Author Archives: News Staff
For the last two years, a project team of the U-M Library I.T. Division has been working on the redesign of the library’s primary website at lib.umich.edu, which launched in July. It features new technology infrastructure, designs, and information architecture, as well as fully rewritten content. “The response to the new site has been overwhelmingly positive,” writes project lead… Read More »
A field of study called human pose estimation focuses on teaching AI to identify how a person in an image or video is positioned. However, current models typically use videos with an entire person fully in view. Of the huge libraries of video content uploaded to public websites, only around 4% ever show an entire person. New research… Read More »
Google.org announced that a team of School of Information (UMSI) researchers has been selected to receive funding as part of the company’s efforts to support projects using innovative artificial intelligence (AI) and data analytics to help understand COVID-19 and address its impacts. Faculty members Tiffany Veinot, Vinod Vydiswaran, Lorraine Buis, and Anna Laurie will receive $200,000 in funds to… Read More »
A 3D bioengineered model of lung tissue built by U-M researchers is poking holes in decades worth of flat, Petri dish observations into how the deadly disease pulmonary fibrosis progresses. Some clinicians are concerned that critically ill COVID-19 patients may develop a form of pulmonary fibrosis after a long stay in the ICU. Researchers are searching for better treatments.… Read More »
U-M classes are overwhelming being taught remotely this semester. This means that some instructors may, for a variety of reasons, wish to record their classes. The Safe Computing website has guidelines for instructors who plan to record class activities. Recordings where students can be identified—from in-person sessions or remote instruction via Zoom, BlueJeans, or any other videoconferencing application—are:… Read More »
In the course “Cybersecurity for Future Leaders” (EECS 498 / PUBPOL 475), students will gain a better understanding of the science, technology, public policy, and national security considerations behind cybersecurity in order to protect the very tenets of democracy. Election security will be one of the course’s six focus areas this fall 2020. The course is taught from… Read More »
In a new Center for Academic Innovation Teach-Out, Ben Nimmo, director of investigations at Graphika, an online social media monitoring company, outlines tactics everyday people can use to anticipate, spot, and react to disinformation from potential “threat actors.” He calls it the “Four D’s” — Dismiss, Distract, Distort, and Dismay. The Disinformation, Misinformation, and Fake News Teach-Out helps people understand the… Read More »
Although federal privacy laws prohibit digital platforms from storing and sharing children’s personal information without verifiable parental consent, a study led by U-M researchers finds that those rules aren’t always enforced, and privacy violations are most likely to affect children from lower-education households. Children raised by parents without college degrees showed two to three times higher rates of… Read More »
Solar storms and other space weather events have the potential to impact society on a national or global scale. U-M researchers lead two multimillion-dollar projects to improve forecasting by developing next-generation space weather modeling software. Funded by the National Science Foundation and NASA, the U-M projects aim to accurately predict solar storms and coronal mass ejections and to… Read More »
Melissa Haskell, an ECE postdoctoral researcher, was awarded the Ruth L. Kirschstein Postdoctoral Individual National Research Service Award from the National Institutes of Health for her work using machine learning to improve functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Many factors, including movement, can affect the quality of an fMRI, which is used to measure and study brain activity. Haskell works to… Read More »
For developing technology that’s helping to democratize the justice system while decreasing the spread of COVID-19, U-M law professor J.J. Prescott has earned this year’s Distinguished University Innovator Award. Prescott launched the U-M Online Court Project years ago to design and build technology to help people resolve minor disputes with the government and courts online and without the… Read More »
U-M senior Sabrina Corsetti‘s efforts to model the pandemic’s spread using a machine learning algorithm has now been included in those being aggregated for the CDC’s weekly projections. Corsetti had her previous research halted when U-M suspended in-person classes and labs back in March. Thomas Schwarz, one of Corsetti’s research professors, happened to be modeling the pandemic’s data… Read More »
Michigan IT communities of practice (CoPs) are groups where like-minded IT professionals can share information, experiences, and ideas around a particular topic in support of the university’s missions. Below is a summary of August 2020 Governance & CoP meetings, as well as upcoming meeting information for September. To learn more or to add an upcoming meeting to your… Read More »
Michigan Medicine is constantly looking for ways to improve the patient experience, even during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. One way the organization is doing just that is by optimizing eCheck-in and introducing mobile arrival, touchless processes that allow patients to skip the line when they arrive for an appointment. The changes launched on August 26. Prior to an… Read More »
Videogame development is a hot topic at Michigan. This summer two teams of U-M undergrads, working remotely because of the Covid-19 outbreak, conceived, designed, and developed two videogames: Desolation Place—a 3D first-person stealth horror game, and Bloom: Tome of Power—a first person shooter inspired by genre defining games such as DOOM, Hexen, and Dusk. Advised by CSE lecturer… Read More »
The MiXR Studios Podcast exists to educate the University of Michigan community about what is happening in XR (Extended Reality) on campus. It will share best practices and exciting learnings while helping to shape the future of teaching and learning in higher education and beyond.
In summer 2019, LSA Technology Services began investigating work management platforms (ticketing systems) as a way to enhance the customer experience. The LSA Technology Services team placed a high priority on increasing collaboration both internally and externally as they evaluated tools, vendors, and software solutions. The team sought out departmental partners across the college and worked with Information… Read More »
From cars to space shuttles to drones, keeping vehicle electronics systems updated and free of security vulnerabilities is exceedingly difficult, according to Baris Kasikci, a professor of computer science and engineering. “It’s a little bit of a mess,” said Kasikci. “Traditionally, you fix the bug in the source code, you rebuild the software and you redeploy it. But… Read More »
A team of researchers from U-M recently published a paper in the Journal of General Internal Medicine documenting electronic medical record time demands faced by general internists at Michigan Medicine. The findings build on other studies showing that primary care providers nationwide face the highest number of incoming tasks on electronic health records systems. Lead author Laurence McMahon, chief of general medicine at U-M,… Read More »
Boardwork is an essential part of any course that requires free-hand writing, for example math or languages with non-Latin scripts. If you support faculty who use boardwork as part of their teaching, here are two options from LSA Technology Services that achieve the same effect online. Digital whiteboard: The first option is to use an electronic whiteboard. This… Read More »