Dangers of Molecular Manufacturing

"Nanotechnology is a branch of science that deals with particles 1-100 nanometers in size. Experts believe possible dangers of nanotechnology lie in how these tiny particles might interact with the environment, and more importantly, with the human body. Billions of dollars are being spent to incorporate nanoparticles into products that are already being marketed to the public; when this investment is compared to the the comparatively scant research into nanotech health issues, some scientists become concerned."

                                           Web wiseGEEK. 30 december 2012. <http://www.wisegeek.com/what-are-the-possible-dangers-of-nanotechnology.htm>.

Please read the articles:

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-are-the-possible-dangers-of-nanotechnology.htm

 http://www.crnano.org/dangers.htm

Please watch the video:

"If potential benefits of molecular nanotechnology (MNT) sound too good to be true, there is one caveat — the potential dangers of molecular nanotechnology. When nanofactories can arrange atoms into structures — playing with the building blocks of life itself, or in this case nanoblocks -- theoretically anything allowable by the laws of physics can be created fast and cheap. Requirements include a few square feet for the nanofactory, the software, and an electrical outlet. 

Criminals, terrorists, disturbed individuals, governments, and antisocial groups of all stripes would be incredibly empowered by such technology. Additional potential dangers of molecular nanotechnology threaten the economy, environment, human rights, and world peace. The rush to gain supremacy through nanoweaponry could lead to a new arms race, while attempts to stranglehold the technology would likely result in independent, covert development. Unilateral, "open-source" international cooperation is another option that runs its own risks, and control in the public sector could lead to inequitable benefits and an Orwellian society. The probability factor of certain potential dangers of molecular nanotechnology will be higher than others, but all are possible within a scope of circumstances that, without prevention through forethought and planning, could feasibly come to pass. Some dangers cannot be discounted even with said planning, while others can reasonably be assumed to be goals of recognized subversive elements."

30 december 2012. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJXRjEPEhL0>.

Would this be plausible?

Is there already an actual nanobot in practical use? or at least a robot that is as small as a pebble?

We can not just live the way we live now? Is not that good enough?

What are the Possible Dangers of Nanotechnology?  

Your opinion? 

Happy New Year:)

Week 5

Read an article of your  interest at http://www.educause.edu/research-and-publications
 and present/discuss it on the blog.

Rhyme and reason

"The aim of science is to make difficult things understandable in a simpler way; the aim of poetry is to state simple things in an incomprehensible way, (...) The two are incompatible."

Do you agree with these statements?

If you are not sure, take a look at this article:
www.newscientist.com/article/mg21228441.000-rhyme-and-reason-the-victorian-poet-scientists.html?full=true

Do you think it is possible to use art in order to make science more popular and comprehensible? Are scientists capable of creating such art, or is it more like a private joke, which can be understood only by a small group of people?

You can also get familar with some modern attempts, like the ones available here:
http://sciencepoems.net/

"There once was a man who loved math, who thought he was Sylvia Plath…" ;)

What's invisible?

They say, that life's a cup - but every time when I look closely at - I can see, that it's a more complicated structure. I'm not a huge fan of physics, but our reality is so amazing! We can see stars and planets but we cant see what holds them apart. We can see each other faces, but it's really hard to see our thoughts.

This week I suggest you watch an interesting&mind blowing animation, which shows that we know nothing! Sit down and imagine how much we can not imagine :).

So what's invisible? More than you think
by John Lloyd



Questions:

1. Do you have any idea how consciousness works?

2. Do you think that we have free will, or rather operate in a deterministic way?

3. Do you think that the biggest technological revolution is already behind us?

4. The fact that so many things we do not know more scares or inspires you?





So why are we here? and what are we going to do about it? :)

Spoiler: "We are here on Earth to help others. What the others are here for, I've NO idea" ;].

Money doesn’t buy happiness. Or does it?

This phrase is probably well-known to all of you and when you think about it, is seems just about right. But what if you consider this in the context of giving money to others to make yourself feel good? It will soon be Christmas and this subject seems quite relevant especially at this time of year. 

The argument is that money can buy you happiness. The question is what you spend it on. The experiment that Michael Norton talks about in the TED talk for example, has proven that spending money on other people makes you happier in the long run than spending it on yourself. The amount does not matter – it’s the gesture that counts. It has also been observed that people who give money to charity are happier with their lives in general than those who do not. Have you ever thought about the correlation between these two things?

Here's the video:

Of course, giving and helping others, especially those in need is good – but is it fully altruistic? Sandro Contenta suggests that we are evolutionarily tuned to doing things that benefit others because it makes us feel good about ourselves and opens the possibility that people might return the favour in the future. Also, it helps us live up to the positive view of ourselves – in our eyes, and in the eyes of others:

http://www.thestar.com/living/christmas/article/742534--selfish-giving-charity-s-dark-side

So is charity selfish? From personal experience, I recently had an initiative at my company to participate in the “Szlachetna paczka” project. We gathered items of need for a chosen family and packed them in carton boxes for them to be delivered to a warehouse of the institution that organizes the campaign and then be delivered to the family by their own volunteers. “What a pity” I thought, “that we can’t see the reaction of the family when they get the package”. Now that I think about it, I caught myself thinking the same thing that Tim Harford’s talks about in his article:

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/the_undercover_economist/2006/10/charity_is_selfish.single.html

– that it’s more important that the family gets the items it needs than that I make myself feel good by delivering it personally. 

It’s interesting to consider the thought that: “If people really were altruistic, there would be much less volunteering”. If people who volunteer would spend that time on doing overtime instead for example, to earn more and give that money to organizations specializing in charity, they would have a bigger impact than they have volunteering themselves. But volunteering yourself makes you feel good. It’s interesting that in fact, “the closer you look at charitable giving, the less charitable it appears to be”.

Discuss the ideas presented in the articles and the TED talk. Write about your own experiences.

Doing Scientific Experiments

Read and watch the presentation Death Game http://uwb2m-s.blogspot.com/2012/12/death-game.html
and comment on it here.
Do such experiments reveal people's true nature? Should scientists be allowed to do such research?

Why You Can’t Vote Online

For this week, I've chosen the topic of voting over the Internet in elections.
Please read the two articles below and discuss the questions.

Fundamental security problems aren’t solved, computing experts warn.
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/506741/why-you-cant-vote-online/

Estonian Elections 2011
Link


Questions:

1. Would you like to be able to vote online in elections? Please explain why or why not.

2. Do you think voter turnout would increase if online voting was possible? Is more people voting something worth pursuing? How do you feel about mandatory voting with sanctions when you fail to vote?

3. Is online voting adding unnecessary complexity or can it simplify the process of voting and counting votes?

4. Does the Estonian example convince you that securing electronic voting in general elections is possible?

5. What other areas of e-Government would you like to see being improved in Poland?

Geo-arbitrage

Have you heard of geo-arbitrage? What do you think of this idea? Have you thought of working for a Polish company/university living, for example, somewhere in Asia?

Do we live in so much globalised world?

Read /watch the presentation and comment on it please.

http://onlineclasspjwstk-malgorzataswierk.blogspot.com/2012/11/geoarbitrage.html

Read also the comments presented in the forum discussion

http://www.stevepavlina.com/forums/world-affairs/45571-impact-geo-arbitrage.html

IBM simulates 530 billion neurons, 100 trillion synapses on supercomputer

IBM Research – Almaden presented at Supercomputing 2012 last week the next milestone toward fulfilling the ultimate vision of the DARPA’s cognitive computing program, called Systems of Neuromorphic Adaptive Plastic Scalable Electronics (SyNAPSE), according to Dr. Dharmendra S. Modha, Manager, Cognitive Computing, IBM Research – Almaden.


Announced in 2008, DARPA’s SyNAPSE program calls for developing electronic neuromorphic (brain-simulation) machine technology that scales to biological levels, using a cognitive computing architecture with 10¹⁰ neurons (10 billion) and 10¹⁴ synapses (100 trillion, based on estimates of the number of synapses in the human brain) to develop electronic neuromorphic machine technology that scales to biological levels.”

A network of neurosynaptic cores derived from long-distance wiring in the monkey brain: Neuro-synaptic cores are locally clustered into brain-inspired regions, and each core is represented as an individual point along the ring. Arcs are drawn from a source core to a destination core with an edge color defined by the color assigned to the source core. (Credit: IBM)

Simulating 10 billion neurons and 100 trillion synapses on most powerful supercomputer

IBM says it has now accomplished this milestone with its new “TrueNorth” system running on the world’s second-fastest operating supercomputer, the Lawrence Livermore National Lab (LBNL) Blue Gene/Q Sequoia, using 96 racks (1,572,864 processor cores, 1.5 PB memory, 98,304 MPI processes, and 6,291,456 threads).

IBM and LBNL achieved an unprecedented scale of 2.084 billion neurosynaptic cores* containing 53×10¹⁰  (530 billion) neurons and 1.37×10¹⁴ (100 trillion) synapses running only 1542 times slower than real time.
“We have not built a biologically realistic simulation of the complete human brain,” explains an abstract of the Supercomputing 2012 (SC12) paper (open-access PDF), selected from the 100 SC12 papers as one of the six finalists for the Best Paper Award. “Computation (‘neurons’), memory (‘synapses’), and communication (‘axons,’ ‘dendrites’) are mathematically abstracted away from biological detail toward engineering goals of maximizing function (utility, applications) and minimizing cost (power, area, delay) and design complexity of hardware implementation.”

Two billion neurosynaptic cores

“Previously, we have demonstrated a neurosynaptic core* and some of its applications,” continues the abstract. “We have also compiled the largest long-distance wiring diagram of the monkey brain. Now, imagine a network with over 2 billion of these neurosynaptic cores that are divided into 77 brain-inspired regions with probabilistic intra-region (“gray matter”) connectivity and monkey-brain-inspired inter-region (“white matter”) connectivity.

“This fulfills a core vision of the DARPA SyNAPSE project to bring together nanotechnology, neuroscience, and supercomputing to lay the foundation of a novel cognitive computing architecture that complements today’s von Neumann machines.”

To support TrueNorth, IBM has developed Compass, a multi-threaded, massively parallel functional simulator and a parallel compiler that maps a network of long-distance pathways in the macaque monkey brain to TrueNorth.

* The IBM-Cornell neurosynaptic core is a key building block of a modular neuromorphic architecture, according to Modha. The core incorporates central elements from neuroscience, including 256 leaky integrate-and-fire neurons, 1024 axons, and 256×1024 synapses using an SRAM crossbar memory. It fits in a 4.2mm square area, using a 45nm SOI process.


http://p9.hostingprod.com/@modha.org/blog/2012/06/building_block_of_a_programmab.html 

 Questions:

1-     How many years will take to create a robot to simulated the human brain, like Human android ?

2-     Do you think it’s possible to create a human simulation ?

3-     Could you describe the possible consequences of human brain simulation ?

4-     Do you think a technology like that can improve human civilization ?

 

XXI century education

As I am  a lecturer, as well as some of you, I have been wondering for some time what makes students learn? Are these new technologies that help them acquire new skills and knowledge or maybe some other factors like more experiential learning instead of learning by heart, so popular in Polish schools.

 This week I would like you to read the article: http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky%20-%20Digital%20Natives,%20Digital%20Immigrants%20-%20Part1.pdf .
 It is not new, but still a prominent one. Moreover, watch the TEDTalk presentation:

Additionally, you can read some chapters of the book Educating the Net Generation:
 http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/pub7101.pdf .
Discuss the ideas presented in the articles and the presentation.Write about your experiences.

3D Printing technology - s4419

I would like to present articles about the " 3D Printing " technology.

3D printing is a process of making three dimensional solid objects from a digital model.
It can be used for prototyping , parts development , and is even versatile enough to print medical prostheses and implants .
3D printing is a rapidly growing area , and the popularity of 3D printers grows each day.

Please look at the following articles and write what you think about it.
http://www.explainingthefuture.com/3dprinting.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/16/get-ready-for-3d-printing
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-09-21/the-era-of-retail-3d-printing-begins
http://weburbanist.com/2010/11/03/12-incredible-objects-being-made-with-3d-printers-today/


Questions:
1. What do you think about this technology. Does it make sense ? Do you think that it will replace the traditional production?
2. What do you think about the self-replicating manufacturing machine? Like RepRap:
http://www.reprap.org/wiki/Main_Page
3. Do you think it is possible to create a"self-replicating" machine?
4. If everyone had a possibility to "print" anything would you call it piracy?

Self-Presentations

Hello, my name is Michał. 

I have received M.Sc. degree in computer science at PJIIT. Currently I work as a researcher, lecturer and database administrator/developer at PJIIT.  My PhD topic focuses around social-IT and it’s based mainly on Wikipedia and social connections between groups of users.

I like reading fantasy books, photography and traveling.

Michał Jankowski-Lorek / Fooky

My name is Waldek.
I work in IT for >10 years.
I am responsible for the work of a small IT department. This includes some strategy, management and permanent learning.
I try to put as much as possible of simplicity and quality info things I do. I enjoy when people put heavy thinking in the first place and then heavy working, not the opposite :).
Waldemar Kabała

Hi, my name is Slawek. I graduated from the University of Information Technology and Management in Rzeszow. This year I am starting a Ph.D. at the Polish-Japanese Institute of Information Technology.
I'm mainly interested in nanotechnology, cryptography and e-business. I pay a lot of attention to the IT systems' security issues, and therefore I have participated in a number of projects in the field of security.
In my free time I run, play volleyball and solve puzzles.

Slavek H

Hi all, My name is Michael, I'm 25. Last summer I completed master's degree in PJWSTK in Warsaw and as You can see I started PhD in PJWSTK ;) My scientific areas of interest are database systems, warehouses, Business Intelligence software and other related to this.:) I am currently working with the BI tools like QlikView and I increase my interest in this area. Privately, I am a happy newlywed and I have a wonderful wife ;) I like to travel, I now plan to visit Barcelona and Madrid.
Michael  s4419

Hi, my name is Artur. I have recieved my MsC on Warsaw University one year ago, just before signing to PhD. Which in fact was quite spontaneous decision. My scientific areas of interest are mainly robotics and databases but actually I ended up with more interdisciplinary PhD - medicine, and Parkinson disease treatment, which actually I find very rewarding. As for professional interest i don't have them much (that's main reason which i started PhD :)) but right now I am doing some stuff in financial analysis and some web programming. Beside science and work I devote my life to sport, right now on top are windsurfing and kendo, but i'm doing much more on regular basis.

Artur Szymański

Hello, My name is Kinga. I decided to go PhD and this is my first year J Mainly I am interested in IT project management and I would like to develop myself in that direction, but I’ve got many different intrests/hobby as well e.g cooking, photography or travelling.

 Misiak Kinga

My name is Grzesiek and today is my name-day so I think it’s the best time for introduction myself.I graduated from Technical University of Wroclaw 14 years ago. I work as computer programmer and additionally lead programmers team. I like to learn so much that I decided for completing PhD.  Additionally PhD is my middle age crisis challenge.  Scientifically I think on changes in workflow processes.

Excuse me for my English – my primary school taught me Russian instead of English.

Grzegorz Gruza

Hi guys, my name is Grzesiek and I graduated from Information Technology at the Military University of Technology about two years ago (specializing in IT Management Systems). I then did a post-diploma course at the Warsaw School of Economics on Business Analysis and decided to continue my education at the Polish-Japanese Institute of Information Technology. As for my professional interests I'm mainly focused on business and system analysis and project management topics.

I also had a chance to work in a student organisation called AIESEC during the time of my studies so I did a little traveling all over Europe (both for the conferences and to visit my friends from other committees). In my free time I enjoy reading fantasy, playing guitar (acoustic and electric), snowboarding, cycling and cooking when the inspiration hits me (although that doesn't happen very often lately). 

I’m looking forward to working with you guys and hope to get a chance to meet you in person soon.  Grzegorz Kędzierski

Hey there, my name is Piotrek and I'm fascinated by the almost every aspect of the Internet (since I was twelve). During this time I created a few startups, taught at the Jagiellonian University and delivered innovative solutions for disabled people. Now I'm mainly engaged in the future of online marketing and business usability. Still don't know if present Internet is more a sociological, business or technology phenomenon - so I'm trying to develop myself in every field: from technical skills (Ruby<3), via graphic design, project management and functional tests to business models and traffic analysis. The rest of the computer science is forced to me ;].

Hi, my name is Wiktor, this year I'm starting my PhD studies, although I've been working on my PhD topic for some time now. What I'm developing is an extension of a database system which includes mechanisms for transaction processing. Probably not the most thrilling subject in the world but it falls within the areas of interest of our faculty. Apart from that I am teaching classes and contributing to ongoing projects. That's about it, now let's learn some English! Wiktor s2483

Hi guys, I'm Jacek. I've completed my master course some time ago and I didn't even imagine that I may put my feet on the grounds of this noble school anymore. However it happened... In the meantime I've spent some time abroad mastering the art of blogging. Thus my PhD topic focuses around social-IT and micro-blogging phenomena. I have just finished gathering the data related to 6-months wide interactions between Polish community of Tweeter users and now I am in the phase of designing the tool to simulate information cascades based on snapshots of real relations between people. If you would like to join my research, participate in excavation of the data I have already gathered or simply ask questions related to what I do, please feel free to contact me anytime. Cheers, WiT | http://blog.tokyobynight.pl/  WiT

 My name is Paulina. I have received M.Sc. degree in computer science three years ago. My main areas of interest are system/network programming and mobile devices. Currently I work as a researcher and lecturer at PJIIT. Unfortunately I don't have much free time, but when I do, I like reading books, cycling, taking long walks with my dog and...learning scandinavian languages ;) . I have already mastered the basics of Swedish. Apart from IT I'm also very interested in biology-related topics. Hope to find a way to combine the last two hobbies with my professional activities some day... hälsningar :)  tiia

List of Moderators

Choose  the week when you want to present an article/a film and moderate it.

1. 19-25.11 s4419
2. 26-02.12 Kinga
3. 03-09.12 Wiktor
4. 10-16.12 Grzegorz K., Piotrek
5. 17-23.12 Paulina
6. 03-06.01.13 Radosław I., Slawomir H., Michał Jankowski-L.
7. 07-13.01 Krzysztof L., Grzegorz G.
8. 14-20.01 Artur Sz., WiT, Waldemar K.

Events #2

We are busy people, always wanting more, living a fast life. It's easy to imagine that business is very demanding nowadays and failing fast is a very important thing - there is no time to measure everything and spend months on product design when no one knows if it's even going to succeed.

For these situations hackathons were introduced. All you need is a room with office stuff like tables and chairs, the Internet connection and 24-54 hours of hard work. The most popular hackathon is named Startup Weekend. During such a weekend people have 54 hours to work on their MVP - a minimal viable product that will be presented to investors. There is no time to polish every detail so people need to focus on what's the core of their business idea and they need to make it work. It begins with pitches, where an individual with an idea tries to tell in 90 seconds why other people (designers, programmers or other valuable resources!) should join his/her team and explains how this idea will be turned into some product. After teams are formed, hard work begins, some people work for all 54 hours straight and it's possible thanks to caffeine running through their veins and passion present at the venue. Typically, hackathons are limited by the work-specific requirements (Internet and electricity access) and are held in universities or offices. Despite these limitations sometimes there are even hundreds of people taking part in this crazy game.

Of course there are more types of hackathons. SocHack.pl is famous for events which connect developers with people from NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations) and other activists. Together during events such as SocHack: Edu or Random Hacks of Kindness these people are working on solving real problems proposed by NGOs and local communities. Projects I remember from previous meetings include: an online map for places to leave old batteries, a website for exchanging tips for people with cancer and their families, a handbook about privacy on social media, a map of bike routes in Warsaw and many more.

The picture below shows me with some friends during the Startup Weekend Warsaw, November 2011. The photo is presented thanks to the courtesy of Grandessa.

Live-demo

There is a time when people get bored of watching slides over and over again and want to see something more dynamic and a live-demo is a type of presentation which is supposed to fulfill this desire. No slides, all action - this is the main principle of live-demo.  Demos may be dedicated to writing software in front of audience - line by line - as you can expect - it's VERY difficult. But it's not only about software, it may be repairing  a car or other activity which presents some real-time challenges that people can find in their everyday life. We can say that a failure is something thathappens quite often during demos - very often something is going wrong and the speaker needs to fight with entropy :)

The photo taken during one of live-demos. As you can see there are some lines of code presented there. Photo by AppCamp.pl

Q&A session

Sometimes during a meeting there is somebody with very deep knowledge on a certain topic, but the audience is so fragmented in their competence that it's difficult to target all their needs in one presentation. A questions and answers session is a good way to address totally different questions and get immediate answers to problems people are concerned about. It's also more personal and by asking a clever question attendee can get some attention himself/herself.  It's very popular to add Q&A session at the end of the presentation, no matter if it's a conference, a barcamp or a lecture.

This is how waiting in the queue to have a chance to ask a question may look like:

Copyrights:  The Guardian.

Questions:

Have you ever attended any hackathon or known about one? If so - what was its name and what was it about?

What do you think about Q&A sessions? Have you ever tried to ask a question in public? What tips would you give to people who are too shy to ask a question this way?

What do you think about events organized by our Institute?

Events

If you want to learn something new and you don't like spending time in front of books, but rather meet other people you can learn from, there are many ways of doing that. There are a few types of events one can attend to and polish his/her skills.


The most obvious choice is a conference. Nowadays it's probably the most popular way to meet a large number of people who are interested in some topic and willing to share their knowledge. To enter a conference you often need to pay ($100-...) but you get at least one day of lectures, dinner and a chance to meet people from the industry or even talk with that famous speaker you listened to. Most likely you will also receive a cool T-shirt with the conference logo and a lot of leaflets from sponsors... Conferences tend to be held at business venues - and it's something that attracts professionals - you can expect air conditioning, excellent service and an easy way to find the place.



The photo below was taken during a TED conference - as you can see - a lot of people and a well equipped indoor. [1]






Of course as long as there are conferences, there will be events created as something completely opposite. That's how barcamps were born. Barcamps, sometimes called “unconferences” are held in many crazy places, pubs, clubs, open-air - it doesn't really matter where they take place. The most important things are: sharing and interaction. During a conference it's rare to see somebody arguing with a speaker, it's quite common during a barcamp - people are encouraged to disagree, talk and learn through that something new. It's one of the most important rules of barcamp - there is no invisible wall between the audience and the speaker - they are on the same level, but the speaker just leads the discussion and moderates it if necessary. Comparing to conferences, barcamps' talks tend to be shorter (~30mins) and you shouldn't be surprised that it may be quite loud during the talk because people talk between themselves, drink beer and network.



Below: typical a barcamp - beer, a bit of chaos and people tweeting about the event. [2]




For some people a barcamp is still too long form of presentation and they think that speakers should be limited in a very specific way. A couple of different formats emerged by following this idea. Pecha Kucha, Ignite or Lighting Talks are the names of some of the events which limit the number of slides and time for every single slide during the talk. Good example is Pecha Kucha where speakers need to give a talk having only 20 slides which are static images and after every 20 seconds, a slide changes into the next one. As you can easily calculate - every topic is presented in less than 7 minutes, but don't even think that these constraints make your presentation easier to prepare. In fact, it's much more difficult. As Mark Twain once said: “I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.”



The picture below depicts a speaker during his Pecha Kucha presentation. [3]





[1] [ All rights reserved by TED Conference

[2] http://www.flickr.com/photos/_teecee/4378523984/sizes/m/in/photostream/

[3] http://www.flickr.com/photos/pechakuchabarcelona/6169735228/sizes/m/in/photostream/



Questions.

Have you ever attended a conference? What was it about? Did you enjoy it? How about different events? Maybe a Barcamp or workshop?
Do you know any other kind of event where people share their knowledge? What is it about? What kind of presentations are shown there?
Have you ever thought about organizing an event by yourself? What's the topic you were interested in? Were you successful? If you aren't a type of person who enjoys organizing stuff, tell us what's the best way of learning for you?