Welcome to the July 19, 2023, edition of ACM TechNews, providing timely information for IT professionals three times a week.
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In California, Does Data Science = Algebra II?
The New York Times
Amy Harmon
July 13, 2023
California is reviewing a decision by public universities to allow high school students to take data science as a substitute for Algebra II courses, with the State Board of Education having withdrawn its endorsement of this policy as part of new guidelines for K-12 schools. The universities said they originally revised their admissions criteria to bring more students into college. However, a University of California faculty committee said it will reassess high school courses' satisfaction of advanced math standards, following claims by Black faculty members that data science courses hurt Black and Latino students "by steering them away from being prepared for STEM [science, technology, engineering, and math] majors."
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Bringing COVID-19 Data into Focus
University of California, Davis
Andy Fell
July 14, 2023
A computer vision-based approach developed by researchers at the University of California, Davis (UC Davis) and Spain's University of the Basque County uses COVID-19 mortality data to identify changes in infection rates when social distancing, lockdowns, masking, and other non-pharmaceutical interventions were introduced during the pandemic's first year. Their deconvolution method uses a neural network with information on the virus' behavior and infection dynamics to work back from death rate data (output) to the daily incidence rate (input). UC Davis' Leonor Saiz said, "We borrowed a concept from vision technology to apply it to epidemiology." The approach could be used in future pandemics to determine which actions would be most effective in lowering infection rates.
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Digital Twins Give Hydrogen a Greener Path to Growth
IEEE Spectrum
Tammy Xu
July 14, 2023
Sharaf Alsharif at Germany's Oldenburger OFFIS Institute for Information Technology thinks digital twins could help lower clean hydrogen production costs by monitoring the state of hydrogen electrolyzers. Digital twins can track electrodes, membranes, or pumps to determine probable malfunctions and to prescribe maintenance. The twins would supply data to dashboards used by electrolysis operators by remotely monitoring electrolyzers and dispatching alerts when they detect anomalous behavior. Alsharif said this could save operators hours of production time that otherwise would be spent on unscheduled electrolyzer troubleshooting. Alsharif and colleagues at OFFIS unveiled a service-oriented software framework for engineering electrolysis monitoring digital twins at Germany's ETG Congress 2023 conference.
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Improving Urban Planning with VR
Ruhr-Universität Bochum (Germany)
Meike Drießen
July 14, 2023
Researchers at Germany's Ruhr-Universität Bochum demonstrated measurable physical reactions to potential changes to urban settings using virtual reality (VR) tools. The researchers simulated the changes in a three-dimensional (3D) model using the Unity3 game engine, allowing users to immerse themselves in the environment to view traffic flow and interactions between cars and pedestrians. The researchers observed an increase in stress levels among participants exposed to higher traffic volumes through the simulations. Said Ruhr-Universität Bochum's Julian Keil, "Until now, residents and other stakeholders have been involved in the planning stage of construction measures, but only in the form of surveys, i.e. explicit statements. Our method enables spatial planners to assess implicit effects of possible measures and to include them in the planning, too."
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IoT Leads to Early Diagnosis of Calf-Killing Pneumonia
Interesting Engineering
Loukia Papadopoulos
July 16, 2023
A team of researchers from Pennsylvania State University (Penn State), the University of Kentucky (UKY), and the University of Vermont invented an Internet of Things (IoT) technique to diagnose Bovine Respiratory Disease (BRD) earlier. The researchers compiled data using precision livestock technologies and conducted daily health examinations on 159 dairy calves at UKY. They used IoT devices to extract a substantial volume of data from the cows, then made the data easier to interpret by adopting input-based machine learning. The system was 88% accurate at flagging sick and healthy calves and 70% accurate at predicting sick calves four days before diagnosis.
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Stretchable Robotic Fabrics Change Size, Move with Precision
University of Sheffield (U.K.)
July 18, 2023
An international research team led by Roderich Gross at the U.K.'s University of Sheffield has created intelligent robotic fabrics from an elastic mesh of low-power modules. Each module or Kilobot communicates with other Kilobots in the mesh to coordinate movement and behavior via vibrations. The researchers demonstrated fabrics comprised of 49 Kilobots can move in a clear direction more successfully with more modules added. Additional research showed a fabric can travel along a desired path and reconfigure itself through an imagined smaller space.
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Drones Reach Stratospheric Heights in Race to Fly Higher, Longer
The Wall Street Journal
Alistair MacDonald
July 14, 2023
Companies are developing drone aircraft to reach stratospheric altitudes and remain there for months as a less-expensive, more-flexible substitute for satellites. U.K. weapons manufacturer BAE Systems designed the solar-powered PHASA-35 drone that recently surpassed 65,000 feet in height and operated continuously for 24 hours before landing. The 115-foot-wingspan drone is no heavier than a typical motorcycle, and its operators must consult meteorological data to ensure it can rise and descend safely through more than 12 miles of variable weather. Compared to satellites, academic James Rogers said high-altitude drones could "be more reliable in terms of quality of signal connectivity, bandwidth capacity, and transmission time due to [their] closer distance to Earth."
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Detailed Map of Heart Provides Insights on Cardiac Disease
Imperial College London (U.K.)
Helen Johnson
July 13, 2023
Researchers in the U.K. and Germany have produced the most comprehensive Human Heart Cell Atlas to date as part of the Human Cell Atlas project. The researchers mapped eight heart regions to define 75 distinct cell states, including the conduction system cells from which heartbeats originate. They used spatial transcriptomics to chart the position of cells within tissue to understand inter-cellular communication for the first time. James Cranley at the U.K.'s Wellcome Sanger Institute said the heart map will help scientists better understand conduction system cells, which "opens the door to better, targeted anti-arrhythmic therapies in the future."
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Cython 3.0: The Next Generation of Python at the Speed of C
InfoWorld
Serdar Yegulalp
July 17, 2023
After three years in the works, version 3.0 of Cython, the Python library for compiling Python code to C, has been released. The latest version of Cython aims to simplify the process of writing C extensions for Python. It no longer supports Python 2, but supports newer Python features up to Python 3.12 while expanding "pure Python mode," which lets developers use existing Python linting and code analysis tools on Cython. Version 3.0 also improves NumPy support to allow developers to write NumPy ufuncs directly in Cython. Meanwhile, a guaranteed stable subset of Python's APIs is accessible via the new "limited API" for Python, which will eliminate the need to recompile Cython extension modules for use in future versions of Python.
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Skin-Like Sensors Fit Almost Everywhere
Technical University of Munich (Germany)
July 17, 2023
Researchers at Germany's Technical University of Munich (TUM) developed an automated process for fabricating soft sensors that can be attached to most objects. TUM's Diego Hidalgo explained, "We use software to build the structure for the sensory systems. We then send this information to a 3D [three-dimensional] printer where our soft sensors are made." The printer injects a conductive black paste into liquid silicone that solidifies while the encapsulated paste remains liquid. The sensors' electrical resistance changes when stretched or squeezed, yielding data that researchers use "to gain a general understanding of interactions with objects and, specifically, to learn how to control an artificial hand interacting with these objects," Hidalgo said.
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AI Tools Design Proteins That Could Transform Medicine
Nature
Ewen Callaway
July 11, 2023
Artificial intelligence (AI) tools increasingly are being used to design new proteins that bind to another biomolecule, helping to pave the way for new vaccines, therapeutics, and biomaterials. University of Washington's (UW) David Baker, part of the team that developed RFdiffusion, said, "You're building a protein structure customized for a problem." RFdiffusion and similar AI tools are trained on tens of thousands of real protein structures in the Protein Data Bank. With RFdiffusion, the data is made noisier until it no longer resembles the starting structure, after which the neural network "denoises" the data, producing new proteins based on specific design constraints. Baker said 10% to 20% of the proteins designed by RFdiffusion bind strongly enough to be useful, versus fewer than 1% produced by pre-AI methods.
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Robot Inspired by Baby Turtles Can Swim Under Sand
UC San Diego Today
Ioana Patringenaru
July 18, 2023
University of California, San Diego roboticists designed a robot inspired by turtle hatchlings that can move through sand at a depth of 5 inches and a speed of 1.2 millimeters per second. The Wi-Fi-controlled robot generates propulsion and can steer with its flipper-like appendages. Force sensors enable the bot to detect impediments above its body by monitoring changes in torque produced by limb movement. Two foil-like surfaces or terrafoils on the sides of the bot's nose allow the researchers to control lift and maintain a level depth in the sand. Experiments in a laboratory tank and on a beach showed wet sand, which offers greater resistance than dry sand, slowed the robot’s progress.
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'Digital Bakery' 3D-Prints Sweets, Chocolates in Any Shape
EuroNews
Roselyne Min
July 18, 2023
Sugar Lab, a "digital bakery" based in East Los Angeles, CA, uses the only NSF-certified three-dimensional (3D) printer in the world to produce custom-ordered sweets and chocolates in any shape. The company's designers model the products, which are then 3D-printed by its chefs using a "super fondant" made from water, sugar, and vegetable starch. Said Sugar Lab's Kyle von Hasseln, "It really takes working with a chef and having a goal, researching what ingredients you want, sourcing them, bringing them in-house, mixing them up, tasting them before they even go into the 3D printer and understanding what you're working with. And then after the object is 3D printed, there are a million things that a chef can do with that object." Sugar Lab's 3D printer can print thousands of products overnight.
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