Center for Socially Responsible AI accepting seed funding proposals
Penn State’s Center for Socially Responsible Artificial Intelligence is inviting short proposals for its annual seed funding program. Applications will be accepted through Nov. 1, with projects expected to start in spring 2023 and last for up to two years.
Art history, IST receive grant to continue collaborative research project
The collaborative research project conducted by the Department of Art History and the College of Information Sciences and Technology, titled “After Constable’s Clouds,” is Phase 2 of “Seeing Constable’s Clouds,” which was supported by a level 1 National Endowment for the Humanities grant.
College of IST professor earns fourth consecutive Amazon Research Award
James Wang, distinguished professor in the Penn State College of Information Sciences and Technology, has received an Amazon Research Award to advance his team's work on machine learning-based, emotion modeling that is geared toward enhancing the interaction between humans and artificial intelligence (AI) in day-to-day activities.
Good, bad, fair: New algorithms could help fairly distribute goods or chores
When organizations need to divvy up indivisible items among multiple parties with different needs and preferences, how can they ensure that everyone gets their fair share?
Real-time, accurate virus detection method could help fight next pandemic
A method of highly accurate and sensitive virus identification using Raman spectroscopy, a portable virus capture device and machine learning could enable real-time virus detection and identification to help battle future pandemics, according to a team of researchers led by Penn State.
IST assistant professor Hadi Hosseini receives NSF CAREER award
Hadi Hosseini, assistant professor in the Penn State College of Information Sciences and Technology, is the recipient of a 2022 Faculty Early Career Development award from the National Science Foundation, which supports junior faculty members who exemplify the role of teacher-scholar through outstanding research, excellent teaching, and the inte
IST academic search engine awarded ‘Best Open Source Project’ by BCS
CiteSeerX, one of the world’s earliest open source academic search engines and co-created by C.
Using tweets to predict real-time food shortages
The sentiments and emotions expressed in tweets on Twitter can be used in real time to assess where supply chain disruptions due to a pandemic, war or natural disaster may lead to food shortages, according to researchers at Penn State and the Hamad Bin Khalifa University in Qatar.
New model could have ‘Moneyball’-like impact on baseball players’ value
In the movie “Moneyball,” a young economics graduate and a cash-strapped Major League Baseball general manager introduce a new way to evaluate baseball players’ value.
Scientists tap AI betting agents to help solve research reproducibility concerns
Scientists are increasingly concerned about that the lack of reproducibility in research may lead to, among other things, slower scientific output and less public trust in science.
Science federation highlights Penn State proposal to combat diseases of despair
The Federation of American Scientists has chosen to highlight a proposal by Penn State researchers for the U.S.
James Wang named distinguished professor of IST
James Wang, professor in the College of Information Sciences and Technology, has been conferred the title of distinguished professor, the highest professorial distinction at the University.
Penn State awarded $3.4 million contract to target plastic waste
Penn State has been awarded a $3.4 million contract from the REMADE Institute to fund research targeting the inefficient methods currently used to process and upcycle mixed plastic waste.
Paper on geovisual analytics wins “Test of Time” award
A 2011 paper authored by Penn State researchers outlining a geovisual analytics approach to support geographically grounded situational awareness of crisis events using social media was selected to receive the 2021 IEEE Symposium on Visual Analytics Science and Technology Test of Time award.
Search engine could help researchers scour internet for privacy documents
Researchers say a search engine, which uses an artificial intelligence called natural language processing, could be an important tool for researchers trying to find ways to design a safer internet.
What was really the secret behind Van Gogh's success?
Before developing his famed “drip technique,” abstract artist Jackson Pollock dabbled in drawing, print making and surrealist paintings of humans, animals and nature.
Vasant Honavar named Huck Chair in Biomedical Data Sciences and AI
Vasant Honavar, professor in the College of Information Sciences and Technology, has been named the Dorothy Foehr Huck and J. Lloyd Huck Chair in Biomedical Data Sciences and Artificial Intelligence by the University’s Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences.
New tool fuses expert knowledge and deep learning features to detect sleep apnea
Individuals who suspect they have sleep apnea — and the doctors who diagnose them — could soon have more effective way to automatically detect the condition at home, thanks to a new method developed by researchers at the Penn State College of Information Sciences and Technology.
Surprisingly popular voting algorithm developed to recover ranked choices
Imagine you are asked to rank the counties in Pennsylvania in terms of number of COVID-19 infections. Or you may be asked to rank cities in Pennsylvania based on their populations.
Block by block: Researchers use Minecraft to advance artificial intelligence
Researchers received a $900,000 grant to create artificial intelligence that can plan for and solve future problems. They will test the new software on the video game Minecraft.
Honeypot security technique can also stop attacks in natural language processing
As online fake news detectors and spam filters become more sophisticated, so do attackers’ methods to trick them — including attacks through the “universal trigger.” In this learning-based method, an attacker uses a phrase or set of words to fool an indefinite number of inputs, which could lead to more fake news appearing in your social media fe
Essential workers' tweets show surprising positivity during pandemic
During the COVID-19 pandemic, essential workers tweeted less often than general users about COVID-19 but more about overall mental health issues, according to researchers at the Penn State College of Information Sciences and Technology.
Study of police language aims to find patterns that may lead to tragic outcomes
With a new grant from the National Institutes of Health, an interdisciplinary team of researchers aims to examine police radio communications to observe what happens during adverse encounters between police officers and male minority youth and study any patterns of interaction that may lead to unfortunate or tragic outcomes.
Two faculty members receive Amazon Research Awards
Penn State faculty members James Wang, professor of information sciences and technology, and Rui Zhang, assistant professor of computer science and engineering, each received a 2020 Amazon Research Award, which was announced publicly in April of this year.
Virtual conference explores artificial intelligence in a post-COVID world
On May 13, the Penn State Center for Socially Responsible Artificial Intelligence hosted "AI in a Post-COVID World," a virtual conference that will brought together experts from a variety of disciplines to discuss how artificial intelligence has aided in tackling the COVID-19 pandemic.
AI Hub to help enhance Penn State's global leadership in artificial intelligence
Penn State has launched an expanded initiative in Artificial Intelligence (AI), termed the AI Hub, which will bring together the University’s considerable resources and talent in AI to further advance its position as a global leader developing fundamental innovations in AI, in using AI and machine learning (ML) to solve the hardest challenges, a
Penn State center to advance AI tools to accelerate scientific progress
A new research center, the Center for Artificial Intelligence Foundations and Scientific Applications, or CENSAI, will unite Penn State researchers to explore the use of artificial intelligence as a tool to dramatically accelerate the scientific process, an initiative that the center’s organizers say could rapidly accelerate scientific progress.
Penn State launches new artificial intelligence center for engineered systems
A newly founded, interdisciplinary research center established to further foundational and applied artificial intelligence in engineered systems will be housed in the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science in the Penn State College of Engineering.
New AI framework introduced for cutting a 'multi-layered cake'
Expanding on an established problem in mathematics and computer science known as fair cake-cutting — a metaphor for cutting a cake in a way that each participant receives a slice that they believes to be fair — Hadi Hosseini, assistant professor at the Penn State College of Information Sciences and Technology, and his team have introduced a nove
New machine learning model could remove bias from social network connections
Did you ever wonder how social networking applications like Facebook and LinkedIn make recommendations on the people you should friend or pages you should follow?
Facebook posts could identify substance use risk in homeless youth
What a person posts on Facebook could predict their risk for substance use, according to new research led by the Penn State College of Information Sciences and Technology.
$500,000 grant funds creation of institute to advance AI for materials science
A National Science Foundation grant will help lay the foundation for an interdisciplinary institute that encourages the use of artificial intelligence-enabled materials discovery, design and synthesis, according to a team of researchers.
AI-defined COVID-19 testing strategy could lead to fewer infections
A new algorithm developed by researchers at the College of Information Sciences and Technology could help leaders of governments and organizations make better informed decisions on how many symptomatic and asymptomatic individuals to test for COVID-19 with a limited supply of daily tests, and at what stage of the pandemic.
What if opting out of data collection were easy?
A new multi-institution study shows a dearth of privacy opt-out choices and offers a solution to empower users to readily identify choices often buried deep in the text of privacy policies.
AI model could help patients predict disease risk with electronic health records
Electronic health records contain critical information for both medical providers and patients. But these records also contain information that could interfere with an artificial intelligence algorithm’s ability to predict patients’ risk for future disease.
Tricking fake news detectors with malicious user comments
New research from a team at Penn State’s College of Information Sciences and Technology shows how fake news detectors can be manipulated through user comments to flag true news as false and false news as true, even if the adversary is not the story’s original author.
New tool can diagnose strokes with a smartphone
A new tool created by researchers at Penn State and Houston Methodist Hospital could diagnose a stroke based on abnormalities in a patient’s speech ability and facial muscular movements, and with the accuracy of an emergency room physician — all within minutes from an interaction with a smartphone.
Amulya Yadav honored with PNC Career Development Professorship
Amulya Yadav, assistant professor at Penn State’s College of Information Sciences and Technology, has been awarded the college’s PNC Technologies Career Development Professorship.
Panel to discuss using artificial intelligence to promote scientific discovery
A panel of Penn State researchers will offer insights into how researchers can tap artificial intelligence — AI — to be a powerful tool for scientific discovery.
Wastewater sampling may give advanced warning of potential COVID-19 outbreaks
Wastewater sampling for coronavirus on campus and in the surrounding community could alert University decision makers to a potential outbreak several days before individuals exhibit symptoms of an infection.
IST research aims to understand a global pandemic
Since the novel coronavirus began its spread earlier this year, College of Information Sciences and Technology faculty and students have been innovative in addressing a variety of challenges related to COVID-19, including how to equip researchers with the most up-to-date information, how to educate the public about mitigation tactics, and how mo
Art history, IST faculty win NEH grant to use computer-aided image analysis
Elizabeth Mansfield, professor and head of the Department of Art History, and James Wang, professor of information sciences and technology, have received a Digital Humanities Advancement Grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities for a project that will use computer-aided image analysis to examine the depiction of clouds in the paintin
IST research well-represented at Knowledge Discovery in Databases conference
The College of Information Sciences and Technology was well-represented at the 2020 ACM Knowledge Discovery in Databases Conference, held virtually Aug. 23-27.
An AI algorithm to help identify homeless youth at risk of substance abuse
An artificial intelligence algorithm developed by researchers at the College of Information Sciences and Technology could help predict susceptibility to substance use disorder among young homeless individuals, and suggest personalized rehabilitation programs for highly susceptible homeless youth.
Center for Security Research and Education announces seed grant awardees
The Center for Security Research and Education (CSRE) has selected 13 interdisciplinary projects through its spring 2020 seed grant program. CSRE is providing a total of $300,000 in funding for the projects, with an additional $300,000 in matching and supplemental funding from other colleges, departments, and institutes.
Initial COVID-19 infection rate may be 80 times greater than originally reported
A new study from Penn State tracked excess influenza-like illness data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to estimate that the number of early COVID-19 cases in the U.S. may have been more than 80 times greater and doubled nearly twice as fast as originally believed.
Two College of IST faculty members earn Amazon Research Awards
Professor James Wang and Assistant Professor Xinyu Xing — both from the College of Information Sciences and Technology — are among 51 computing experts representing 39 universities worldwide to receive 2019 Amazon Research Awards.
Understanding trade-offs between connectedness and online privacy during crises
A new grant is helping researchers explore how attitudes toward privacy change during times of crises, and whether oversharing has been expedited or even encouraged during the coronavirus pandemic.
IST seed grants support tech projects related to COVID-19
The College of Information Sciences and Technology recently announced six projects that will receive funding from the college’s seed grant program. Each project will take different approaches to tackle various challenges and needs related to the novel coronavirus pandemic.
Human and AI annotations aim to improve scholarly results in COVID-19 searches
Seed funding provided by the Huck Institute of the Life Sciences and the Institute for Computational and Data Science is supporting two research teams from the College of Information Sciences and Technology in their efforts to provide faster and more efficient search results to COVID-19 research queries.