Category Archives: Computer Science
Amazon Future Engineer completes one year in India providing computer science education and career exposure to more than 4.5 Lakh students – India…
Amazon Future Engineer completes one year in India providing computer science education and career exposure to more than 4.5 Lakh students India Education Diary
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UTC Scientist Is A Round 1 Winner In Global Research Challenge – The Chattanoogan
A computational biologist at UTC has just cleared the first hurdle in a global race of experts looking for solutions to challenges to come as a result of older people outnumbering the young by 2030.
The race is the U.S. National Academy of Medicines Healthy Longevity Global Grand Challenge, and a research proposal by Hong Qin, a UTC professor of computer science, has been selected to advance to the second of three rounds of review. Dr. Qin proposed the use of artificial intelligence in searching for a common mechanism in the so-called biological clock responsible for how humans age.
Titled, Uncovering molecular mechanisms of aging clocks with interpretable deep learning, Dr. Qins proposal earned him a $50,000 cash award for its selection to advance from the initial, catalyst phase, to round 2, the accelerator phase of the competition. He will now begin testing his proposal toward documenting results in preparation for his round 2 entry in 2023. Its the latest work in what Dr. Qin said is almost 18 years of studying aging.
This is an ambitious project. Ive been studying aging since 2004, he said. The second-round review for the NAM competition requires a separate submission and, hopefully, I will have some good preliminary results that show this idea is not just cool, but it actually works.
That idea is to use create artificial neural networks for deep learning designed to mimic the human brains biological neurons involved in processing information and coming to conclusions or making decisions.
Dr. Qin will use neural networks to analyze massive amounts of existing data on biological markers for aging in humans and in mice and several other animal species toward the possibility of detecting a common aging mechanism.
Im trying to understand what this biological aging clock is and how it works in humans, a mouse, a fruit fly, even a single-celled organism like a fungus, Dr. Qin said. This is because, in humans, there is a set of biological markers. In a mouse, there is another set. Although different species have different biomarkers of the aging clock, they most likely reflect a common mechanism which is a black box at the moment. We know these different sets of biomarkers in different species on the surface, and most biologists think there are common mechanismsor at least overlapping mechanismsin these aging clocks, even though we do know about them.
The good thing about deep learning is we dont have to know what the mechanism is. We can let the artificial intelligence learnfrom all the datawhat the best model or mechanisms are to explain the data.
The NAM success also is opening doors. At a recent conference, Dr. Qin met the director of a National Institutes of Health research program who invited him to submit a proposal to a relevant program. It has put me on the radar of other research entities, he said.
Dr. Qin credits the UTC SimCenter and its early support and funding for his basic idea of this line of research in 2017 with positioning him to succeed in advancing it. DR. Qin also said that SimCenters large data storage facility enabled him and his students to analyze the GTEx (genotype-tissue expression) data set for the NAM award challenge. The GTEx data set is made available by NIH through a data usage agreement.
That data set is so large, I had to use two external hard drives. SimCenters large-scale storage made it feasible for us to do some analysis on this extremely large data set, Dr. Qin said. Without SimCenters large-scale data storage, we would not even be able to have handled the data set.
The SimCenter is a multidisciplinary research hub and the Universitys core high-performance computing and storage facility. It is one of 10 such university facilities funded by the Tennessee Higher Education Commission to advance multidisciplinary research in applied computational science and engineering toward growth in research funding, excellence in integrated research and education; and increased stature and economic competitiveness for Tennessee.
SimCenter Director and Computer Science Professor Tony Skjellum said Dr. Qins work with the facility is an example of how the SimCenter fulfills its purpose.
Thats part of the mission we have at UTC. We fund scientists like Hong (Qin)we have peer-reviewed funding, and we have internal startup funding for projects with A.I. and simulation in them, Dr. Skjellum said. We award peer-reviewed internal funding, and hes taken that and leveraged it into lots of successes in many different areas of funding and research. We sort of gave him an internal start and hes taken that to make this latest success.
Every year, the SimCenter invites research proposals, funding as many as eight or nine with up to $100,000 each for one year of work. Dr. Skjellum said the most recent funding awards went to five large-scale proposals and two smaller ones.
Since its launch in October 2019, the NAM Healthy Longevity Global Competition has brought together 11 global collaborators representing more than 50 countries and territories. More on Dr. Qins catalyst-round win is here.
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UTC Scientist Is A Round 1 Winner In Global Research Challenge - The Chattanoogan
Can Robots and Humans Co-exist in Public? UT Campus Study Will Offer Answers – UT News – The University of Texas at Austin
AUSTIN, Texas Autonomous robots will soon rove the buildings and streets of The University of Texas at Austin campus. But unlike other commercial delivery services, this fleet of robots will help researchers understand and improve the experience of pedestrians who encounter them.
A new grant to an interdisciplinary team of researchers at UT Austin will support the creation of a robot delivery network on campus, with the first deployments scheduled for early 2023.The researchers plan a five-year study focusing on what it takes to create, safely operate and maintain this kind of robot network, while also adapting with the humans who live and work around it.
The teams research promises to become the most extensive data about human-robot encounters in public spaces to date.Over time, the team will learn how state-of-the-art robotic autonomy and a real-world community can best co-exist.
Robotic systems are becoming more ubiquitous, said Luis Sentis, a professor in the Cockrell School of Engineerings Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics and leader of the project. In addition to programming robots to perform a realistic task such as delivering supplies, we will be able to gather observations to help develop standards for safety, communication and behavior to allow these future systems to be useful and safe in our community.
When the network is up and running, members of the UT Austin community will be able to order free supplies such as wipes and hand sanitizer via a smartphone app. The robots will deliver them to certain pedestrian zones on campus, door-to-door.
As they do, the robots will encounter potentially hundreds of pedestrians. The researchers want to understand what kinds of behaviors and interactions are expected from the robots during these encounters, while ensuring their tasks are successfully completed.
The researchers study human-AI partnerships through the Good Systems research grand challenge. The new $3.6 million grant from the National Science Foundation expands on their six-year project Living and Working with Robots, which kicked off in September 2021.
The researchers plan to use two different types of dog-like robots made by Boston Dynamics and Unitree. In later phases of the research, the robots will go out in teams of two, monitored both by chaperones and people remotely. This means researchers will always have the ability to stop the robots if necessary.
The team will study ways to improve oversight for a fleet of robots. Nanshu Lu, a professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics, will design wearable brain sensors to be placed on the people monitoring the robots to understand the kind of workload and attention span this would require.
The researchers expect to gain insights from observing and interviewing people who encounter the robots in a variety of contexts. Importantly, the team knows reactions will vary widely and wants to develop tools for understanding the full range of experiences encountering robots on campus can produce. This work could help designers figure out how future public-facing robots should be designed to co-exist within diverse communities like UT Austins, as well as how and where they should move.
Elliott Hauser, an assistant professor in the School of Information, will lead the development of a shared research database that will collect and relate the many types of data the team and its robots will generate. Justin Hart, an assistant professor of practice with the College of Natural Sciences, is leading human-robot interactions in the community. Keri Stephens, a professor in the Moody College of Communication, is leading team science efforts. Joydeep Biswas, assistant professor of computer science in the College of Natural Sciences, is leading robot navigation in social environments. Junfeng Jiao of the School of Architecture will research how urban informatics and smart cities research can inform the deploying robots in social environments. Maria Esteva of the Texas Advanced Computing Center is leading the development of the projects convergent data model. Samantha Shorey, assistant professor of communication studies in the Moody College of Communication, is leading the groups work on ethnographic studies of the community and the research team itself.
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The Way We Remember – UCF
Lori Walters and Joseph Kider make an interesting research team at UCFs School of Modeling, Simulation and Training (SMST). Walters grew up under the blue skies of South Florida. Kider grew up in inner-city Philadelphia. Walters would watch I Dream of Jeannie after school. Kider played baseball with the guys. Walters teaches courses for UCFs history department and has an admiration for technology. Kiders a computer science expert and a SMST associate professor who appreciates history.
I just finished a book about the history of the pixel, Kider says proudly, before admitting, Im not at Loris level.
They even speak different languages.
When I work with people like Joe, Walters says, I have to say, OK, talk to me without the deep computer terminology. Im an historian here.
They exemplify the interdisciplinary spirit of SMST by using what Kider calls a shared mental model. Walters might describe an object as shiny while Kider will talk about its specular bidirectional reflectance distribution factor.
The blend of disciplines is why were productive, Kider says. Were artists, philosophers, architects, engineers, historians and computer scientists, all working on big societal applications.
Walters says it like this: I can go to smart people like Joe with a cool idea and ask if we can bring it to life.
Their latest project coming to life is called MemoryScan. Once fully developed, the MemoryScan system will allow end-users to go back in time, through virtual or augmented reality, and experience locations the way they once were. It could be Sunset Strip from 50 years ago or a neighborhood from when your parents were growing up. The pilot project, which could be launched in early 2023, will be a virtual drive through Cocoa Beach, Florida, during the Space Programs heyday from the 1950s into the mid 1970s.
MemoryScan is as the name suggests, says Walters. Its using the memories that people have of a location and preserving them as a virtual experience for future generations.
The project has attracted internal grants from UCF and partnerships with companies like Langan Engineering. Most recently, the National Endowment for the Humanities awarded a grant that will allow MemoryScan to incorporate technology to make it a more vivid experience.
Im amazed at how far weve come in bringing history to life, says Walters. Its an idea that took root in her mind years ago.
Before earning a Ph.D. from Florida State, Walters studied at Florida Atlantic where she followed up a bachelors in U.S. history with a masters in the same field. One assignment changed her aspirations: a research paper on anything in Florida intriguing enough to justify 25 pages. Walters remembered a drive north on A1A and seeing Cocoa Beach.
There were still signs up from the 1960s calling it Missileland, USA, she says. So, I thought it would be fun to find out what the area had been like when the space program was growing there.
Her fascination for the citys past began. Later, ,she went back to Cocoa Beach to conduct oral histories with people who had worked at Cape Canaveral during the space race. She noticed a concrete ramp, the only remnant of the launch complex where John Glenn made history by rocketing into orbit.
I wondered how the history might be recreated, so it wouldnt be lost forever, Walters says.
A thousand miles away, a high schooler in Philly was getting caught up in another world of wonder: Toy Story.
The way they made the movie through physics and renderings had an impact on what Im doing today, Kider says.
What hes doing with MemoryScan, specifically, started with a phone call from Walters in early 2021. Walters had been talking with longtime Cocoa Beach residents to preserve their memories through audio recordings and written material. One woman, Vivian Lindauer, took Walters on an unforgettable mental tour of the old Missileland.
She went into amazing detail, right down to the furniture and types of calculators that were used in the iconic Glass Bank [formally known as The First Federal Savings and Loan], Walters says. Then she closed her eyes and literally described motels to me as if we were driving up A1A 50 years ago. Thats when I thought, This is what has always been missing from oral histories: Put people in a vehicle, drive around and record history as they describe it.
After mentally cruising the town with Vivian, Walters met with Kider and asked if it could be done. Can we provide people with prompts and take down the memories as they travel around? Can we track not just the words, but the gestures, the vocal inflections and the long pauses at points of interest? Can we capture so much of their memory that the memory then become a virtual experience for others?
Kider said yes. He suggested using devices to track eye and hand movements, cameras, GPS and crystal-clear audio recordings.
Thats why I like working in SMST with people who love technology, Walters says. They find a way.
During her quest for Cocoa Beachs experiential history, Walters has collected plenty of mementos. Pictures, blueprints, restaurant menus, hotel logos. Theyre used to prime the remembrances of people who were there in the day. The cues are crucial, but the people complete the mosaic.
Theyre the key to everything, Walters says. Once theyre gone, any uncaptured memories are gone with them.
The history of Cocoa Beach and its proximity to UCF have made it an ideal test bed. But Walters and Kider stress that MemoryScan grew from idea to reality because of Vivian Lindauer. When she passed away earlier this year, they gave MemoryScan a code name: Project Vivian.
Lori always tells me to focus on the people, not on the science, Kider says. The code name is a good reminder of that.
With the funding from NEH, theyll be able to add depth and vividness to Project Vivian. And then? Walters envisions MemoryScan being used to capture old Miami Beach. Kider imagines his kids seeing where he grew up in Philadelphia.
As we become older, the memories of our favorite places become more important, Kider says. Thats what binds us together because were all from somewhere.
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