More hot air

Helium: impending crisis for radiology, or just more hot air?

It is one of the most ubiquitous elements in the universe, second only to hydrogen. Balloons filled with it are almost everywhere and can be purchased for only a few dollars. One can easily be forgiven for assuming that helium, which plays a currently irreplaceable role in the superconducting magnets used in MRI and particle accelerators, is not only relatively easily obtained but in inexhausti...

More Than Hot Air? Low Emission Zones, Air Pollution, and Infant Health

This paper investigates the effect of low emission zones on birth outcomes and air quality in Germany. The staggered introduction of the policy measure creates a credible natural experiment and a natural control group for births and air pollution measurements in cities that enact low emission zones. I show that the introduction of the most restrictive type of low emission zone decreases average...

Hot air sauna burns.

More Hot Stuff

....... In my last column, I reflected on the decline in power-aware computer architecture papers in two of the premier conferences: the International Symposium on Computer Architecture (ISCA) and the International Symposium on Microarchitecture (MICRO). Does the move to multicore microprocessors composed of simpler cores of modest frequency mean that power has become a dead topic? I posed this...

A load of hot air.