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NEWS


Academics produce software to make aircraft safer and greener


While the potential to reduce emissions is arguably the most important uses of Flight, it has a range of other functions from noise reduction to accident investigation and prevention.


Noise around airports is


Academics at the University of Manchester have released a new piece of software able to predict the CO2


airlines underestimate the amount of CO2


emissions


of aircraft. The developers believe it could one day lead to quieter, less polluting and safer aircraft. According to the developers,


they release


in the atmosphere by up to 100 per cent, meaning, they say, that aircraft are more environmentally damaging than previously thought. The new software, dubbed Flight, can accurately predict the


level of emissions released in order to help the industry meet its environmental responsibilities.


The software, developed by Dr Antonio Filippone of the University of Manchester, can be easily downloaded from the Flight website.


an important consideration, and Flight can help air traffic controllers and airline authorities determine the best flight path for incoming and outgoing planes by providing exact measurements of noise produced at take-off and landing. The software can also help airline companies with passenger load and record the weight of luggage. Software copyright protection was arranged by The University of Manchester’s intellectual property commercialisation company, UMIP.


Data analysis platform for fixed biological samples under development


A collaboration to develop a solution for large-scale use of formalin fixed, paraffin embedded (FFPE) tissue in molecular analyses has been agreed between CLC bio, AROS Applied Biotechnology, F. Hoffmann-La Roche, and Aarhus University Hospital – the Institute of Pathology and the Research Unit for Molecular Medicine. The project goal is to develop a complete platform for selecting appropriate FFPE samples, choosing the optimal sequencing technology, and subsequently


assembling and analysing the high-throughput sequencing data. The main application areas will be molecular diagnostics research and re-analysis of pre-clinical trials where drugs have failed despite relatively high rates of positive responses. The project is budgeted to 5 million USD, half of which will be funded by the Danish National Advanced Technology Foundation. Professor Stephen Hamilton


Dutoit, from the Institute of Pathology at Aarhus University Hospital, stated: ‘With


personalised medicine we’re opening the door to a new era where each patient will be treated in the most effective way for them individually. One of the requirements for doing this, is to be able to compare the genome of the individual patient and their diseased tissues to a broad range of control samples. Having access to high-throughput genomic analyses of the vast number of existing archive FFPE samples will be an invaluable contribution to achieving this.’ Both academia and the


pharma industry have difficulties getting sufficient high quality fresh tissues. Using the proposed platform, researchers will have access to vastly more samples than can be collected in traditional fresh tissue biobanks. Equally important, these samples can be efficiently linked to high quality patient data through numerous health-care, disease and population registries, providing unique opportunities to boost research in disease mechanisms and rescue drugs from failure.


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SCIENTIFIC COMPUTING WORLD DECEMBER 2010/JANUARY 2011


www.scientific-computing.com


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