Tag Archives: research

Electronic health records: More demands, same amount of time

By | August 24, 2020
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Man in lab coat with stethoscope holds clock in front of his face.

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 »

Enabling fairer data clusters for machine learning

By | August 20, 2020
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(Photo of a very large, dark room filled with glowing computers.)

Research published recently by CSE investigators can make training machine learning (ML) models fairer and faster. With a tool called AlloX, Mosharaf Chowdhury and a team from Stony Brook University developed a new way to fairly schedule high volumes of ML jobs in data centers that make use of multiple different types of computing hardware, like CPUs, GPUs,… Read More »

Mathieu receives 2020 Henry Russel Award

By | August 12, 2020
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(Portrait of Johanna Mathieu smiling.)

Johanna Mathieu, assistant professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, has received a U-M Henry Russel Award for her extraordinary record of accomplishment in scholarly research, as well as excellent record of contributions as a teacher. This award, established in 1925, is considered the University’s highest honor for faculty at the early to mid-career stages of… Read More »

Study finds facial recognition technology in schools presents problems, recommends ban

By | August 11, 2020
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Research reveals inaccuracy, racial inequity and increased surveillance are the touchstones of a flawed technology. Facial recognition technology should be banned for use in schools, according to a new study by the University of Michigan’s Ford School of Public Policy that cites the heightened risk of racism and potential for privacy erosion. The study by the Ford School’s… Read More »

Using AI to navigate out of a COVID treatment supply issue

By | August 6, 2020
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Empty shelves in a store

Researchers fear that the same issues with supply chains that caused toilet paper shortages at the beginning of the pandemic in the United States may result in the same problem with the fine chemicals needed to synthesize COVID-19 therapeutics and vaccines. Now, a U-M team of medicinal chemists have used artificial intelligence to find alternative pharmaceutical building blocks… Read More »

Weiser Food Allergy Center tapped to join elite research network

By | June 30, 2020
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(Photo of a woman wearing lab goggles while sitting in front of a microscope.)

The Mary H. Weiser Food Allergy Center (MHWFAC) at U-M has been named a Discovery Center of Distinction by FARE, the leading food allergy research, advocacy, and education organization. The prestigious award adds the MHWFAC to the FARE Clinical Network, which was established in 2015 to link top food allergy centers nationwide for collaboration on the development of… Read More »

U-M faculty receive $1.9M in DOE funding awards

By | June 30, 2020
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(Photo of a building with trees and a fountain in front of it.)

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is awarding $65 million to support 93 projects spread across 28 different states. The U-M department of Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Sciences (NERS) has received $1,883,668 to fund seven projects to advance nuclear technology. The awards are through two DOE programs: the Nuclear Energy University Program (NEUP) and the Nuclear Energy Enabling… Read More »

University alliance receives $51.5 million in funding from Defense Threat Reduction Agency

By | June 29, 2020
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The Defense Threat Reduction Agency’s (DTRA) has announced it is rewarding $51.5 million of funding to the newly formed Interaction of Ionizing Radiation with Matter University Research Alliance (IIRM-URA) program.  IIRM-URA is comprised of 12 universities and 8 partner institutions, national laboratories, and industrial companies. The University of Michigan is one of IIRM-URA’s four permanent university members.  IIRM-URA… Read More »

Innovative monitoring technology predicts patient emergencies before they happen

By | June 29, 2020
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From the fight against the novel coronavirus to ICU transfer and patient rehabilitation, the Michigan Center for Integrative Research in Critical Care (MCIRCC) is developing intelligent prediction software to support health systems. Technology is transforming every corner of the health care industry, including the way clinicians monitor patients. Current systems have demonstrated that early detection of patient deterioration… Read More »

Matthew Belz receives fellowship to improve the safety of autonomous systems

By | June 19, 2020
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Matthew Belz

Ph.D. student Matthew Belz received a National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship for a new research project to create a jamming-resistant radar chip to improve the safety of autonomous vehicles.  Belz will begin the project in the fall. Currently, he is finishing a project joint with the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab to design a specialized circuit to… Read More »

New machine learning method improves testing of stem-like tumor cells for breast cancer research

By | June 19, 2020
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(Illustration of growing cancer tumor.)

Prof. Euisik Yoon’s research group has developed a new, faster method to identify cancer stem-like cells (CSCs), which could help improve the effectiveness of cancer treatments. CSCs can develop tumors and cause a cancer relapse after a patient’s treatment. CSCs are generally resistant to chemotherapy and radiotherapy, so therapeutics that directly target CSCs may improve the success of… Read More »

UMSI researchers awarded COVID-19 data science grant to study student mobility patterns

By | June 19, 2020
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The Michigan Institute of Data Science (MIDAS) recently awarded three University of Michigan School of Information (UMSI) researchers COVID-19 data science grants. Research fellow Quan Nguyen, assistant professor Christopher Brooks and assistant professor Daniel Romero will receive funding for “Students’ mobility patterns on campus and the implications for the recovery of campus activities post-pandemic.”  This project will examine… Read More »

U-M launches effort to collect blood samples from COVID-19 survivors and patients for research

By | June 11, 2020
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Vici Blanc, Ph.D., director of the U-M Central Biorepository, lifts a rack of blood samples out of the dedicated freezer for COVID-19 samples.

By donating a few teaspoons of blood, COVID-19 survivors can help U-M researchers find a way to defeat the disease that made them ill. 800 COVID-19 patients cared for at U-M’s Michigan Medicine have already donated more than 17,000 samples; now, it is open to participants who are not Michigan Medicine patients.  By studying these samples and more,… Read More »

Lights in the labs — and eyes — of researchers coming back to work

By | June 11, 2020
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A staff member has her temperature checked before returning to a lab.

Michigan Engineering labs are reopening after COVID-19’s ten week ramp down, allowing faculty, staff, and graduate students to continue aspects of their research that couldn’t be completed at home.  Reopening the labs means different things to different people. For example, Steve Forrest and his group can continue printing heart cell arrays that could rapidly replace scarred tissue after… Read More »

UROP adapts research projects to remote experience

By | May 26, 2020
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A model program at the University of Michigan that allows first- and second-year undergraduates to participate directly in research was disrupted by the COVID-19 crisis.  While leaders of the Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program (UROP) moved quickly to help many students transition to online experiences to finish the academic year, not everyone could continue their projects. But as the… Read More »

$5.2M for digital twins of nuclear reactors could bring down nuclear energy costs

By | May 26, 2020
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Safe and more affordable nuclear energy is the goal of a new project led by the University of Michigan, bringing together researchers who specialize in nuclear energy technology and computer science. The study, which will develop AI-enhanced “digital twins” of nuclear reactors, is funded with a three-year, $5.2 million grant from the Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy. The project… Read More »

Research on human biases in AI learning earns best student paper award

By | May 26, 2020
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The project demonstrated that a certain bias in humans who train intelligent agents significantly reduced the effectiveness of the training. A team of researchers working to more effectively train autonomous agents earned the Pragnesh Jay Modi – Best Student Paper at the International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems (AAMAS 2020). Led by second-year Ph.D. student Divya… Read More »