Tag Archives: research

Special COVID-19 Propelling Original Data Science (PODS) grants

By | May 18, 2020
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MIDAS logo

Last week, the Michigan Institute for Data Science (MIDAS) announced the awardees of its COVID-19 data science grants. Seven interdisciplinary teams, chosen from 49 submissions, received funding for COVID-19 research. With data science methods at the core, these teams combat the pandemic in varied and creative ways, including better clinical decisions for in-patients, strategies to improve testing, data-driven guidance… Read More »

New wearable health tech research center announced

By | May 7, 2020
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data synchronization of health book between smartwatch and smartphone in male hands

As heart disease and stroke remain the leading causes of death worldwide, a new U-M research initiative aims to investigate how mobile health (mHealth) technology, such as smartwatches and smartphones, can be used to study and improve health behaviors among hypertensive populations. “Mobile technology has changed nearly all aspects of our lives. There is great hope that mHealth… Read More »

Why we adopt then abandon online safety practices

By | April 28, 2020
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Creative binary code and digital padlock background. Programming and password concept.

To find out why people adopt and then sometimes abandon online safety measures, researchers from the School of Information surveyed more than 900 people about their use of 30 commonly recommended practices to guard against security, privacy, and identity theft risks. The team found that security practices like avoiding clicking on unknown links or emails were much more… Read More »

Probing tech’s soft underbelly

By | April 27, 2020
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Portrait of Dr. Kevin Fu.

On any given day in Kevin Fu’s laboratory at the College of Engineering research investigators might use an antenna to fool the lab’s sensor into giving a false temperature readings or a laser light beam to inject false voice commands in a voice-controlled assistant from a distance of 300 feet. Unlike many cybersecurity troubleshooters, Fu is not looking… Read More »

U-M researchers train tech tool to find relationship clues from written conversations

By | April 27, 2020
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Mental concept with thinking process, relationships

Social scientists have identified 10 dimensions to describe the nature of human relationships but little research has focused on how these concepts are expressed through written language, and what role they have in shaping social interactions. New research from U-M and Nokia Bell Labs has used crowdsourcing and a tech tool to detect how these characteristics are expressed… Read More »

Extreme interest in crowdsourced projects requires more traditional management

By | April 24, 2020
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Businessman with idea on laptop rasing money via internet to support project.

Collaborative crowdsourcing has become a popular way to advance a technology idea or to spin it off for new uses, but U-M research shows when faced with extreme interest, team leaders must often rely on traditional organizational management structure to get the work done. When a collaborative crowdsourced project is thrust into the limelight, the impact—or shock—of so… Read More »

Computer scientists employ AI to help address COVID-19 challenges

By | April 16, 2020
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illustration of coronavirus

The coronavirus pandemic has changed the world around us and is affecting our health, our economy, our social interactions, and so much more. Faculty and students affiliated with the AI Lab in Computer Science and Engineering have partnered with clinicians and experts from other disciplines to bring their expertise to assist with the outbreak and to help find… Read More »

Federal Court rules in favor of UMSI professor in discrimination research case

By | April 8, 2020
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modern login form interface design with username and password

A federal court has cleared the way for academic researchers, computer scientists, and journalists to continue work that investigates online company practices for racial, gender or other discrimination. The ruling means that those who research online companies no longer have to fear prosecution for the work they do to hold tech companies accountable for their practices, said Christian Sandvig, professor… Read More »

Researchers to use brain scans to understand gender bias in software development

By | April 6, 2020
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A 2017 study reported that a code author’s gender had a significant impact on the code reviewer’s approval or rejection rate. In fact, women’s contributions were rejected more often when their gender was identifiable to the reviewer, and accepted more often when their work was anonymous. An interdisciplinary team of U-M researchers will test these observations and identify… Read More »

Putting hardware accelerators to work with automatic code translation

By | April 3, 2020
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illustration of computer chip

Most programs in use today have to be completely rewritten at a very low level to reap the benefits of hardware acceleration. This system demonstrates how to make that translation automatic. A new technique developed by researchers at U-M could enable broader adoption of post-Moore’s Law computing components through automatic code translation. The system, called AutomataSynth, allows software… Read More »

Using machine learning to detect disease before symptoms manifest

By | March 27, 2020
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crowd of tiny people around several viruses

Alfred Hero, professor of electrical engineering and computer science, has been working on predicting health and disease of people exposed to infectious viral pathogens since early 2007. His research uses machine learning to help discover genes in whole blood that can be used to detect early signs of acute respiratory viral infection (ARVI), as well as improve the… Read More »

How quickly does coronavirus spread? A U-M data science fellow works to answer the question.

By | March 19, 2020
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As the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) advances around the world, a growing number of researchers are using computational models to estimate this spread. Among the first to publish on the subject is a team of Hong Kong- and China-based researchers that includes University of Michigan Institute for Data Science (MIDAS) research fellow Qianying Lin. For the past several weeks,… Read More »

Hessam Mahdavifar receives CAREER award to empower next gen communication

By | March 10, 2020
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Hessam Mahdavifar

In the next decade, the emergence of massively connected networks of billions of devices will lead to an unprecedented increase in mobile data traffic. Hessam Mahdavifar, assistant professor of electrical engineering and computer science, has received an NSF CAREER award to support research on solutions for reliable communications across future wireless networks. This research aims to develop enabling… Read More »

AI could enhance diagnosis and treatment of sleep disorders

By | March 6, 2020
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profile of human head showing outline of spinal cord and brain

Artificial intelligence has the potential to improve efficiencies and precision in sleep medicine, resulting in more patient-centered care and better outcomes, according to a new position statement from the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. Because of the vast amounts of data collected by sleep centers, AI and machine learning could advance sleep care, resulting in more accurate diagnoses,… Read More »

Real-time monitor tracks the growing use of network filters for censorship

By | March 3, 2020
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map of the world showing censorship activity

Researchers at U-M have discovered the widespread use of popular, commercial network filtering technologies for purposes of censorship in as many as 103 countries around the world. With a framework they call FilterMap, the researchers took advantage of several tools designed to detect censorship in real time to call attention to the proliferation of this technology for these… Read More »

Emotion recognition has a privacy problem – here’s how to fix it

By | February 26, 2020
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Young blonde woman with black box over eyes talking on smartphone

With devices listening everywhere you go, privacy concerns are endemic to advancing technology. For example, a virtual assistant that can learn to adapt to a user’s mood creates more useful, human-like interactions. But what if the audio powering these insights stores the user’s gender and demographic information on company servers – leaving the user open to identification by… Read More »

Deep learning AI discovers surprising new antibiotics

By | February 25, 2020
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A colored electron microscope image of MRSA.

With the rapid rise in drug resistance in many pathogens, new antibiotics are desperately needed. Yet few new antibiotics have entered the market of late, and even these are just minor variants of old antibiotics. While the prospects look bleak, a recent article by Sriram Chandrasekaran, assistant professor of biomedical engineering, explores how researchers hunting for new drugs… Read More »

EECS faculty win awards for computational research

By | February 21, 2020
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Jenna Wiens Reetuparna Das

Two computer science and engineering professors were recently recognized for their outstanding work: Jenna Wiens, co-director of University of Michigan Precision Health, was selected for a 2020 Sloan Research Fellowship by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation for her work harnessing patient data to improve healthcare outcomes. Wiens’ primary research is in the development of data-driven predictive models needed… Read More »

University leaders approve investment in core network upgrade

By | February 20, 2020
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stylized image of a network, web of white points of light on a dark blue BG

What does it take to connect the #1 public research  university in the U.S. to the rest of the world? The answer is a powerful network, that allows faculty, students, staff, and researchers on the U-M Ann Arbor campus to reach and share enormous amounts of information with their partners around the world. The data network is the… Read More »

Save the dates! 2020 MICDE Symposium April 9-10

By | February 12, 2020
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city skyline with overlay of data grid

Save the dates! The Michigan Institute for Computational Discovery and Engineering (MICDE) will host its 2020 Annual Symposium on April 9-10, 2020 at the Rackham Building. External experts will talk about how they are driving new fronts in computing. The symposium will showcase some of the game-changing research supported by the MICDE Catalyst Grants program. Participants will also… Read More »