Welcome to the February 1, 2023, edition of ACM TechNews, providing timely information for IT professionals three times a week.
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Metaverse Is Where It's All Happening on the Japan Job Front
The Asahi Shimbun (Japan)
Hideaki Ishiyama
January 28, 2023
On Jan. 27, about 2,000 Japanese college students participated in the largest job fair ever held in the metaverse, hosted by Neo Career Co. and X Inc. The students and recruiters from 179 companies were represented by avatars. Company officials discussed job requirements, while students were able to ask questions. The event offered anonymity to students, who were required to provide their names and contact details only if they downloaded data from companies in which they were interested. Said Neo Career's Taiki Nishino, "The metaverse allows for both taking advantage of online meetings in which students from distant areas can take part as well as maintaining the spontaneity of meeting and conversing that occurs in face-to-face job fairs."
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Neuro-Chip to Manage Brain Disorders
EPFL (Switzerland)
January 30, 2023
A neural interface developed by researchers at Switzerland's École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) can identify and alleviate systems of certain neurological disorders. The closed-loop neuromodulation system-on-a-chip, called NeuralTree, features a 256-channel high-resolution sensing array and an energy-efficient machine learning processor. It can extract neural biomarkers from brain waves, classify the signals, and activate a neurostimulator that sends an electrical pulse to block an impending symptom, such as an epileptic seizure or a Parkinson's tremor. EPFL's Mahsa Shoaran said, "It's the first time we've been able to integrate such a complex, yet energy-efficient neural interface for binary classification tasks, such as seizure or tremor detection, as well as multi-class tasks such as finger movement classification for neuroprosthetic applications."
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Drone-Based IoT Helps Monitor Ecosystem of China’s Qinghai-Tibet Plateau
Xinhua News Agency (China)
Hu Tao; Zhang Wenjing
January 31, 2023
A multi-institutional team of researchers led by the Chinese Academy of Sciences deployed a drone-based Internet of Things (IoT) to monitor the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau's ecosystem. The project integrates the drone-based Internet of Remote Things system with ecological monitors and remotely acquired drone data. The results of experiments showed the data transmission rate between drone relays and ground-based terminals can reach 10 to 15 megabits per second. The researchers also reduced relay-terminal data transmission time using a signal strength-based priority approach. The team has used the drone-based IoT to monitor blue sheep, spruce, and environmental elements on the plateau's Qilian Mountains.
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Nuggets Mined from Thousands of Tweets Can Persuade More Climate-Friendly Eating
University of Copenhagen (Denmark)
January 30, 2023
Researchers in the Department of Computer Science at Denmark's University of Copenhagen (KU) found natural language algorithms can characterize people's attitudes toward sustainable food on social media as a step toward encouraging them to practice more sustainable eating. The researchers analyzed 30,000 tweets on sustainable and climate-friendly foods by mining massive volumes of arguments. An algorithm determined whether tweets were based on personal experience, or if they referred to experts, studies, facts, or the author's personal opinion. KU's Daniel Hershcovich said, "By deploying artificial intelligence and having a data-driven approach to human behavior and attitudes on social media, we can find new areas that we wouldn’t otherwise be able to spot with the human eye."
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Member of Congress Reads AI-Generated Speech on House Floor
Associated Press
Steve LeBlanc
January 25, 2023
On the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives, Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-MA) read a speech generated by an artificial intelligence (AI) on legislation to establish a joint U.S.-Israeli AI Center. Nonprofit OpenAI's online chatbot ChatGPT generated the two-paragraph address at Auchincloss' request, although the congressman had to refine it. He said he partly based his decision to read the AI-produced text on the need to encourage dialogue regarding AI and related challenges and opportunities. Auchincloss said lawmakers and others should not reflexively greet AI with hostility, and should avoid delaying regulatory policies or laws. He cited the need for a "public counterweight" to big technology companies so smaller developers and universities can access the same cloud computing, state-of-the-art algorithms, and data.
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Researchers Demonstrate Non-Invasive Method for Assessing Burn Injuries
Optica
January 30, 2023
Stony Brook University (SBU) researchers have invented a neural network model that assesses burns non-invasively using terahertz time-domain spectroscopy (THz-TDS) data. SBU's M. Hassan Arbab said the researchers developed the portable handheld spectral reflection scanner to image burn injuries rapidly via THz-TDS. The researchers said their artificial neural network classification algorithm can estimate in vivo burn severity in animals with 84.5% average accuracy and forecast healing outcomes with 93% accuracy. This reduces the volume of training data necessary by at least two orders of magnitude compared to previous machine learning methods.
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Digital Foot Could Enhance Neuroprosthetics
The Engineer
January 31, 2023
The Footsim digital sole model created by U.K., Canadian, and Swiss researchers can map the signals continuously streaming from the foot to the brain as a tool for refining neuroprosthetics. Scientists can use Footsim to chart the human nervous system's response to contact with the soles and shifts in pressure points. Rodrigo Kazu Siqueira at the U.K.'s University of Sheffield said analyzing and replicating these electronic signals in bionic limbs has been difficult up to now. He explained, "The model we've developed here at Sheffield now enables us to replicate the signals that allow the nervous system to walk and maintain balance in unprecedented detail."
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Women in Israel Only One-Third of Hi-Tech Workers
The Jerusalem Post (Israel)
January 31, 2023
Israeli startup/venture capitalist diversity project Power in Diversity highlighted women's continued underrepresentation in Israel's high-technology industry. The group's latest annual report estimated only 34% female high-tech representation, with just a 0.4% increase posted last year. Women gained 6% in management roles from 2021 to hold 24% of such positions, while the numbers of Arab and ultra-Orthodox startup workers in high-tech sectors are even lower than those of women. Said Power in Diversity's Shahar Silis, “Especially these days, the discourse on inclusion, equality and acceptance should serve as a milestone in the conduct of all of us, especially companies in the hi-tech industry, that is a source of innovation and progress.”
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Scientific Image Analysis for Everyone
Leibniz Institute for Natural Product Research and Infection Biology (Germany)
Ronja Münch
January 31, 2023
The open source Java Image Processing Pipeline (JIPipe) software developed by researchers at Germany's Leibniz Institute for Natural Product Research and Infection Biology (Leibniz-HKI) streamlines research-generated image analysis. The researchers based JIPipe on ImageJ, a standard application for scientific analysis of biomedical microscopic images. Leibniz-HKI's Ruman Gerst said JIPipe users do not need to be skilled in programming, as the software enables them to construct individual workflows for automatic image analysis from prefabricated building blocks. Scientists have used JIPipe to probe the efficiency of drug delivery by nanocarriers in the liver or to calculate the survival rate of nematodes that have digested toxic bacteria.
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Analog Computer May Crack Greatest Unsolved Mysteries in Physics
Popular Mechanics
Darren Orf
January 31, 2023
Researchers at Stanford University and Ireland's University College Dublin built analog quantum simulators that could solve the most significant puzzles in physics. The simulators, formed from hybrid metal-semiconductors on a nanoelectronic circuit, are measured in microns rather than in meters. Stanford's David Goldhaber-Gordon said the analog devices establish a "hardware analogy" to solve quantum physics problems. The researchers tested the simulator using a simple circuit paired with two quantum elements, tuning electrical voltages to generate Z3 parafermions on electronic devices for the first time. They hope to scale up the quantum simulator to solve more complex quantum computing problems.
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A Fresh Look at Restoring Power to the Grid
Sandia Labs News
January 31, 2023
Sandia National Laboratories computer scientists have been developing a "black start" computer model to help grid operators quickly restore power after a disruption. The model integrates a restoration-optimization model with a model of how grid operators would make decisions when lacking full knowledge of all generators and distribution lines. Simulated black starts induced by man-made disruptions like cyberattacks also are supported. Sandia's Bryan Arguello said the restoration-optimization algorithm evaluates the grid and its elements to formulate the fastest power restoration scenario, then compares it to physical limits to determine feasibility. The model applies these results to a physical simulation of the grid and its dynamic response to operators' actions.
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'They Fire, We Hire' — Germany Seizes on Silicon Valley's Woes
Reuters
Rene Wagner; Jan Schwartz
January 30, 2023
Some German companies are viewing job cuts in Silicon Valley as opportunities to shore up their software engineering workforces amid a tight labor market with newly available professionals. "They fire, we hire," said Rainer Zugehoer at automaker Volkswagen's Cariad software subsidiary. "We have several hundred open positions in the U.S., in Europe, and in China." Google parent Alphabet, Facebook parent Meta, and Microsoft have announced nearly 40,000 in cumulative layoffs, while information technology industry group Bitkom estimates 137,000 vacant IT positions in Germany. The German government also is streamlining its immigration rules to entice would-be immigrants with easy citizenship.
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Scientists Develop Approach to Optimize Marble Conservation
UNSW Sydney Newsroom (Australia)
Ben Knight
February 1, 2023
Researchers at Australia's University of New South Wales, Sydney (UNSW Sydney) and Italy's University of Bologna found they could improve the preservation of marble through the use of organic solvents by combining computational modeling with experimental methods. The researchers modeled adsorption of ethanol, isopropanol, and acetone on the calcite surface of a Carrara marble sample, and found the solvents strengthened the calcium phosphate treatment's protective effects without significant divergence. UNSW Sydney's Martina Lessio said, "Finding out the reason it’s behaving this way is critical to be able to select the best possible solvent for the treatment and maximize the protective efficacy. Computational tools allow us to investigate the fundamental chemistry behind these observations."
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