Category Archives: Data Science
Proposed EU data laws leave researchers out in the cold – Nature.com
Under the proposed European Data Act, researchers access to big data would be more restricted than that of consumers and businesses.Credit: Jorg Greuel/Getty
The amount of information humans and their machines are generating is growing exponentially. Its expected that the amount of data created, captured and replicated across the world annually will have increased from 33 zettabytes (or 33 trillion gigabytes) in 2018 to 221 zettabytes by 2026.
There is huge potential for this information to drive innovation and economic growth, but most of it is going to waste, say European Union legislators, because companies keep it closely guarded and it ends up largely unused. The European Data Act, proposed in 2022, seeks to free up some of this data, giving consumers, businesses and public-sector bodies access rights.
Researchers, however, say that the proposed act fails to extend such rights to them, and is a missed opportunity to accelerate innovation in key areas, such as climate change, public health and the countering of misinformation. Some see it as the latest example of publicly funded researchers being left behind in the race to make the most of big data.
There is a wall between researchers and a lot of data that they could use to carry out important research in the public interest, either because companies prevent them from accessing it, or they charge very high prices for it, says Julien Chicot, a senior policy officer at the Guild of European Research-Intensive Universities in Brussels, a network of 21 research-led institutions. The proposed Data Act is disappointing because it enables data sharing between businesses, but largely fails to do so for research purposes, he says.
In 2020, the European Commission published a data strategy to increase the flow of data across sectors in member states. The aims included creating wealth, giving people greater control over their data and fostering trust for companies. The proposed Data Act is a key part of that strategy. The commissions proposals apply to devices and machines that gather data related to their performance, use and environment, and that can communicate the data through the Internet or by other means. This includes connected objects that are part of the Internet of Things (IoT), such as smart home appliances, connected vehicles and smart manufacturing systems. Products such as smart phones, cameras and personal computers are outside the scope of the proposals, as are value added insights derived through software processing.
The commission says it expects the proposals to create 270 billion (US$296 billion) of additional gross domestic product for EU member states by 2028 by unlocking currently underused data. The act could, for example, allow a farmer to access data generated by their machines that they could then pass on to third-party companies for analysis. This might find efficiencies or allow repairs to be made at rates that are lower than the premium charged by the manufacturers.
Some observers say that the EUs focus on creating legislative frameworks around digital activities doesnt take into account the importance of publicly funded research in driving innovation. The political push behind the data strategy is specifically aimed at industry data and business-driven innovation, says Viivi Lhteenoja, chair of MyData Global, a personal-data campaign group in Helsinki. The researchers agenda, and research-driven innovation, hasnt been high up on the list.
Researchers scramble as Twitter plans to end free data access
The proposed Data Act states that public-sector bodies can request information from companies in exceptional need, including to respond to or prevent emergencies, such as those related to public health, environmental degradation or natural disasters. The laws would also give these bodies access to commercial data if it was needed to fulfil tasks in the public interest that they are legally obliged to carry out, and for which they could not obtain the necessary data in other ways. Small companies would be exempt from the requirements.
Legal specialists and organizations representing researchers say that the Data Act will be of limited use to academics because their institutions would not fall under its definition of public-sector bodies, so they could not request information from companies directly. Researchers usually find a research concept and methodology, and then look for data that helps them study their subject, says Heiko Richter, who studies information and data regulation at the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition in Munich, Germany. Under the act, they would have to see what they could do with data provided to them by public-sector bodies, and could only use it for the purposes for which it was originally intended. So, I dont think the act, as it stands, does much to help researchers.
Chicot agrees. The proposed Data Act text suggests public bodies, such as health authorities, would have to ask companies for data and could then share the data with researchers, he says. Universities and other public research-performing organizations must be able to request access to data directly from data holders.
The Data Act introduces new ways for public-sector bodies to access and use data held by private companies when it is necessary for specific public-interest purposes, said Johannes Bahrke, a spokesperson for the commission. Public-sector bodies can use the expertise of public-research institutes to analyse this data.
The commission says that people in member states will benefit from the greater accessibility of data that the strategy allows, through innovations leading to improved health care, better transport systems, greater energy efficiency, new products and cheaper public services. Some researchers say that these aims can be achieved only if the act is amended to allow them to request data from companies directly and in a wider set of circumstances.
Europe pumps 10 million into effort to combat brain drain
We are facing some major global challenges, such as the energy transition, loss of biodiversity and environmental degradation, says Morten Dhlen, director of the Centre for Computational and Data Science at the University of Oslo. I understand some data must remain confidential for reasons of commercial interests and personal privacy, however, researchers need access to more data from companies than the Data Act allows to speed up the green transition.
Danijel Skoaj, a computer scientist at the University of Ljubljana in Slovenia, says that access to more data from manufacturing businesses could accelerate his efforts to use deep learning to improve defect detection in production processes. We really struggle to get good, realistic data sets to evaluate our algorithms, says Skoaj. The Data Act seems to be mostly about business-to-business data sharing, but if it focused more on data sharing for research, it could benefit everyone.
Both the European Parliament and the European Council, which represents member states, have suggested amendments to the proposed act. Representatives of these bodies and the commission have begun discussions aimed at reaching a common position that could be adopted as legislation next year.
Dhlen says that the lack of emphasis on the importance of research in the Data Act was mirrored in early proposals of the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Act, which seeks to classify and regulate AI systems by their risk profile. The proposed AI Act, published by the commission in 2021, has been revised during negotiations and is currently the subject of discussions in the European Parliament. The current form is better, but the early version of the AI Act could be interpreted as saying you cant do research on certain AI topics, says Dhlen. It was again leaving research behind and showed a lack of understanding of its importance in society.
Researchers concerns about the Data Act follow other examples of publicly funded science being left behind while the private sector capitalizes on big data. One preprint study1 found that more AI researchers are moving from universities to technology companies than the other way around. And those that made the jump to the commercial sector had more than three times the citations per paper than those who stayed behind. The announcement by Twitter of plans to end researchers free access to the services application programming interface, which enables the extraction and processing of large amounts of data from the platform, is expected to hit those using it for research at universities the hardest because they lack the funds to pay for access.
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Proposed EU data laws leave researchers out in the cold - Nature.com
Stanford Medicine Named Winner of the 2023 Hearst Health Prize in … – UCLA Health Connect
The UCLA Center for SMART Health, an interdisciplinary collaborative that looks to the integrated transformation of healthcare through emergent data and technologies, and Hearst Health, a division of Hearst and leader in care guidance, announced Thursday that Stanford Medicine is the winner of the 2023 Hearst Health Prize. Stanford won the award for its artificial intelligence (AI) solution that helps identify patients at risk for heart attack.
The $100,000 award for excellence in data science in healthcare was presented by Gregory Dorn, MD, MPH, president of Hearst Health; Arash Naeim, MD, PhD, co-director of UCLA Center for SMART Health; and Alex Bui, PhD, co-director of the UCLA Center for SMART Health, during the proceedings of UCLA Health Data Day.
All of us on the Stanford Medicine team share a vision for designing more advanced systems to deliver potentially life-saving interventions to patients, said Alexander Sandhu, MD, MS, the Stanford Medicine project lead who accepted the award. As a physician, it is tremendously gratifying to see the powerful role data science can play in improving clinical care.
Stanfords Incidental Coronary Calcium team aimed to use the detection of coronary artery calcium from computed tomography (CT) of the chest to improve the primary prevention of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease. [See video here.] Coronary artery calciuman established predictor of heart attack and strokecan be identified on chest CTs. About 15 million chest CTs are performed for various reasons in the US each year, while chest CTs specifically to detect coronary artery calcium are conducted only about 60,000 times per year. The Stanford team developed an AI algorithm that searches existing chest CTs in the patient record to identify calcium deposits and present this information to primary care physicians. A multi-center study of the program showed that across the patients identified by Stanfords algorithm, the following results were achieved compared with usual care:
The Stanford Medicine program demonstrates what a powerful resource AI can be for clinicians as they care for patients, said Dorn. Our hope is that others will be inspired to design data science solutions that support clinicians to make a meaningful impact on health outcomes.
Now in its seventh year, the Hearst Health Prize is a $100,000 award that recognizes data science projects and programs demonstrating improved health outcomes for US populations. The competition is offered in partnership with the UCLA Center for SMART Health and attracts a diverse set of applications from across the nation, which are evaluated by UCLA reviewers and a distinguished panel of judges. In 2023, Stanfords program scored the highest among all applicants across the evaluation criteria:
Deploying AI to identify patient attributes across a vast dataset can help alleviate the workload of clinicians while empowering them to deliver timely care, said Bui.
Naeim said, Gaining clinically actionable insights from existing electronic health record data makes our healthcare system better for patients and clinicians alike.
To submit an entry to the 2024 Hearst Health Prize or learn more, visit: https://go.hearsthealth.hearst.com/Hearst-Health-Prize-23prwin
About the Hearst Health Prize
The purpose of the Hearst Health Prize is to proliferate best practices in data science in healthcare more rapidly, and to showcase successful work. The competition evaluates data science projects or programs that have been implemented and have demonstrated improved health outcomes. It is not a grant program. The winner of the Hearst Health Prize receives $100,000. As the official partner of the Hearst Health Prize, the UCLA Center for SMART Health identifies data science programs making a measurable difference in human health.
About the UCLA Center for SMART Health
The UCLA Center for Systematic, Measurable, Actionable, Resilient, and Technology-driven (SMART) Health is a campus-wide collaborative that looks to the integrated transformation of healthcare through emergent data and technologies. A joint effort between the Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI), the Institute for Precision Health (IPH), and the B. John Garrick Institute for the Risk Sciences that brings together UCLAs experts to shape how digital and data-driven healthcare technologies will help to manage risk, reliability, resilience, uncertainty, and precision in future biomedical research and clinical care.
About Hearst Health
The mission of Hearst Health is to help guide the most important care moments by delivering vital information into the hands of everyone who touches a persons health journey. Care guidance from Hearst Health reaches the majority of people in the U.S. The Hearst Health network includesFDB (First Databank),Zynx Health,MCG,Homecare HomebaseandMHK. Hearst also holds a minority interest in the precision medicine and oncology analytics company M2GEN. Follow Hearst Health on Twitter@HearstHealthand LinkedIn @Hearst-Health.
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Stanford Medicine Named Winner of the 2023 Hearst Health Prize in ... - UCLA Health Connect
Enhanced technology skills can ensure peace, says Aziz Ahmad – Mid Hudson News Website
Aziz Ahmad, Co-Founder and Chairman of CodersTrust and CEO of UTC Associates, Inc. presenting at United Nations. Photo provided.
NEW YORK- We need to embrace all technology advancements with a clear understanding on digital good and digital bad and address the digital divide by reducing gaps in the society at large, said Aziz Ahmad, Co-Founder and Chairman CodersTrust and CEO of UTC Associates, Inc. at a recent technology seminar held at the United Nations in New York City.
Aziz Ahmad is a globally renowned technology innovator, entrepreneur, and speaker. He recently presented at a seminar on Data Collection and Distribution Process as Enablers for the Exercise of Human Rights held at United Nations Headquarters in New York organized by the United Nations University for Peace as a side event in observance of World Press Freedom Day 2023.
Peace and prosperity can be ensured by enhancing the technology skills among the youths so that they can become the resources instead of becoming the burden of the society, Ahmad underscored.
The Bangladeshi-American technology investor joined the discussion with Jayashri Wyatt, Chief of the Education Outreach Section, Outreach Division, Department of Global Communications, United Nations, Amy Larsen, Director, Strategy and Management at Democracy Forward, Microsoft, Dr. Chris Wiggins, Chief Data Scientist, New York Times and Professor at the Data Science Institute, Columbia University and Dr. Mona Sloane, Senior Research Scientist & Associate Professor, NYU Center for Responsible AI as the panelists.
Renowned UN diplomat and communication expert Ramu Damodaran moderated the seminar while Juan Carlos Sainz Borgo, Vice President of University for Peace, was in the chair.
The speakers emphasized their concern about the spread of hate speech and privacy violations in the name of technology advancement.
I think we should embrace the technology innovation over innovation but need to ensure a balance in terms of freedom of speech and access to information and see how we can come up with the policy to address the bad elements and bad actors like hackers, even the country sponsored hackers, in the arena of digital technology, said Ahmad.
In the wake of severe underemployment, unemployment across the Globe, Ahmad founded CodersTrust to provide relevant skill sets among youth so that they can earn a living from the global market from anywhere they live, he informed the seminar.
The seminar lauded Ahmad for the incredible work of his organization, CodersTrust.
Ahmad shared his experience as a Lead Architect of AT&T once for its 21st Century Network and said some of those technologies still remain while some are now gone. His discussion touched on important points such as the fact that 45 percent of todays workforces needs to be re-skilled and up-skilled to stay relevant.
Discussion also centered around how artificial intelligence and automation are diversifying quickly. Billions of people still do not have the access to these technologies, and they are not generating any data, which creates the need to develop innovative approaches to embracing digital good and avoiding digital bad.
Ahmad also expressed his desire to regulate hate speech and propaganda, acknowledging the important balance between freedom of speech and keeping digital good in consideration.
A very loose framework can be initiated where we can balance our innovations with ethics and compliance bringing rich and poor, men and women and different genders, our conscious, sub-conscious thoughts to mitigate the challenges of uncertain future, said Ahmad.
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Enhanced technology skills can ensure peace, says Aziz Ahmad - Mid Hudson News Website
Associate Professor / Professor in Statistical Data Science job with … – Times Higher Education
Location:ParkvilleRole type:Full time 1.0 FTE;ContinuingFaculty: Faculty of ScienceDepartment/School:School of Mathematics and StatisticsSalary:Level D: $169,094 $186,288 p.a. (pro rata part time) Level E: $217,805 p.a. (pro rata part time)Superannuation: Employer Contribution of 17%
The University of Melbourne would like to acknowledge and pay respect to the Traditional Owners of the lands upon which our campuses are situated, the Wurundjeri and Boon Wurrung Peoples, the Yorta Yorta Nation, the Dja Dja Wurrung People. We acknowledge that the land on which we meet and learn was the place of age-old ceremonies, of celebration, initiation and renewal, and that the local Aboriginal Peoples have had and continue to have a unique role in the life of these lands.
Opportunity
The School of Mathematics and Statistics seeks to expand its expertise in Statistical Data Science with appointment at Associate (Level D) or Full (Level E) Professor, depending on the level of previous experience in teaching, research, and leadership. The appointee is expected to contribute significantly towards research, scholarship and teaching, and, with time, leadership, and will make independent and original contributions in their discipline or across disciplines that are recognised as distinguished internationally and have a significant impact on their field of expertise.
The successful applicants work will complement the established research and education strengths of the School which include algebra, analysis, geometry, topology, number theory, continuum modelling, mathematical biology, mathematical physics, discrete mathematics, operations research, mathematical and applied statistics, data science, statistical genomics, stochastic modelling and probability theory. This position will establish, foster and strengthen the Facultys research impact agenda where impact is interpreted broadly including in field-leading research, industry, government and not-for-profit organisations.
Full role description can be found in the attached position description.
About You
You will have a strong track record in statistical data science, and be a future leader with the ability to develop capability and foster excellence and impact in your area of expertise.
You will possess;
Full search criteria can be found in the position description attached.
The Faculty of Science is deeply committed to creating a diverse, inclusive and equitable environment that welcomes and values all people. We firmly believe that diversity, including in senior leadership, is essential to our Facultys continued success. https://science.unimelb.edu.au/
About Us
School of Mathematics and Statistics
The University of Melbourne's School of Mathematics and Statistics is one of Australia's leading mathematics and statistics schools. It has achieved this status through the high quality of its research and teaching programs. The School offers a wide range of subjects to undergraduate and postgraduate students and is involved in aspects of community life that impact on the interests of the School and the discipline.
The School of Mathematics and Statistics has a total of 70 continuing teaching and/or research staff; 34 research only staff and consultants; 16 academic specialists and 16 support staff. In 2020, there were 90 Research Higher Degree and 278 Coursework Master of Science students. Five members of the School staff and one Emeritus Professor are members of the Australian Academy of Science. The school currently hosts two ARC Centres of Excellence, and has hosted four ARC Laureate Fellows, ten ARC Future Fellows and fourteen DECRA Fellows. http://www.ms.unimelb.edu.au
Employee Benefits
We offer generous employee benefits to help maximise your success. These include flexible and family friendly working conditions, salary packaging, internal School and Faculty grant schemes including a dedicated scheme for women and generous leave provisions. This is a fantastic opportunity to work in a culturally rich and values-based environment.
To find out more, go tohttps://about.unimelb.edu.au/careers/staff-benefits
How to apply
Your application submitted should include a CV along with your point-by-point responses to the selection criteria found in the Position Description for the role.
Applications close:Friday 16 June2023 11:55 PMAUS Eastern Standard Time
Position description:0059245 Associate Prof-Prof Statistical Data Science PD.docx
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Associate Professor / Professor in Statistical Data Science job with ... - Times Higher Education
UOW launches the University of Wollongong Data Science, Discovery and Innovation Centre – ZAWYA
Dubai-UAE: UOW has unveiled plans for a new research centre, called the Data Science, Discovery and Innovation Centre in Dubai. It will act as a beacon of excellence and global collaboration in data science research while promoting the Universitys, NSWs and Australias as well as UAEs capabilities in higher education, science and technology.
The centre will operate from the Australian Expo Pavilion building in Dubai, which was gifted to University of Wollongong (UOW) by the Australian government in 2022, to leverage the space for innovation, quality research and global collaboration.
The launch of the centre was marked in an event that addressed high-level delegation from the Australian (New South Wales) and UAE governments as well as leadership from University of Wollongong and University of Wollongong Dubai campuses including His Excellency Sheikh Nahayan Bin Mabarak Al Nahayan, Cabinet Member and Minister of Tolerance and Coexistence, United Arab Emirates; Her Excellency the Honourable Margaret Beazley AC KC, Governor of New South Wales Australia as well as UOWD President Professor Mohamed Salem and UOW Vice-Chancellor and President Professor Patricia M. Davidson.
The concept of the innovation centre headlined by the University of Wollongong sits at the centre of the UAE Ministry of Educations National Strategy for Higher Education 2030, that places utmost priority on education in an endeavour to enhance the countrys global competitiveness and economic position.
In addition, the Data Science, Discovery and Innovation Centre aligns with the UAEs vision for innovation by convening researchers, academics, and industry partners to create groundbreaking solutions to complex problems. In parallel, it amplifies UOWDs responsibility and commitment towards sustainability by focusing on data science research that promotes sustainable solutions and driving a knowledge-based economy driven by international partnerships and collaboration.
The centre will contribute significantly towards employment opportunities in the region through real-world projects and internships, particularly for Emiratis and in fields of healthcare, big data, big analytics, supply chains, and cybersecurity.
By attracting international collaborations and research projects, the Centre will open doors for local talent to gain valuable experience and develop their skills in a global context. This, in turn, will help create a skilled workforce capable of driving the UAE's knowledge-based economy and supporting its long-term strategic goals.
UOW Vice-Chancellor and President Professor Patricia M. Davidson said she was proud of the University of Wollongong leading the way in research and innovation both in Australia and globally.
Australias Expo Pavilion was called Blue Sky Dreaming, taking inspiration from the cumulus cloud, a feature of the diverse Australian landscape. Similarly, our new Data Science Discovery and Innovation Centre will provide a space for multiple ideas and visions, unified by their pursuit of innovation and discovery.
The field of data science has the potential to revolutionise many industries and improve our lives in countless ways, whether in healthcare, supply chains or cybersecurity. And the best research is delivered collaboratively and collegially, which is one of the main goals of this facility, Professor Davidson said.
UOWs Dubai campus opened in 1993 and is one of the regions premier teaching and research institutions. It is the only NSW-based university in the United Arab Emirates and the broader Middle East and North Africa region, leveraging over 11,000 alumni and deep relationships and networks.
UOW Dubai (UOWD) has been offering world-class programs in a variety of disciplines, including business, engineering, information sciences and health sciences. In recent years, it has launched programs in Computer Science (Big Data), Mechatronic Engineering and Business Analytics, which are proving increasingly popular among students. The association with a research centre specialising in this discipline area will attract more students and enrich their educational experience, creating opportunities for truly global collaborations and job prospects.
This facility and its capabilities are unique within the region. Solutions created through enquiry into data in many fields are of vital interest to governments and industries in the region and Australia. We look forward to working with other NSW-based universities to facilitate collaborative opportunities as part of this initiative, UOWD President Professor Mohamed Salem said.
With the Dubai campus celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, UOW has continued to establish itself as a respected hub for research and innovation collaboration in the Middle East and North Africa region. The University of Wollongong Data Science, Discovery and Innovation Centre will further cement UOWs and Australias presence in the area, providing opportunities for students, researchers and industry to make a positive impact.
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UOW launches the University of Wollongong Data Science, Discovery and Innovation Centre - ZAWYA
Georgetown Receives $21M From NIST to Train STEM Workforce – Georgetown University
A group of Georgetown faculty secured up to $21 million in funding from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to provide laboratory experience and financial support to researchers across the university.
The grant enables Georgetown undergraduate and graduate students, post-baccalaureate and post-masters researchers, doctoral candidates, postdoctoral fellows and faculty to work on complex research problems alongside scientists at NIST, an agency within the U.S. Department of Commerce that promotes U.S. innovation and industrial competitiveness by advancing measurement science, standards and technology.
Over the years, the grant will offer unique experiences to scientists, both those starting their careers and those at their prime, Georgetown Provost Robert M. Groves said. It will strengthen the ecosystem of government and academic institutions by giving those in academia experience inside a government scientific organization.
The grant comes as part of NISTsProfessional Research Experience Program (PREP), which is designed to expand and sustain the United States highly skilled workforce in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM).
Georgetown first partnered with PREP in 2016. In the years since, the partnership has enabled more than 100 researchers at Georgetown to work at NIST.
Peter Olmsted, the Joseph Semmes Ives Chair in Physics who led the effort to secure new funding, said he hopes this next round of funding will support more researchers than ever before and open even more doors for undergraduate and graduate students.
In addition to valuable research experience, the program has given Georgetown researchers access to innovative tools and opportunities to work on leading scientific questions across various STEM disciplines.
It has enabled a few new collaborations and more interaction with NIST, said Olmsted. NIST has significant technological resources that we make use of. They have instruments that we dont have on campus, and the close interaction with industrial problems opens our eyes to different research areas.
Olmsted has worked closely with NIST over the years, including an ongoing project studying issues related to 3D printing.
Im a theoretician, so I do simulations or calculations, Olmsted said. What NIST has provided are new problems I can solve or I can try to solve, which I might not have ordinarily come across.
Noah Last (G23) made his way to study at Georgetown through PREP as a science communications fellow in 2021. He credits the flexibility in the program for allowing him to transition to a research-focused role examining sustainable manufacturing and how to create a greener, circular economy.
At NIST, Last also works with organizations to help establish standards for greener manufacturing while researching innovative new methods for sustainable product design.
Last wanted to dive deeper into the intersection of sustainability and business, and decided to pursue his masters in environment and sustainability management at Georgetown while continuing his work as a PREP fellow.
I was learning about the technical side of manufacturing, engineering and data science, Last said. But I wanted to learn more about sustainability more broadly and why businesses arent making this shift to more sustainable practices.
Now eyeing his graduation this July, Last is looking forward to pursuing a career in the federal government, whether at NIST or other federal agencies. He said that his time as a PREP fellow has given him an on-ramp to other opportunities in civil service.
Its allowed me to work in the federal government with a lot of really cool researchers and public servants, Last said. Its also given me the ability to pursue research interests as they come up.
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Georgetown Receives $21M From NIST to Train STEM Workforce - Georgetown University
New center aims to spur research on climate change and health – HSPH News
May 9, 2023 Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH) have been awarded a $6.7 million, three-year grant from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), to create a Research Coordinating Center (RCC) on climate change and health. It was the only grant awarded for an RCC on climate change and health in the U.S.
The new center aims to bolster research on climate change and health worldwide by making it easier for experts to connect with each other, to collaborate, and to share data.
The field has been hampered by the fact that research is typically siloed by discipline and concentrated in a few well-resourced institutions and countries. In addition, data sources and tools are often hard to find and to use, said Francesca Dominici, the Clarence James Gamble Professor of Biostatistics, Population, and Data Science at Harvard Chan School, co-director of the Harvard Data Science Initiative, and co-principal investigator of the new center. Our goal is to coordinate research activity among individual researchers and research teams, to facilitate data exchange and best practices in analyzing data, and to provide opportunities to build capacity in conducting research on climate change and health.
Gregory Wellenius, professor of environmental health and director of the new BUSPH Center for Climate and Health, and Amruta Nori-Sarma, assistant professor in BUSPHs Department of Environmental Health, are co-PIs on the grant.
The new center will operate on several fronts. It will be called the CAF, with the word CAF serving as an acronym for the centers main objectives: to Convene, Accelerate, Foster, and Expand, in the context of climate change and health research. Specifically, the CAF will:
We are eager to share our wisdom, expertise, and resources on a national and global scale, said Wellenius. We hope the CAF will bring people together and improve data sharing in ways that will make everyone working to translate cutting-edge research into meaningful solutions more successful and effective.
Establishing this Research Coordinating Center will help advance the priorities outlined in the NIH Climate Change and Health Initiative Strategic Framework, said Rick Woychik, NIEHS director and chair of the executive committee leading the NIH Climate Change and Health Initiative, which comprises seven NIH Institutes and Centers. The RCC will serve as a vehicle to create an inclusive, diverse community of practice that will work collaboratively to share data and conduct innovative solutions-driven research to reduce the health impacts of climate change, especially working with communities most affected by adverse weather-related events.
The Research Coordinating Centers first order of business will be to organize a conference for next winter to bring together climate change and health experts from all over the world. Said Dominici, Were hopeful that the work of the RCC will greatly facilitate the work of climate researchers everywhere to understand the impact of climate change on healthto prevent adverse health effects from climate change-related exposure, to better understand adaptation, and to be better prepared for climate impacts.
In addition to Dominici, other Harvard Chan faculty and staff who will be contributing to the RCC include Rachel Nethery, assistant professor of biostatistics, Danielle Braun, principal research scientist in the Department of Biostatistics, and Leila Kamareddine, regulatory and compliance manager in the Department of Biostatistics.
Karen Feldscher
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Data science answers big questions like how does climate change affect your health? (Digital, Data, and Design Institute at Harvard)
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New center aims to spur research on climate change and health - HSPH News
Researchers seek algorithms that wont destroy the planet: ChatGPTs energy consumption must be brutal – EL PAS USA
One day in 2019, while reading a scientific article, a light bulb went off for researcher Vernica Boln, an expert in artificial intelligence. It said that training an AI language model emitted CO equivalent to that of five cars over its lifetime. I was shocked. Artificial intelligence consumes a lot of energy as it learns, its no longer just when it is used, but until then I had never thought about it, she recalls sitting in one of the rooms at the University of A Coruas Center for Research in Information and Communication Technologies (CITIC). She and seven other researchers (a total of four men and four women) form one of the teams in Spain that are currently searching for green algorithms; in other words, they are immersed in resolving the great paradox brought about by the boom in supercomputers, data traffic, the cloud and ChatGPT. Artificial intelligence helps us to solve many problems, some of them derived from climate change, but at the same time it is part of the problem, Boln observes.
Green artificial intelligence strives to design solutions that achieve the proposed objectives, but in an environmentally sustainable way, that is, with the efficient use of computational resources. This concept, which is barely three years old, contrasts with red AI, which only values algorithms for their performance, even if they involve high energy consumption. Now green algorithms are becoming more important, although not as [important as they] should be, says Vernica Boln. She believes that this lack of attention is due to the fact that taking sustainability into account goes against the interests of the big technology companies in the dizzying artificial intelligence race. Microsoft, Google and OpenAI, she explains, are leading the field by consuming huge amounts of energy. Environmentalists, the researcher points out, have been warning about the environmental footprint of this process for years. Indeed, in 2010 Greenpeace reported that the farms of thousands of servers that make up the cloud require enormous amounts of energy to operate and cool down.
The emergence of ChatGPT, a fascinating tool that millions of people use every day, has exacerbated the problem. We dont know exactly what it consumes, but it has to be [a] brutal [amount of energy]both in training it and using itbecause it needs a lot of data and very large neural networks. And its not something people stop to think about, because they dont have information about it either. [The company] is called OpenAI, but in [terms of information about energy consumption] its not open at all, Bolon says of the company that launched the popular app, which was founded in 2015 by Sam Altman and Elon Musk, among others, as a nonprofit organization.
A 2020 University of Copenhagen study estimated that a single training session of GPT-3 (the text generator on which ChatGPT was based) consumed as much energy as 126 Danish houses over the course of a year, Boln says. At the moment, no energy consumption information has been published for ChatGPT-4, the next version, but there is one piece of data that gives an idea of its environmental impact: it was trained with 1 trillion parameters versus the 175 billion used with GPT-3. Im not saying you have to stop that technological development. But if you ask me whether, ethically, its worth all that computational effort for a model that is dedicated to entertaining or helping to perform tasks, I have mixed feelings. Im impressed by the progress, but I think were focusing on the wrong things. Its not being used for the fundamental issues that affect society, she says.
In 2018, Vernica Boln, 39, began to investigate how to run algorithms on very small devices that did not have the computational capacity of a computer. She was not yet familiar with the concept of green artificial intelligence, but soon she realized that using fewer computational resources is more sustainable because it consumes far less energy. Thats also true if data is not continuously transferred to the cloud, she explains. In 2022, the same year she joined the Royal Academy of Exact, Physical and Natural Sciences of Spain, she was awarded funding for a national research project that will last until 2025. Her team has managed to execute algorithms, without losing precision in the results, with only 16 bits (one bit is the minimum unit of information) instead of the 64 bits that common computers use today. The precise energy reduction implied by the change is not yet known because they are working with simulations, Boln explains.
Her teamwhich includes Brais Cancela, Jorge Gonzlez, Noelia Snchez, Laura Morn, David Novoa, Eva Blanco and Samuel Surezis also exploring another path toward green artificial intelligence, which consists of speeding processes up. The researchers are working on accomplishing the same things in less time. Its about racking our brains to optimize the models, so that they work just as well with less data and a smaller network. For example, now everyone wants to apply deep learning, but there are problems that can be solved with much simpler models. It is [like] killing flies with cannons. We have to try to discern when it is necessary and when it is not, says Boln.
This scientific center has about 200 researchers, and 75% are dedicated to the field of artificial intelligence and data science. It is part of the university and business ecosystem for which A Corua has been selected by Spains government to be the headquarters of the Spanish Agency for the Supervision of Artificial Intelligence (Aesia). Green algorithms will be part of the agencys work. Since last December, Spain has had a National Plan for Green Algorithms, which aims to promote both the energy efficiency of artificial intelligence and its use for solving environmental problems. The plan includes the creation of up to two chairs in this discipline; the University of A Corua has responded to the call for applications and decisions will be made shortly, according to sources from the State Secretary for Digitalization and Artificial Intelligence.
Of the 257.7 million of European Next Generation funds with which the plan is endowed until 2025, 6.9 million will be allocated to research projects in this field, the State Secretary for Digitalization and Artificial Intelligence says. It is easy to talk about the importance of sustainability and reducing consumption in computing, but to do that we have to promote research lines and that requires funds, says Manuel Gonzlez Penedo, the director of CITIC. He calls for improvements in the structural funding of centers like the one he oversees, program continuity and less bureaucracy to attract talent from outside Spain.
Vernica Boln advocates a law for regulating artificial intelligence from the perspectives of both ethics and sustainability: Regulation is necessary and it must include consumption. Are we going to allow information technologies to be responsible for 20% or more of CO emissions into the atmosphere? Then we will have to rein it in, as in other industries and areas.
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As Covid Emergency Ends, Surveillance Shifts to the Sewers – The New York Times
When the Covid-19 public health emergency expires in the United States on Thursday, the coronavirus will not disappear. But many of the data streams that have helped Americans monitor the virus will go dark.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will stop tabulating community levels of Covid-19 and will no longer require certain case information from hospitals or testing data from laboratories. And as free testing is curtailed, official case counts, which became less reliable as Americans shifted to at-home testing, may drift even further from reality.
But experts who want to keep tabs on the virus will still have one valuable option: sewage.
People who are infected with the coronavirus shed the pathogen in their stool, whether or not they take a Covid test or seek medical care, enabling officials to track levels of the virus in communities over time and to watch for the emergence of new variants.
This approach expanded rapidly during the pandemic. The National Wastewater Surveillance System, which the C.D.C. established in late 2020, now includes data from more than 1,400 sampling sites, distributed across 50 states, three territories and 12 tribal communities, Amy Kirby, the program lead, said. The data cover about 138 million people, more than 40 percent of the U.S. population, she said.
And as other tracking efforts wind down, some communities are racing to set up wastewater surveillance programs for the first time, Dr. Kirby noted. This is actually driving more interest in wastewater, she said.
In the months ahead, wastewater surveillance will become even more important, scientists said, and it should help officials spot some incipient outbreaks.
But wastewater surveillance is still missing many communities, and more work is needed to turn what began as an ad hoc emergency effort into a sustainable national system, experts said. And officials will need to be thoughtful about how they use the data, as the pandemic continues to evolve.
Wastewater has to get better, said David OConnor, a virologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. And we have to get a bit more savvy about interpreting what the wastewater data is telling us.
Over the past three years, wastewater surveillance repeatedly proved its worth. When testing was widely available, the wastewater trends mirrored the official Covid-19 case counts. When testing was scarce, spikes in the viral levels in sewage provided early warnings of coming surges, allowing officials to redistribute public health resources and hospitals to prepare for an influx of cases.
Wastewater sampling helped scientists determine when new variants arrived in particular communities and helped clinicians make more informed decisions about when to use certain treatments, which may not work against all versions of the virus.
For SARS-CoV-2, our wastewater surveillance system is pretty solid now, Marisa Eisenberg, an infectious disease epidemiologist at the University of Michigan, said. Weve kind of put it through its paces.
Houston, for instance, now has an extensive wastewater surveillance infrastructure, collecting samples weekly from all 39 of the citys wastewater treatment plants as well as from individual schools, shelters, nursing homes and jails. The city has no plans to scale back, said Loren Hopkins, the chief environmental science officer for the Houston Health Department and a statistician at Rice University.
We really dont know what Covid will do, she said. Well be continuing to look to the wastewater to tell us how much of the virus is out there.
The C.D.C. will still track deaths and hospitalizations, but those tend to be lagging indicators. So wastewater is likely to remain a critical early warning system for both officials and members of the public.
It can help people who are immunocompromised, who might want to be really cautious, said Alexandria Boehm, an environmental engineer at Stanford University and a lead investigator for WastewaterSCAN, a sewage surveillance initiative. It can help us make decisions about whether we want to mask or go to a really crowded concert.
As clinical testing drops off, wastewater surveillance will also be a key strategy for keeping tabs on new variants and for gauging the threat they pose, scientists said. Variants that quickly take over a sewershed, or whose spread is followed by a rise in local hospitalization rates, for instance, might warrant increased monitoring.
Still, the data will not be available everywhere. Because the existing wastewater surveillance system emerged in a somewhat haphazard way, with interested jurisdictions opting in, coverage of the country is uneven. Wastewater sampling sites tend to be sparse or absent in many rural areas and parts of the South and West.
And collecting wastewater data is just the first step. Making sense of it can be trickier, scientists cautioned.
Among the challenges they cited: Now that many Americans have developed some immunity to the virus, wastewater spikes might not necessarily lead to the same wave of hospitalizations that some facilities have come to expect. And scientists still dont know whether all variants will be equally detectable in wastewater.
Moreover, simply spotting a new variant in wastewater does not necessarily portend a problem. For instance, since 2021, Marc Johnson, a virologist at the University of Missouri, and his colleagues have found dozens of unusual variants in wastewater samples across the United States.
Some of these variants are radically different from Omicron and could theoretically pose a new public health risk. But so far, at least, these variants do not seem to be spreading. They are probably coming from individual, supershedding patients with long-term coronavirus infections, Dr. Johnson said.
Wastewater is really good because it can give you a comprehensive view of whats going on, Dr. Johnson said. But there are times, he said, where it can mislead you.
And although a reduction in Covid case tracking was probably inevitable, wastewater surveillance is most informative when combined with other sources of public health data, scientists said. I like to think of it more as being a complementary data stream, Dr. Eisenberg said.
Wastewater surveillance will continue to evolve, Dr. Kirby said. The C.D.C. is talking with some states about how to optimize their network of sampling sites, a process that could involve both adding new sites and scaling back in areas where multiple sampling locations are providing essentially redundant data.
We do expect some reduction in the number of sites in some of those states, Dr. Kirby said. But well be working with them to be strategic about that, so that were not losing information.
Officials are exploring other possibilities, too. As part of the C.D.C.s Traveler Genomic Surveillance program, for instance, Ginkgo Bioworks, a Boston-based biotechnology company, is now testing wastewater samples from planes landing at the international terminal at San Francisco International Airport.
Putting in place these indirect mechanisms that can give you a sense of whats going on in the world are really important, as other forms of testing start falling off, said Andrew Franklin, the director of business development at Concentric by Ginkgo, the companys biosecurity and public health arm.
The American Rescue Plan has provided enough funding to conduct wastewater surveillance in all states and territories through 2025, Dr. Kirby said.
But maintaining wastewater surveillance will require ongoing funding over the longer term, as well as continued buy in from local officials, some of whom might lose interest as the emergency phase of the pandemic winds down. Were going to see some fatigue-based dropouts, said Guy Palmer, an infectious disease pathologist at Washington State University and the chair of the wastewater surveillance committee of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine.
So proponents of wastewater surveillance are hoping to demonstrate its continued utility, both for Covid-19 and other diseases. Some jurisdictions are already using wastewater to track influenza and other pathogens, and the C.D.C. hopes to roll out expanded testing protocols by the end of the year, Dr. Kirby said.
This is part of our surveillance portfolio for the long haul, Dr. Kirby said. I think were really going to see how powerful it can be once were out of this emergency response period.
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As Covid Emergency Ends, Surveillance Shifts to the Sewers - The New York Times
Five Ideas for the Education Sciences Reform Act – Federation Of American Scientists
Earlier this month, the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) committee called on the education community for input on policies to include in a reauthorized Education Sciences Reform Act (ESRA). First enacted in 2002 and last reauthorized in 2008, the ESRA established the Institute for Education Sciences (IES) as the independent research branch of the Department of Education and broadly authorized the federal government to conduct coordinated and scientifically-based research on the US education system. The potential reauthorization of the ESRA by the 118th Congress marks a major opportunity to update and streamline our education research and development (R&D) ecosystem for the modern era.
The Alliance for Learning Innovation (ALI) Coalition, which FAS helps lead, was pleased to submit a response to the Senate HELP committees request (read it in full here). The ALI Coalition brings together education nonprofits, philanthropy, and the private sector to advocate for building a better education R&D infrastructure that is based in evidence, centers students and practitioners, advances equity, improves talent pathways, and expands Americas globally competitive workforce.
ALI sees great promise in a robust, inclusive, and updated education R&D ecosystem, with the IES playing a key role. If the 118th Congress decides to reauthorize the ESRA, ALI urges the HELP committee to strengthen our education system by prioritizing the following policies:
Support informed-risk, high-reward research and development, especially with respect to development. Congress should create a National Center for Advanced Development in Education (NCADE), which would catalyze breakthroughs in education research and innovation similarly to how the DARPA model accelerated the study of emerging defense technologies. NCADE would fund informed-risk, high-reward projects developed by universities, nonprofits, industry, or other innovative organizations.
Enhance federal, state, and local education R&D infrastructure. Congress should direct and support IES to research the development of innovative approaches and technologies that improve teaching and learning. IES should also encourage information and data sharing between states by expanding and modernizing the Statewide Longitudinal Data Systems (SLDS) program and providing other forums for interstate connection.
Support the development of diverse education R&D talent. IES should dedicate specific research grant programs for Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Minority-Serving Institutions (MSIs), and Tribally Controlled Colleges and Universities (TCCUs). Additionally, IES should offer data science fluency training grants to academic researchers, especially at HBCUs, MSIs, and TCCUs, as well as establish a rotator program that would bring in talent with advanced expertise to complement the skills of their current staff.
Drive collaboration between IES, NSF, and other federal agencies. Congress should encourage IES and the new Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships (TIP) Directorate at NSF to collaborate and support R&D programs that enhance research on teaching and learning in emerging technologies that can create efficiencies and improve outcomes.
Promote data privacy. ALI believes the ESRA reauthorization should remain separate from attempts to improve the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). However, Congress should update ESRA to strengthen the U.S. Department of Educations Privacy Technical Assistance Center (PTAC).
The ALI Coalition knows that a potential ESRA reauthorization is a crucial inflection point for American education. We hope to see Congress strengthen our countrys commitment to education R&D so we can better embrace innovative, evidence-based practices that improve learning outcomes.
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Five Ideas for the Education Sciences Reform Act - Federation Of American Scientists