News update

Argonne helps Green Challenge race

Last fall, Argonne gave the green flag to a new environmentally conscious international sports-car racing event.

The inaugural Green Challenge took place at this year's Petit Le Mans race, the American Le Mans signature event, on Oct. 4 in Atlanta. Fourteen different manufacturers were represented by the competing cars, which were grouped into four classes and used combinations of three different renewable fuels and electricity.

The Green Challenge recognized innovations in science, technology and engineering by measuring the energy efficiency, petroleum displacement and greenhouse-gas emissions of each car during the 1,000-mile race.

Argonne's researchers have extensive experience in organizing and executing vehicle competitions. For more than 20 years, Argonne has run collegiate competitions focused on developing and demonstrating advanced propulsion technologies and renewable fuels. Many of the innovations in today's vehicles sprouted from similar competitions that test and refine advanced technologies developed in the laboratory.

The Green Challenge will become a full-season feature in 2009, when all teams will compete for a season-long Green Challenge Championship sponsored by the U.S. Deparment of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Society of Automotive Engineers International.

Ice slurry could save victims of sudden cardiac arrest

When treating cardiac arrest victims, doctors can't call a time-out. Without the ability to obtain fresh oxygen from blood pumped through the body, brain cells start to die in just minutes. Within 10 to 20 minutes after the heart stops beating, the clock has run out. Even if doctors can get the heart ticking again, the brain has died.

Recently, however, researchers in Argonne's Nuclear Engineering Division have developed a new technique that can reduce the brain and other organs' demand for oxygen, giving doctors precious extra time to diagnose and treat critical patients in emergencies while also protecting a range of vital organs in planned surgeries.

Led by engineer Ken Kasza, the researchers have created an ice slurry – a slushy substance that somewhat resembles a 7-11 Slurpee®. This slurry can be pumped easily into the bloodstream through a small intravenous catheter.

Argonne is working with the several different groups of University of Chicago surgeons to develop procedures for cooling and protecting vital organs. This research is being conducted under the newly formed University of Chicago-Argonne Bioengineering Institute for Advanced Surgery and Endoscopy.

Agent-based models anticipate market behavior

Economists and business columnists have blamed many factors for the recent financial calamity. While their hindsight might be clear as day, researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory are creating new economic models that will generate more realistic pictures of different types of markets so policymakers can better avert future economic catastrophe.

Traditional economic models rely heavily on "equilibrium theory," which holds that markets are influenced by countervailing balanced forces. Because these models assume away the decision-making processes of individual consumers or investors, they do not represent the market's true internal dynamics, said Charles Macal, an Argonne systems scientist.

Macal and his Argonne colleagues have created a new set of simulations called "agent-based models" to better anticipate how markets behave. By gaining a more precise understanding of the behavior patterns of individual actors in a market – for example, how willing they are to accept risk, how strongly they value the future, or how much time and effort they are able to spend making decisions – researchers and economists can better predict and avoid future meltdowns.

Follow Argonne on Twitter at http://twitter.com/argonne.

For more information, please contact Jared Sagoff (630/252-5549 or jsagoff@anl.gov) at Argonne.