In the Media
Google’s IT certification heads for college curriculum
EducationDive -- 10/01/2018
Successful completion of Google’s IT certificate could earn Northeastern students up to 12 credits in the university’s College of Professional Studies, saving $6,000 in tuition.
Facebook could be breaking EU law by using shadow data for ads
Fast Company -- 10/01/2018
On Wednesday, Gizmodo reporter Kashmir Hill wrote that she successfully targeted an ad to Northeastern University computer science professor Alan Mislove using his office landline number, which he never provided to Facebook. Facebook and Instagram allow advertisers to upload lists of phone numbers or email addresses to target with ads as part of its “custom audiences” feature; the social network can then match those to data it has already collected to pinpoint the correct user.
Why Mayors Are Rallying Around the Mississippi River
CityLab -- 10/01/2018
There still isn’t a comprehensive look at how climate change will impact the Mississippi River, which is “mind-boggling,” said Samuel Muñoz, the study’s lead author and a professor at the College of Engineering at Northeastern University.
Facebook said to use people’s phone numbers for ad targeting
CBS News -- 10/01/2018
The company may also rely on information that consumers may not be aware is being tapped to sell ads, such as security phone numbers and “shadow information” gleaned about you from friends’ accounts, Gizmodo reports. Alan Mislove of Northeastern University and other researchers discovered that numbers provided to Facebook in two-factor authentication became targeted by advertisers within a matter of weeks, Gizmodo noted. …
Kavanaugh, Blasey Ford hearing was ‘incredibly intense’ says Professor of Law and Criminal Justice
ABC (Australian Broadcasting Company) -- 10/01/2018
Christine Blasey Ford has – after weeks of wondering how and if it would happen – appeared before the US Senate’s Judiciary Committee giving her account of the alleged sexual assaulted she says was committed on her by President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh in the 1980s. Daniel Medwed is a Professor of Law and Criminal Justice Northeastern University in Boston, and he speaks to ABC’s Steve Chase.
Brett Kavanaugh’s Body Language At The Ford Hearing Exposes His Unmistakable Anger, Experts Say
Bustle -- 10/01/2018
According to Laura Dudley, a clinical professor and behavior analyst at Northeastern University, Kavanaugh’s behavior during his opening remarks — from his apparent yelling to his furrowed brows — seemed to “reflect underlying anger.”…
Facebook advertisers can target you with data you didn’t even list on your profile
The Next Web -- 10/01/2018
Facebook is sharing personally identifying information that you never submitted to the social network with its advertisers – and you can’t erase it from their records. That’s from a paper published by researchers at Northeastern University and Princeton University, who looked into how ad targeting works on Facebook.
One student’s junk is another student’s treasure
The Washington Post -- 10/01/2018
“It’s incredible to see how much great stuff gets donated every year and how much waste can be reduced by shopping at the sale instead of taking a trip to Target,” senior Eva Gaufberg said of the Trash2Treasure sale at Northeastern University in Boston.
California governor rejects supervised drug injection plan
The Washington Post -- 10/01/2018
Leo Beletsky, an associate professor of law and health sciences at Northeastern University, said a federal judge might find in San Francisco’s favor. “If you got it before a judge, it’s anyone’s guess,” he said. “You can make a very reasonable argument that a health care facility of this sort is not something that was ever intended to be covered under the crack house statute.”…
Humans control complex objects by exploiting their stability
Physics Today -- 10/01/2018
Dagmar Sternad of Northeastern University in Boston, her postdoc Salah Bazzi, and their colleagues have turned to a different way of evaluating stability that’s applicable to transient motions like moving a cup of coffee from one point to another. Rather than analyzing perturbations about a steady-state closed orbit in phase space, they applied a method that considers pairs of closely spaced trajectories and how the distance between them evolves in time. A region of phase space is deemed stable if the trajectories converge exponentially.
The Federal Agency That Fuels the Opioid Crisis
The New York Times -- 09/20/2018
The Drug Enforcement Administration has proved itself incompetent for decades, writes professor and faculty director of Northeastern University’s Health in Justice Action Lab, Leo Beletsky. …
Wireless Carriers Throttle Video for No Good Reason, Researchers Find
Vice -- 09/20/2018
If your Netflix or YouTube stream is crappy, there’s a good chance your wireless provider is just trying to milk you for more money, according to new research out of Northeastern University.