Data Science newsletter – September 28, 2017

Newsletter features journalism, research papers, events, tools/software, and jobs for September 28, 2017

GROUP CURATION: N/A

 
 
Data Science News



DSI Professors Mine Social Media to Curb Gang Violence

Columbia University, Data Science Institute


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A team of researchers from the Data Science Institute is studying how gangs use social media to communicate and recruit members. The researchers have developed tools to flag posts from gangs that can lead to violence. To prevent the posts from escalating into violence, they work with social workers who can intervene with gang members and defuse the anger that fuels their posts.

And now, thanks to a $548,000 grant from The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the research team will expand its work to study how ISIS uses social media to recruit members. DARPA is a U.S. Department of Defense agency that develops emerging technologies for the military. The research team will look at how gangs and ISIS use social media, and possibly build an aggression-indicator for DARPA that would help flag aggressive posts by ISIS.

Desmond Patton, the lead on the project, said the project is “expected to have various applications, both for identifying indicators of ISIS recruitment on Twitter and curbing gang violence that’s initiated on social media.”


SAS Launches Online Program for Data Science Credentials

Campus Technology, Rhea Kelly


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A new online program from SAS provides training in big data management, advanced analytics, machine learning, data visualization, text analytics and communication skills. The SAS Academy for Data Science is offering self-paced, online courses aimed at closing the analytics skills gap and opening flexible paths to careers in data science.

Launched last year as a classroom-based program, the SAS Academy for Data Science now provides online courses for three SAS credentials: SAS Certified Big Data Professional, SAS Certified Advanced Analytics Professional and SAS Certified Data Scientist. Students have six months to complete each course; they can focus on specific topics and repeat trainings when needed, or skip topics they have already mastered. In addition, a free trial allows students to sample select course modules at no cost.


Scientists: Advertise Your Failures!

Scientific American Blog Network, Observations, Elizabeth Landau


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They’re a part of every career, and being upfront about them can help put things in perspective


Graphic Design Is About to Be Upended By AI

WIRED, Backchannel, Jason Tselentis


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Today, we’re on the verge of another revolution, as artificial intelligence and machine learning turn the graphic design field on its head again. The vision is, to quote one project’s slogan, “websites that just make themselves.” Software will evaluate your text content, line of business, and imagery, and spit out finished pages without your having to lift a finger. These kinds of automated tools will arrive on the web first, but print design will change, too, as design-software makers inject machine learning into their layout tools and apps.

For all the noise about AI-driven graphic design, however, today’s reality lags stubbornly behind the grand vision. Many of the products now available will disappoint users expecting miraculous results from AI genies. That’s a letdown, for sure, but it also gives us some time to think about what kind of design work we want machines to do for us, and what roles we should be reserving for human beings.


OCC & University of Chicago Collaborate with Cohen Veterans Bioscience on Brain Commons

PR Newswire, Cohen Venterans Bioscience


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Cohen Veterans Bioscience today announced its partnership with the Open Commons Consortium (OCC) and the University of Chicago to establish the Brain Commons – a one-of-a-kind cloud-hosted platform for unleashing Big Data that will be critical for the understanding of brain conditions. The data commons platform is uniquely positioned to aggregate and manage large-scale imaging data, genomic data, wearables data, and clinical data, as well as enable machine learning and analytics at state-of-the-art computing speeds to accelerate our understanding of brain conditions and brain health.


Hurricanes Harvey and Irma Send Scientists Searching for Data

Scientific American, Nature, Rachel Lallensack


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Even before getting their own lives settled, teams collect information on storm behavior and their effects on the ecosystem


9th Grade GPA May Be the Most Important Predictor of High School Success. Here’s How.

Education Week, Stephen Sawchuk


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The research, from the University of Chicago’s Consortium on School Research, analyzed eight data cohorts of Chicago high school freshmen, from the entering classes of 2006 to 2013—more than 187,000 students in all. They looked at data including the students’ school grades, test scores, and background information like race and the poverty status of the neighborhoods where they lived. Researchers John Q. Easton, Esperanza Johnson, and Lauren Sartain tracked the students’ progress through high school and, where applicable, their college enrollment and retention rates.

They found clear achievement patterns based on freshman GPA. It was highly predictive of GPA in the 11th grade. It was also predictive of whether students would actually graduate, whether they would enroll in college, and whether they would remain in college after one year, with A- and B-level students generally doing better than students with lower GPAs.


Berkeley Lab aims to strengthen the cybersecurity of the grid

EurekAlert! Science News, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory


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With rooftop solar panels surging in popularity in the U.S. – growing from 30,000 homes in 2006 to more than 1 million last year – Berkeley Lab’s project focuses on solar inverters, devices that turn the direct current from rooftop solar panels into alternating current that is fed back onto the grid. So-called “smart inverters” can enhance overall system reliability and reduce operational costs.

Industry and government are now developing standards for how solar inverters communicate with the grid so that the photovoltaic (PV) modules can adjust their power levels accordingly.


Gig Posters for Scientists

Flickr, Tatyana Svitkina


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Hand screen printed posters for distinguished scientists visiting UNC Chapel Hill Biology.


The Coming Explosion of Gravitational-Wave Detections

The Atlantic, Marina Koren


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Astronomers have detected gravitational waves coming from the collision of black holes somewhere in the universe—again.

The detection, announced Wednesday, marks the fourth time in less than two years that scientists have observed the cosmic phenomenon. The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, or LIGO, announced the first-ever detection in February 2016. That news came a century after Albert Einstein predicted the existence of gravitational waves in 1916 as part of his general theory of relativity. A second detection was made public in June 2016 and a third in June of this year.

In all four detections, the gravitational waves were produced by the merger of two black holes more massive than our sun. In the final moments of the collision, gravitational waves fanned out in all directions, traveling at the speed of light. As they spread out through the universe, the waves expanded and contracted the fabric of space and time, like concentric rings rippling across a pond.


The College Try

California Sunday magazine, Ashley Powers


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Liz Waite and Kersheral Jessup couldn’t afford a higher education, let alone rent. But they worked and scrounged and slept on couches to put themselves through school. Will their degrees be worth it?


Pioneering interactive academic publishing

Stanford University, Stanford News


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Stanford University Press is redefining the world of traditional academic publishing through an innovative publishing program.

The press was the first academic publishing group to offer scholars a way to publish and peer review academic research that involves digital tools not usually found in online journals. The idea for the program, launched last year with the help of a $1.2 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, came out of press director Alan Harvey’s desire to “break the box of publishing.”


Cyber Initiative tackles pressing issues

Stanford University, Stanford News


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Daily headlines emphasize the down side of technology: cyberattacks, election hacking and the threat of fake news. In response, government organizations are scrambling to understand how policy should shape technology’s role in governance, security and jobs.

The Stanford Cyber Initiative is at the forefront of answering this question. Co-directors Michael McFaul, a professor of political science and director of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), and Dan Boneh, a professor of computer science and electrical engineering, tell us how the research behind the initiative helps define the role of policy in a world increasingly influenced by technology.


Urban Pulse Uses Social Media Data to Show Cities in a New Light

Architectural Digest, Tim Nelson


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Since the early 20th century, sociologists studying our nascent trend toward urban living took to describing cities as living, breathing organisms. Thanks to the abundance of geotagged social media data we create, it’s finally possible to see cities as the dynamic “creatures” they’ve always been.

The brainchild of a team led by Fabio Miranda at NYU’s Tandon School of Engineering, Urban Pulse translates photos from Flickr and location-based tweets to a series of “beats” and “pulses,” which are represented by hotspots of varying intensities and lengths on a heat map.

For example, a concentration of Flickr photos uploaded near the Metropolitan Museum of Art or tweets from Grand Central would create a pulse that indicates a location has become a relative hub of activity among certain groups of people (tourists vs. commuters, for example). Each pulse can be broken into three different types of beats that reveal information about its relative usage over time in the context of the broader environment.


UC Irvine under scrutiny for taking $200 million for school of health from couple some say back junk science

Inside Higher Ed, Rick Seltzer


from

A $200 million gift turned into a $200 million headache for the University of California, Irvine as critics argue it is indulging the wishes of wealthy donors who advocate for junk science.

The university announced the gift last week, tagging it as the largest in its history and the seventh-largest ever made to a single public university. Long-time UCI donors Susan and Henry Samueli are giving the money to name a “first-of-its-kind” College of Health Sciences focusing on “interdisciplinary integrative health,” the announcement read. The renamed college will be the first “university-based health sciences enterprise to incorporate integrative health research, teaching and patient care” across schools and programs, it continued.

Critics in the medical community quickly pounced on the donation, which they saw as rich donors influencing academic and scientific decisions that should be reserved for academics.


Canada names new chief science adviser

Science, News, Brian Owens


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Mona Nemer, a cardiology researcher and vice president of research at the University of Ottawa, has been named Canada’s new chief science adviser by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

“Scientists need to have a voice,” Trudeau said, making the announcement in Ottawa today.

 
Events



Workshop on Trustworthy Algorithmic Decision-Making

Emilee Rader and Rick Wash


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Arlington, VA The workshop will be held on Monday December 4-5 at the Ritz Carlton Pentagon City. Travel, hotel and food expenses will be covered for participants. To attend, please submit a short whitepaper detailing your thoughts on some aspect of this problem by October 9.


Southern California Machine Learning Symposium

Fei Sha and Yan Liu


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Los Angeles, CA October 6, starting at 7:30 a.m, University of Southern California. [$$]


PyGotham 2017

Big Apple Py


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New York, NY October 6-8, Hotel Pennsylvania (401 Seventh Avenue). [$$$]


NYU Healthcare Makerthon Weekend

NYU Entrepreneurial Institute


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New York, NY October 6-8. Turn your tech or design ideas into reality with a cross-disciplinary team at the Makerthon weekend and win a combined $10,000 in prizes. Are you ready? [free, NYU only, rsvp required]

 
Deadlines



NYU $300K Entrepreneurs Challenge

The $300K Entrepreneurs Challenge, hosted annually by the W. R. Berkley Innovation Labs at the NYU Stern School of Business, is one of the largest and most innovative accelerator programs and startup competitions in the world. It is an 8-month program involving more than 750 students, alumni, faculty and researchers from 16 schools across NYU’s global campuses. Deadline for competition entries is October 5.

Bayesian Deep Learning Workshop

Long Beach, CA December 9 at NIPS 2017. Deadline for submissions is November 3.

Urban Future Competition

“The Urban Future Competition debuts the world’s most revolutionary smart mobility, smart city, and smart grid technologies by bringing the brightest entrepreneurs together with mission-driven investors, policy leaders, and corporate sponsors for a prestigious pitch competition in NYC.” Winners get $50,000 cash. Deadline to apply is December 1.
 
NYU Center for Data Science News



From Micro to Macro: Kyle Cranmer talks Machine Learning for the Natural Sciences

Medium, NYU Center for Data Science


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Professor and particle physicist Kyle Cranmer explains how machine learning can help scientific research in biology, chemistry, and physics


Say Hello to SAM, the new Speaker Affect Model

Medium, NYU Center for Data Science


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At the most recent Text-as-Data Seminar, Knox and Lucas introduce a new model that analyzes emotional tones in conversations

 
Tools & Resources



New Dataset Explores Neuronal Basis of Behavior

Simons Foundation, Emily Singer


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“Researchers used computer vision and machine learning to create a comprehensive database linking specific circuits in the fruit fly brain to behavior.”


UnrealCV

Alan Yuille, Yizhou Wang


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UnrealCV is a project to help computer vision researchers build virtual worlds using Unreal Engine 4 (UE4).

 
Careers


Internships and other temporary positions

Predoctoral Young Investigator Program



Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence; Seattle, WA
Full-time positions outside academia

Director, Knowledge Engineering



Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence; Seattle, WA
Tenured and tenure track faculty positions

Assistant Professor – Human-Computer Interaction



University of California-Berkeley, School of Information; Berkeley, CA

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