Data Science newsletter – January 22, 2020

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Eric Kolaczyk, a College of Arts & Sciences professor of mathematics and statistics, whose work across bioinformatics, computational neuroscience, and even social work has earned him an international reputation, is the new director of Boston University’s Rafik B. Hariri Institute for Computing and Computational Science & Engineering.

It’s a pivotal appointment for BU. Kolaczyk replaces founding Hariri Institute director Azer Bestavros, a William Fairfield Warren Distinguished Professor and a CAS professor of computer science, who was recently appointed associate provost of the University’s new Faculty of Computing and Data Sciences. T

Mice are excellent decision-makers, and can learn to perform complicated tasks. So far, such behavior often relied on custom-built setups, and required the ‘artist’s hands’ of experienced mouse whisperers. 2/10

Speaking on stage last year about the rise of artificial intelligence on devices, Arm Holdings CEO Simon Segars touted the capabilities of the chip giant’s Cortex-M4 processor to help identify objects using image recognition technology. But the circuit board on the slide behind him showed another logo: Xnor.ai.

Not many people knew that name at the time, even inside the industry, but they do now. Xnor.ai is the Seattle-based startup that was acquired by Apple recently for around $200 million, as first reported by GeekWire last week.

Its inclusion in the Arm CEO’s presentation illustrated the growing attention for Xnor.ai at the time, fueled by the industry’s rising fascination with artificial intelligence on “the edge,” in the small cameras, sensors, and many other types of devices proliferating around the world.

A team of University of Illinois researchers estimated the mortality costs associated with air pollution in the U.S. by developing and applying a novel machine learning-based method to estimate the life-years lost and cost associated with air pollution exposure.

Scholars from the Gies College of Business at Illinois studied the causal effects of acute fine particulate matter exposure on mortality, health care use and medical costs among older Americans through Medicare data and a unique way of measuring air pollution via changes in local wind direction.

Thought leaders predict the tech developments that could have a big impact in the coming year.

Researchers from global technology leader HP Inc. and Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) in the HP-NTU Digital Manufacturing Corporate Lab today showcased digital manufacturing technologies set to make manufacturing and supply chain operations more efficient, cost-effective and sustainable.

Among them are intelligent design software tools that automate advanced customisation, as well as supply chain models that enable faster time to market while lowering carbon footprint.

Using artificial intelligence to predict future events still seems a bit like something from science fiction. But that’s one of the goals of the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency’s (DARPA’s) Knowledge-directed Artificial Intelligence Reasoning Over Schemas (KAIROS) program, which recently awarded $12.3 million over four years to a team of researchers led by Illinois Computer Science Professor Heng Ji.

The team’s project, named RESIN—Reasoning about Event Schemas for Induction of kNowledge, seeks to create a framework for the next generation of event understanding systems, with an ambitious goal: being able to provide a comprehensive understanding of evolving situations, events, and trends.

As hackers continue infiltrating global databases, stealing personal identities and illegally accessing financial assets, computer security professionals are in high demand in both industry and academia.

In response, the Department of Computer and Information Science at the University of Mississippi is offering a new security emphasis.

The department has hired assistant professors Charles Walter and Charles Fleming, who both work in computer security, to develop the program and help the department become a Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense.

@arxiv_org handles >10k submissions and >25m downloads per month at a cost of only $1.3m /year. @IEEEorg spends $193m (!) on publications, and @TheOfficialACM spends $33.7m.

Amazon.com Inc is planning to give more data on counterfeit goods to law enforcement in a further crackdown on fakes listed on its e-commerce sites, a person familiar with the program told Reuters.

The move comes as Amazon faces public scrutiny over how it polices counterfeits and allegedly unsafe products on its platform. Fakes have long frustrated top labels like Apple Inc and Nike Inc, discouraging some from selling via Amazon at all.

Spotify is testing a new Stories feature that will allow select influencers to incorporate video elements into their public playlists, TechCrunch has learned and Spotify confirmed. The first influencer to test the feature is makeup and fashion YouTube star Summer Mckeen, who currently has a social media fan base that includes 2.33 million YouTube subscribers, 2.1 million Instagram followers and 126,455 Spotify followers. Mckeen is using the new feature to introduce a playlist of her all-time favorite songs, which she’s titled her “all time besties.”

Software detects changes in clinical states in voice data for patients with bipolar, schizophrenia and depressive disorders as accurately as attending doctors

It may seem surprising, but theories and formulas derived from physics turn out to be useful tools for understanding the ways democratic elections work, including how these systems break down and how they could be improved.

A new physics-based study finds that in the U.S., elections went through a transition in 1970, from a condition in which election results captured reasonably well the greater electorate’s political preferences, to a period of increasing instability, in which very small changes in voter preferences led to significant swings toward more extreme political outcomes in both directions.

Racial bias and policing made headlines last year after a study examining records of fatal police shootings claimed white officers were no more likely to shoot racial minorities than nonwhite officers. There was one problem: The study was based on a logical fallacy.

The original research counted the numbers of fatal shootings, but never considered how often civilians encounter police officers, an essential ingredient to justifying its central claim.

The findings sparked a fiery debate among other academics, including two professors from Princeton University, who raised mathematical concerns about the study’s approach. Today, they published their critique as a letter in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

Looking to cultivate the ideal future workforce in materials research, the Air Force Research Laboratory’s Materials and Manufacturing Directorate, together with the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, has awarded a multi-million-dollar cooperative agreement to Carnegie Mellon University, an institution with a long history of education in scientific research.

With a 50 percent match from CMU, the Center of Excellence will fund cutting-edge research and develop Ph.D. students in an emerging area of materials science: using artificial intelligence and machine learning to discover, analyze, design and develop both existing and new high-tech materials.

Princeton, NJ March 30-April 1. “The HPC User Forum was established in 1999 to promote the health of the global HPC industry and address issues of common concern to users (www.hpcuserforum.com).” [$$$$]

LEGO’s success — and recapturing of the toy market — came from understanding this. In 2008, LEGO launched the LEGO Ideas platform, allowing fans to submit new concepts for LEGO sets. Proposals are voted on by other fans and top vote-getters are reviewed by LEGO staff. Chosen ideas are turned into sets for sale. The fan designer receives 1% of the royalties. This community has grown to over a million users, more than 26,000 product ideas have been submitted, and twenty-eight sets produced, including a Women of NASA set and playable LEGO piano. Through LEGO Ideas, the 87-year-old company successfully transitioned from simply building for customers to building with an engaged community.

In our work researching community-driven companies like LEGO and helping others to build communities, we’ve learned that true communities are more than groups of customers, they are groups of people who keep coming together over what they care about. This is true of Porsche, who we helped shift from talking at their audiences through ads and marketing, to forging a place for their superfans to connect directly with one another on apps and in clubs. With their app ROADS, Porsche enables passionate drivers to share routes they recommend and connect with each other over their love of driving.

Changing academic landscapes, including the increasing focus on performance rankings and metrics, are impacting universities globally, contributing to high-pressure environments and anxious academic staff. However, evidence and experience shows that fostering a high performing academic team need not be incompatible with staff happiness and wellbeing. [full text]