Monthly Archives: March 2022

Oxygen-deficient nanotitania (titanium dioxide nanoparticles) for whiter teeth without the damage

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A September 8, 2021 news item on phys.org announces research that could make the process of whitening teeth safer,

Most people would like to flash a smile of pearly whites, but over time teeth can become stained by foods, beverages and some medications. Unfortunately, the high levels of hydrogen peroxide in dentists’ bleaching treatments can damage enamel and cause tooth sensitivity and gum irritation. Now, researchers reporting in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces have developed a gel that, when exposed to near infrared (NIR) light, safely whitens teeth without the burn.

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Caption: A new bleaching gel whitened tooth samples by six shades, using a low level of hydrogen peroxide (12%). Credit: Adapted from ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces 2021, DOI: 10.1021/acsami.1c06774

A September 8, 2021Amercian Chemical Society (ACS) news release (also on EurekAlert), which originated the news item, provides more detail,

The growing demand for selfie-ready smiles has made tooth whitening one of the most popular dental procedures. Treatments at a dentist’s office are effective, but they use high-concentration hydrogen peroxide (30–40%). Home bleaching products contain less peroxide (6–12%), but they usually require weeks of treatment and don’t work as well. When a bleaching gel is applied to teeth, hydrogen peroxide and peroxide-derived reactive oxygen species (mainly the hydroxyl radical) degrade pigments in stains. The hydroxyl radical is much better at doing this than hydrogen peroxide itself, so researchers have tried to improve the bleaching capacity of low-concentration hydrogen peroxide by boosting the generation of powerful hydroxyl radicals. Because previous approaches have had limitations, Xingyu Hu, Li Xie, Weidong Tian and colleagues wanted to develop a safe, effective whitening gel containing a catalyst that, when exposed to NIR light, would convert low levels of hydrogen peroxide into abundant hydroxyl radicals.

The researchers made oxygen-deficient titania nanoparticles that catalyzed hydroxyl radical production from hydrogen peroxide. Exposing the nanoparticles to NIR light increased their catalytic activity, allowing them to completely bleach tooth samples stained with orange dye, tea or red dye within 2 hours. Then, the researchers made a gel containing the nanoparticles, a carbomer gel and 12% hydrogen peroxide. They applied it to naturally stained tooth samples and treated them with NIR light for an hour. The gel bleached teeth just as well as a popular tooth whitening gel containing 40% hydrogen peroxide, with less damage to enamel. The nanoparticle system is highly promising for tooth bleaching and could also be extended to other biomedical applications, such as developing antibacterial materials, the researchers say.

The authors acknowledge funding from the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the National Key R&D Program of China and the Key Technologies R&D Program of Sichuan Province.

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

Photothermal-Enhanced Fenton-like Catalytic Activity of Oxygen-Deficient Nanotitania for Efficient and Safe Tooth Whitening by Xingyu Hu, Li Xie, Zhaoyu Xu, Suru Liu, Xinzhi Tan, Ruojing Qian, Ruitao Zhang, Mingyan Jiang, Wenjia Xie, and Weidong Tian. ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces 2021, 13, 30, 35315–35327 Publication Date: July 22, 2021 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1021/acsami.1c06774 Copyright © 2021 American Chemical Society

This paper is behind a paywall.

XR (extended reality) conference in Rome, Italy and four new projects at the Council of Canadian Academies (CCA)

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As noted in the headline for this post, I have two items. For anyone unfamiliar with XR and the other (AR, MR, and VR) realities, I found a good description which I placed in my October 22, 2021 posting (scroll down to the “How many realities are there?” subhead about 70% of the way down).

eXtended Reality in Rome

I got an invitation (via a February 24, 2022 email) to participate in a special session at one of the 2022 IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) conference (more about the conference later).

First, from the Special Session 10, eXtended Reality as a gateway to the Metaverse: Practices, Theories, Technologies and Applications webpage,

ABSTRACT

The fast development of Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), and Mixed Reality (MR) solutions over the last few years are transforming how people interact, work, and communicate. The eXtended Reality (XR) term encloses all those immersive technologies that can shift the boundaries between digital and physical worlds to realize the Metaverse. According to tech companies and venture capitalists, the Metaverse will be a super-platform that convenes sub-platforms: social media, online video games, and ease-of-life apps, all accessible through the same digital space and sharing the same digital economy. Inside the Metaverse, virtual worlds will allow avatars to carry all human endeavours, including creation, display, entertainment, social, and trading. Thus, the Metaverse will evolve how users interact with brands, intellectual properties, and each other things on the Internet. A user could join friends to play a multiplayer game, watch a movie via a streaming service and then attend a university course precisely the same as in the real world.

The Metaverse development will require new software architecture that will enable decentralized and collaborative virtual worlds. These self-organized virtual worlds will be permanent and will require maintenance operations. In addition, it will be necessary to design efficient data management system and prevent privacy violations. Finally, the convergence of physical reality, virtually enhanced, and an always-on virtual space highlighted the need to rethink the actual paradigms for visualization, interaction, and sharing of digital information, moving toward more natural, intuitive, dynamically customizable, multimodal, and multi-user solutions.

TOPICS

The topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:

Hardware/Software Architectures for Metaverse

Decentralized and Collaborative Architectures for Metaverse

Interoperability for Metaverse

Tools to help creators to build the Metaverse

Operations and Maintenance in Metaverse

Data security and privacy mechanisms for Metaverse

Cryptocurrency, token, NFT Solutions for Metaverse

Fraud-Detection in Metaverse

Cyber Security for Metaverse

Data Analytics to Identify Malicious Behaviors in Metaverse

Blockchain/AI technologies in Metaverse

Emerging Technologies and Applications for Metaverse

New models to evaluate the impact of the Metaverse

Interactive Data Exploration and Presentation in Metaverse

Human factors issues related to Metaverse

Proof-of-Concept in Metaverse: Experimental Prototyping and Testbeds

ABOUT THE ORGANIZERS

Giuseppe Caggianese is a Research Scientist at the National Research Council of Italy. He received the Laurea degree in computer science magna cum laude in 2010 and the Ph.D. degree in Methods and Technologies for Environmental Monitoring in 2013 from the University of Basilicata, Italy.

His research activities are focused on the field of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to design and test advanced interfaces adaptive to specific uses and users in both augmented and virtual reality. He authored more than 30 scientific papers published in international journals, conference proceedings, and books. He also serves on program committees of several international conferences and workshops.

Ugo Erra is an Assistant Professor (qualified as Associate Professor) at the University of Basilicata (UNIBAS), Italy. He is the founder of the Computer Graphics Laboratory at the University of Basilicata. He received an MSc/diploma degree in Computer Science from the University of Salerno, Italy, in 2001 and a PhD in Computer Science in 2004.

His research focuses on Real-Time Computer Graphics, Information Visualization, Artificial Intelligence, and Parallel Computing. Has been involved in several research projects; among these, one project was funded by the European Commission as a research fellow, and four projects were founded by Area Science Park, a public national research organization that promotes the development of innovation processes, as principal investigator. He has (co-)authored about 14 international journal articles, 45 international conference proceedings, and two book chapters. He supervised four PhD students. He organized the Workshop on Parallel and Distributed Agent-Based Simulations, a satellite Workshop of Euro-Par, from 2013 to 2015. He served more than 20 international conferences as program committee member and more than ten journals as referee.

As promised, here’s more about the conference with information about how to respond to the call for papers both for the special session and the conference at large. From the 2022 IEEE International Conference on Metrology for Extended Reality, Artificial Intelligence and Neural Engineering (IEEE MetroXRAINE 2022) website,

The 2022 IEEE International Conference on Metrology for eXtended Reality, Artificial Intelligence, and Neural Engineering (IEEE MetroXRAINE 2022) will be an international event mainly aimed at creating a synergy between experts in eXtended Reality, Brain-Computer Interface, and Artificial Intelligence, with special attention to measurement [i.e., metrology].

The conference will be a unique opportunity for discussion among scientists, technologists, and companies on very specific sectors in order to increase the visibility and the scientific impact for the participants. The organizing formula will be original owing to the emphasis on the interaction between the participants to exchange ideas and material useful for their research activities.

MetroXRAINE will be configured as a synergistic collection of sessions organized by the individual members of the Scientific Committee. Round tables will be held for different projects and hot research topics. Moreover, we will have demo sessions, students contests, interactive company expositions, awards, and so on.

The Conference will be a hybrid conference [emphasis mine], with the possibility of attendance remotely or in presence.

CALL FOR PAPERS

The Program Committee is inviting to submit Abstracts (1 – 2 pages) for the IEEE MetroXRAINE 2022 Conference, 26-28 October, 2022.

All contributions will be peer-reviewed and acceptance will be based on quality, originality and relevance. Accepted papers will be submitted for inclusion into IEEE Xplore Digital Library.

Extended versions of presented papers are eligible for post publication.

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Abstract Submission Deadline:

March 28, 2022

Full Paper Submission Deadline:

May 10, 2022

Extended Abstract Acceptance Notification:

June 10, 2022

Final Paper Submission Deadline:

July 30, 2022

According to the email invitation, “IEEE MetroXRAINE 2022 … will be held on October 26-28, 2022 in Rome.” You can find more details on the conference website.

Council of Canadian Academies launches four projects

This too is from an email. From the Council of Canadian Academies (CCA) announcement received February 27, 2022 (you can find the original February 17, 2022 CCA news release here),

The Council of Canadian Academies (CCA) is pleased to announce it will undertake four new assessments beginning this spring:

Gene-edited Organisms for Pest Control
Advances in gene editing tools and technologies have made the process of changing an organism’s genome more efficient, opening up a range of potential applications. One such application is in pest control. By editing genomes of organisms, and introducing them to wild populations, it’s now possible to control insect-borne disease and invasive species, or reverse insecticide resistance in pests. But the full implications of using these methods remains uncertain.

This assessment will examine the scientific, bioethical, and regulatory challenges associated with the use of gene-edited organisms and technologies for pest control.

Sponsor: Health Canada’s Pest Management Regulatory Agency

The Future of Arctic and Northern Research in Canada
The Arctic is undergoing unprecedented changes, spurred in large part by climate change and globalization. Record levels of sea ice loss are expected to lead to increased trade through the Northwest Passage. Ocean warming and changes to the tundra will transform marine and terrestrial ecosystems, while permafrost thaw will have significant effects on infrastructure and the release of greenhouse gases. As a result of these trends, Northern communities, and Canada as an Arctic and maritime country, are facing profound economic, social, and ecosystem impacts.

This assessment will examine the key foundational elements to create an inclusive, collaborative, effective, and world-class Arctic and northern science system in Canada.

Sponsor: A consortium of Arctic and northern research and science organizations from across Canada led by ArcticNet

Quantum Technologies
Quantum technologies will affect all sectors of the Canadian economy. Built on the principles of quantum physics, these emerging technologies present significant opportunities in the areas of sensing and metrology, computation and communication, and data science and artificial intelligence, among others. But there is also the potential they could be used to facilitate cyberattacks, putting financial systems, utility grids, infrastructure, personal privacy, and national security at risk. A comprehensive exploration of the capabilities and potential vulnerabilities of these technologies will help to inform their future deployment across society and the economy.

This assessment will examine the impacts, opportunities, and challenges quantum technologies present for industry, governments, and people in Canada.

Sponsor: National Research Council Canada and Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada

International Science and Technology Partnership Opportunities
International partnerships focused on science, technology, and innovation can provide Canada with an opportunity to advance the state of knowledge in areas of national importance, help address global challenges, and contribute to UN Sustainable Development Goals. Canadian companies could also benefit from global partnerships to access new and emerging markets.

While there are numerous opportunities for international collaborations, Canada has finite resources to support them. Potential partnerships need to be evaluated not just on strengths in areas such as science, technology, and innovation, but also political and economic factors.

This assessment will examine how public, private, and academic organizations can evaluate and prioritize science and technology partnership opportunities with other countries to achieve key national objectives.

Sponsor: Global Affairs Canada

Gene-edited Organisms for Pest Control and International Science and Technology Partnership Opportunities are funded by Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED). Quantum Technologies is funded by the National Research Council of Council (NRC) and ISED, and the Future of Arctic and Northern Research in Canada is funded by a consortium of Arctic and northern research and science organizations from across Canada led by ArcticNet. The reports will be released in 2023-24.

Multidisciplinary expert panels will be appointed in the coming months for all four assessments.

You can find in-progress and completed CCA reports here.

Fingers crossed that the CCA looks a little further afield for their international experts than the US, UK, Australia, New Zealand, and northern Europe.

Finally, I’m guessing that the gene-editing and pest management report will cover and, gingerly, recommend germline editing (which is currently not allowed in Canada) and gene drives too.

It will be interesting to see who’s on that committee. If you’re really interested in the report topic, you may want to check out my April 26, 2019 posting and scroll down to the “Criminal ban on human gene-editing of inheritable cells (in Canada)” subhead where I examined what seemed to be an informal attempt to persuade policy makers to allow germline editing or gene-editing of inheritable cells in Canada.

Internet of living things (IoLT)?

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It’s not here yet but there are scientists working on an internet of living things (IoLT). There are some details (see the fourth paragraph from the bottom of the news release excerpt) about how an IoLT would be achieved but it seems these are early days. From a September 9, 2021 University of Illinois news release (also on EurekAlert), Note: Links have been removed,

The National Science Foundation (NSF) announced today an investment of $25 million to launch the Center for Research on Programmable Plant Systems (CROPPS). The center, a partnership among the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Cornell University, the Boyce Thompson Institute, and the University of Arizona, aims to develop tools to listen and talk to plants and their associated organisms.

“CROPPS will create systems where plants communicate their hidden biology to sensors, optimizing plant growth to the local environment. This Internet of Living Things (IoLT) will enable breakthrough discoveries, offer new educational opportunities, and open transformative opportunities for productive, sustainable, and profitable management of crops,” says Steve Moose (BSD/CABBI/GEGC), the grant’s principal investigator at Illinois. Moose is a genomics professor in the Department of Crop Sciences, part of the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences (ACES). 

As an example of what’s possible, CROPPS scientists could deploy armies of autonomous rovers to monitor and modify crop growth in real time. The researchers created leaf sensors to report on belowground processes in roots. This combination of machine and living sensors will enable completely new ways of decoding the language of plants, allowing researchers to teach plants how to better handle environmental challenges. 

“Right now, we’re working to program a circuit that responds to low-nitrogen stress, where the plant growth rate is ‘slowed down’ to give farmers more time to apply fertilizer during the window that is the most efficient at increasing yield,” Moose explains.

With 150+ years of global leadership in crop sciences and agricultural engineering, along with newer transdisciplinary research units such as the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) and the Center for Digital Agriculture (CDA), Illinois is uniquely positioned to take on the technical challenges associated with CROPPS.

But U of I scientists aren’t working alone. For years, they’ve collaborated with partner institutions to conceptualize the future of digital agriculture and bring it into reality. For example, researchers at Illinois’ CDA and Cornell’s Initiative for Digital Agriculture jointly proposed the first IoLT for agriculture, laying the foundation for CROPPS.

“CROPPS represents a significant win from having worked closely with our partners at Cornell and other institutions. We’re thrilled to move forward with our colleagues to shift paradigms in agriculture,” says Vikram Adve, Donald B. Gillies Professor in computer science at Illinois and co-director of the CDA.

CROPPS research may sound futuristic, and that’s the point.

The researchers say new tools are needed to make crops productive, flexible, and sustainable enough to feed our growing global population under a changing climate. Many of the tools under development – biotransducers small enough to fit between soil particles, dexterous and highly autonomous field robots, field-applied gene editing nanoparticles, IoLT clouds, and more – have been studied in the proof-of-concept phase, and are ready to be scaled up.

“One of the most exciting goals of CROPPS is to apply recent advances in sensing and data analytics to understand the rules of life, where plants have much to teach us. What we learn will bring a stronger biological dimension to the next phase of digital agriculture,” Moose says. 

CROPPS will also foster innovations in STEM [science, technology[ engineering, and mathematics] education through programs that involve students at all levels, and each partner institution will share courses in digital agriculture topics. CROPPS also aims to engage professionals in digital agriculture at any career stage, and learn how the public views innovations in this emerging technology area.

“Along with cutting-edge research, CROPPS coordinated educational programs will address the future of work in plant sciences and agriculture,” says Germán Bollero, associate dean for research in the College of ACES.

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I look forward to hearing more about IoLT.

Cellulose nanofiber (CNF) coating protects plants against rust disease

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A September 8, 2021news item on ScienceDaily describes some new research into rust disease,

A water-absorbent coat to keep rust away? It may seem counterintuitive but when it comes to soybean plants and rust disease, researchers from Japan have discovered that applying a coating that makes leaf surfaces water absorbent helps to protect against infection.

Caption: Researchers from the University of Tsukuba have found that coating soybean plant leaves with cellulose nanofiber (CNF) gives protection against an aggressive fungal disease. The CNF coating changed leaf surfaces from water repellent to water absorbent, and suppressed pathogen gene expression associated with infection mechanisms, offering resistance to the destructive Asian rust disease. This is the first study to examine CNF application for controlling plant diseases, and it offers a sustainable alternative to managing plant disease.. Credit: University of Tsukuba

A September 7, 2021 University of Tsukuba press release (also on EurekAlert but published September 8, 2021), which originated the news item, describes the disease and proposed solution in more detail,

In a study published this month in Frontiers in Plant Science, researchers from the University of Tsukuba have revealed that coating soybean plant leaves with cellulose nanofiber changes the leaf surface from water repellent to water absorbent and offers resistance against Asian soybean rust.

Rusts are plant diseases that get their name from the powdery rust- or brown-colored fungal spores on the surfaces of infected plants. Asian soybean rust (ASR) is an aggressive disease of soybean plants, causing estimated crop yield losses of up to 90%. ASR is caused by Phakopsora pachyrhizi, a fungal pathogen that requires a living plant host to survive. The timely application of fungicide is currently the only way of controlling ASR in the field. But the use of fungicides can be problematic, resulting in negative environmental effects, increased production costs, and fungicide-resistant pathogens.

“We investigated cellulose nanofiber (CNF) as an alternative method of controlling ASR,” says senior author of the study, Professor Yasuhiro Ishiga. “Specifically, we wanted to know whether coating soybean plant leaves with CNF protected plants against P. pachyrhizi.”

Of the available methods for isolating CNF, aqueous counter collision (ACC) has been shown to alter the hydrophilic (water absorbent) and hydrophobic (water repellent) properties of surfaces, switching one to the other. Previous research has indicated that CNF obtained via ACC has higher wettability than CNF isolated by other methods.

“We showed that CNF can change the soybean leaf surface from hydrophobic to hydrophilic,” explains senior author, Professor Yuji Yamashita. “This offers resistance against P. pachyrhizi.”

The team found fewer lesions and significantly reduced formation of P. pachyrhizi appressoria, which are specialized pre-infection structures used to break through the outer surface of the host plant, on CNF-treated leaves compared with control (untreated) leaves. The results also revealed suppressed gene expression linked to the formation of pre-infection structures in P. pachyrhizi on treated versus control leaves.

“In particular, chitin synthase gene expression was suppressed, and P. pachyrhizi needs chitin synthases to form pre-infection structures,” says Professor Ishiga.

This study is the first to investigate the application of CNF for controlling plant diseases in the field, and this technique offers new possibilities for sustainable and eco-friendly management of plant diseases.

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

Covering Soybean Leaves With Cellulose Nanofiber Changes Leaf Surface Hydrophobicity and Confers Resistance Against Phakopsora pachyrhizi by
Haruka Saito, Yuji Yamashita, Nanami Sakata, Takako Ishiga, Nanami Shiraishi, Giyu Usuki, Viet Tru Nguyen, Eiji Yamamura and Yasuhiro Ishiga. Front. Plant Sci., 03 September 2021 DOI: https://doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2021.726565

This paper appears to be open access.