Tag Archives: China

Photonic synapses with low power consumption (and a few observations)

This work on brainlike (neuromorphic) computing was announced in a June 30, 2022 Compuscript Ltd news release on EurekAlert,

Photonic synapses with low power consumption and high sensitivity are expected to integrate sensing-memory-preprocessing capabilities
A new publication from Opto-Electronic Advances; DOI 10.29026/oea.2022.210069 discusses how photonic synapses with low power consumption and high sensitivity are expected to integrate sensing-memory-preprocessing capabilities.
Neuromorphic photonics/electronics is the future of ultralow energy intelligent computing and artificial intelligence (AI). In recent years, inspired by the human brain, artificial neuromorphic devices have attracted extensive attention, especially in simulating visual perception and memory storage. Because of its advantages of high bandwidth, high interference immunity, ultrafast signal transmission and lower energy consumption, neuromorphic photonic devices are expected to realize real-time response to input data. In addition, photonic synapses can realize non-contact writing strategy, which contributes to the development of wireless communication. The use of low-dimensional materials provides an opportunity to develop complex brain-like systems and low-power memory logic computers. For example, large-scale, uniform and reproducible transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) show great potential for miniaturization and low-power biomimetic device applications due to their excellent charge-trapping properties and compatibility with traditional CMOS processes. The von Neumann architecture with discrete memory and processor leads to high power consumption and low efficiency of traditional computing. Therefore, the sensor-memory fusion or sensor-memory- processor integration neuromorphic architecture system can meet the increasingly developing demands of big data and AI for low power consumption and high performance devices. Artificial synaptic devices are the most important components of neuromorphic systems. The performance evaluation of synaptic devices will help to further apply them to more complex artificial neural networks (ANN).
Chemical vapor deposition (CVD)-grown TMDs inevitably introduce defects or impurities, showed a persistent photoconductivity (PPC) effect. TMDs photonic synapses integrating synaptic properties and optical detection capabilities show great advantages in neuromorphic systems for low-power visual information perception and processing as well as brain memory.
The research Group of Optical Detection and Sensing (GODS) have reported a three-terminal photonic synapse based on the large-area, uniform multilayer MoS₂ films. The reported device realized ultrashort optical pulse detection within 5 μs and ultralow power consumption about 40 aJ, which means its performance is much better than the current reported properties of photonic synapses. Moreover, it is several orders of magnitude lower than the corresponding parameters of biological synapses, indicating that the reported photonic synapse can be further used for more complex ANN. The photoconductivity of MoS₂ channel grown by CVD is regulated by photostimulation signal, which enables the device to simulate short-term synaptic plasticity (STP), long-term synaptic plasticity (LTP), paired-pulse facilitation (PPF) and other synaptic properties. Therefore, the reported photonic synapse can simulate human visual perception, and the detection wavelength can be extended to near infrared light. As the most important system of human learning, visual perception system can receive 80% of learning information from the outside. With the continuous development of AI, there is an urgent need for low-power and high sensitivity visual perception system that can effectively receive external information. In addition, with the assistant of gate voltage, this photonic synapse can simulate the classical Pavlovian conditioning and the regulation of different emotions on memory ability. For example, positive emotions enhance memory ability and negative emotions weaken memory ability. Furthermore, a significant contrast in the strength of STP and LTP based on the reported photonic synapse suggests that it can preprocess the input light signal. These results indicate that the photo-stimulation and backgate control can effectively regulate the conductivity of MoS₂ channel layer by adjusting carrier trapping/detrapping processes. Moreover, the photonic synapse presented in this paper is expected to integrate sensing-memory-preprocessing capabilities, which can be used for real-time image detection and in-situ storage, and also provides the possibility to break the von Neumann bottleneck.
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Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Photonic synapses with ultralow energy consumption for artificial visual perception and brain storage by Caihong Li, Wen Du, Yixuan Huang, Jihua Zou, Lingzhi Luo, Song Sun, Alexander O. Govorov, Jiang Wu, Hongxing Xu, Zhiming Wang. Opto-Electron Adv Vol 5, No 9 210069 (2022). doi: 10.29026/oea.2022.210069

This paper is open access.

Observations

I don’t have much to say about the research itself other than, I believe this is the first time I’ve seen a news release about neuromorphic computing research from China.

it’s China that most interests me, especially these bits from the June 30, 2022 Compuscript Ltd news release on EurekAlert,

Group of Optical Detection and Sensing (GODS) [emphasis mine] was established in 2019. It is a research group focusing on compound semiconductors, lasers, photodetectors, and optical sensors. GODS has established a well-equipped laboratory with research facilities such as Molecular Beam Epitaxy system, IR detector test system, etc. GODS is leading several research projects funded by NSFC and National Key R&D Programmes. GODS have published more than 100 research articles in Nature Electronics, Light: Science and Applications, Advanced Materials and other international well-known high-level journals with the total citations beyond 8000.
Jiang Wu obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Arkansas Fayetteville in 2011. After his Ph.D., he joined UESTC as associate professor and later professor. He joined University College London [UCL] as a research associate in 2012 and then lecturer in the Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering at UCL from 2015 to 2018. He is now a professor at UESTC [University of Electronic Science and Technology of China] [emphases mine]. His research interests include optoelectronic applications of semiconductor heterostructures. He is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and Senior Member of IEEE.
Opto-Electronic Advances (OEA) is a high-impact, open access, peer reviewed monthly SCI journal with an impact factor of 9.682 (Journals Citation Reports for IF 2020). Since its launch in March 2018, OEA has been indexed in SCI, EI, DOAJ, Scopus, CA and ICI databases over the time and expanded its Editorial Board to 36 members from 17 countries and regions (average h-index 49). [emphases mine]
The journal is published by The Institute of Optics and Electronics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, aiming at providing a platform for researchers, academicians, professionals, practitioners, and students to impart and share knowledge in the form of high quality empirical and theoretical research papers covering the topics of optics, photonics and optoelectronics.

The research group’s awkward name was almost certainly developed with the rather grandiose acronym, GODS, in mind. I don’t think you could get away with doing this in an English-speaking country as your colleagues would mock you mercilessly.

It’s Jiang Wu’s academic and work history that’s of most interest as it might provide insight into China’s Young Thousand Talents program. A January 5, 202 3 American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) news release describes the program,

In a systematic evaluation of China’s Young Thousand Talents (YTT) program, which was established in 2010, researchers find that China has been successful in recruiting and nurturing high-caliber Chinese scientists who received training abroad. Many of these individuals outperform overseas peers in publications and access to funding, the study shows, largely due to access to larger research teams and better research funding in China. Not only do the findings demonstrate the program’s relative success, but they also hold policy implications for the increasing number of governments pursuing means to tap expatriates for domestic knowledge production and talent development. China is a top sender of international students to United States and European Union science and engineering programs. The YTT program was created to recruit and nurture the productivity of high-caliber, early-career, expatriate scientists who return to China after receiving Ph.Ds. abroad. Although there has been a great deal of international attention on the YTT, some associated with the launch of the U.S.’s controversial China Initiative and federal investigations into academic researchers with ties to China, there has been little evidence-based research on the success, impact, and policy implications of the program itself. Dongbo Shi and colleagues evaluated the YTT program’s first 4 cohorts of scholars and compared their research productivity to that of their peers that remained overseas. Shi et al. found that China’s YTT program successfully attracted high-caliber – but not top-caliber – scientists. However, those young scientists that did return outperformed others in publications across journal-quality tiers – particularly in last-authored publications. The authors suggest that this is due to YTT scholars’ greater access to larger research teams and better research funding in China. The authors say the dearth of such resources in the U.S. and E.U. “may not only expedite expatriates’ return decisions but also motivate young U.S.- and E.U.-born scientists to seek international research opportunities.” They say their findings underscore the need for policy adjustments to allocate more support for young scientists.

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

Has China’s Young Thousand Talents program been successful in recruiting and nurturing top-caliber scientists? by Dongbo Shi, Weichen Liu, and Yanbo Wang. Science 5 Jan 2023 Vol 379, Issue 6627 pp. 62-65 DOI: 10.1126/science.abq1218

This paper is behind a paywall.

Kudos to the folks behind China’s Young Thousands Talents program! Jiang Wu’s career appears to be a prime example of the program’s success. Perhaps Canadian policy makers will be inspired.

China and nanotechnology

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it’s been quite a while since I’ve come across any material about Nanopolis, a scientific complex in China devoted to nanotechnology (as described in my September 26, 2014 posting titled, More on Nanopolis in China’s Suzhou Industrial Park). Note: The most recent , prior to now, information about the complex is in my June 1, 2017 posting, which mentions China’s Nanopolis and Nano-X endeavours.

Dr. Mahbube K. Siddiki’s March 12, 2022 article about China’s nanotechnology work in the Small Wars Journal provides a situation overview and an update along with a tidbit about Nanopolis, Note: Footnotes for the article have not been included here,

The Nanotechnology industry in China is moving forward, with substantially high levels of funding, a growing talent pool, and robust international collaborations. The strong state commitment to support this field of science and technology is a key advantage for China to compete with leading forces like US, EU, Japan, and Russia. The Chinese government focuses on increasing competitiveness in nanotechnology by its inclusion as strategic industry in China’s 13th Five-Year Plan, reconfirming state funding, legislative and regulatory support. Research and development (R&D) in Nanoscience and Nanotechnology is a key component of the ambitious ‘Made in China 2025’ initiative aimed at turning China into a high-tech manufacturing powerhouse [1].
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A bright example of Chinese nanotech success is the world’s largest nanotech industrial zone called ‘Nanopolis’, located in the eastern city of Suzhou. This futuristic city houses several private multinationals and new Chinese startups across different fields of nanotechnology and nanoscience. Needless to say, China leads the world’s nanotech startups. Involvement of private sector opens new and unique pools of funding and talent, focusing on applied research. Thus, private sector is leading in R&D in China, where state-sponsored institutions still dominate in all other sectors of rapid industrialization and modernization. From cloning to cancer research, from sea to space exploration, this massive and highly populated nation is using nanoscience and nanotechnology innovation to drive some of the world’s biggest breakthroughs, which is raising concerns in many other competing countries [3].
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China has established numerous nanotech research institutions throughout the country over the years. Prominent universities like Peking University, City University of Hong Kong, Nanjing University, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Soochow University, University of Science and Technology of China are the leading institutions that house state of art nanotech research labs to foster study and research of nanoscience and nanotechnology [5]. Chinese Academy of Science (CAS), National Center for Nanoscience and Technology (NCNST) and Suzhou Institute of Nano-Tech and Nano-Bionics (SINANO) are top among the state sponsored specialized nanoscience and nanotechnology research centers, which have numerous labs and prominent researchers to conduct cutting edge research in the area of nanotechnology. Public-Private collaboration along with the above mentioned research institutes gave birth to many nanotechnology companies, most notable of them are Array Nano, Times Nano, Haizisi Nano Technology, Nano Medtech, Sun Nanotech, XP nano etc. [6]. These companies are thriving on the research breakthroughs China achieved recently in this sector.
Here are some of the notable achievements in this sector by China. In June 2020, an international team of researchers led by Chinese scientists developed a new form of synthetic and biodegradable nanoparticle [7]. This modifiable lipid nanoparticle is capable of targeting, penetrating, and altering cells by delivering the CRISPR/Cas9 gene-editing tool into a cell. This novel nanoparticle can be used in the treatment of some gene related disorders, as well as other diseases including some forms of cancer in the brain, liver, and lungs. At the State Key Laboratory of Robotics in the northeast city of Shenyang, researchers have developed a laser that produces a tiny gas bubble[8]. This bubble can be used as a tiny “robot” to manipulate and move materials on a nanoscale with microscopic precision. The technology termed as “Bubble bot” promises new possibilities in the field of artificial tissue creation and cloning [9].
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In another report [13] it was shown that China surpassed the U.S. in chemistry in 2018 and now leading the later with a significant gap, which might take years to overcome. In the meantime, the country is approaching the US in Earth & Environmental sciences as well as physical sciences. According to the trend China may take five years or less to surpass US. On the contrary, in life science research China is lagging the US quite significantly, which might be attributed to both countries’ priority of sponsorship, in terms of funding. In fact, in the time of CORONA pandemic, US can use this gap for her strategic gain over China.
Outstanding economic growth and rapid technological advances of China over the last three decades have given her an unprecedented opportunity to play a leading role in contemporary geopolitical competition. The United States, and many of her partners and allies in the west as well as in Asia, have a range of concerns about how the authoritarian leadership in Beijing maneuver [sic] its recently gained power and position on the world stage. They are warily observing this regime’s deployment of sophisticated technology like “Nano” in ways that challenge many of their core interests and values all across the world. Though the U.S. is considered the only superpower in the world and has maintained its position as the dominant power of technological innovation for decades, China has made massive investments and swiftly implemented policies that have contributed significantly to its technological innovation, economic growth, military capability, and global influence. In some areas, China has eclipsed, or is on the verge of eclipsing, the United States — particularly in the rapid deployment of certain technologies, and nanoscience and nanotechnology appears to be the leading one. …
[About Dr. Siddiki]
Dr. Siddiki is an instructor of Robotic and Autonomous System in the Department of Multi-Domain Operations at the [US] Army Management Staff College where he teaches and does research in that area. He was Assistant Teaching Professor of Electrical Engineering at the Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering in the School of Computing and Engineering at University of Missouri Kansas City (UMKC). In UMKC, Dr. Siddiki designed, developed and taught undergraduate and graduate level courses, and supervised research works of Ph.D., Master and undergraduate students. Dr. Siddiki’s research interests lie in the area of nano and quantum tech, Robotic and Autonomous System, Green Energy & Power, and their implications in geopolitics.

As you can see in the article, there are anxieties over China’s rising dominance with regard to scientific research and technology; these anxieties have become more visible since I started this blog in 2008.

I was piqued to see that Dr. Siddiki’s article is in the Small Wars Journal and not in a journal focused on science, research, technology, and/or economics. I found this explanation for the term, ‘small wars’ on the journal’s About page (Note: A link has been removed),

…
Small Wars” is an imperfect term used to describe a broad spectrum of spirited continuation of politics by other means, falling somewhere in the middle bit of the continuum between feisty diplomatic words and global thermonuclear war. The Small Wars Journal embraces that imperfection.
Just as friendly fire isn’t, there isn’t necessarily anything small about a Small War.
The term “Small War” either encompasses or overlaps with a number of familiar terms such as counterinsurgency, foreign internal defense, support and stability operations, peacemaking, peacekeeping, and many flavors of intervention. Operations such as noncombatant evacuation, disaster relief, and humanitarian assistance will often either be a part of a Small War, or have a Small Wars feel to them. Small Wars involve a wide spectrum of specialized tactical, technical, social, and cultural skills and expertise, requiring great ingenuity from their practitioners. The Small Wars Manual (a wonderful resource, unfortunately more often referred to than read) notes that:
Small Wars demand the highest type of leadership directed by intelligence, resourcefulness, and ingenuity. Small Wars are conceived in uncertainty, are conducted often with precarious responsibility and doubtful authority, under indeterminate orders lacking specific instructions.
The “three block war” construct employed by General Krulak is exceptionally useful in describing the tactical and operational challenges of a Small War and of many urban operations. Its only shortcoming is that is so useful that it is often mistaken as a definition or as a type of operation.
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Who Are Those Guys?
Small Wars Journal is NOT a government, official, or big corporate site. It is run by Small Wars Foundation, a non-profit corporation, for the benefit of the Small Wars community of interest. The site principals are Dave Dilegge (Editor-in-Chief) and Bill Nagle (Publisher), and it would not be possible without the support of myriad volunteers as well as authors who care about this field and contribute their original works to the community. We do this in our spare time, because we want to. McDonald’s pays more. But we’d rather work to advance our noble profession than watch TV, try to super-size your order, or interest you in a delicious hot apple pie. If and when you’re not flipping burgers, please join us.

The overview and analysis provided by Dr. Siddiki is very interesting to me and absent any conflicting data, I’m assuming it’s solid work. As for the anxiety that permeates the article, this is standard. All countries are anxious about who’s winning the science and technology race. If memory serves, you can find an example of the anxiety in C.P. Snow’s classic lecture and book, Two Cultures (the book is “The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution”) given/published in 1959. The British scientific establishment was very concerned that it was being eclipsed by the US and by the Russians.

Windows and roofs ‘self-adapt’ to heating and cooling conditions

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I have two items about thermochromic coatings. It’s a little confusing since the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), which publishes the journal featuring both papers has issued a news release that seemingly refers to both papers as a single piece of research.

Onto, the press/new releases from the research institutions to be followed by the AAAS news release.

Nanyang Technological University (NTU) does windows

A December 16, 2021 news item on Nanowerk announced work on energy-saving glass,

An international research team led by scientists from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) has developed a material that, when coated on a glass window panel, can effectively self-adapt to heat or cool rooms across different climate zones in the world, helping to cut energy usage.
Developed by NTU researchers and reported in the journal Science (“Scalable thermochromic smart windows with passive radiative cooling regulation”), the first-of-its-kind glass automatically responds to changing temperatures by switching between heating and cooling.
The self-adaptive glass is developed using layers of vanadium dioxide nanoparticles composite, Poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA), and low-emissivity coating to form a unique structure which could modulate heating and cooling simultaneously.
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A December 17, 2021 NTU press release (PDF), also on EurekAlert but published December 16, 2021, which originated the news item, delves further into the research (Note: A link has been removed),

The newly developed glass, which has no electrical components, works by exploiting the spectrums of light responsible for heating and cooling.
During summer, the glass suppresses solar heating (near infrared light), while boosting radiative cooling (long-wave infrared) – a natural phenomenon where heat emits through surfaces towards the cold universe – to cool the room. In the winter, it does the opposite to warm up the room.
In lab tests using an infrared camera to visualise results, the glass allowed a controlled amount of heat to emit in various conditions (room temperature – above 70°C), proving its ability to react dynamically to changing weather conditions.
New glass regulates both heating and cooling
Windows are one of the key components in a building’s design, but they are also the least energy-efficient and most complicated part. In the United States alone, window-associated energy consumption (heating and cooling) in buildings accounts for approximately four per cent of their total primary energy usage each year according to an estimation based on data available from the Department of Energy in US.[1]
While scientists elsewhere have developed sustainable innovations to ease this energy demand – such as using low emissivity coatings to prevent heat transfer and electrochromic glass that regulate solar transmission from entering the room by becoming tinted – none of the solutions have been able to modulate both heating and cooling at the same time, until now.
The principal investigator of the study, Dr Long Yi of the NTU School of Materials Science and Engineering (MSE) said, “Most energy-saving windows today tackle the part of solar heat gain caused by visible and near infrared sunlight. However, researchers often overlook the radiative cooling in the long wavelength infrared. While innovations focusing on radiative cooling have been used on walls and roofs, this function becomes undesirable during winter. Our team has demonstrated for the first time a glass that can respond favourably to both wavelengths, meaning that it can continuously self-tune to react to a changing temperature across all seasons.”
As a result of these features, the NTU research team believes their innovation offers a convenient way to conserve energy in buildings since it does not rely on any moving components, electrical mechanisms, or blocking views, to function.
To improve the performance of windows, the simultaneous modulation of both solar transmission and radiative cooling are crucial, said co-authors Professor Gang Tan from The University of Wyoming, USA, and Professor Ronggui Yang from the Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China, who led the building energy saving simulation.
“This innovation fills the missing gap between traditional smart windows and radiative cooling by paving a new research direction to minimise energy consumption,” said Prof Gang Tan.
The study is an example of groundbreaking research that supports the NTU 2025 strategic plan, which seeks to address humanity’s grand challenges on sustainability, and accelerate the translation of research discoveries into innovations that mitigate human impact on the environment.
Innovation useful for a wide range of climate types
As a proof of concept, the scientists tested the energy-saving performance of their invention using simulations of climate data covering all populated parts of the globe (seven climate zones).
The team found the glass they developed showed energy savings in both warm and cool seasons, with an overall energy saving performance of up to 9.5%, or ~330,000 kWh per year (estimated energy required to power 60 household in Singapore for a year) less than commercially available low emissivity glass in a simulated medium sized office building.
First author of the study Wang Shancheng, who is Research Fellow and former PhD student of Dr Long Yi, said, “The results prove the viability of applying our glass in all types of climates as it is able to help cut energy use regardless of hot and cold seasonal temperature fluctuations. This sets our invention apart from current energy-saving windows which tend to find limited use in regions with less seasonal variations.”
Moreover, the heating and cooling performance of their glass can be customised to suit the needs of the market and region for which it is intended.
“We can do so by simply adjusting the structure and composition of special nanocomposite coating layered onto the glass panel, allowing our innovation to be potentially used across a wide range of heat regulating applications, and not limited to windows,” Dr Long Yi said.
Providing an independent view, Professor Liangbing Hu, Herbert Rabin Distinguished Professor, Director of the Center for Materials Innovation at the University of Maryland, USA, said, “Long and co-workers made the original development of smart windows that can regulate the near-infrared sunlight and the long-wave infrared heat. The use of this smart window could be highly important for building energy-saving and decarbonization.”
A Singapore patent has been filed for the innovation. As the next steps, the research team is aiming to achieve even higher energy-saving performance by working on the design of their nanocomposite coating.
The international research team also includes scientists from Nanjing Tech University, China. The study is supported by the Singapore-HUJ Alliance for Research and Enterprise (SHARE), under the Campus for Research Excellence and Technological Enterprise (CREATE) programme, Minster of Education Research Fund Tier 1, and the Sino-Singapore International Joint Research Institute.

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

Scalable thermochromic smart windows with passive radiative cooling regulation by Shancheng Wang, Tengyao Jiang, Yun Meng, Ronggui Yang, Gang Tan, and Yi Long. Science • 16 Dec 2021 • Vol 374, Issue 6574 • pp. 1501-1504 • DOI: 10.1126/science.abg0291

This paper is behind a paywall.

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab; LBNL) does roofs

A December 16, 2021 Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory news release (also on EurekAlert) announces an energy-saving coating for roofs (Note: Links have been removed),

Scientists have developed an all-season smart-roof coating that keeps homes warm during the winter and cool during the summer without consuming natural gas or electricity. Research findings reported in the journal Science point to a groundbreaking technology that outperforms commercial cool-roof systems in energy savings.
“Our all-season roof coating automatically switches from keeping you cool to warm, depending on outdoor air temperature. This is energy-free, emission-free air conditioning and heating, all in one device,” said Junqiao Wu, a faculty scientist in Berkeley Lab’s Materials Sciences Division and a UC Berkeley professor of materials science and engineering who led the study.
Today’s cool roof systems, such as reflective coatings, membranes, shingles, or tiles, have light-colored or darker “cool-colored” surfaces that cool homes by reflecting sunlight. These systems also emit some of the absorbed solar heat as thermal-infrared radiation; in this natural process known as radiative cooling, thermal-infrared light is radiated away from the surface.
The problem with many cool-roof systems currently on the market is that they continue to radiate heat in the winter, which drives up heating costs, Wu explained.
“Our new material – called a temperature-adaptive radiative coating or TARC – can enable energy savings by automatically turning off the radiative cooling in the winter, overcoming the problem of overcooling,” he said.
A roof for all seasons
Metals are typically good conductors of electricity and heat. In 2017, Wu and his research team discovered that electrons in vanadium dioxide behave like a metal to electricity but an insulator to heat – in other words, they conduct electricity well without conducting much heat. “This behavior contrasts with most other metals where electrons conduct heat and electricity proportionally,” Wu explained.
Vanadium dioxide below about 67 degrees Celsius (153 degrees Fahrenheit) is also transparent to (and hence not absorptive of) thermal-infrared light. But once vanadium dioxide reaches 67 degrees Celsius, it switches to a metal state, becoming absorptive of thermal-infrared light. This ability to switch from one phase to another – in this case, from an insulator to a metal – is characteristic of what’s known as a phase-change material.
To see how vanadium dioxide would perform in a roof system, Wu and his team engineered a 2-centimeter-by-2-centimeter TARC thin-film device.
TARC “looks like Scotch tape, and can be affixed to a solid surface like a rooftop,” Wu said.
In a key experiment, co-lead author Kechao Tang set up a rooftop experiment at Wu’s East Bay home last summer to demonstrate the technology’s viability in a real-world environment.
A wireless measurement device set up on Wu’s balcony continuously recorded responses to changes in direct sunlight and outdoor temperature from a TARC sample, a commercial dark roof sample, and a commercial white roof sample over multiple days.
How TARC outperforms in energy savings
The researchers then used data from the experiment to simulate how TARC would perform year-round in cities representing 15 different climate zones across the continental U.S.
Wu enlisted Ronnen Levinson, a co-author on the study who is a staff scientist and leader of the Heat Island Group in Berkeley Lab’s Energy Technologies Area, to help them refine their model of roof surface temperature. Levinson developed a method to estimate TARC energy savings from a set of more than 100,000 building energy simulations that the Heat Island Group previously performed to evaluate the benefits of cool roofs and cool walls across the United States.
Finnegan Reichertz, a 12^th grade student at the East Bay Innovation Academy in Oakland who worked remotely as a summer intern for Wu last year, helped to simulate how TARC and the other roof materials would perform at specific times and on specific days throughout the year for each of the 15 cities or climate zones the researchers studied for the paper.
The researchers found that TARC outperforms existing roof coatings for energy saving in 12 of the 15 climate zones, particularly in regions with wide temperature variations between day and night, such as the San Francisco Bay Area, or between winter and summer, such as New York City.
“With TARC installed, the average household in the U.S. could save up to 10% electricity,” said Tang, who was a postdoctoral researcher in the Wu lab at the time of the study. He is now an assistant professor at Peking University in Beijing, China.
Standard cool roofs have high solar reflectance and high thermal emittance (the ability to release heat by emitting thermal-infrared radiation) even in cool weather.
According to the researchers’ measurements, TARC reflects around 75% of sunlight year-round, but its thermal emittance is high (about 90%) when the ambient temperature is warm (above 25 degrees Celsius or 77 degrees Fahrenheit), promoting heat loss to the sky. In cooler weather, TARC’s thermal emittance automatically switches to low, helping to retain heat from solar absorption and indoor heating, Levinson said.
Findings from infrared spectroscopy experiments using advanced tools at Berkeley Lab’s Molecular Foundry validated the simulations.
“Simple physics predicted TARC would work, but we were surprised it would work so well,” said Wu. “We originally thought the switch from warming to cooling wouldn’t be so dramatic. Our simulations, outdoor experiments, and lab experiments proved otherwise – it’s really exciting.”
The researchers plan to develop TARC prototypes on a larger scale to further test its performance as a practical roof coating. Wu said that TARC may also have potential as a thermally protective coating to prolong battery life in smartphones and laptops, and shield satellites and cars from extremely high or low temperatures. It could also be used to make temperature-regulating fabric for tents, greenhouse coverings, and even hats and jackets.
Co-lead authors on the study were Kaichen Dong and Jiachen Li.
The Molecular Foundry is a nanoscience user facility at Berkeley Lab.
This work was primarily supported by the DOE Office of Science and a Bakar Fellowship.
The technology is available for licensing and collaboration. If interested, please contact Berkeley Lab’s Intellectual Property Office, ipo@lbl.gov.

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

Temperature-adaptive radiative coating for all-season household thermal regulation by Kechao Tang, Kaichen Dong, Jiachen Li, Madeleine P. Gordon, Finnegan G. Reichertz, Hyungjin Kim, Yoonsoo Rho, Qingjun Wang, Chang-Yu Lin, Costas P. Grigoropoulos, Ali Javey, Jeffrey J. Urban, Jie Yao, Ronnen Levinson, Junqiao Wu. Science • 16 Dec 2021 • Vol 374, Issue 6574 • pp. 1504-1509 • DOI: 10.1126/science.abf7136

This paper is behind a paywall.

An interesting news release from the AAAS

While it’s a little confusing as it cites only the ‘window’ research from NTU, the body of this news release offers some additional information about the usefulness of thermochromic materials and seemingly refers to both papers, from a December 16, 2021 AAAS news release,

Temperature-adaptive passive radiative cooling for roofs and windows
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When it’s cold out, window glass and roof coatings that use passive radiative cooling to keep buildings cool can be designed to passively turn off radiative cooling to avoid heat loss, two new studies show. Their proof-of-concept analyses demonstrate that passive radiative cooling can be expanded to warm and cold climate applications and regions, potentially providing all-season energy savings worldwide. Buildings consume roughly 40% of global energy, a large proportion of which is used to keep them cool in warmer climates. However, most temperature regulation systems commonly employed are not very energy efficient and require external power or resources. In contrast, passive radiative cooling technologies, which use outer space as a near-limitless natural heat sink, have been extensively examined as a means of energy-efficient cooling for buildings. This technology uses materials designed to selectively emit narrow-band radiation through the infrared atmospheric window to disperse heat energy into the coldness of space. However, while this approach has proven effective in cooling buildings to below ambient temperatures, it is only helpful during the warmer months or in regions that are perpetually hot. Furthermore, the inability to “turn off” passive cooling in cooler climes or in regions with large seasonal temperature variations means that continuous cooling during colder periods would exacerbate the energy costs of heating. In two different studies, by Shancheng Wang and colleagues and Kechao Tang and colleagues, researchers approach passive radiative cooling from an all-season perspective and present a new, scalable temperature-adaptive radiative technology that passively turns off radiative cooling at lower temperatures. Wang et al. and Tang et al. achieve this using a tungsten-doped vanadium dioxide and show how it can be applied to create both window glass and a flexible roof coating, respectively. Model simulations of the self-adapting materials suggest they could provide year-round energy savings across most climate zones, especially those with substantial seasonal temperature variations.
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I wish them all good luck with getting these materials to market.

Secure quantum communication network with 15 users

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Things are moving quickly where quantum communication networks are concerned. Back in April 2021, Dutch scientists announced the first multi-node quantum network connecting three processors (see my July 8, 2021 posting with the news and an embedded video).

Less than six months later, Chinese scientists announced work on a 15-user quantum network. From a September 23, 2021 news item on phys.org,

Quantum secure direct communication (QSDC) based on entanglement can directly transmit confidential information. Scientist [sic] in China explored a QSDC network based on time-energy entanglement and sum-frequency generation. The results show that when any two users are performing QSDC over 40 kilometers of optical fiber, and the rate of information transmission can be maintained at 1Kbp/s. Our result lays the foundation for the realization of satellite-based long-distance and global QSDC in the future.
…

A September 23, 2021 Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) press release on EurekAlert, which seems to have originated the news item, provides additional detail,

Quantum communication has presented a revolutionary step in secure communication due to its high security of the quantum information, and many communication protocols have been proposed, such as the quantum secure direct communication (QSDC) protocol. QSDC based on entanglement can directly transmit confidential information. Any attack of QSDC results to only random number, and cannot obtain any useful information from it. Therefore, QSDC has simple communication steps and reduces potential security loopholes, and offers high security guarantees, which guarantees the security and the value propositions of quantum communications in general. However, the inability to simultaneously distinguish the four sets of encoded orthogonal entangled states in entanglement-based QSDC protocols limits its practical application. Furthermore, it is important to construct quantum network in order to make wide applications of quantum secure direct communication. Experimental demonstration of QSDC is badly required.
In a new paper published in Light Science & Application, a team of scientists, led by Professor Xianfeng Chen from State Key Laboratory of Advanced Optical Communication Systems and Networks, School of Physics and Astronomy, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China and Professor Yuanhua Li from Department of Physics, Jiangxi Normal University, China have explored a QSDC network based on time-energy entanglement and sum-frequency generation (SFG). They present a fully connected entanglement-based QSDC network including five subnets, with 15 users. Using the frequency correlations of the fifteen photon pairs via time division multiplexing and dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM), they perform a 40-kilometer fiber QSDC experiment by implying two-step transmission between each user. In this process, the network processor divides the spectrum of the single-photon source into 30 International Telecommunication Union (ITU) channels. With these channels, there will be a coincidence event between each user by performing a Bell-state measurement based on the SFG. This allows the four sets of encoded entangled states to be identified simultaneously without post-selection.
It is well known that the security and reliability of the information transmission for QSDC is an essential part in the quantum network. Therefore, they implemented block transmission and step-by-step transmission methods in QSDC with estimating the secrecy capacity of the quantum channel. After confirming the security of the quantum channel, the legitimate user performs encoding or decoding operations within these schemes reliably.
These scientists summarize the experiment results of their network scheme:
“The results show that when any two users are performing QSDC over 40 kilometers of optical fiber, the fidelity of the entangled state shared by them is still greater than 95%, and the rate of information transmission can be maintained at 1 Kbp/s. Our result demonstrates the feasibility of a proposed QSDC network, and hence lays the foundation for the realization of satellite-based long-distance and global QSDC in the future.”
“With this scheme, each user interconnects with any others through shared pairs of entangled photons in different wavelength. Moreover, it is possible to improve the information transmission rate greater than 100 Kbp/s in the case of the high-performance detectors, as well as high-speed control in modulator being used” they added.
“It is worth noting the present-work, which offers long-distance point-to-point QSDC connection, combined with the recently proposed secure-repeater quantum network of QSDC, which offers secure end-to-end communication throughout the quantum Internet, will enable the construction of secure quantum network using present-day technology, realizing the great potential of QSDC in future communication.” the scientists forecast.

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

A 15-user quantum secure direct communication network by Zhantong Qi, Yuanhua Li, Yiwen Huang, Juan Feng, Yuanlin Zheng & Xianfeng Chen. Light: Science & Applications volume 10, Article number: 183 (2021) DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41377-021-00634-2 Published: 14 September 2021

This paper is open access.

For the profoundly curious, there is an earlier version of this paper on arXiv.org, the site run by Cornell University where it was posted after moderation but prior to peer-review for publication in a journal.

East/West collaboration on scholarship and imagination about humanity’s long-term future— six new fellows at Berggruen Research Center at Peking University

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According to a January 4, 2022 Berggruen Institute (also received via email), they have appointed a new crop of fellows for their research center at Peking University,

The Berggruen Institute has announced six scientists and philosophers to serve as Fellows at the Berggruen Research Center at Peking University in Beijing, China. These eminent scholars will work together across disciplines to explore how the great transformations of our time may shift human experience and self-understanding in the decades and centuries to come.
The new Fellows are Chenjian Li, University Chair Professor at Peking University; Xianglong Zhang, professor of philosophy at Peking University; Xiaoli Liu, professor of philosophy at Renmin University of China; Jianqiao Ge, lecturer at the Academy for Advanced Interdisciplinary Studies (AAIS) at Peking University; Xiaoping Chen, Director of the Robotics Laboratory at the University of Science and Technology of China; and Haidan Chen, associate professor of medical ethics and law at the School of Health Humanities at Peking University.
“Amid the pandemic, climate change, and the rest of the severe challenges of today, our Fellows are surmounting linguistic and cultural barriers to imagine positive futures for all people,” said Bing Song, Director of the China Center and Vice President of the Berggruen Institute. “Dialogue and shared understanding are crucial if we are to understand what today’s breakthroughs in science and technology really mean for the human community and the planet we all share.”
The Fellows will investigate deep questions raised by new understandings and capabilities in science and technology, exploring their implications for philosophy and other areas of study. Chenjian Li is considering the philosophical and ethical considerations of gene editing technology. Meanwhile, Haidan Chen is exploring the social implications of brain/computer interface technologies in China, while Xiaoli Liu is studying philosophical issues arising from the intersections among psychology, neuroscience, artificial intelligence, and art.
Jianqiao Ge’s project considers the impact of artificial intelligence on the human brain, given the relative recency of its evolution into current form. Xianglong Zhang’s work explores the interplay between literary culture and the development of technology. Finally, Xiaoping Chen is developing a new concept for describing innovation that draws from Daoist, Confucianist, and ancient Greek philosophical traditions.
Fellows at the China Center meet monthly with the Institute’s Los Angeles-based Fellows. These fora provide an opportunity for all Fellows to share and discuss their work. Through this cross-cultural dialogue, the Institute is helping to ensure continued high-level of ideas among China, the United States, and the rest of the world about some of the deepest and most fundamental questions humanity faces today.
“Changes in our capability and understanding of the physical world affect all of humanity, and questions about their implications must be pondered at a cross-cultural level,” said Bing. “Through multidisciplinary dialogue that crosses the gulf between East and West, our Fellows are pioneering new thought about what it means to be human.”
…
Haidan Chen is associate professor of medical ethics and law at the School of Health Humanities at Peking University. She was a visiting postgraduate researcher at the Institute for the Study of Science Technology and Innovation (ISSTI), the University of Edinburgh; a visiting scholar at the Brocher Foundation, Switzerland; and a Fulbright visiting scholar at the Center for Biomedical Ethics, Stanford University. Her research interests embrace the ethical, legal, and social implications (ELSI) of genetics and genomics, and the governance of emerging technologies, in particular stem cells, biobanks, precision medicine, and brain science. Her publications appear at Social Science & Medicine, Bioethics and other journals.
Xiaoping Chen is the director of the Robotics Laboratory at University of Science and Technology of China. He also currently serves as the director of the Robot Technical Standard Innovation Base, an executive member of the Global AI Council, Chair of the Chinese RoboCup Committee, and a member of the International RoboCup Federation’s Board of Trustees. He has received the USTC’s Distinguished Research Presidential Award and won Best Paper at IEEE ROBIO 2016. His projects have won the IJCAI’s Best Autonomous Robot and Best General-Purpose Robot awards as well as twelve world champions at RoboCup. He proposed an intelligent technology pathway for robots based on Open Knowledge and the Rong-Cha principle, which have been implemented and tested in the long-term research on KeJia and JiaJia intelligent robot systems.
Jianqiao Ge is a lecturer at the Academy for Advanced Interdisciplinary Studies (AAIS) at Peking University. Before, she was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Chicago and the Principal Investigator / Co-Investigator of more than 10 research grants supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology of China, the National Natural Science Foundation of China, and Beijing Municipal Science & Technology Commission. She has published more than 20 peer-reviewed articles on leading academic journals such as PNAS, the Journal of Neuroscience, and has been awarded two national patents. In 2008, by scanning the human brain with functional MRI, Ge and her collaborator were among the first to confirm that the human brain engages distinct neurocognitive strategies to comprehend human intelligence and artificial intelligence. Ge received her Ph.D. in psychology, B.S in physics, a double B.S in mathematics and applied mathematics, and a double B.S in economics from Peking University.
Chenjian Li is the University Chair Professor of Peking University. He also serves on the China Advisory Board of Eli Lilly and Company, the China Advisory Board of Cornell University, and the Rhodes Scholar Selection Committee. He is an alumnus of Peking University’s Biology Department, Peking Union Medical College, and Purdue University. He was the former Vice Provost of Peking University, Executive Dean of Yuanpei College, and Associate Dean of the School of Life Sciences at Peking University. Prior to his return to China, he was an associate professor at Weill Medical College of Cornell University and the Aidekman Endowed Chair of Neurology at Mount Sinai School of Medicine. Dr. Li’s academic research focuses on the molecular and cellular mechanisms of neurological diseases, cancer drug development, and gene-editing and its philosophical and ethical considerations. Li also writes as a public intellectual on science and humanity, and his Chinese translation of Richard Feynman’s book What Do You Care What Other People Think? received the 2001 National Publisher’s Book Award.
Xiaoli Liu is professor of philosophy at Renmin University. She is also Director of the Chinese Society of Philosophy of Science Leader. Her primary research interests are philosophy of mathematics, philosophy of science and philosophy of cognitive science. Her main works are “Life of Reason: A Study of Gödel’s Thought,” “Challenges of Cognitive Science to Contemporary Philosophy,” “Philosophical Issues in the Frontiers of Cognitive Science.” She edited “Symphony of Mind and Machine” and series of books “Mind and Cognition.” In 2003, she co-founded the “Mind and Machine workshop” with interdisciplinary scholars, which has held 18 consecutive annual meetings. Liu received her Ph.D. from Peking University and was a senior visiting scholar in Harvard University.
Xianglong Zhang is a professor of philosophy at Peking University. His research areas include Confucian philosophy, phenomenology, Western and Eastern comparative philosophy. His major works (in Chinese except where noted) include: Heidegger’s Thought and Chinese Tao of Heaven; Biography of Heidegger; From Phenomenology to Confucius; The Exposition and Comments of Contemporary Western Philosophy; The Exposition and Comments of Classic Western Philosophy; Thinking to Take Refuge: The Chinese Ancient Philosophies in the Globalization; Lectures on the History of Confucian Philosophy (four volumes); German Philosophy, German Culture and Chinese Philosophical Thinking; Home and Filial Piety: From the View between the Chinese and the Western.
About the Berggruen China Center
Breakthroughs in artificial intelligence and life science have led to the fourth scientific and technological revolution. The Berggruen China Center is a hub for East-West research and dialogue dedicated to the cross-cultural and interdisciplinary study of the transformations affecting humanity. Intellectual themes for research programs are focused on frontier sciences, technologies, and philosophy, as well as issues involving digital governance and globalization.
About the Berggruen Institute:
The Berggruen Institute’s mission is to develop foundational ideas and shape political, economic, and social institutions for the 21^st century. Providing critical analysis using an outwardly expansive and purposeful network, we bring together some of the best minds and most authoritative voices from across cultural and political boundaries to explore fundamental questions of our time. Our objective is enduring impact on the progress and direction of societies around the world. To date, projects inaugurated at the Berggruen Institute have helped develop a youth jobs plan for Europe, fostered a more open and constructive dialogue between Chinese leadership and the West, strengthened the ballot initiative process in California, and launched Noema, a new publication that brings thought leaders from around the world together to share ideas. In addition, the Berggruen Prize, a $1 million award, is conferred annually by an independent jury to a thinker whose ideas are shaping human self-understanding to advance humankind.

You can find out more about the Berggruen China Center here and you can access a list along with biographies of all the Berggruen Institute fellows here.

Getting ready

I look forward to hearing about the projects from these thinkers.

Gene editing and ethics

I may have to reread some books in anticipation of Chenjian Li’s philosophical work and ethical considerations of gene editing technology. I wonder if there’ll be any reference to the He Jiankui affair.

(Briefly for those who may not be familiar with the situation, He claimed to be the first to gene edit babies. In November 2018, news about the twins, Lulu and Nana, was a sensation and He was roundly criticized for his work. I have not seen any information about how many babies were gene edited for He’s research; there could be as many as six. My July 28, 2020 posting provided an update. I haven’t stumbled across anything substantive since then.)

There are two books I recommend should you be interested in gene editing, as told through the lens of the He Jiankui affair. If you can, read both as that will give you a more complete picture.

In no particular order: This book provides an extensive and accessible look at the science, the politics of scientific research, and some of the pressures on scientists of all countries. Kevin Davies’ 2020 book, “Editing Humanity; the CRISPR Revolution and the New Era of Genome Editing” provides an excellent introduction from an insider. Here’s more from Davies’ biographical sketch,

Kevin Davies is the executive editor of The CRISPR Journal and the founding editor of Nature Genetics . He holds an MA in biochemistry from the University of Oxford and a PhD in molecular genetics from the University of London. He is the author of Cracking the Genome, The $1,000 Genome, and co-authored a new edition of DNA: The Story of the Genetic Revolution with Nobel Laureate James D. Watson and Andrew Berry. …

The other book is “The Mutant Project; Inside the Global Race to Genetically Modify Humans” (2020) by Eben Kirksey, an anthropologist who has an undergraduate degree in one of the sciences. He too provides scientific underpinning but his focus is on the cultural and personal underpinnings of the He Jiankui affair, on the culture of science research, irrespective of where it’s practiced, and the culture associated with the DIY (do-it-yourself) Biology community. Here’s more from Kirksey’s biographical sketch,

EBEN KIRKSEY is an American anthropologist and Member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. He has been published in Wired, The Atlantic, The Guardian and The Sunday Times . He is sought out as an expert on science in society by the Associated Press, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Democracy Now, Time and the BBC, among other media outlets. He speaks widely at the world’s leading academic institutions including Oxford, Yale, Columbia, UCLA, and the International Summit of Human Genome Editing, plus music festivals, art exhibits, and community events. Professor Kirksey holds a long-term position at Deakin University in Melbourne, Australia.

Brain/computer interfaces (BCI)

I’m happy to see that Haidan Chen will be exploring the social implications of brain/computer interface technologies in China. I haven’t seen much being done here in Canada but my December 23, 2021 posting, Your cyborg future (brain-computer interface) is closer than you think, highlights work being done at the Imperial College London (ICL),

…
“For some of these patients, these devices become such an integrated part of themselves that they refuse to have them removed at the end of the clinical trial,” said Rylie Green, one of the authors. “It has become increasingly evident that neurotechnologies have the potential to profoundly shape our own human experience and sense of self.”
…

You might also find my September 17, 2020 posting has some useful information. Check under the “Brain-computer interfaces, symbiosis, and ethical issues” subhead for another story about attachment to one’s brain implant and also the “Finally” subhead for more reading suggestions.

Artificial intelligence (AI), art, and the brain

I’ve lumped together three of the thinkers, Xiaoli Liu, Jianqiao Ge and Xianglong Zhang, as there is some overlap (in my mind, if nowhere else),

Liu’s work on philosophical issues as seen in the intersections of psychology, neuroscience, artificial intelligence, and art
Ge’s work on the evolution of the brain and the impact that artificial intelligence may have on it
Zhang’s work on the relationship between literary culture and the development of technology

A December 3, 2021 posting, True love with AI (artificial intelligence): The Nature of Things explores emotional and creative AI (long read), is both a review of a recent episode of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s (CBC) science television series,The Nature of Things, and a dive into a number of issues as can be seen under subheads such as “AI and Creativity,” “Kazuo Ishiguro?” and “Evolution.”

You may also want to check out my December 27, 2021 posting, Ai-Da (robot artist) writes and performs poem honouring Dante’s 700th anniversary, for an eye opening experience. If nothing else, just watch the embedded video.

This suggestion relates most closely to Ge’s and Zhang’s work. If you haven’t already come across it, there’s Walter J. Ong’s 1982 book, “Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word.” From the introductory page of the 2002 edition (PDF),

…
This classic work explores the vast differences between oral and
literate cultures and offers a brilliantly lucid account of the
intellectual, literary and social effects of writing, print and
electronic technology. In the course of his study, Walter J.Ong
offers fascinating insights into oral genres across the globe and
through time and examines the rise of abstract philosophical and
scientific thinking. He considers the impact of orality-literacy
studies not only on literary criticism and theory but on our very
understanding of what it is to be a human being, conscious of self
and other.
…

In 2013, a 30th anniversary edition of the book was released and is still in print.

Philosophical traditions

I’m very excited to learn more about Xiaoping Chen’s work describing innovation that draws from Daoist, Confucianist, and ancient Greek philosophical traditions.

Should any of my readers have suggestions for introductory readings on these philosophical traditions, please do use the Comments option for this blog. In fact, if you have suggestions for other readings on these topics, I would be very happy to learn of them.

Congratulations to the six Fellows at the Berggruen Research Center at Peking University in Beijing, China. I look forward to reading articles about your work in the Berggruen Institute’s Noema magazine and, possibly, attending your online events.

Charles Lieber, nanoscientist, and the US Dept. of Justice

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Charles Lieber, professor at Harvard University and one of the world’s leading researchers in nanotechnology went on trial on Tuesday, December 14, 2021.

Accused of hiding his ties to a People’s Republic of China (PRC)-run recruitment programme, Lieber is probably the highest profile academic and one of the few who was not born in China or has familial origins in China to be charged under the auspices of the US Department of Justice’s ‘China Initiative’.

This US National Public Radio (NPR) December 14, 2021 audio excerpt provides a brief summary of the situation by Ryan Lucas,

A December 14, 2021 article by Jess Aloe, Eileen Guo, and Antonio Regalado for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Technology Review lays out the situation in more detail (Note: A link has been removed),

In January of 2020, agents arrived at Harvard University looking for Charles Lieber, a renowned nanotechnology researcher who chaired the school’s department of chemistry and chemical biology. They were there to arrest him on charges of hiding his financial ties with a university in China. By arresting Lieber steps from Harvard Yard, authorities were sending a loud message to the academic community: failing to disclose such links is a serious crime.
Now Lieber is set to go on trial beginning December 14 [2021] in federal court in Boston. He has pleaded not guilty, and hundreds of academics have signed letters of support. In fact, some critics say it’s the Justice Department’s China Initiative—a far-reaching effort started in 2018 to combat Chinese economic espionage and trade-secret theft—that should be on trial, not Lieber. They are calling the prosecutions fundamentally flawed, a witch hunt that misunderstands the open-book nature of basic science and that is selectively destroying scientific careers over financial misdeeds and paperwork errors without proof of actual espionage or stolen technology.
For their part, prosecutors believe they have a tight case. They allege that Lieber was recruited into China’s Thousand Talents Plan—a program aimed at attracting top scientists—and paid handsomely to establish a research laboratory at the Wuhan University of Technology, but hid the affiliation from US grant agencies when asked about it (read a copy of the indictment here). Lieber is facing six felony charges: two counts of making false statements to investigators, two counts of filing a false tax return, and two counts of failing to report a foreign bank account. [emphases mine; Note: None of these charges have been proved in court]
…
The case against Lieber could be a bellwether for the government, which has several similar cases pending against US professors alleging that they didn’t disclose their China affiliations to granting agencies.

As for the China Initiative (from the MIT Technology Review December 14, 2021 article),

The China Initiative was announced in 2018 by Jeff Sessions, then the Trump administration’s attorney general, as a central component of the administration’s tough stance toward China.
An MIT Technology Review investigation published earlier this month [December 2021] found that the China Initiative is an umbrella for various types of prosecutions somehow connected to China, with targets ranging from a Chinese national who ran a turtle-smuggling ring to state-sponsored hackers believed to be behind some of the biggest data breaches in history. In total, MIT Technology Review identified 77 cases brought under the initiative; of those, a quarter have led to guilty pleas or convictions, but nearly two-thirds remain pending.
The government’s prosecution of researchers like Lieber for allegedly hiding ties to Chinese institutions has been the most controversial, and fastest-growing, aspect of the government’s efforts. In 2020, half of the 31 new cases brought under the China Initiative were cases against scientists or researchers. These cases largely did not accuse the defendants of violating the Economic Espionage Act.
… hundreds of academics across the country, from institutions including Stanford University and Princeton University,signed a letter calling on Attorney General Merrick Garland to end the China Initiative. The initiative, they wrote, has drifted from its original mission of combating Chinese intellectual-property theft and is instead harming American research competitiveness by discouraging scholars from coming to or staying in the US.
…
Lieber’s case is the second [emphasis mine] China Initiative prosecution of an academic to end up in the courtroom. The only previous person to face trial [emphasis mine] on research integrity charges, University of Tennessee–Knoxville professor Anming Hu, was acquitted of all charges [emphasis mine] by a judge in June [2021] after a deadlocked jury led to a mistrial.
…

Ken Dilanian wrote an October 19, 2021 article for (US) National Broadcasting Corporation’s (NBC) news online about Hu’s eventual acquittal and about the China Inititative (Note: Dilanian’s timeline for the acquittal differs from the timeline in the MIT Technology Review),

The federal government brought the full measure of its legal might against Anming Hu, a nanotechnology expert at the University of Tennessee.
…
But the Justice Department’s efforts to convict Hu as part of its program to crack down on illicit technology transfer to China failed — spectacularly. A judge acquitted him last month [September 2021] after a lengthy trial offered little evidence of anything other than a paperwork misunderstanding, according to local newspaper coverage. It was the second trial, after the first ended in a hung jury.
…
“The China Initiative has turned up very little by way of clear espionage and the transfer of genuinely strategic information to the PRC,” said Robert Daly, a China expert at the Wilson Center, referring to the country by its formal name, the People’s Republic of China. “They are mostly process crimes, disclosure issues. A growing number of voices are calling for an end to the China initiative because it’s seen as discriminatory.”
The China Initiative began under President Donald Trump’s attorney general, Jeff Sessions, in 2018. But concerns about Chinese espionage in the United States — and the transfer of technology to China through business and academic relationships — are bipartisan.
…
John Demers, who departed in June [2021] as head of the Justice Department’s National Security Division, said in an interview that the problem of technology transfer at universities is real. But he said he also believes conflict of interest and disclosure rules were not rigorously enforced for many years. For that reason, he recommended an amnesty program offering academics with undisclosed foreign ties a chance to come clean and avoid penalties. So far, the Biden administration has not implemented such a program.
…

When I first featured the Lieber case in a January 28, 2020 posting I was more focused on the financial elements,

ETA January 28, 2020 at 1645 hours: I found a January 28, 2020 article by Antonio Regalado for the MIT Technology Review which provides a few more details about Lieber’s situation,
“…
Big money: According to the charging document, Lieber, starting in 2011, agreed to help set up a research lab at the Wuhan University of Technology and “make strategic visionary and creative research proposals” so that China could do cutting-edge science.
He was well paid for it. Lieber earned a salary when he visited China worth up to $50,000 per month, as well as $150,000 a year in expenses in addition to research funds. According to the complaint, he got paid by way of a Chinese bank account but also was known to send emails asking for cash instead.
Harvard eventually wised up to the existence of a Wuhan lab using its name and logo, but when administrators confronted Lieber, he lied and said he didn’t know about a formal joint program, according to the government complaint.
…

This is messy not least because Lieber and the members of his Harvard lab have done some extraordinary work as per my November 15, 2019 (Human-machine interfaces and ultra-small nanoprobes) posting about injectable electronics.

Harvesting a ‘healthy’ electric current production inside the human body

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“I Sing the Body Electric,” or so wrote Walt Whitman in a poem, which was added to the 1867 edition of his “Leaves of Grass” collection. I wonder if he ever managed that scientists would one day attempt to harvest human bioenergy for generating bioelectricity that could charge medical implants.

In some of the latest developments, researchers at Tel Aviv University (TAU; Israel) have announced a new material which they hope will render batteries unnecessary in devices such as pacemakers, from a July 6, 2021 news item on ScienceDaily,

A new nanotechnology development by an international research team led by Tel Aviv University researchers will make it possible to generate electric currents and voltage within the human body through the activation of various organs (mechanical force). The researchers explain that the development involves a new and very strong biological material, similar to collagen, which is non-toxic and causes no harm to the body’s tissues. The researchers believe that this new nanotechnology has many potential applications in medicine, including harvesting clean energy to operate devices implanted in the body (such as pacemakers) through the body’s natural movements, eliminating the need for batteries.
The study was led by Prof. Ehud Gazit of the Shmunis School of Biomedicine and Cancer Research at the Wise Faculty of Life Sciences, the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the Fleischman Faculty of Engineering and the Center for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, along with his lab team, Dr. Santu Bera and Dr. Wei Ji.
Also taking part in the study were researchers from the Weizmann Institute and a number of research institutes in Ireland, China and Australia. As a result of their findings, the researchers received two ERC-POC [European Research Council Proof of Concept] grants aimed at using the scientific research from the ERC grant that Gazit had previously won for applied technology. The [2021] research was published in the prestigious journal Nature Communications.

A July 6, 2021 TAU press release on EurekAlert, which originated the news item, delves further into the research,

Prof. Gazit, who is also Founding Director of the BLAVATNIK CENTER for Drug Discovery, explains: “Collagen is the most prevalent protein in the human body, constituting about 30% of all of the proteins in our body. It is a biological material with a helical structure and a variety of important physical properties, such as mechanical strength and flexibility, which are useful in many applications. However, because the collagen molecule itself is large and complex, researchers have long been looking for a minimalistic, short and simple molecule that is based on collagen and exhibits similar properties. About a year and a half ago, in the journal Nature Materials [2019], our group published a study in which we used nanotechnological means to engineer a new biological material that meets these requirements. It is a tripeptide – a very short molecule called Hyp-Phe-Phe consisting of only three amino acids – capable of a simple process of self-assembly of forming a collagen-like helical structure that is flexible and boasts a strength similar to that of the metal titanium. In the present study, we sought to examine whether the new material we developed bears another feature that characterizes collagen – piezoelectricity. Piezoelectricity is the ability of a material to generate electric currents and voltage as a result of the application of mechanical force, or vice versa, to create a mechanical force as the result of exposure to an electric field.”
In the study, the researchers created nanometric structures of the engineered material, and with the help of advanced nanotechnology tools, applied mechanical pressure on them. The experiment revealed that the material does indeed produce electric currents and voltage as a result of the pressure. Moreover, tiny structures of only hundreds of nanometers demonstrated one of the highest levels of piezoelectric ability ever discovered, comparable or superior to that of the piezoelectric materials commonly found in today’s market (most of which contain lead and are therefore not suitable for medical applications).
According to the researchers, the discovery of piezoelectricity of this magnitude in a nanometric material is of great significance, as it demonstrates the ability of the engineered material to serve as a kind of tiny motor for very small devices. Next, the researchers plan to apply crystallography and computational quantum mechanical methods (density functional theory) in order to gain an in-depth understanding of the material’s piezoelectric behavior and thereby enable the accurate engineering of crystals for the building of biomedical devices.
Prof. Gazit adds: “Most of the piezoelectric materials that we know of today are toxic lead-based materials, or polymers, meaning they are not environmentally and human body-friendly. Our new material, however, is completely biological, and therefore suitable for uses within the body. For example, a device made from this material may replace a battery that supplies energy to implants like pacemakers, though it should be replaced from time to time. Body movements – like heartbeats, jaw movements, bowel movements, or any other movement that occurs in the body on a regular basis – will charge the device with electricity, which will continuously activate the implant.”
Now, as part of their continuing research, the researchers are seeking to understand the molecular mechanisms of the engineered material with the goal of realizing its immense potential and turning this scientific discovery into applied technology. At this stage, the focus is on the development of medical devices, but Prof. Gazit emphasizes that “environmentally friendly piezoelectric materials, such as the one we have developed, have tremendous potential in a wide range of areas because they produce green energy using mechanical force that is being used anyway. For example, a car driving down the street can turn on the streetlights. These materials may also replace lead-containing piezoelectric materials that are currently in widespread use, but that raise concerns about the leakage of toxic metal into the environment.”

Here’s a link to and a citation for the more recent research publication,

Molecular engineering of piezoelectricity in collagen-mimicking peptide assemblies by Santu Bera, Sarah Guerin, Hui Yuan, Joseph O’Donnell, Nicholas P. Reynolds, Oguzhan Maraba, Wei Ji, Linda J. W. Shimon, Pierre-Andre Cazade, Syed A. M. Tofail, Damien Thompson, Rusen Yang & Ehud Gazit. Nature Communications volume 12, Article number: 2634 (2021) DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-22895-6 First Published Online: 11 May 2021

This paper is open access.

And, here’s a link and citation for the 2019 study which laid the groundwork for the 2021proof-of-concept study,

Rigid helical-like assemblies from a self-aggregating tripeptide by Santu Bera, Sudipta Mondal, Bin Xue, Linda J. W. Shimon, Yi Cao & Ehud Gazit. Nature Materials volume 18, pages 503–509 (2019) DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-019-0343-2 First Published Online: 15 April 2019 Issue Date: May 2019

This paper is behind a paywall.

Council of Canadian Academies (CCA): science policy internship and a new panel on Public Safety in the Digital Age

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It’s been a busy week for the Council of Canadian Academies (CCA); I don’t usually get two notices in such close order.

2022 science policy internship

The application deadline is Oct. 18, 2021, you will work remotely, and the stipend for the 2020 internship was $18,500 for six months.

Here’s more from a September 13, 2021 CCA notice (received Sept. 13, 2021 via email),

CCA Accepting Applications for Internship Program
…
The program provides interns with an opportunity to gain experience working at the interface of science and public policy. Interns will participate in the development of assessments by conducting research in support of CCA’s expert panel process.
The internship program is a full-time commitment of six months and will be a remote opportunity due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Applicants must be recent graduates with a graduate or professional degree, or post-doctoral fellows, with a strong interest in the use of evidence for policy. The application deadline is October 18, 2021. The start date is January 10, 2022. Applications and letters of reference should be addressed to Anita Melnyk at internship@cca-reports.ca.
More information about the CCA Internship Program and the application process can be found here. [Note: The link takes you to a page with information about a 2020 internship opportunity; presumably, the application requirements have not changed.]

Good luck!

Expert Panel on Public Safety in the Digital Age Announced

I have a few comments (see the ‘Concerns and hopes’ subhead) about this future report but first, here’s the announcement of the expert panel that was convened to look into the matter of public safety (received via email September 15, 2021),

CCA Appoints Expert Panel on Public Safety in the Digital Age
…
Access to the internet and digital technologies are essential for people, businesses, and governments to carry out everyday activities. But as more and more activities move online, people and organizations are increasingly vulnerable to serious threats and harms that are enabled by constantly evolving technology. At the request of Public Safety Canada, [emphasis mine] the Council of Canadian Academies (CCA) has formed an Expert Panel to examine leading practices that could help address risks to public safety while respecting human rights and privacy. Jennifer Stoddart, O.C., Strategic Advisor, Privacy and Cybersecurity Group, Fasken Martineau DuMoulin [law firm], will serve as Chair of the Expert Panel.
“The ever-evolving nature of crimes and threats that take place online present a huge challenge for governments and law enforcement,” said Ms. Stoddart. “Safeguarding public safety while protecting civil liberties requires a better understanding of the impacts of advances in digital technology and the challenges they create.”
As Chair, Ms. Stoddart will lead a multidisciplinary group with expertise in cybersecurity, social sciences, criminology, law enforcement, and law and governance. The Panel will answer the following question:
Considering the impact that advances in information and communications technologies have had on a global scale, what do current evidence and knowledge suggest regarding promising and leading practices that could be applied in Canada for investigating, preventing, and countering threats to public safety while respecting human rights and privacy?
“This is an important question, the answer to which will have both immediate and far-reaching implications for the safety and well-being of people living in Canada. Jennifer Stoddart and this expert panel are very well-positioned to answer it,” said Eric M. Meslin, PhD, FRSC, FCAHS, President and CEO of the CCA.
More information about the assessment can be found here.

The Expert Panel on Public Safety in the Digital Age:

Jennifer Stoddart (Chair), O.C., Strategic Advisor, Privacy and Cybersecurity Group, Fasken Martineau DuMoulin [law firm].
Benoît Dupont, Professor, School of Criminology, and Canada Research Chair in Cybersecurity and Research Chair for the Prevention of Cybercrime, Université de Montréal; Scientific Director, Smart Cybersecurity Network (SERENE-RISC). Note: This is one of Canada’s Networks of Centres of Excellence (NCE)
Richard Frank, Associate Professor, School of Criminology, Simon Fraser University; Director, International CyberCrime Research Centre International. Note: This is an SFU/ Society for the Policing of Cyberspace (POLCYB) partnership
Colin Gavaghan, Director, New Zealand Law Foundation Centre for Law and Policy in Emerging Technologies, Faculty of Law, University of Otago.
Laura Huey, Professor, Department of Sociology, Western University; Founder, Canadian Society of Evidence Based Policing [Can-SEPB].
Emily Laidlaw, Associate Professor and Canada Research Chair in Cybersecurity Law, Faculty of Law, University of Calgary.
Arash Habibi Lashkari, Associate Professor, Faculty of Computer Science, University of New Brunswick; Research Coordinator, Canadian Institute of Cybersecurity [CIC].
Christian Leuprecht, Class of 1965 Professor in Leadership, Department of Political Science and Economics, Royal Military College; Director, Institute of Intergovernmental Relations, School of Policy Studies, Queen’s University.
Florian Martin-Bariteau, Associate Professor of Law and University Research Chair in Technology and Society, University of Ottawa; Director, Centre for Law, Technology and Society.
Shannon Parker, Detective/Constable, Saskatoon Police Service.
Christopher Parsons, Senior Research Associate, Citizen Lab, Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, University of Toronto.
Jad Saliba, Founder and Chief Technology Officer, Magnet Forensics Inc.
Heidi Tworek, Associate Professor, School of Public Policy and Global Affairs, and Department of History, University of British Columbia.

Oddly, there’s no mention that Jennifer Stoddart (Wikipedia entry) was Canada’s sixth privacy commissioner. Also, Fasken Martineau DuMoulin (her employer) changed its name to Fasken in 2017 (Wikipedia entry). The company currently has offices in Canada, UK, South Africa, and China (Firm webpage on company website).

Exactly how did the question get framed?

It’s always informative to look at the summary (from the reports Public Safety in the Digital Age webpage on the CCA website),

Information and communications technologies have profoundly changed almost every aspect of life and business in the last two decades. While the digital revolution has brought about many positive changes, it has also created opportunities for criminal organizations and malicious actors [emphasis mine] to target individuals, businesses, and systems. Ultimately, serious crime facilitated by technology and harmful online activities pose a threat to the safety and well-being of people in Canada and beyond.
Damaging or criminal online activities can be difficult to measure and often go unreported. Law enforcement agencies and other organizations working to address issues such as the sexual exploitation of children, human trafficking, and violent extremism [emphasis mine] must constantly adapt their tools and methods to try and prevent and respond to crimes committed online.
A better understanding of the impacts of these technological advances on public safety and the challenges they create could help to inform approaches to protecting public safety in Canada.
This assessment will examine promising practices that could help to address threats to public safety related to the use of digital technologies while respecting human rights and privacy.
The Sponsor:
Public Safety Canada
The Question:
Considering the impact that advances in information and communications technologies have had on a global scale, what do current evidence and knowledge suggest regarding promising and leading practices that could be applied in Canada for investigating, preventing, and countering threats to public safety while respecting human rights and privacy?

Three things stand out for me. First, public safety, what is it?, second, ‘malicious actors’, and third, the examples used for the issues being addressed (more about this in the Comments subsection, which follows).

What is public safety?

Before launching into any comments, here’s a description for Public Safety Canada (from their About webpage) where you’ll find a hodge podge,

Public Safety Canada was created in 2003 to ensure coordination across all federal departments and agencies responsible for national security and the safety of Canadians.
Our mandate is to keep Canadians safe from a range of risks such as natural disasters, crime and terrorism.
Our mission is to build a safe and resilient Canada.
…
The Public Safety Portfolio
A cohesive and integrated approach to Canada’s security requires cooperation across government. Together, these agencies have an annual budget of over $9 billion and more than 66,000 employees working in every part of the country.
Public Safety Partner Agencies
The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) manages the nation’s borders by enforcing Canadian laws governing trade and travel, as well as international agreements and conventions. CBSA facilitates legitimate cross-border traffic and supports economic development while stopping people and goods that pose a potential threat to Canada.
The Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) investigates and reports on activities that may pose a threat to the security of Canada. CSIS also provides security assessments, on request, to all federal departments and agencies.
The Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) helps protect society by encouraging offenders to become law-abiding citizens while exercising reasonable, safe, secure and humane control. CSC is responsible for managing offenders sentenced to two years or more in federal correctional institutions and under community supervision.
The Parole Board of Canada (PBC) is an independent body that grants, denies or revokes parole for inmates in federal prisons and provincial inmates in province without their own parole board. The PBC helps protect society by facilitating the timely reintegration of offenders into society as law-abiding citizens.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) enforces Canadian laws, prevents crime and maintains peace, order and security.
…

So, Public Safety includes a spy agency (CSIS), the prison system (Correctional Services and Parole Board), and the national police force (RCMP) and law enforcement at the borders with the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA). None of the partner agencies are dedicated to natural disasters although it’s mentioned in the department’s mandate.

The focus is largely on criminal activity and espionage. On that note, a very senior civilian RCMP intelligence official, Cameron Ortis*, was charged with passing secrets to foreign entities (malicious actors?). (See the September 13, 2021 [updated Sept. 15, 2021] news article by Amanda Connolly, Mercedes Stephenson, Stewart Bell, Sam Cooper & Rachel Browne for CTV news and the Sept. 18, 2019 [updated January 6, 2020] article by Douglas Quan for the National Post for more details.)

There appears to be at least one other major security breach; that involving Canada’s only level four laboratory, the Winnipeg-based National Microbiology Lab (NML). (See a June 10, 2021 article by Karen Pauls for Canadian Broadcasting Corporation news online for more details.)

As far as I’m aware, Ortis is still being held with a trial date scheduled for September 2022 (see Catherine Tunney’s April 9, 2021 article for CBC news online) and, to date, there have been no charges laid in the Winnipeg lab case.

Concerns and hopes

Ordinarily I’d note links and relationships between the various expert panel members but in this case it would be a big surprise if they weren’t linked in some fashion as the focus seems to be heavily focused on cybersecurity (as per the panel member’s bios.), which I imagine is a smallish community in Canada.

As I’ve made clear in the paragraphs leading into the comments, Canada appears to have seriously fumbled the ball where national and international cybersecurity is concerned.

So getting back to “First, public safety, what is it?, second, ‘malicious actors’, and third, the examples used for the issues,” I’m a bit puzzled.

Public safety as best I can tell, is just about anything they’d like it to be. ‘Malicious actors’ is a term I’ve seen used to imply a foreign power is behind the actions being held up for scrutiny.

The examples used for the issues being addressed “sexual exploitation of children, human trafficking, and violent extremism” hint at a focus on crimes that cross borders and criminal organizations, as well as, like-minded individuals organizing violent and extremist acts but not specifically at any national or international security concerns.

On a more mundane note, I’m a little surprised that identity theft wasn’t mentioned as an example.

I’m hopeful there will be some examination of emerging technologies such as quantum communication (specifically, encryption issues) and artificial intelligence. I also hope the report will include a discussion about mistakes and over reliance on technology (for a refresher course on what happens when organizations, such as the Canadian federal government, make mistakes in the digital world; search ‘Phoenix payroll system’, a 2016 made-in-Canada and preventable debacle, which to this day is still being fixed).

In the end, I think the only topic that can be safely excluded from the report is climate change otherwise it’s a pretty open mandate as far as can be told from publicly available information.

I noticed the international panel member is from New Zealand (the international component is almost always from the US, UK, northern Europe, and/or the Commonwealth). Given that New Zealand (as well as being part of the commonwealth) is one of the ‘Five Eyes Intelligence Community’, which includes Canada, Australia, the UK, the US, and, NZ, I was expecting a cybersecurity expert. If Professor Colin Gavaghan does have that expertise, it’s not obvious on his University of Otaga profile page (Note: Links have been removed),

Research interests
Colin is the first director of the New Zealand Law Foundation sponsored Centre for Law and Policy in Emerging Technologies. The Centre examines the legal, ethical and policy issues around new technologies. To date, the Centre has carried out work on biotechnology, nanotechnology, information and communication technologies and artificial intelligence.
In addition to emerging technologies, Colin lectures and writes on medical and criminal law.
Together with colleagues in Computer Science and Philosophy, Colin is the leader of a three-year project exploring the legal, ethical and social implications of artificial intelligence for New Zealand.
Background
Colin regularly advises on matters of technology and regulation. He is first Chair of the NZ Police’s Advisory Panel on Emergent Technologies, and a member of the Digital Council for Aotearoa, which advises the Government on digital technologies. Since 2017, he has been a member (and more recently Deputy Chair) of the Advisory Committee on Assisted Reproductive Technology. He was an expert witness in the High Court case of Seales v Attorney General, and has advised members of parliament on draft legislation.
He is a frustrated writer of science fiction, but compensates with occasional appearances on panels at SF conventions.
…

I appreciate the sense of humour evident in that last line.

Almost breaking news

Wednesday, September 15, 2021 an announcement of a new alliance in the Indo-Pacific region, the Three Eyes (Australia, UK, and US or AUKUS) was made.

Interestingly all three are part of the Five Eyes intelligence alliance comprised of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, UK, and US. Hmmm … Canada and New Zealand both border the Pacific and last I heard, the UK is still in Europe.

A September 17, 2021 article, “Canada caught off guard by exclusion from security pact” by Robert Fife and Steven Chase for the Globe and Mail (I’m quoting from my paper copy),

The Canadian government was surprised this week by the announcement of a new security pact among the United States, Britain and Australia, one that excluded Canada [and New Zealand too] and is aimed at confronting China’s growing military and political influence in the Indo-Pacific region, according to senior government officials.
Three officials, representing Canada’s Foreign Affairs, Intelligence and Defence departments, told the Globe and Mail that Ottawa was not consulted about the pact, and had no idea the trilateral security announcement was coming until it was made on Wednesday [September 15, 2021] by U.S. President Joe Biden, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison.
…
The new trilateral alliance, dubbed AUKUS, after the initials of the three countries, will allow for greater sharing of information in areas such as artificial intelligence and cyber and underwater defence capabilities.
…

Fife and Chase have also written a September 17, 2021 Globe and Mail article titled, “Chinese Major-General worked with fired Winnipeg Lab scientist,”

…
… joint research conducted between Major-General Chen Wei and former Canadian government lab scientist Xiangguo Qiu indicates that co-operation between the Chinese military and scientists at the National Microbiology Laboratory (NML) went much higher than was previously known. The People’s Liberation Army is the military of China’s ruling Communist Party.
…

Given that no one overseeing the Canadian lab, which is a level 4 and which should have meant high security, seems to have known that Wei was a member of the military and with the Cameron Ortis situation still looming, would you have included Canada in the new pact?

*ETA September 20, 2021: For anyone who’s curious about the Cameron Ortis case, there’s a Fifth Estate documentary (approximately 46 minutes): The Smartest Guy in the Room: Cameron Ortis and the RCMP Secrets Scandal.

Nano-photosynthesis in your brain as a stroke treatment?

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A May 19, 2021 news item on phys.org sheds some light on a new approach to stroke treatments,

Blocked blood vessels in the brains of stroke patients prevent oxygen-rich blood from getting to cells, causing severe damage. Plants and some microbes produce oxygen through photosynthesis. What if there was a way to make photosynthesis happen in the brains of patients? Now, researchers reporting in ACS’ Nano Letters have done just that in cells and in mice, using blue-green algae and special nanoparticles, in a proof-of-concept demonstration.
…

A May 19, 2021 American Chemical Society (ACS) news release, which originated the news item, provides more information on strokes and how this new approach may prove useful,

Strokes result in the deaths of 5 million people worldwide every year, according to the World Health Organization. Millions more survive, but they often experience disabilities, such as difficulties with speech, swallowing or memory. The most common cause is a blood vessel blockage in the brain, and the best way to prevent permanent brain damage from this type of stroke is to dissolve or surgically remove the blockage as soon as possible. However, those options only work within a narrow time window after the stroke happens and can be risky. Blue-green algae, such as Synechococcus elongatus, have been studied previously to treat the lack of oxygen in heart tissue and tumors using photosynthesis. But the visible light needed to trigger the microbes can’t penetrate the skull, and although near-infrared light can pass through, it is insufficient to directly power photosynthesis. “Up-conversion” nanoparticles, often used for imaging, can absorb near-infrared photons and emit visible light. So, Lin Wang, Zheng Wang, Guobin Wang and colleagues at Huazhong University of Science and Technology wanted to see if they could develop a new approach that could someday be used for stroke patients by combining these parts — S. elongatus, nanoparticles and near-infrared light — in a new “nano-photosynthetic” system.
The researchers paired S. elongatus with neodymium up-conversion nanoparticles that transform tissue-penetrating near-infrared light to a visible wavelength that the microbes can use to photosynthesize. In a cell study, they found that the nano-photosynthesis approach reduced the number of neurons that died after oxygen and glucose deprivation. They then injected the microbes and nanoparticles into mice with blocked cerebral arteries and exposed the mice to near-infrared light. The therapy reduced the number of dying neurons, improved the animals’ motor function and even helped new blood vessels to start growing. Although this treatment is still in the animal testing stage, it has promise to advance someday toward human clinical trials, the researchers say.
The authors acknowledge funding from the National Key Basic Research Program of China, the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Chinese Ministry of Education’s Science and Technology Program, the Major Scientific and Technological Innovation Projects in Hubei Province, and the Joint Fund of Ministry of Education for Equipment Pre-research.

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

Oxygen-Generating Cyanobacteria Powered by Upconversion-Nanoparticles-Converted Near-Infrared Light for Ischemic Stroke Treatment by Jian Wang, Qiangfei Su, Qiying Lv, Bo Cai, Xiakeerzhati Xiaohalati, Guobin Wang, Zheng Wang, and Lin Wang. Nano Lett. 2021, 21, 11, 4654–4665 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.nanolett.1c00719 Publication Date:May 19, 2021 © 2021 American Chemical Society

This paper is behind a paywall.

Memristors, it’s all about the oxides

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I have one research announcement from China and another from the Netherlands, both of which concern memristors and oxides.

China

A May 17, 2021 news item on Nanowerk announces work, which suggests that memristors may not need to rely solely on oxides but could instead utilize light more gainfully,

Scientists are getting better at making neuron-like junctions for computers that mimic the human brain’s random information processing, storage and recall. Fei Zhuge of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and colleagues reviewed the latest developments in the design of these ‘memristors’ for the journal Science and Technology of Advanced Materials …
Computers apply artificial intelligence programs to recall previously learned information and make predictions. These programs are extremely energy- and time-intensive: typically, vast volumes of data must be transferred between separate memory and processing units. To solve this issue, researchers have been developing computer hardware that allows for more random and simultaneous information transfer and storage, much like the human brain.
Electronic circuits in these ‘neuromorphic’ computers include memristors that resemble the junctions between neurons called synapses. Energy flows through a material from one electrode to another, much like a neuron firing a signal across the synapse to the next neuron. Scientists are now finding ways to better tune this intermediate material so the information flow is more stable and reliable.
…

I had no success locating the original news release, which originated the news item, but have found this May 17, 2021 news item on eedesignit.com, which provides the remaining portion of the news release.

“Oxides are the most widely used materials in memristors,” said Zhuge. “But oxide memristors have unsatisfactory stability and reliability. Oxide-based hybrid structures can effectively improve this.”
Memristors are usually made of an oxide-based material sandwiched between two electrodes. Researchers are getting better results when they combine two or more layers of different oxide-based materials between the electrodes. When an electrical current flows through the network, it induces ions to drift within the layers. The ions’ movements ultimately change the memristor’s resistance, which is necessary to send or stop a signal through the junction.
Memristors can be tuned further by changing the compounds used for electrodes or by adjusting the intermediate oxide-based materials. Zhuge and his team are currently developing optoelectronic neuromorphic computers based on optically-controlled oxide memristors. Compared to electronic memristors, photonic ones are expected to have higher operation speeds and lower energy consumption. They could be used to construct next generation artificial visual systems with high computing efficiency.

Now for a picture that accompanied the news release, which follows,

Fig. The all-optically controlled memristor developed for optoelectronic neuromorphic computing (Image by NIMTE)

Here’s the February 7, 2021 Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering (NIMTE) pre s s release featuring this work and a more technical description,

A research group led by Prof. ZHUGE Fei at the Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering (NIMTE) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) developed an all-optically controlled (AOC) analog memristor, whose memconductance can be reversibly tuned by varying only the wavelength of the controlling light.
As the next generation of artificial intelligence (AI), neuromorphic computing (NC) emulates the neural structure and operation of the human brain at the physical level, and thus can efficiently perform multiple advanced computing tasks such as learning, recognition and cognition.
Memristors are promising candidates for NC thanks to the feasibility of high-density 3D integration and low energy consumption. Among them, the emerging optoelectronic memristors are competitive by virtue of combining the advantages of both photonics and electronics. However, the reversible tuning of memconductance depends highly on the electric excitation, which have severely limited the development and application of optoelectronic NC.
To address this issue, researchers at NIMTE proposed a bilayered oxide AOC memristor, based on the relatively mature semiconductor material InGaZnO and a memconductance tuning mechanism of light-induced electron trapping and detrapping.
The traditional electrical memristors require strong electrical stimuli to tune their memconductance, leading to high power consumption, a large amount of Joule heat, microstructural change triggered by the Joule heat, and even high crosstalk in memristor crossbars.
On the contrary, the developed AOC memristor does not involve microstructure changes, and can operate upon weak light irradiation with light power density of only 20 μW cm^-2, which has provided a new approach to overcome the instability of the memristor.
Specifically, the AOC memristor can serve as an excellent synaptic emulator and thus mimic spike-timing-dependent plasticity (STDP) which is an important learning rule in the brain, indicating its potential applications in AOC spiking neural networks for high-efficiency optoelectronic NC.
Moreover, compared to purely optical computing, the optoelectronic computing using our AOC memristor showed higher practical feasibility, on account of the simple structure and fabrication process of the device.
The study may shed light on the in-depth research and practical application of optoelectronic NC, and thus promote the development of the new generation of AI.
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 61674156 and 61874125), the Strategic Priority Research Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences (No. XDB32050204), and the Zhejiang Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China (No. LD19E020001).

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

Hybrid oxide brain-inspired neuromorphic devices for hardware implementation of artificial intelligence by Jingrui Wang, Xia Zhuge & Fei Zhuge. Science and Technology of Advanced Materials Volume 22, 2021 – Issue 1 Pages 326-344 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/14686996.2021.1911277 Published online:14 May 2021

This paper appears to be open access.

Netherlands

In this case, a May 18, 2021 news item on Nanowerk marries oxides to spintronics,

Classic computers use binary values (0/1) to perform. By contrast, our brain cells can use more values to operate, making them more energy-efficient than computers. This is why scientists are interested in neuromorphic (brain-like) computing.
Physicists from the University of Groningen (the Netherlands) have used a complex oxide to create elements comparable to the neurons and synapses in the brain using spins, a magnetic property of electrons.
…

The press release, which follows, was accompanied by this image illustrating the work,

Caption: Schematic of the proposed device structure for neuromorphic spintronic memristors. The write path is between the terminals through the top layer (black dotted line), the read path goes through the device stack (red dotted line). The right side of the figure indicates how the choice of substrate dictates whether the device will show deterministic or probabilistic behaviour. Credit: Banerjee group, University of Groningen

A May 18, 2021 University of Groningen press release (also on EurekAlert), which originated the news item, adds more ‘spin’ to the story,

Although computers can do straightforward calculations much faster than humans, our brains outperform silicon machines in tasks like object recognition. Furthermore, our brain uses less energy than computers. Part of this can be explained by the way our brain operates: whereas a computer uses a binary system (with values 0 or 1), brain cells can provide more analogue signals with a range of values.
Thin films
The operation of our brains can be simulated in computers, but the basic architecture still relies on a binary system. That is why scientist look for ways to expand this, creating hardware that is more brain-like, but will also interface with normal computers. ‘One idea is to create magnetic bits that can have intermediate states’, says Tamalika Banerjee, Professor of Spintronics of Functional Materials at the Zernike Institute for Advanced Materials, University of Groningen. She works on spintronics, which uses a magnetic property of electrons called ‘spin’ to transport, manipulate and store information.
In this study, her PhD student Anouk Goossens, first author of the paper, created thin films of a ferromagnetic metal (strontium-ruthenate oxide, SRO) grown on a substrate of strontium titanate oxide. The resulting thin film contained magnetic domains that were perpendicular to the plane of the film. ‘These can be switched more efficiently than in-plane magnetic domains’, explains Goossens. By adapting the growth conditions, it is possible to control the crystal orientation in the SRO. Previously, out-of-plane magnetic domains have been made using other techniques, but these typically require complex layer structures.
Magnetic anisotropy
The magnetic domains can be switched using a current through a platinum electrode on top of the SRO. Goossens: ‘When the magnetic domains are oriented perfectly perpendicular to the film, this switching is deterministic: the entire domain will switch.’ However, when the magnetic domains are slightly tilted, the response is probabilistic: not all the domains are the same, and intermediate values occur when only part of the crystals in the domain have switched.
By choosing variants of the substrate on which the SRO is grown, the scientists can control its magnetic anisotropy. This allows them to produce two different spintronic devices. ‘This magnetic anisotropy is exactly what we wanted’, says Goossens. ‘Probabilistic switching compares to how neurons function, while the deterministic switching is more like a synapse.’
The scientists expect that in the future, brain-like computer hardware can be created by combining these different domains in a spintronic device that can be connected to standard silicon-based circuits. Furthermore, probabilistic switching would also allow for stochastic computing, a promising technology which represents continuous values by streams of random bits. Banerjee: ‘We have found a way to control intermediate states, not just for memory but also for computing.’

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

Anisotropy and Current Control of Magnetization in SrRuO₃/SrTiO₃ Heterostructures for Spin-Memristors by A.S. Goossens, M.A.T. Leiviskä and T. Banerjee. Frontiers in Nanotechnology DOI: https://doi.org/10.3389/fnano.2021.680468 Published: 18 May 2021

This appears to be open access.

FrogHeart

Commentary about nanotech, science policy and communication, society, and the arts

Tag Archives: China

China and nanotechnology

Secure quantum communication network with 15 users

East/West collaboration on scholarship and imagination about humanity’s long-term future— six new fellows at Berggruen Research Center at Peking University

Getting ready

Gene editing and ethics

Brain/computer interfaces (BCI)

Artificial intelligence (AI), art, and the brain

Philosophical traditions

Charles Lieber, nanoscientist, and the US Dept. of Justice

Harvesting a ‘healthy’ electric current production inside the human body

Council of Canadian Academies (CCA): science policy internship and a new panel on Public Safety in the Digital Age

2022 science policy internship

Expert Panel on Public Safety in the Digital Age Announced

Exactly how did the question get framed?

What is public safety?

Concerns and hopes

Almost breaking news

Nano-photosynthesis in your brain as a stroke treatment?

Memristors, it’s all about the oxides

China

Netherlands