature, by providing an inexpensive platform for testing theoretical models. This allows researchers to gain real-world experience with molecular communication, cheaply and easily.

“Our system shows that reliable communication is possible and our work motivates future studies on more realistic modelling, analysis, and design of theoretical models and algorithms for molecular communication systems,” says Engineering Professor Weisi Guo at the University of Warwick, who initiated the research during a meeting with Eckford, last year. He adds, “They can also be used to communicate on the nanoscale, for example in medicine where recent advances mean it’s possible to embed sensors into the organs of the body or create miniature robots to carry out a specific task such as targeting drugs to cancer cells.”

York University has also produced a video demonstrating vodka-fueled signaling,

A Dec. 19, 2013 University of Warwick press release provides additional perspective on this achievement (Note: Links have been removed),

Scientists have created a molecular communications system for the transmission of messages and data in challenging environments such as tunnels, pipelines, underwater and within the body.

The technique has a wide range of applications in environments where electromagnetic waves cannot be used, for example in underground structures such as tunnels, pipelines or in underwater environments.

Molecular signalling is a common feature of the plant and animal kingdom – insects for example use pheromones for long-range signalling – but to date continuous data have not been transmitted.

Researchers at the University of Warwick in the UK and the York University in Canada have developed the capability to transform any generic message into binary signals, which in turn is ‘programmed’ into evaporated alcohol molecules to demonstrate the potential of molecular communications. Their results are published in the open access journal PLOS ONE.

…

Dr Weisi Guo from the School of Engineering at the University of Warwick said: “Imagine sending a detailed message using perfume – it sounds like something from a spy thriller novel, but in reality it is an incredibly simple way to communicate.

“ Of course people have achieved short ranged signalling using chemicals, but we have gone to the next level and successfully communicated continuous and generic messages over several metres.

For the curious,here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Tabletop Molecular Communication: Text Messages through Chemical Signals by Nariman Farsad, Weisi Guo, & Andrew W. Eckford. PLOS ONE Published: December 18, 2013 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0082935

All papers published by PLOS (Public Library of Science) ONE are open access.

One final thought, are the rum-, gin-, ouzo-, whiskey-, tequiila-, etc. lovers going to demand their favourite spirits get equal attention?

Similarities between biological molecules and synthetic nanocrystals extend beyond size

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Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have determined that there are more similarities between biological molecules and synthetic nanocrystals than formerly believed, according to a Dec. 17, 2013 news item on Nanowerk (Note: A link has been removed),

Researchers have long thought that biological molecules and synthetic nanocrystals were similar only in size. Now, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign chemists have found that they can add reactivity to the list of shared traits. Atoms in a nanocrystal can cooperate with each other to facilitate binding or switching, a phenomenon widely found in biological molecules.

The finding could catalyze manufacturing of nanocrystals for smart sensors, solar cells, tiny transistors for optical computers, and medical imaging. Led by chemistry professor Prashant Jain, the team published its findings in the journal Nature Communications (“Co-operativity in a nanocrystalline solid-state transition”).

A Dec. 16, 2013 University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign news release, which originated the news item, explains why the scientists are so interested and how they went about their investigation,

“In geological, industrial and domestic environments, the nanoscale grains of any material undergo chemical transitions when they are put under reactive conditions,” Jain said. “Iron rusting over time and diamond forming from carbon are examples of two commonly occurring transitions. Understanding how these transitions occur on the scale of the tiniest grains of the material is a major motivation of our work.”

Scientists can exploit such transitions to make nanocrystals that conform to a particular structure. They can make a nanocrystal of one material and transform it into another material, essentially using the original nanocrystal framework as a template for creating a nanocrystal of the new material with the same size and shape. This lets researchers create nanocrystals of new materials in shapes and structures they may not be able to otherwise.

In the new study, the researchers transformed tiny crystals of the material cadmium selenide to crystals of copper selenide. Copper selenide nanocrystals have a number of interesting properties that can be used for solar energy harvesting, optical computing and laser surgery. Transformation from cadmium selenide creates nanocrystals with a purity difficult to attain from other methods.

The researchers, including graduate student Sarah White, used advanced microscopy and spectroscopy techniques to determine the dynamics of the atoms within the crystals during the transformation and found that the transformation occurs not as a slow diffusion process, but as a rapid switching thanks to co-operativity.

The researchers saw that once the cadmium-selenide nanocrystal has taken up a few initial copper “seed” impurities, atoms in the rest of the lattice can cooperate to rapidly swap out the rest of the cadmium for copper. Jain compares the crystals to hemoglobin, the molecule in red blood cells that carries oxygen. Once one oxygen molecule has bound to hemoglobin, other binding sites within hemoglobin slightly change conformation to more easily pick up more oxygen. He posits that similarly, copper impurities might cause a structural change in the nanocrystal, making it easier for more copper ions to infiltrate the nanocrystal in a rapid cascade.

The researchers reproduced the experiment with silver, in addition to copper, and saw similar, though slightly less speedy, cooperative behavior.

Now, Jain’s team is using its advanced imaging to watch transitions happen in single nanocrystals, in real time.

“We have a sophisticated optical microscope in our lab, which has now allowed us to catch a single nanocrystal in the act of making a transition,” Jain said. “This is allowing us to learn hidden details about how the transition actually proceeds. We are also learning how one nanocrystal behaves differently from another.”

Next, the researchers plan to explore biomolecule-like cooperative phenomena in other solid-state materials and processes. For example, co-operativity in catalytic processes could have major implications for solar energy or manufacturing of expensive specialty chemicals.

“In the long term, we are interested in exploiting the co-operative behavior to design artificial smart materials that respond in a switch-like manner like hemoglobin in our body does,” Jain said.

Here’s an image of the various forms of cadmium selenide used in research,

Nanocrystals of cadmium selenide, known for their brilliant luminescence, display intriguing chemical behavior resulting from positive cooperation between atoms, a behavior akin to that found in biomolecules. Photo courtesy Prashant Jain

Nanocrystals of cadmium selenide, known for their brilliant luminescence, display intriguing chemical behavior resulting from positive cooperation between atoms, a behavior akin to that found in biomolecules. Photo courtesy
Prashant Jain

For the curious, here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Co-operativity in a nanocrystalline solid-state transition by Sarah L. White, Jeremy G. Smith, Mayank Behl, & Prashant K. Jain Nature Communications 4, Article number: 2933 doi:10.1038/ncomms3933 Published 12 December 2013

This article is behind a paywall.

Ernst & Young includes nanotechnology and other emerging technologies in its 2014 US property-casualty insurance outlook

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There’s a Dec. 17, 2013 news item on the CanadianUnderwriter.ca website highlighting a 2014 property-casualty report from Ernst & Young (EY) that mentions nanotechnology ,

Ernst & Young LLP is predicting a rise in demand for certain types of insurance, such as cyber and nanotechnology.

The consulting firm announced Tuesday [Dec. 17, 2013] the release of the EY 2014 US Property-Casualty Insurance Outlook, which recommends that P&C carriers “invest in innovation of product development processes and delivery to meet rising demand for protection.”

For example, according to the report, a lack of “any meaningful history” with nanotechnology indicates that potential risks are not easy to assess.

I located the 12 pp. EY 2014 US Property-Casualty Insurance Outlook to take a closer look at what it had to say about emerging technologies such as nanotechnology,

To solidify recent gains and defend against new risks and challenges, US property-casualty companies must augment their focus on margin protection and operating effectiveness in 2014. Successful companies must:
• Double down on broad-based, transformative technology with high ROI [return on investment] impact
• Adopt a complete range of enterprise data excellence
• Invest in innovation of product development processes and delivery to meet rising demand for protection [emphasis mine]
• Exploit segment differences for targeted growth strategies
• Get out in front of emerging investment challenges
• Prepare for escalation of governance and accountability (p. 3)

Nanotechnology is mentioned in the context of investing in innovation,

3. Invest in innovation of product development processes and delivery to meet rising demand for protection

Highly disruptive technologies are changing products, services and customer interactions across the economy. Consequently, new risks and insurance needs are emerging for consumers and the commercial marketplace. In many cases, these risks have a legislative or legal foundation for defining risk and coverage needs, thereby increasing awareness and focusing demand. To improve their ability to design and develop new products quickly and efficiently, as well as improve speed to market, many companies are leveraging technology a and enhanced customer-centric processes.

Risks requiring broader, cost-effective insurance industry solutions include:
•Cyber insurance.
The rapid increase in hacking incidents and data privacy liabilities has
surpassed the ability of most commercial enterprises to keep pace. Insurers can provide
increased coverage and loss mitigation services, applying data analytics and other
technologies to assist insureds.
• Catastrophe insurance.
The increasing uncertainty and volatility of catastrophes has heightened the demand for broader risk protection. The potential emergence of a private flood market augmenting the national flood insurance apparatus is a case in point. The rising flood exposure has also spawned greater demand for contingent business interruption coverage, particularly for supply chain exposures. Insurers also need to prepare for private terrorism coverage exposures, given a potentially limited
federal backstop.
• Workers’ compensation.
The changing health care market, particularly new services in partnership with employers for accelerated rehabilitation and cost-effective traumatic injury medical services, is demanding more effective insurance solutions.

• Nanotechnology.
The emerging applications of nanotechnology in the manufacture or use of medicine, cosmetics, drug delivery, robotics, materials science and other products and systems create potential liability exposures. Examples include bodily injury (analogous to asbestos exposure) and environmental damage from nanoparticles escaping uncontrolled into the air or water supply. The lack of any meaningful history with this technology, as well as with the materials involved, indicate the potential risks cannot easily be assessed. [emphasis mine]
• Sensor technology.
The use of sensors in telematics and in consumer and industrial products can create increasingly integrated exposure information for insurers, while enhancing the ability to provide more cost-effective and targeted risk protection
for customers. Emerging technologies and products have led insurance and reinsurance organizations to establish centers of science to explore new approaches to risk measurement and mitigation. Companies are increasingly seeking executive talent that can drive and lead such new thinking and new approaches.

Customer perceptions of new or changing risks will guide coverage enhancements, possibly opening the market to new entrants that understand these risks. To effectively compete in this environment, companies will need to rationalize their current and often complex portfolios of products, employing technology to simplify the delivery and processing of their
product offerings, in addition to improving their response times. (pp. 6-7)

Ernst & Young does not offer any big surprises about nanotechnology and assessing risks for the insurance industry echoing earlier comments elsewhere such as those in an article I featured in my July 29, 2013 posting. Someone offered insights in a comment to that posting which might interesting as might links to other reports and articles about nanotechnology, risk, and insurance that I placed in the posting..

Introduction to nanotechnology with a focus on military, security, and surveillance applications

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SIGNAL, a magazine produced by AFCEA INTERNATIONAL (Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association) has published in its December 2013 issue (or you can try this Table of Contents page) an introductory article to the topic in what appears to be a special section devoted to nanotechnology. The Dec. 1, 2013 article by Rita Boland (h/t Dec. 13, 2013 Azonano news item) does a good job of presenting a ‘big picture’ approach including nonmilitary and military  nanotechnology applications  by interviewing the main players in the US,

Nanotechnology is the new cyber, according to several major leaders in the field. Just as cyber is entrenched across global society now, nano is poised to be the major capabilities enabler of the next decades. Expert members from the National Nanotechnology Initiative representing government and science disciplines say nano has great significance for the military and the general public.

According to the initiative, its aim is to move discoveries from the laboratory into products for commercial and public benefit; encourage students and teachers to become involved in nanotechnology education; create a skilled work force and the supporting infrastructure and tools to advance nanotechnology; and support responsible development. The initiative involves more than two dozen government agencies, industry, academic partners and international participants.

For anyone who’s interested in nanotechnology but doesn’t want to get particularly technical about it, I recommend this article as a good overview of the possibilities being entertained by individuals presumably familiar with the current state of research.

I  also found this to be an opportunity to find out about SIGNAL and AFCEA. Starting with SIGNAL, (from the About SIGNAL page),,

Founded in 1946, SIGNAL Magazine covers the latest trends and techniques in topics that include C4ISR, information security, intelligence, electronics, homeland security, cyber technologies, cloud computing and all the programs or solutions that build on these and related disciplines.

Our aim is to deliver useful and innovative information that enables our readers to remain up to date on technology easier, to understand military, government and industry needs faster, and to excel in supporting global security through knowledge.

We’re More than a Magazine, We’re AFCEA

As the official publication of AFCEA, a well-known and respected organization that also has been serving government and military since 1946, SIGNAL is unique from other defense and government magazines and websites.

We are the only media group that consistently reaches the entire AFCEA community, often with access to news faster. Top level leaders, managers, technical experts and the industry that supports them trust the AFCEA brand for accurate, unbiased and ethical reporting.

As for AFCEA, I was quite fascinated to find out that it was founded by David Sarnoff for reasons I will mention after this excerpt from AFCEA’s About page,

Mission Statement

AFCEA is a 501(c)(6) non-profit  international organization that serves its members by providing a forum for the ethical exchange of information. AFCEA is dedicated to increasing knowledge through the exploration of issues relevant to its members in information technology, communications, and electronics for the defense, homeland security and intelligence communities.

AFCEA History

AFCEA’s founders, a group of communicators led by David Sarnoff, experienced first-hand how open dialogue and strong relationships between government and industry in times of peace can help ensure effective communications during wartime. In 1946, they established AFCEA from the U.S. Veterans Signal Association and the American Signal Corps Association with the goal of promoting communication, dialogue, and an open and ethical exchange of information between the public and private sectors. As the Association’s outreach has broadened, this goal remains the pillar of AFCEA International.

I first heard David Sarnoff’s name in an undergraduate communications lecture about the Titanic. Here’s more from the David Sarnoff Wikipedia essay (Note: All links have been removed),

David Sarnoff (Belarusian: Даві́д Сарно́ў, Russian: Дави́д Сарно́в, February 27, 1891 – December 12, 1971) was a Belarusian-born American businessman and pioneer of American radio and television. Throughout most of his career he led the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) in various capacities from shortly after its founding in 1919 until his retirement in 1970.

He ruled over an ever-growing telecommunications and consumer electronics empire that included both RCA and NBC, and became one of the largest companies in the world. Named a Reserve Brigadier General of the Signal Corps in 1945, Sarnoff thereafter was widely known as “The General.”[1]

Sarnoff is credited with Sarnoff’s law, which states that the value of a broadcast network is proportional to the number of viewers.

…

David Sarnoff was born to a Jewish family in Uzlyany, a small town in Belarus, to Abraham and Leah Sarnoff. Abraham Sarnoff emigrated to the United States and raised funds to bring the family. Sarnoff spent much of his early childhood in a cheder studying and memorizing the Torah. He immigrated with his mother and three brothers and one sister to New York City in 1900, where he helped support his family by selling newspapers before and after his classes at the Educational Alliance. In 1906 his father became incapacitated by tuberculosis, and at age 15 Sarnoff went to work to support the family.[2] He had planned to pursue a full-time career in the newspaper business, but a chance encounter led to a position as an office boy at the Commercial Cable Company. When his superior refused him unpaid leave for Rosh Hashanah, he joined the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company of America on September 30, 1906, and started a career of over 60 years in electronic communications.

Over the next 13 years Sarnoff rose from office boy to commercial manager of the company, learning about the technology and the business of electronic communications on the job and in libraries. He also served at Marconi stations on ships and posts on Siasconset, Nantucket and the New York Wanamaker Department Store. In 1911 he installed and operated the wireless equipment on a ship hunting seals off Newfoundland and Labrador, and used the technology to relay the first remote medical diagnosis from the ship’s doctor to a radio operator at Belle Isle with an infected tooth. [emphasis mine] The following year, he led two other operators at the Wanamaker station in an effort to confirm the fate of the Titanic.[3] [emphasis mine] Sarnoff falsely advanced himself both as the sole hero who stayed by his telegraph key for three days to receive information on the Titanic’s survivors and as the prescient prophet of broadcasting who predicted the medium’s rise in 1916.[2]

Due to its proximity to Europe, Newfoundland played a significant historical role in both communications and transportation technology.

Getting back to ACFEA, there are three Canadian chapters but only the Ottawa chapter appears to be active as of Dec. 18, 2013.

One final note,, in writing this piece I was reminded of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies (last mentioned here in a May 1, 2012 posting about sniffing overripe fruit.

[The Picture of] Dorian Gray opera premiered as part of World New Music Days festival held in Slovakia & Austria: *Kate Pullinger interview

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I’m delighted to be publishing an interview with Kate Pullinger a well known Canadian-born writer, resident for many years in the UK, about her opera project. (For her sins, she supervised my De Montfort University’s [UK] master’s project. There were times when I wasn’t sure either of us was going to survive largely [but not solely] due to my computer’s meltdown at the worst possible moment.)

Here’s a bit more about Kate from the About page on her eponymous website,

Kate Pullinger writes for both print and digital platforms.  In 2009 her novel The Mistress of Nothing won the Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction, one of Canada’s most prestigious literary prizes.  Her prize-winning digital fiction projects Inanimate Alice and Flight Paths: A Networked Novel have reached audiences around the world.

Kate Pullinger gives talks and readings frequently (look at the Events page for future events); she also offers private 1-1 mentoring for emerging writers in both print and new media.  She is Professor of Creative Writing and New Media at Bath Spa University.

As well as The Mistress of Nothing, Kate Pullinger’s books include A Little Stranger,  Weird Sister, The Last Time I Saw Jane, Where Does Kissing End?, and When the Monster Dies, as well as the short story collections, My Life as a Girl in a Men’s Prison and Tiny Lies.  She co-wrote the novel of the film The Piano with director Jane Campion. In 2011, A Curious Dream: Collected Works, a selection of Pullinger’s short stories, was published in Canada.

Kate Pullinger is currently working on a new novel and an associated digital fiction that build on themes developed in her collaborative digital fiction project, Flight Paths:  A Networked Novel.

Other current projects include a libretto based on Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Grey, commissioned by the Slovak National Theatre in collaboration with the composer Lubica Cekovska.  This work will be premiered in Bratislava in 2013.  Recent projects include working with digital artist James Coupe on Surveillance Suite, a project that generates stories using facial recognition software.

Kate Pullinger was born in Cranbrook, British Columbia, and went to high school on Vancouver Island. She dropped out of McGill University, Montreal, after a year and a half of not studying philosophy and literature, then spent a year working in a copper mine in the Yukon, northern Canada, where she crushed rocks and saved money. She spent that money travelling and ended up in London, England, where she has been ever since.  She is married and has two children.

You can read more about Kate and her academic work here on her faculty page on the Bath Spa University website.

As for Kate’s work as a librettist on the opera, Dorian Gray, based on the Oscar Wilde novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, she worked with composer, Ľubica Čekovská for the opera, which was debuted on Nov. 8, 2013 in Bratislava, Slovakia as part of the World New Music Days festival, founded in 1922 and *held in Slovakia and Austria in 2013..

Here’s Kate’s interview:

  •  I am assuming you went to the premiere? How was it? And, if you didn’t attend, what do you imagine (or what were you told) happened?

I saw the last two full rehearsals, and then the first two performances.  There are two casts in the Slovakian production – two of all the main roles – I’m not entirely sure why! It was so much fun, to hear the orchestra, and to see the production, and to hear the singers sing our work. Lubica had played me the opera many times using Sibelius, the software composers use, but that sounds like tinny computer music, so it was so pleasurable to hear her score played. And her score is really a wonderful work, very dense, clever, amusing, and tuneful.

  • Can you tell me a little bit about the story and which elements you chose to emphasize and which elements you chose to de-emphasize or eliminate altogether? How does your Dorian Gray differ from the other Dorian Gray opera by American composer Lowell Liebermann,?

I guess the main difference between my adaptation and most others is that I decided to make Dorian and his journey to hell central to the work and to not focus on his relationship with Lord Henry. Adaptations of the novel often make it a kind of two-hander between Dorian and Lord Henry, but we felt that there wasn’t room for that in what we were doing.

I don’t know the Liebermann adaptation at all.

  •  I looked up definitions for librettist and it seems the word means whatever the librettist and the composer decide. Could you describe your role as librettist for this opera?

I structured the story by creating three acts and the scenes therein, and then wrote the text for the singers. Lubica and I had a lot of discussion before I created the structure, and then on-going discussions as I worked on the libretto and she embarked on the score. I finished the libretto, but then continued to make changes as Lubica found issues with it, or we had new ideas. It was a lot of fun and we would like to work together again.

  • How did you two end up collaborating with each other? And what was the process like? e.g. It took about four years to bring this opera to life, yes? So, did the process change as the years moved on and as you got closer to the premiere? Did you learn any Slovak (language)?

The writing process, in total, took about 2.5 years really, the bulk of that Lubica’s time, as creating and scoring an entire opera for a full orchestra is an enormous task. After that, there is a lengthy publishing process, and then the production time. So for the last 1.5 years I did very little except wait for the occasional update.  Lubica was much more involved with the opera house in finding the director, conductor, and casting – and then once rehearsals started she was very involved in that process. Both the director, Nicola Raab, and the conductor, Christopher Ward, said how unusual it was to work with a living composer and librettist!

  • Did anything surprise you as you worked with the story or with the composer (Ľubica Čekovská)?

I learned a lot and there were many surprises.

At this point I’m interrupting the interview to excerpt part of a review in the New York Times, which I ask about in a question that follows the excerpt from A Music Festival Features Premiere of the Opera ‘Dorian Gray’ By GEORGE LOOMIS Published: November 13, 2013 in the New York Times,

The World New Music Days festival was first held in Salzburg in 1922 — around the time Arnold Schoenberg was perfecting his 12-note compositional system — and it remains a robust champion of new music. This year the 11-day program, sponsored by the International Society of Contemporary Music, was spread over three cities — Kosice and Bratislava in Slovakia, and Vienna — and included some 25 concerts, which were supplemented by many others thanks to partnerships with local organizations. A new opera was among the many works to receive their world premieres.

….

But the opera, as seen in Nicola Raab’s generally persuasive staging with sets by Anne Marie Legenstein and Alix Burgstaller that decadently depict Victorian drawing rooms, is marred by the decision to have the picture consist simply of an empty frame, an idea that perhaps seemed bold in concept but misfires in execution. [emphasis mine] Ms. Cekovska interestingly conveys the picture’s disfiguration musically through wordless boy-soprano melodies that recur increasingly distorted. [emphasis mine] But the melodies, to say nothing of the drama itself, need a visual analogue.

Now back to the interview,

  •  The one reviewer I’ve read, from the NY Times, expressed some disappointment with the choice to have an empty picture frame represent the ‘picture of Dorian Gray’ around which the entire story revolves. What was the thinking behind the decision and is there a chance that future productions (my understanding is that one isn’t permitted to make any substantive changes to a production once it has started its run) will feature a picture?

Well, that’s one critic’s opinion, and not one we agree with. Very early on in the process Lubica had the idea, which I think is genius, of representing the picture chorally – in early drafts there was a chorus on stage, and then this shifted to an electronic recorded chorus, where the music becomes gradually more and more distorted as the picture changes. With adaptations of Dorian Gray there is always a huge problem with how to represent the picture, which is so vivid and clear in our mind’s eye when we read Wilde’s original. Having an oil painting that gets older often just looks cheesy – it doesn’t look how you think it should look. So the empty picture frame, and the disintegrating chorus, in my opinion, is wonderful.

  • Given that I write mostly about science and technology, are there any opera technology tidbits about this production that you can offer?

Ha!  It was one of the most analogue experiences of my entire life!

  • How was your recent trip to China? Was it related to the opera project or an entirely new one and what might that be?

I went to China as part of a UK university exchange programme, looking at setting up collaborations with Chinese universities. It was a very interesting trip, though somewhat dominated by the appalling air quality in all three of the cities we visited.

  • Is there anything you’d like to add? (e.g. plans to bring the opera to Vancouver, Canada)

Opera productions don’t travel, so any future productions will have to be new productions, if you see what I mean – or co-productions. This is what the opera house hopes will happen. Ľubica Čekovská is a young composer with a steadily rising reputation, so I wouldn’t be at all surprised if there are future productions of it. I think it is a wonderful piece of work, but I’m biased.

Thank you, Kate for your time and for illuminating a topic of some interest to me. I’ve wondered about opera and librettists especially since many well known writers like you and Margaret Atwood are now working in this media. (Margaret Atwood is librettist for the opera ‘Pauline’ [about poet Pauline Johnson] which will have its world première on May 23, 2014 in Vancouver, Canada.)

For the curious, there’s another interview with Kate (she discusses the then upcoming opera and other work)  written up by Jeremy Hight in a Feb. 2011 article for the Leonardo Almanac and Ľubica Čekovská’s website is here. One final note, World New Music Days festival will be held in Vancouver, Canada in 2017, according to New York Times writer, George Loomis.

* I posted a little sooner that I should have. As of 10:30 am PST, I have added Kate Pullinger’s name to the heading, and added Austria and Slovakia as the sites for the 2013 World New Music Days festival.

ETA Dec. 18, 2013 at 3:30 pm PST: The opera, Dorian Gray, will be performed again in Bratislava at the National Slovak Theatre on 20 February, 5 April and 5 June 2014. More here.