Institute of Computing and Cybersystems (ICC) Blog

University Research: A Multifaceted Endeavor

Published November 19, 2019

University Research: A Multifaceted Endeavor

by David Reed, Vice President for Research

The following commentary is part five of a six-part series featuring updates, national trends and personal perspectives from the University’s leadership team regarding the future of higher education and Michigan Tech. All questions or comments may be directed to the author of the article (ddreed@mtu.edu).

Michigan Tech receives most of its research funding from the federal government. The federal research environment is challenging, with low and even declining funding rates, regulatory changes and the evolving federal budget climate, but Michigan Tech has managed to hold its own. Even in this difficult environment, in the last fiscal year Michigan Tech researchers achieved all-time highs in new sponsored awards ($63.5 million) and in research expenditures ($80.4 million). This was only possible through the outstanding creativity of our faculty and staff, a concentration on the development of outstanding proposals and a focus on areas where we can be recognized as one of the world’s leading institutions.

The campus developed these focus areas through the Tech Forward process last academic year. Several of the initiative areas include a significant research component. In particular, the Institute for Computing and Cybersystems (ICC, Tim Havens, director), the Health Research Institute (HRI, Caryn Heldt, director), and the Institute for Policy, Ethics, and Culture (IPEC, Jennifer Daryl Slack, director) were identified as highly exciting opportunities for future growth. The Vice President for Research Office (VPR) is working with all three throughout this academic year to develop plans for continuing growth and eventual maturation as vibrant, self-supporting centers of scholarly activity.

Michigan Tech is well-positioned to reach $100 million in annual research expenditures within the next five years. To reach this will require continual work to improve the research environment on campus. There are several such initiatives underway this academic year:

Financial Services and Operations has removed the 3.5% annual administrative fee from all IRAD accounts, allowing all of these funds to be used to support and grow our research and graduate programs.
Our Shared Facilities were established five years ago. The associate vice president for research development is working with them to review their activities over the last five years and to formulate plans for their continued success and growth over the next five years.
Michigan Tech has made significant strides over the last few years in reducing the administrative workload associated with sponsored research activities. According to the Federal Demonstration Partnership’s 2012 and 2018 Faculty Workload Surveys, we have reduced the proportion of investigator’s research time spent on administrative tasks from more than 50% to 43%, below the national average of 44%. Many people in VPR and elsewhere on campus have worked to achieve this significant accomplishment. I think we can all agree, though, that there is still too much effort on administrative work when researcher’s efforts would be better spent on the creative activities involved in research and scholarship. Thanks very much to all on campus who participated in the survey; the results shed light on a number of areas ripe for further process improvement, and we will prioritize and address them over the next few months and coming years.
Lastly, many of you may be aware that a number of cases have emerged nationally where university and other researchers have exhibited egregious behavior that has resulted in federal criminal charges of fraud and abuse. My understanding is that over 1,000 researchers across the country are under investigation. Many of these relate to failure to disclose financial conflicts of interest and also unfunded conflicts of commitment. We expect there to be new federal requirements to change our disclosure practices at some point. In the meantime, it’s important for all to disclose any commitment and financial conflicts through our internal processes, as well as externally in technical reports and funding applications. When in doubt, the best practice is to disclose.

In closing, I would again like to recognize the outstanding efforts of all members of the University community, including researchers and the personnel who support them, both centrally and in their units, in developing and supporting a vibrant and creative environment. This improves our educational activities and strengthens our ongoing research efforts. Michigan Tech is in a great position with our outstanding strengths in areas of state, national and international significance. Through progress in the Tech Forward initiatives and continued growth in our research and graduate programs, we will continue to increase our contributions to areas of great societal need.

Meet and Greet with John Cheney-Lippold Is Mon., Nov. 18, 3-4 pm

Published November 14, 2019

By Karen Johnson

A Meet & Greet with John Cheney-Lippold, University of Michigan associate professor of American culture and digital studies and author of We Are Data: Algorithms and the Making of Our Digital Selves, will take place Monday, November 18, from 3:00 – 4:00 p.m., in Rekhi G09.

Dr. Cheney-Lippold will present “Algorithms, Accidents, and the Imposition of a World of Calculation” on Monday, November 18, at 7:00 p.m. in EERC 103. The lecture is part of the Institute for Policy, Ethics, and Culture’s Algorithmic Culture Series.

Algorithms are everywhere, organizing the near limitless data that exists in our world. Derived from our every search, like, click, and purchase, algorithms determine the news we get, the ads we see, the information accessible to us and even who our friends are. These complex configurations not only form knowledge and social relationships in the digital and physical world, but also determine who we are and who we can be, both on and offline.

The explosive, sometimes accidental transformations performed by statistics and algorithms alter our world to produce “someone else,” no longer the beings we thought we were.

To demonstrate how statistics and algorithms are fundamentally transformative, Cheney-Lippold explores the use of statistics to invalidate the signature of a multimillion-dollar will and to objectify racial categories in the case of People vs. Collins. He also examines the accidental algorithmics that led to the lethal collision of a Tesla autonomous vehicle.

His lecture reorients many of the pressing questions of contemporary culture of algorithmic bias, ethics, and ideas of justice.

Download the event flyer.

John Cheney-Lippold to Present Algorithmic Culture Series Lecture November 18

Published November 13, 2019

By Karen Johnson

The Institute for Policy, Ethics, and Culture’s Algorithmic Culture series continues with “Algorithms, Accidents, and the Imposition of a World of Calculation,” a keynote lecture from John Cheney-Lippold, on Monday, Nov. 18, at 7 p.m. in EERC 0103. A Q&A will follow.

Cheney-Lippold is an associate professor of american culture and digital studies at the University of Michigan. He is the author of We Are Data: Algorithms and the Making of our Digital Selves (NYU Press, 2017).

Algorithms are everywhere, organizing the near limitless data that exists in our world. Derived from our every search, like, click, and purchase, algorithms determine the news we get, the ads we see, the information accessible to us and even who our friends are. These complex configurations not only form knowledge and social relationships in the digital and physical world, but also determine who we are and who we can be, both on and offline.

The book, We Are Data by John Cheney-Lippold

The explosive, sometimes accidental transformations performed by statistics and algorithms alter our world to produce “someone else,” no longer the beings we thought we were. To demonstrate how statistics and algorithms are fundamentally transformative, Cheney-Lippold explores the use of statistics to invalidate the signature of a multimillion-dollar will and to objectify racial categories in the case of People vs. Collins. He also examines the accidental algorithmics that led to the lethal collision of a Tesla autonomous vehicle. This lecture reorients many of the pressing questions of contemporary culture of algorithmic bias, ethics, and ideas of justice.

The Algorithmic Culture series will conclude in December with a presentation from Meredith Broussard entitled “Artificial UnIntelligence.” Broussard’s lecture will be held Thursday, Dec. 5 at 7 p.m. in the Memorial Union Building, Ballroom B.

The mission of the Institute for Policy, Ethics, and Culture is to promote research, policy engagement, and teaching that address the ethical and cultural challenges, implications, and strategies unique to the emerging technocultural environment. Its goals are to promote innovative research and collaboration on policy, ethics, and culture; contribute to policy making in Michigan and beyond; and provide students with tools to work proactively in the emerging environment.

Weihua Zhou to Present Friday Seminar Talk

Published November 13, 2019

By Karen Johnson

The College of Computing (CC) will present a Friday Seminar Talk on November 15, at 3:00 p.m. in Rekhi 214. Featured this week is Weihua Zhou, assistant professor of Health Informatics and member of the ICC’s Center for Data Sciences. He will present his research titled: “Information retrieval and knowledge discovery from cardiovascular images to improve the treatment of heart failure.” Refreshments will be served.

Abstract: More than 5 million Americans live with heart failure, and the annual new incidence is about 670,000. Once diagnosed, around 50% of patients with heart failure will die within 5 years. Cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) is a standard treatment for heart failure. However, based on the current guidelines, 30-40% of patients who have CRT do not benefit from CRT. One of Zhou’s research projects is to improve CRT favorable response by information retrieval and knowledge discovery from clinical records and cardiovascular images. By applying statistical analysis, machine learning, and computer vision to his unique CRT patient database, Zhou has made a number of innovations to select appropriate patients and navigate the real-time surgery. His CRT software toolkit is being validated by 17 hospitals in a large prospective clinical trial.

ACSHF Forum Monday

Published November 8, 2019

By Karen Johnson

An Applied Cognitive Science and Human Factors (ACSHF) Forum will take place at 2 p.m. Monday (Nov. 11) in Meese 109. Beth Veinott (CLS), will present “Improving Forecasts and Plans: Evaluating the Effect of Counterfactual Reasoning in a Structured Analytic Technique.”

One challenge affecting a variety of teams, such as software development, engineering, military, and crisis management, is overconfidence in the effectiveness of their plans. Referred to as the planning fallacy, Buehler et al. (1994) suggests that ignoring past failures is a key cognitive element in this phenomenon. This talk summarizes recent experiments examinin the effect of counterfactual reasoning strategies, thinking about what might have happened under different circumstances, on people’s reasons, confidence and predictions.

Leveraging a collaborative, structured analytic technique called the Premortem, this project extends research on counterfactual reasoning to estimates in planning. The results will be discussed in the context of advances in machine learning, AI, and crowdsourcing that have changed the information available to teams.

Chee-Wooi Ten is PI of R and D Agreement with University of California Riverside

Published November 5, 2019

By Karen Johnson

Chee-Wooi Ten (ECE), a member of Michigan Tech’s Center for Agile and Interconnected Microgrids and the ICC’s Center for Cyber-Physical Systems, is the principal investigator on a 17-month project that has received a $99,732 research and development cooperative agreement with the University of California Riverside. The project is entitled, “Discovery of Signatures, Anomalies, and Precursors in Synchrophasor Data with Matrix Profile and Deep Recurrent Neural Networks.”

“The Bit Player,” a documentary about Claude Shannon, Is Sunday, November 3

Published November 1, 2019

By Karen Johnson

Events

The College of Computing, the Institute of Computing and Cybersystems, and the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering are sponsors of a showing of the film, “The Bit Player,” during this week’s 41 North Film Festival at the Rozsa Center. The showing is this Sunday, November 3, at 3:30 pm. There is no charge to attend, but film-goers are encouraged to secure tickets online and at the Rozsa Center box office. (mtu.edu/rozsa/ticket/calendar/)

“The Bit Player” is a documentary about Claude Shannon, the father of information theory and a hero to many in electrical engineering, computer engineering, and computer science. Claude Shannon was born in Gaylord, Michigan, on April 30, 1916. He attended University of Michigan, double majoring in mathematics and electrical engineering. His MIT master’s thesis was titled, “A Symbolic Analysis of Relay and Switching Circuits,” which related electric circuits and their on/off character to Boolean Algebra, the “Mathematics of Logical Thought,” laying the foundation for machines to make decisions — “to think.”

This was the first documentary film funded by the IEEE Foundation, and it was done in conjunction with the IEEE Information Theory Society (ITS). The ITS is the only IEEE society whose “basis” has a definitive starting date – the 1948 publication of Shannon’s A Mathematical Theory of Communication <http://math.harvard.edu/~ctm/home/text/others/shannon/entropy/entropy.pdf>

More information about this film can be found at http://41northfilmfest.mtu.edu/2019/the-bit-player/.

A description from the film’s official website https://thebitplayer.com): “In a blockbuster paper in 1948, Claude Shannon introduced the notion of a “bit” and laid the foundation for the information age. His ideas ripple through nearly every aspect of modern life, influencing such diverse fields as communication, computing, cryptography, neuroscience, artificial intelligence, cosmology, linguistics, and genetics. But when interviewed in the 1980s, Shannon was more interested in showing off the gadgets he’d constructed — juggling robots, a Rubik’s Cube solving machine, a wearable computer to win at roulette, a unicycle without pedals, a flame-throwing trumpet — than rehashing the past. Mixing contemporary interviews, archival film, animation and dialogue drawn from interviews conducted with Shannon himself, The Bit Player tells the story of an overlooked genius who revolutionized the world, but never lost his childlike curiosity.”

Bo Chen Weighs In on Identity Fraud in WalletHub Article

Published October 23, 2019

By Karen Johnson

Bo Chen (CS/CyberS) was featured in the article “2019’s States Most Vulnerable to Identity Theft & Fraud,” published October 16, 2019, in WalletHub.

Link to the article here:https://wallethub.com/edu/states-where-identity-theft-and-fraud-are-worst/17549/#expert=bo-chen

Based in Washington DC, WalletHub is the first-ever website to offer free credit scores and full credit reports that are updated on a daily basis. The company also hosts an artificially intelligent financial advisor that provides customized credit-improvement advice, personalized savings alerts, and 24/7 wallet surveillance, supplemented by reviews of financial products, professionals and companies.

Benjamin Ong Is PI on NSF Grant that Supports June 2020 Parallel-in-Time Conference

Published October 23, 2019

By Karen Johnson

Uncategorized

Benjamin Ong (Math/ICC-DataS) is the principal investigator on a one-year project that has received a $36,636 other sponsored activities grant from the Mathematical Sciences Infrastructure Program at National Science Foundation. The project is entitled, “CBMS Conference: Parallel Time Integration.”

The award provides support for the NSF-CBMS Conference on Parallel Time Integration, to be held June 1-5, 2020, at Michigan Tech. The focus of the conference is to educate and inspire researchers and students in new and innovative numerical techniques for the parallel-in-time solution of large-scale evolution problems on modern supercomputing architectures, and to stimulate further studies in their analysis and applications.

Co-organizing the conference with Ong is Jacob B. Schroder, assistant professor in the Dept. of Mathematics and Statistics at University of New Mexico.

The conference will feature ten lectures by Professor Martin Gander, an expert in parallel time integration and a professor at the University of Geneva, Switzerland. Using appropriate mathematical methodologies from the theory of partial differential equations in a functional analytic setting, numerical discretizations, integration techniques, and convergence analyses of these iterative methods, conference participants will be exposed to the numerical analysis of parallel-in-time methodologies and their implementations. The proposed topics include multiple shooting type methods, waveform relaxation methods, time-multigrid methods, and direct time-parallel methods. These lectures will be accessible to a wide audience from a broad range of disciplines, including mathematics, computer science and engineering.

Visit the conference website at http://conferences.math.mtu.edu/cbms2020/.

Benjamin Ong Awarded 2019-2020 Kliakhandler Fellowship

Published October 23, 2019

By Karen Johnson

Uncategorized

Benjamin Ong (Math/ICC-DataS) has been awarded the Michigan Tech Department of Mathematics 2019-2020 Kliakhandler Fellowship, which will support two parallel-in-time conferences being held at Michigan Tech in June 2020. As Kliakhandler Fellow, Ong will receive a $5,000 stipend, plus $10,000 to organize a workshop or conference at Michigan Tech.

The purpose of the Kliakhandler Fellowship is to stimulate research activity in the Michigan Tech Department of Mathematics. Awarded annually, the Kliakhandler Fellow is chosen based on a record of excellence in research and the potential of the proposed workshop to stimulate further research achievements and bring visibility to Michigan Tech and the Department of Mathematical Sciences.

Ong, along with Jacob B. Schroder, assistant professor in the Dept. of Mathematics and Statistics at University of New Mexico, is organizing two conferences to take place at Michigan Tech in June 2020. The first, “The CBMS Conference – Parallel Time Integration,” will take place June 1-5, 2020. The focus of this parallel-in-time workshop is to educate and inspire researchers and students in new and innovative numerical techniques for the parallel-in-time solution of large-scale evolution problems on modern supercomputing architectures, and to stimulate further studies in their analysis and applications. The conference will feature ten lectures by Professor Martin Gander, an expert in parallel time integration and a professor at the University of Geneva, Switzerland.

The second conference, 9th Workshop on Parallel-in-Time Integration,” takes place June 8-12, 2020. The workshop the workshop will bring together an interdisciplinary group of experts to disseminate cutting-edge research and facilitate scientific discussions on the field of parallel time integration methods.

Igor Kliakhandler, a former Michigan Technological University mathematics faculty member, was born in Moscow, Russia in 1966. He graduated from the Moscow Oil and Gas Institute in 1983 and started his PhD studies there in 1988. He then emigrated with his family to Israel in 1991 and began his PhD at Tel-Aviv University under the guidance of Gregory Sivashinsky. He received his PhD in Applied Mathematics in 1997 from Tel-Aviv University. He held positions at Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Northwestern University before joining Michigan Tech’s Department of Mathematical Sciences as an assistant professor in 2001. He was promoted to associate professor in 2005 and left the University in 2007 to work in the energy sector in Houston. He manages a group of companies that trade electric power across US, and is involved in a few start-up projects. Igor remained fond of Michigan Tech and its Math Department. Kliakhandler provides a generous gift to host the Kliakhandler Conference, an annual event at Michigan Tech to stimulate research activity in the mathematical sciences.

Link to more information about the two conferences at:

http://conferences.math.mtu.edu/cbms2020, June 1-5 2020

http://conferences.math.mtu.edu, June 8 – 12, 2020