What the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference is — and what it is not. On the evolution of a conference and an industry, and the tensions it’s now experiencing.
Jointly launched by the Chinese tech giant and Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University, the “multimillion-dollar” research institute will focus on applying artificial intelligence for home, retail, community, and urban transportation.
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) recently announced a partnership with DeepMind to use machine learning as the foundation for developing predictive analytics tools.
Patient deterioration while in the hospital accounts for 11 percent of inpatient deaths around the world, the VA says. The partnership will analyze patterns from 700,000 historical, deidentified health records to develop machine learning algorithms that will spot health risks and improve patient care.
Kallyope, a biotech startup working to map out the gut-brain axis, has raised $66 million.
The series B round will help the company get some of its programs nearer to human clinical trials and continue research on the relationship between the gut and its microbes and the brain.
The hope is that by investigating the gut-brain axis, researchers might be able to better treat certain metabolic conditions, like obesity, as well as neurologic conditions like Parkinson’s disease.
The Earth Bank of Codes wants to collect the genetic sequence of the natural world–and let countries make money from the scientific breakthroughs that would result, rather than selling their natural resources.
The National Science Foundation today announced that UC Berkeley’s RISELab has been awarded an Expeditions in Computing award, providing $10 million in funding over five years to enable game-changing advances in real-time decision making technologies. The award was one of three announced today for research teams pursuing large-scale, far-reaching and potentially transformative research in computer and information science and engineering.
RISELab’s award will be used to develop technology for an era in which artificial intelligence systems will make decisions that will play an increasingly central role in people’s lives in areas such as healthcare, transportation and business. For example, the researchers say that these systems will revolutionize healthcare through early identification of patients at risk, cell-level diagnosis and treatment using nanoprobes, and robotic surgery. These systems could also reduce traffic congestion and help eliminate fatalities by powering autonomous vehicles and unmanned drones, or make businesses safer by detecting and defending in real-time against financial fraud and internet attacks.
The University of Rochester has launched a national search for a new director of its Goergen Institute for Data Science.
The University has made a $100 million commitment to data science, which it has identified as its top research priority.
“We’re not bringing in someone to build a program, but to bring it to the next level,” says Wendi Heinzelman, dean of the Hajim School of Engineering & Applied Sciences. Heinzelman and Gloria Culver, dean of the School of Arts & Sciences, will serve as co-chairs of a University search committee comprised primarily of faculty members.
When someone roughs up a pedestrian, robs a store, or kills in cold blood, police want to know whether the perpetrator was a gang member: Do they need to send in a special enforcement team? Should they expect a crime in retaliation? Now, a new algorithm is trying to automate the process of identifying gang crimes. But some scientists warn that far from reducing gang violence, the program could do the opposite by eroding trust in communities, or it could brand innocent people as gang members.
That has created some tensions. At a presentation of the new program this month, one audience member grew so upset he stormed out of the talk, and some of the creators of the program have been tight-lipped about how it could be used.
Northeastern University today announced the launch of a new computer science program that will utilize “pop-up classrooms” to train working professionals in the areas of computer science, data science and software engineering. Offered at the university’s Silicon Valley campus and in San Francisco, the Professional Topics series is designed for people who wish to earn a master’s degree in computer science, and classes will bolster the knowledge of students who already have experience in this field. Courses will initially address the areas of search, deep learning, and data visualization, with a wider range of topics introduced over the coming year.
The program will apply data science to determine which types of courses should be offered at precisely the right times and the right locations that will allow students to balance their schedules and optimize their educational experience.
The Professional Topics series will be led by Ricardo Baeza-Yates, the Chief Technology Officer of NTENT, a semantic search technology company based in Carlsbad, California. Dr. Baeza-Yates will oversee the growth of the computer science programs offered in Silicon Valley and San Francisco, and he will also recruit full and part-time faculty from the local community who can enrich the courses and programs in both locations, and ultimately throughout the Northeastern University College of Computer and Information Science network with his deep industrial and research experience.
Unlocking the power of big data is becoming a hot career. In the United States, it is reported in 2018 there will be more than 490,000 data science positions available but only 200,000 qualified people to fill them. With only 110 universities offering data science courses, Cornell is working to prepare future data scientists with a new course offered this semester called Data Science for All.
A joint course offered by Computer Science, Operations Research and Information Engineering (ORIE) and the Department of Statistical Science, it introduces data science to any student.
“My vision is for one day to be teaching this course to 1,000 students a year. Every educated person needs data literacy these days, whether they plan to be a scientist, doctor, attorney or a journalist,” said Michael Clarkson, a CIS senior lecturer who teaches the course with Madeleine Udell, assistant professor of ORIE.
The investment will go to multiple projects at the Allen Institute for Technology, or AI2, the Seattle-based nonprofit. In the new “Project Alexandria,” the goal is to create a system imbued with good sense and judgment.
The Supreme Court heard arguments Tuesday about whether emails stored overseas are subject to a U.S. warrant. It all revolved around a 1986 law, five years before the “World Wide Web” even existed.
It was the cloud and robots meet Marty McFly.
And the justices didn’t seem to be buying arguments from Microsoft, an American tech company headquartered in Redmond, Wash., which is trying to protect the data.
The question facing the justices didn’t exist a few decades ago — does an email provider, faced with a search warrant issued in the United States, have to turn over a customer’s email content when those data are stored outside the country? [audio, 2:26]
Just as the technological revolution has transformed how people live and do business, it has upended the often hidebound field of intelligence gathering. Where once the focus might have been on the savvy agent clandestinely dashing around the world, like James Bond, now it’s on something far less sexy but no less vital: big data.
“That [Bond] model, if it was ever true, is completely over,” said Sir John Sawers, chief of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), known to fans of spy novels as MI6, from 2009 to 2014. “Now, the most important person in any intelligence service is the data analyst, because it’s the data analyst who will tell you where the threats are coming from and where the opportunities are emerging that you as an intelligence agency can exploit.”
Following a distinguished career in diplomacy (he also was British ambassador to the United Nations and Egypt), Sawers is at Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) this week speaking about national security, intelligence, diplomacy, and public service as a Fisher Family Fellow. During a talk Monday, he encouraged listeners thinking of pursuing a career in government to look beyond the typically modest pay such work affords compared with careers in business or the law.
Not long ago, computer science was considered a specialized field for a niche industry. Today, things have changed. As technology continues to grow, it has become more necessary for employees to hone computer skills in nearly all industries. This growing demand has experts like Professor Eric Roberts warning of a looming “capacity crisis” in higher education.
With more than 30 years of experience leading computer science in higher education, Professor Roberts most recently served as a faculty member at Stanford University and associate chair and director of undergraduate studies for computer science. Today he is the Charles Simonyi professor emeritus of computer science and a Bass University fellow in undergraduate education. He has also received many accolades for his research and work in computer science, most recently earning the SIGCSE Award for Lifetime Service to the Computer Science Education Community. As a leading expert in computer science education, he will be speaking at the annual SIGCSE Technical Symposium to present his insights on the field’s most critical challenges and opportunities that we should be paying attention to.
Ask Professor Roberts, and he’s clear: The most critical challenge facing computer science education today is a “capacity crisis.” In other words, there simply are not enough faculty to keep up with the rise in students. In fact, a report he authored notes, “Unlike the situation in conventional academic disciplines, the number of open faculty positions in computer science exceeds the number of candidates by about a factor of five.”
Barely seven months ago, a senior Chinese official promised that artificial intelligence could one day help authorities spot crime before it happens.
In the country’s far western Xinjiang region, it’s already happening, with the establishment of a system that critics call “Orwellian” in scope and ambition, and which is being used to place people in political re-education.
Called the Integrated Joint Operations Platform, or IJOP, it assembles and parses data from facial-recognition cameras, WiFi internet sniffers, licence-plate cameras, police checkpoints, banking records and police reports made on mobile apps from home visits, a new report from Human Rights Watch finds.
We keep hearing that data scientist is the hottest job of the 21st century and that there is a cross-industry shortage of employees with enough data skills, yet the idea of studying data science in school is still very new. What should colleges and universities teach about the topic? Is it just an adaption of existing math, statistics, or computer science courses? Would these classes be of interest to any non-math majors? Is there enough material to create a minor?
A math professor at a small university (who is also an old friend from grad school) recently asked me these questions, and I thought I would tackle them here for my latest advice column.
Charlotte, NC March 21, starting at 8 a.m., the Ritz-Carlton in Uptown Charlotte. “This year’s conference, ‘Artificial Intelligence and Deep Learning,’ presents thought-leaders, business leaders, data scientists, entrepreneurs, software engineers and professional analysts from Charlotte and beyond to share their extensive expertise and experience on artificial intelligence (AI) and deep learning.” [$$$]
Oxford, England Conference is June 18 at University of Oxford. “Connected Life 2018 is a student-run day-long conference aimed at sparking multidisciplinary conversations and showcasing emerging Internet research.” Deadline for submissions is March 12.
Toronto, Ontario, Canada June 13-15 at the Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto. “CLSI is not your average academic workshop. The goal is to form collaborations and work together on projects through intensive participant-led sessions.” Deadline for proposals is March 30.
The NumFOCUS DISCOVER Cookbook (Diverse & Inclusive Spaces and Conferences: Overall Vision and Essential Resources) is produced by the NumFOCUS Diversity & Inclusion in Scientific Computing (DISC) Program, with support from the Moore Foundation.
“We’re delighted to announce a successful launch of DMPTool version 3 today. This milestone represents the convergence of the two most popular data management planning tools—US-based DMPTool and UK-based DMPonline—into a single, internationalized platform. We plan to bring the many other installations of the tool in Canada, Australia, South Africa, Argentina, and throughout Europe along for the ride as we work together to make DMPs a more useful exercise for everyone!”
Manuscripts may have a rigidly defined structure, but there’s still room to tell a compelling story — one that clearly communicates the science and is a pleasure to read. Scientist-authors and editors debate the importance and meaning of creativity and offer tips on how to write a top paper.
Text- and data-mining (TDM) present an interesting challenge to libraries and folks who think about library policy questions, because it reverses the polarity of an important legal distinction: the difference between owning a copy and owning a copyright. For the last several decades, libraries have been working through the challenge of owning copies but not rights. The core question has been: how can we take advantage of new technologies to leverage the investments we’ve made in our physical collections of copies, though we don’t own copyrights in these materials? In the next couple of decades, when it comes to TDM, we may be working through the opposite challenge. Our question may be: how can we take advantage of the broad rights we have under fair use when control of massive collections of physical copies (including bits and bytes on servers) has shifted increasingly to publishers? Up until now libraries have been secure in their possession of copies but have had to puzzle through rights; in the future, when it comes to TDM, we may be secure in our rights but need to puzzle through how to get copies. We need to think strategically about this shift.
The version 0.01 of MindBigData “IMAGENET” of The Brain, open Data Base contains 5,384 brain signals of 3 seconds each, captured with the stimulus of seeing a random image (1,077 so far) from the Imagenet ILSVRC2013 train dataset and thinking about it, over the course of 2018, from a single Test Subject.
Re-imagine scientific publishing. What would you change?
My answer: No paywall, no delay, straight to the web. Open data, open code, interactive/animated figures. Transparent, rolling peer review, version control, CCBY license, citable DOIs.