Tag: News

Lab experience your first year in college? Yes. : News Center

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February 15, 2023


Computer science major Sammy Potter ’25 interacts with SAPIEN, an avatar built by the team in the Rochester Human-Computer Interaction lab. Being part of the lab has given Potter exposure to “a new field that I might not have considered otherwise,” he says. (University of Rochester photo / J. Adam Fenster)


With faculty and graduate student mentorship, undergraduate researchers thrive in the Rochester Human-Computer Interaction lab.

Stela Ciko ’25 chose to attend the University of Rochester because of its reputation as a Tier 1 research institution.

“I knew it would offer a lot of research opportunities in whatever field I chose to study, and I wanted research to be a big part of my undergraduate experience,” says the computer science major.

She was able to start substantive work in the Rochester Human-Computer Interaction lab the summer after her first year.

“I have been very impressed with the quality of undergraduate students and the commitment of our graduate students to mentor them.”

—Ehsan Hoque

That’s not unusual at the lab, known as ROC (“Rock”) H-C-I. Housed in the Department of Computer Science, it has given students like Ciko invaluable opportunities to apply computer science to projects that directly help people.

Sammy Potter ’25 didn’t think he would get a chance work in a research lab for at least a couple of years. Then, during his first year at the University, he met Masum Hasan through the Google Developer Student Club. Hasan, a PhD student in the ROC HCI lab, was looking for someone with experience in 3D technology, something Potter had. “I jumped at the opportunity,” Potter says.

Since then, “I’ve had a great experience as an undergraduate hire,” he adds. “ROC HCI is a very friendly community, and I feel respected and that I have an equal voice.” The lab also helped him see new possibilities, giving him exposure to “a new field that I might not have considered otherwise.”

ROC HCI seeks a diverse representation of undergraduates

The Rochester Human-Computer Interaction lab is co-led by associate professor Ehsan Hoque and assistant professor Zhen Bai.

Hoque, who joined the University in 2013, gained international recognition after his PhD thesis at MIT demonstrated for the first time how humans could improve their face-to-face interpersonal skills with a virtual assistant. He has received multiple awards, and more than $9.6 million as a principal investigator to support a broad range of projects.

Bai, who joined the University in 2018, earned a PhD at Cambridge University and did postdoctoral work at Carnegie-Mellon. Her research includes developing learning technologies to support AI (artificial intelligence) literacy for K–12 students and teachers, assistive technology for deaf child communication, and human-AI collaboration in social reasoning.

Both place a high priority on bringing a diverse representation of undergraduates into the lab. There are multiple reasons for doing so, they say.

  • The continuing underrepresentation of women and minorities in computer science hurts the field. “Imagine a lab
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Billionaire Jack Ma to cede control of China’s Ant Team | Technologies News

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Company magnate Jack Ma, who managed much more than 50 percent of the fintech giant’s shares, will now keep just 6.2 %.

Chinese company magnate Jack Ma will cede manage of fintech huge Ant Team just after a Communist Party crackdown on the nation’s tech sector that qualified the billionaire.

The company mentioned in a assertion on Saturday it was modifying its ownership structure so that “no shareholder, on your own or jointly with other functions, will have command about Ant Group”.

In November 2020, Ant’s $37bn first community presenting (IPO), which would have been the world’s most significant, was cancelled at the past minute. It led to a pressured restructuring of the monetary technological innovation agency and speculation the Chinese billionaire would have to cede control.

Ma indirectly controlled 53.46 p.c of Ant Group’s shares, creating him the company’s “control person”. But now he will maintain just 6.2 p.c of the voting rights next the adjustment, in accordance to the information in the statement.

“The adjustment is currently being implemented to further enrich the security of our corporate composition and sustainability of our lengthy-term development,” the Ant statement stated.

Jack Ma will maintain just 6.2 percent of the voting legal rights following the adjustment [File: Yuya Shino/Reuters]

10 people today – together with the founder, management and team – will “exercise their voting rights independently”, it explained.

Andrew Collier, a cash researcher, advised Al Jazeera that Beijing experienced two difficulties with Ma.

Collier explained that Ma is “well-funded, pretty preferred billionaire who controls two big companies” and that he started out to compete with some point out-owned banking companies in China which are “the backbone of the economy”.

“For all those two causes, they believed he was a danger and they are cutting him down in measurement.”

Ant operates Alipay, the world’s most significant electronic payments system, which offers hundreds of hundreds of thousands of regular people in China and past.

Crackdown

Ma’s ceding of control arrives as Ant is nearing the completion of its two-calendar year regulatory-driven restructuring, with Chinese authorities poised to impose a great of additional than $1bn on the firm, Reuters information company noted in November.

In a speech at a summit in Shanghai, the mercurial tycoon stated banking companies operated with a “pawnshop” mentality and accused fiscal watchdogs of stifling development.

The predicted penalty is section of Beijing’s sweeping crackdown on the country’s technological innovation titans over the previous two a long time which has sliced hundreds of billions of pounds off their values and shrunk revenues and gains.

But Chinese authorities have in current months softened their tone on the tech crackdown amid efforts to bolster a $17 trillion financial system that has been poorly hurt by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“With the Chinese financial state in a incredibly febrile state, the federal government is wanting to sign its motivation to expansion, and the tech, private sectors are critical to that as we know,” stated Duncan Clark, chairman of expenditure advisory firm BDA

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Surveillance fears as India concerns new digital IDs in Kashmir | Technological innovation News

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University student Mehak is used to regular identification checks by stability forces and officials in Indian-administered Kashmir’s most important town of Srinagar and always carries two varieties of ID. Quickly, she may perhaps need to carry but a further in her purse.

Options for a new spouse and children ID in the disputed Himalayan area have caused confusion and irritation among several inhabitants like Mehak, although rights campaigners panic the programme could direct to elevated surveillance and info hacks.

“Families currently use their ID cards if they want to entry any social welfare programmes. So why is this needed?” mentioned Mehak, 22, who questioned that her very last identify be withheld.

Regional authorities have reported the JK Relatives ID, an 8-digit code assigned to each individual home, would make improvements to accessibility to social welfare added benefits this kind of as subsidised food grains.

It usually means family members will not have to implement for positive aspects below many strategies, as eligibility selections will be automatic centered on the data, claimed Prerna Puri, a commissioner in Indian-administered Kashmir’s data technologies department.

Across India, the federal government is undertaking a broad digitisation push, including well being data, house titles, railway bookings and utility payments, as section of the Electronic India programme aimed at far better governance.

In Indian-administered Kashmir, some see the new spouse and children IDs as portion of a marketing campaign to exert higher management above residents.

The Indian govt led by Primary Minister Narendra Modi withdrew Kashmir’s autonomous status in 2019 and break up the former state into two federal territories, aiming to tighten its grip on the Muslim-greater part area.

Kashmir people are proper to be cautious of the government’s motives, stated Angad Singh Khalsa, an impartial human rights campaigner, as they have been singled out in advance of for larger surveillance on the grounds of countrywide security.

“Even if the federal government intends to supply us with benefits by producing these new IDs, their authoritarian therapy in the direction of the people of Jammu and Kashmir has designed us question their intentions,” he stated.

‘Trust deficit’

Kashmir is claimed in whole but ruled in portion by India and Pakistan, who have fought two wars around the territory.

A crackdown on a well-liked uprising and general public protests towards Indian rule in the area have killed countless numbers of men and women, generally in the 1990s, when the violence peaked.

Since its particular position was revoked, a lot of more civilians, safety personnel and rebels have been killed.

In anticipation of protests immediately after the transfer, the authorities imposed a curfew, minimize the internet for lengthy durations, and tightened protection.

From 2020, the authorities has demanded anyone in Indian-administered Kashmir to implement for domicile certificates that allow for them to vote in area elections, get farmland and homes, and utilize to public universities and for careers.

Many residents, notably Muslims, have not signed up for these certificates, unsure of the ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party’s

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Research: Automation drives money inequality | MIT News

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When you use self-checkout devices in supermarkets and drugstores, you are possibly not — with all because of regard — executing a far better position of bagging your purchases than checkout clerks as soon as did. Automation just would make bagging less pricey for large retail chains.

“If you introduce self-checkout kiosks, it’s not likely to change efficiency all that much,” claims MIT economist Daron Acemoglu. Nevertheless, in terms of missing wages for staff members, he provides, “It’s going to have rather big distributional effects, primarily for minimal-ability provider personnel. It’s a labor-shifting gadget, fairly than a efficiency-rising device.”

A newly printed study co-authored by Acemoglu quantifies the extent to which automation has contributed to cash flow inequality in the U.S., basically by changing employees with know-how — regardless of whether self-checkout machines, simply call-centre units, assembly-line know-how, or other products. In excess of the final four many years, the money gap among a lot more- and less-educated personnel has grown drastically the study finds that automation accounts for additional than fifty percent of that raise.

“This single a single variable … explains 50 to 70 p.c of the variations or variation amongst team inequality from 1980 to about 2016,” Acemoglu claims.

The paper, “Tasks, Automation, and the Increase in U.S. Wage Inequality,” is being revealed in Econometrica. The authors are Acemoglu, who is an Institute Professor at MIT, and Pascual Restrepo PhD ’16, an assistant professor of economics at Boston University.

So substantially “so-so automation”

Because 1980 in the U.S., inflation-adjusted incomes of all those with college and postgraduate levels have risen substantially, although inflation-adjusted earnings of males with no higher school degrees has dropped by 15 per cent.

How substantially of this change is because of to automation? Escalating income inequality could also stem from, between other things, the declining prevalence of labor unions, market place focus begetting a absence of level of competition for labor, or other forms of technological improve.

To perform the research, Acemoglu and Restrepo utilised U.S. Bureau of Financial Evaluation statistics on the extent to which human labor was employed in 49 industries from 1987 to 2016, as perfectly as knowledge on equipment and application adopted in that time. The scholars also utilized info they experienced earlier compiled about the adoption of robots in the U.S. from 1993 to 2014. In prior experiments, Acemoglu and Restrepo have observed that robots have by by themselves replaced a substantial range of staff in the U.S., helped some companies dominate their industries, and contributed to inequality.

At the exact time, the scholars made use of U.S. Census Bureau metrics, which includes its American Community Study information, to observe worker results in the course of this time for around 500 demographic subgroups, damaged out by gender, instruction, age, race and ethnicity, and immigration standing, although on the lookout at work, inflation-adjusted hourly wages, and far more, from 1980 to 2016. By inspecting the hyperlinks amongst changes in business enterprise practices together with variations in

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Computing for the wellbeing of the earth | MIT News

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The wellness of the world is just one of the most crucial issues going through humankind nowadays. From climate adjust to unsafe stages of air and water air pollution to coastal and agricultural land erosion, a variety of serious problems threaten human and ecosystem overall health.

Making sure the overall health and protection of our earth necessitates strategies that hook up scientific, engineering, social, economic, and political aspects. New computational methods can engage in a crucial position by delivering info-driven types and methods for cleaner air, usable water, resilient foodstuff, successful transportation methods, greater-preserved biodiversity, and sustainable sources of electricity.

The MIT Schwarzman School of Computing is committed to selecting multiple new college in computing for local weather and the atmosphere, as part of MIT’s program to recruit 20 local weather-concentrated faculty underneath its climate motion strategy. This calendar year the college undertook lookups with many departments in the colleges of Engineering and Science for shared faculty in computing for wellness of the world, just one of the six strategic places of inquiry determined in an MIT-wide planning course of action to aid concentrate shared choosing initiatives. The faculty also undertook queries for core computing school in the Division of Electrical Engineering and Computer system Science (EECS).

The searches are element of an ongoing work by the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing to retain the services of 50 new school — 25 shared with other educational departments and 25 in computer science and artificial intelligence and selection-earning. The intention is to establish ability at MIT to aid much more deeply infuse computing and other disciplines in departments.

4 interdisciplinary students were being hired in these lookups. They will be part of the MIT faculty in the coming yr to engage in analysis and instructing that will advance actual physical being familiar with of lower-carbon electrical power options, Earth-local weather modeling, biodiversity checking and conservation, and agricultural management by way of large-overall performance computing, transformational numerical techniques, and machine-learning techniques.

“By coordinating using the services of endeavours with many departments and schools, we were capable to bring in a cohort of exceptional scholars in this place to MIT. Every of them is developing and using sophisticated computational procedures and equipment to support find remedies for a variety of weather and environmental challenges,” states Daniel Huttenlocher, dean of the MIT Schwarzman Higher education of Computing and the Henry Warren Ellis Professor of Electrical Engineering and Personal computer Science. “They will also assist bolster cross-departmental ties in computing across an crucial, critical region for MIT and the world.”

“These strategic hires in the location of computing for local weather and the atmosphere are an unbelievable option for the college or university to deepen its academic offerings and generate new possibility for collaboration across MIT,” states Anantha P. Chandrakasan, dean of the MIT University of Engineering and the Vannevar Bush Professor of Electrical Engineering and Laptop or computer Science. “The faculty performs a pivotal role in MIT’s overarching work to seek the services

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DOD Accelerating Innovative Technologies, Enabling Production Workforce > U.S. Section of Defense > Defense Office News

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Groundbreaking systems were on show in May possibly when the Protection Department’s nine Production Innovation Institutes shown innovative supplies, engineering and production. 

Leaders from the Office environment of the Under Secretary of Defense for Investigate and Engineering in attendance bundled Deputy Undersecretary David Honey Deputy Main Technological innovation Officer for Science and Technological know-how Barbara McQuiston and Director of Science and Engineering Futures Dr. Kevin Geiss. 

The DOD MIIs speed up new technologies applying federal funding blended with matching financial commitment from academia, field and point out governments, setting up a nationwide community of community-private partnerships and creating an industrial popular for production R&D though advancing workforce education and learning and development. Marshalling the very best expertise across the nation, the network strategically aligns assets to address critical systems and travel interconnected producing methods. The DOD Producing Know-how Software, or ManTech, oversees the nine DoD-sponsored MIIs. 

Central to the DOD MII mission is pinpointing business partners, together with modest enterprises, that have reducing-edge systems that could reward the warfighter. Through the MIIs, DOD invests in these industries which specialize in individual regions of sophisticated producing. 

A few of these Production Innovation Institutes showcased their systems at the May possibly 24 Pentagon function. 

The American Institute of Manufacturing — Integrated Photonics specializes in silicon photonics. 

Silicon photonics is a mix of silicon integrated circuits and semiconductor lasers. This technologies enables more rapidly info transfer over longer distances when compared to conventional electronics, even though using the efficiencies of high-volume silicon producing. 

David Harame, chief operating officer of Intention Photonics, stated his business has 3 major aims.  

The very first aim is to advance point out-of-the-art systems in silicon photonics. “In our circumstance, we are attempting to advance integrated silicon photonics for the ecosystem in the U.S.,” he said. 

The second component is accessibility. “Our big goal is to make it obtainable for DOD, little/medium enterprises as very well as massive companies,” he mentioned.  

The third element is instruction and workforce enhancement. “This is a really swiftly increasing spot. And we have a really large education workforce improvement activity,” he stated. 

Some of the most fascinating purposes for photonics, he reported, are COVID sensors. The Coronavirus Help, Relief and Economic Security Act funding resulted in sensors that can detect COVID-19 in less than a moment from a drop of blood. Proteins related with 8 different viruses, including SARS-CoV-2, are contained in separate sensor areas of the chip. If someone has been exposed to any of the viruses, antibodies to people viruses in the blood sample will be drawn to the proteins and detected. 

Joe Steele, senior director of communications and legislative affairs for Raise — another of the Production Innovation Institutes — said his corporation focuses on resources science, production processes and systems engineering, along with aiding teach the talent for sophisticated producing. 

Illustrations of concentration regions that aid the warfighter are lightweight armor and hypersonics. 

Lift, through its business and DOD partners, managed a application to innovate the most effective components

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