tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31969655276426498512012-02-22T13:18:19.325+01:00Articles about topics ranging from technology and software to scientific research. Occasional book reviews. Topics of general interest such as lifestyle, and nutrition. Exploration of blogs and the technical side of blogging.Benjamin Auffarthhttps://profiles.google.com/118440342400845052454noreply@blogger.comBlogger14125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3196965527642649851.post-57923776565431052282011-09-14T22:11:00.000+02:002012-01-27T16:23:02.000+01:00

Scientific excellence is often burned down to some numbers. For academics, it is publish or perish and bibliographic analysis is an important factor for academic careers. A bibliographic analysis includes how many papers somebody published, where they published, and how many citations their publications received. One of the numbers that sums up the quality of publications is the impact factor,

Benjamin Auffarthhttps://profiles.google.com/118440342400845052454noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3196965527642649851.post-8141459492617753222010-11-10T19:04:00.012+01:002011-01-21T10:49:34.247+01:00

Some time ago I wrote a post about Ubuntu for PhD students, where I gave instructions on how to set up programs and libraries relevant for research on the Ubuntu linux distribution. This was for Ubuntu 8.10, so now I think it's time to update the information for Ubuntu 10.10 (codenamed "maverick"), a distribution which I can warmly recommend, by the way. Software for researchWhat does

Benjamin Auffarthhttps://profiles.google.com/118440342400845052454noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3196965527642649851.post-42720733511975973392009-12-17T02:39:00.011+01:002010-12-23T23:50:52.791+01:00

Comments are an important part of blogs. In this post I summarize several scientific studies on blogging and commenting. Two conclusions are that comments are important for feedback and self-expression and to build social links. Furthermore they are related to inbound links and and traffic, they contribute content and are useful for search engine optimization. In one of my last posts I asked how

Benjamin Auffarthhttps://profiles.google.com/118440342400845052454noreply@blogger.com42tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3196965527642649851.post-25936323732401769522009-12-07T15:29:00.002+01:002010-12-24T11:56:26.022+01:00

Along human history, more than 7000 plant species have been collected or cultivated by humans, but according to Food and Ariculture Organization from the U.N. (F.A.O.) about a 95% of human caloric needs is provided by only 30 crops plants, and four of them are responsible for more than the 60% of human ingested calories (wheat, rice, maize and potatoes). In order to increase food production, it

erolahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02068704520874426154noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3196965527642649851.post-30955201859347113332009-11-28T13:10:00.031+01:002009-11-30T00:03:52.973+01:00

Can you imagine an egg which unscrambles? Or a jet engine that takes ambient heat and exhaust fumes to generate kerosene and oxygen? I suppose you can't. In physics, the Second Law of thermodynamics, establishes that it is not going to happen. In this post I explain the second law of thermodynamics and discuss whether it can be violated or not.This post is part of the initiative "El Carnaval de

erolahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02068704520874426154noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3196965527642649851.post-66049496590171180452009-11-17T17:14:00.003+01:002010-12-18T01:16:00.789+01:00

Social bookmark sites can be great to find articles to read when you are at leisure or bored. They are also a great way to promote your website and attract traffic. This article is about how to promote an article at a social bookmark site. Digg is one of the most popular social news sites and it has been scientifically studied often over the last years. I looked through some articles and found

Benjamin Auffarthhttps://profiles.google.com/118440342400845052454noreply@blogger.com20tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3196965527642649851.post-52647997642207901202009-10-07T03:04:00.007+02:002010-12-24T12:04:13.059+01:00

This article is written in Spanish as part of an initiative to protest against the Spanish government's decision to reduce expenditure in science and development. A translation will follow up as another article, called Don't cut back on Spanish science! Como respuesta a la crisis económica el gobierno español ha presentado unos presupuestos que prevén un recorte de un 17,7 por cien en I+D+i [

erolahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02068704520874426154noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3196965527642649851.post-24758953748778753602009-10-02T21:16:00.008+02:002010-12-24T12:00:42.350+01:00

The Singularity Summit 2009 takes place from October 3rd to October 4th. Speakers include David Chalmers, Ray Kurzweil, Stephen Wolfram, and many more. Topics are future-techs from space exploration to brain emulation. I just listened to an interview with Anders Sandberg, who is one of the invited speakers, about mind uploading. Mind uploading is the emulation of a human's complete brain function

Benjamin Auffarthhttps://profiles.google.com/118440342400845052454noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3196965527642649851.post-72833620358068533322009-09-19T22:10:00.002+02:002010-12-24T12:03:22.978+01:00

There are two important distinctions of simulators, with respect to level of detail and to scale. Simulations can be simplified, which means they only represent few properties of the system, or biologically detailed/realistic, which means they model more biological aspects, such as ion channels and multiple compartments in neurons and synapses. The network can be reduced or broad-scale.

Benjamin Auffarthhttps://profiles.google.com/118440342400845052454noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3196965527642649851.post-48976116817442066892009-08-04T19:14:00.012+02:002010-12-24T11:58:11.519+01:00

There are endless predictions of doom of humanity in popular media. Many people are concerned about a environmental collapse. Most dire predictions tend to focus on a single threat, I think. Stephen Petranek (former editor of Discover) compiles in his talk at the TED forum several threats to humanity, together with some recipes for avoiding impending catastrophe. Take it serious or not,

Benjamin Auffarthhttps://profiles.google.com/118440342400845052454noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3196965527642649851.post-48524170199861157532009-07-26T16:21:00.010+02:002010-12-24T11:58:29.631+01:00

Aready some time ago, I read Ray Kurzweil's book The Age of Spiritual Machines. Now I saw his talk at TED. There is also a documentary out, The Transcendent Man (official site). The message is very simple and often repeated: we are developing faster. He is the techno-cult guru and his message may be a consolation for people afraid of technological change or afraid of dying. In this post I will

Benjamin Auffarthhttps://profiles.google.com/118440342400845052454noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3196965527642649851.post-65009848465326403342009-06-08T12:04:00.016+02:002010-12-24T11:58:49.819+01:00

I used to think that we are living in a polluted world with few years left on the doomsday clock until disaster will strike us with the punishment deserved by us for destroying mother nature. Like many others: Gallup reported in April that most Americans think that the environment is getting worse. Examples for this thinking can be found abundantly in the media. Reading The Skeptical

Benjamin Auffarthhttps://profiles.google.com/118440342400845052454noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3196965527642649851.post-60058259158655954612008-11-07T10:46:00.015+01:002011-02-02T11:56:18.685+01:00

Image via Wikipedia There are many different ways to export and import data from matlab. You can import and export data from and to matlab binary formats (MAT files), text files, Excel spreadsheet (works only on Windows), XML, several special purpose formats, and a lot of image, audio, and video file formats. Text formats are very useful, because they very portable in that they can be read and

Benjamin Auffarthhttps://profiles.google.com/118440342400845052454noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3196965527642649851.post-19529105222621258792008-08-30T15:12:00.003+02:002010-01-01T16:21:26.273+01:00

This post is about ubuntu software installation for scientific computing and research in general. I wrote this post some time ago (with hardy heron in mind), but I update it every now and then with new software and links. It is updated for intrepid ibex (ubuntu 8.10) and most should still be valid for 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope). I use ubuntu at my work mainly for searching scientific articles,

Benjamin Auffarthhttps://profiles.google.com/118440342400845052454noreply@blogger.com1