Data Science newsletter – August 31, 2021

Newsletter features journalism, research papers and tools/software for August 31, 2021

 

Nutrition and tech experts bring carb-coding power to the masses with AI startup

Nutra Ingredients, Nikki Hancocks


from

Pullman is one of the hardest places to win in the sport. After Smith’s success with an analytics-driven approach at Saint Mary’s, Columbia and San Francisco, there are early signs it can carry over to the highest level.


Really excited to launch the DeFi MOOC on Aug 26, with over 1000 students enrolled already!

Twitter, Dawn Song


from

Do you have fun ideas & suggestions for class projects for students? Please share it here: https://bit.ly/3sAt2Jk


B-Schools Must Evolve for Future Business Demands, Employers Say

Bloomberg Businessweek, Chris Stokel-Walker


from

MBA programs should be more flexible and teach skills like digital transformation, according to a survey.


California brainstorms approaches to a high-DER grid of the future

Utility Dive, Kavya Balaraman


from

  • As California regulators begin a sweeping effort to prepare the electric grid for an anticipated wave of electric vehicles and other distributed energy resources (DERs), ratepayer advocates and other groups are pushing for affordability and equity issues to take center stage.
  • The rulemaking, launched by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) in June, could enable DERs to be a valuable tool for ratepayers to access a wide range of clean energy resources, the Protect Our Communities Foundation said in comments. On the other hand, it could also lead to “an infrastructure-building and wealth-creating bonanza for utility shareholders.”
  • California is bracing for huge increases in DERs on the grid over the next decade — behind-the-meter solar, behind-the-meter storage and electric vehicle demand are expected to increase by 260%, 770% and 370% respectively from 2019 to 2030, according to regulatory forecasts.

  • How Many Computer Science Grad Students are International?

    Dice, Nick Kolakowski


    from

    American graduate schools have a reputation for attracting international students. A new breakdown by the National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP) shows that international students constitute the majority of those in graduate school for computer and information science, which could have a sizable impact on how tech companies source their talent for years to come.

    These international students represent 72 percent of all those enrolled in grad school for computer and information science (as well as 74 percent of those in electrical engineering, and 71 percent in industrial and manufacturing engineering). “Between 1998 and 2019, the annual number of full-time international graduate students in computer and information sciences increased by 310 percent, from 10,930 in 1998 to 44,786 in 2019,” added the NFAP’s report (emphasis theirs). “In comparison, over the same period, the annual number of full-time U.S. graduate students in computer and information sciences increased by 91%, from 9,042 in 1998 to 17,334 in 2019.”


    Will Google Intrinsic hail the era of robots-as-a-service?

    TechMonitor, Matthew Gooding


    from

    Google is back in the robotics game with Intrinsic, a new spin-out that recently emerged from stealth mode promising to build a universal software platform for robots. This software could play a key role in lowering the barriers to entry when it comes to automation, and enable development of the robots-as-a-service model to make advanced machines more affordable for small companies.


    Should We Monkey with the Microbiome?

    Massachusetts General Hospital, Proto magazine


    from

    Genetically engineered microbes could create miniature drug factories inside the gut. Do the benefits outweigh the risks?

    A person’s bacteria, yeast and other tiny companions have, in recent decades, gotten an image boost. A thriving microbiome is now understood as a sign of good health, and the market for “probiotics” is thriving, though concerns have been raised about the safety and effectiveness of many over-the-counter products. But what if science could add bacteria to the body that was guaranteed to have a therapeutic effect?

    Enter the idea of engineering the human microbiome. New strains of microbes can be, according to some researchers, molded to specific therapeutic ends: to calm or stimulate the immune system, to help with metabolic disorders or to produce a constant supply of some critical medication. The early explorers of this idea believe the microbiome has the potential to become a portable pharmacy in the gut, though they caution patience; the microbiotic frontier is still, for the most part, untamed.


    Protecting forests and changing agricultural practices are essential, cost-effective actions to prevent pandemics

    Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Center for Climate, Health and the Global Environment


    from

    A new report from Harvard and international experts outlines the strong scientific foundations for taking actions to stop the next pandemic by preventing the spillover of pathogens from animals to people. The report provides recommendations for research and actions to forestall new pandemics that have largely been absent from high-level discussions about prevention, including a novel call to integrate conservation actions with strengthening healthcare systems globally.

    The report from the Scientific Task Force to Prevent Pandemics at the Source, a collaborative convened by Harvard Chan C-CHANGE and the Harvard Global Health Initiative, was led by our Director, Dr. Aaron Bernstein.


    An Introduction to AI Story Generation

    The Gradient, Mark Reidl


    from

    Automated story generation is the use of an intelligent system to produce a fictional story from a minimal set of inputs. This is a problem that has long been explored by AI researchers, since it strikes at some fundamental research questions in artificial intelligence.

    To tell a story, an intelligent system has to have a lot of knowledge, both about how to tell a story and about how the world works. These concepts need to be grounded to be able to tell coherent stories. Story generation is therefore an excellent way to know if an intelligent system truly understands something. To understand a concept, one must be able to put that concept into practice — telling a story in which a concept is used correctly is one way of doing that.


    How local governments are scaring tech companies

    Protocol, Ben Brody


    from

    Food apps are just a microcosm highlighting the patchworks of local-level regulation that are developing, or are already a fact of life, for tech. These regulatory patchworks occur when state and local governments move ahead of Congress to pass their own, often divergent, laws and rules. So far, states and municipalities are racing ahead of the feds on issues such as cybersecurity, municipal broadband, content moderation, gig work, the use of facial recognition, digital taxes, mobile app store fees and consumer rights to repair their own devices, among others.

    Many in tech became familiar with the idea when the California Consumer Privacy Act passed in 2018, making it clear more states would follow suit, although the possibility has popped up throughout modern tech policy history on issues such as privacy requirements on ISPs, net neutrality and even cybersecurity breach notification.

    Many patchworks reflect the stance of advocates, consumers and legislators that Washington has simply failed to do its job on tech. The resulting uncompromising or inconsistent approaches by local governments also has tech companies worried enough to push Congress to overrule states and establish one uniform U.S. standard.


    Yale’s 36-Year-Old Endowment Chief Was Molded in Swensen Way

    Bloomberg Wealth, Janet Lorin and Eric Krebs


    from

    Yale University had such a successful decades-long run with David Swensen, its late chief investment officer, that it’s only natural the school wanted someone of the same mold to take over its $31 billion endowment.

    It didn’t have to stray far.

    In Matthew Mendelsohn, Yale selected one of Swensen’s many proteges. His only job since graduating from the New Haven, Connecticut-based Ivy League school 14 years ago has been learning from the legendary money manager. Swensen began leading Yale’s endowment in 1985 — the same year the 36-year-old Mendelsohn was born.


    Making Patient Care Easier: Self-powered Diaper Sensors that Monitor Urine Sugar Levels

    Tokyo University of Science, Media Relations


    from

    Monitoring urine sugar levels is important during early stages of diabetes, and diaper sensors represent an attractive solution. In a recent study, scientists from Tokyo University of Science, Japan, developed a novel self-powered diaper sensor that generates the required electricity directly from urine using a biofuel cell. The proposed device can wirelessly transmit the measured glucose concentration and notify the presence of urine, helping prevent diabetes and simplify patient care greatly.


    AI Safety Moves to the Forefront

    EE Times, George Leopold


    from

    In a series of policy briefs on AI safety, researchers at the Center for Security and Emerging Technology at Georgetown University attempt to identify the engineering requirements for achieving safer AI systems.

    “Today’s cutting-edge AI systems are powerful in many ways, but profoundly fragile in others,” note authors Zachary Arnold and Helen Toner. “They often lack any semblance of common sense, can be easily fooled or corrupted, and fail in unexpected and unpredictable ways.

    “It is often difficult or impossible to understand why they act the way they do,” the researchers concluded, adding that the degree of trust placed on fallible AI systems “could have terrible consequences.”


    Despite Pandemic Challenges, UM Grows Collaborations with Industry

    University of Mississippi, Ole Miss News


    from

    In spring 2020, UM launched the Institute for Data Science, which will support education and innovation in data science and analytics. To inform this initiative, Vice Chancellor for Research Josh Gladden convened a virtual roundtable in spring 2021 with national industry leaders to discuss how the university can best address data science challenges.

    “Data science develops the tools and techniques to convert data into decisions,” Gladden said. “IDS will be a resource to partnering with both a wide range of faculty on campus as well as federal and industry partners to solve a spectrum of problems.”


    Innovative tools take aim at antibiotic-resistant microbes

    Nature, Technology Feature, Jyoti Madhusoodanan


    from

    Diagnostics that rely on bacterial movements, genomics and machine learning could help to address a global crisis.


    Philip Glass on Artificial Intelligence and Art

    @auderdy


    from

    This conversation with the composer Philip Glass and me discusses an exciting project in partnership with OpenAi, in which we trained a neural net on a corpus of Glass’ work. He offers commentary on the music created by “his AI”, as well as insights on composition and creating art. We then talk about the different limitations and capacities of humans and Artificial Intelligence–if and how neural nets can help us create art, appreciate art, and find the same things humans find meaningful. Due to the covid-19 pandemic, this call took place over video conference in December 2020.


    Deadlines



    Model the Future to Win a Scholarship

    “The Actuarial Foundation invites high-school students to conduct an actuarial research project in which they make recommendations to companies, organizations, government agencies, or other groups based on their mathematical models, real-world data analysis, and risk management.” Deadline for submissions is mid-November.

    SPONSORED CONTENT

    Assets  




    The eScience Institute’s Data Science for Social Good program is now accepting applications for student fellows and project leads for the 2021 summer session. Fellows will work with academic researchers, data scientists and public stakeholder groups on data-intensive research projects that will leverage data science approaches to address societal challenges in areas such as public policy, environmental impacts and more. Student applications due 2/15 – learn more and apply here. DSSG is also soliciting project proposals from academic researchers, public agencies, nonprofit entities and industry who are looking for an opportunity to work closely with data science professionals and students on focused, collaborative projects to make better use of their data. Proposal submissions are due 2/22.

     


    Tools & Resources



    Fine-Tuning Sentence Entity Resolver Models with Spark NLP for Healthcare

    John Snow Labs, Hasham Ul Haq


    from

    With the effect of digitalization, more and more data is collected in the field of health, as in every field. Using Spark NLP for Healthcare models, we can now derive very important inferences from irregular clinical notes. However, clinical terms in irregular clinical notes may not always be consistent with those in official sources. So, it is now possible to use Sentence Entity Resolver Models trained using official terms by adding new terms or modifying existing terms with Spark NLP for Healthcare v3.2!


    Collection of raw, tri-axial accelerometry data with #wearables enables efforts to unify measurements across different devices.

    Twitter, Jacek Urbanek


    from

    The manuscript by Dinesh and colleagues is a great step towards the better utilization of modern #PhysicalActivity monitors


    Congratulations to the #IJCAI2021 best paper award winners

    AI Hub, Lucy Smith


    from

    The IJCAI-2021 awards were announced during the opening ceremony of the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI-21). The honours included the 2021 AIJ classic paper award, the AIJ prominent paper award, and the IJCAI-JAIR best paper prize.


    ASA Speakers Bureau

    American Statistical Association


    from

    Welcome to the ASA Speakers Bureau—a repository of qualified ASA members who are available to speak to student chapters and K–12 student groups and classes about a variety of statistical topics and career paths.

    Our goal is to grow the Speakers Bureau, so that means we need to expand upon our repository of speakers. We need you and invite you to apply to become part of this new resource.


    Careers


    Full-time positions outside academia

    Data Science Analyst – Audience Analytics



    Pew Research Center; Washington, DC

    Wildfire Research Postdoctoral Scholar



    Pepperwood Preserve; Sonoma County, CA

    Research Scientist, Center for an Informed Public



    University of Washington, Information School; Seattle, WA

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