Title
Topic
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‘Intrinsic symmetry-protected topological mixed state from modulated symmetries and hierarchical structure of boundary anomaly’
“We introduce a class of intrinsic symmetry-protected topological mixed state (mSPT) in open quantum systems that feature modulated symmetries, such as dipole and subsystem symmetries. Intriguingly, these mSPT phases cannot be realized as the ground states of a gapped Hamiltonian under thermal equilibrium. The microscopic form of the density matrix characterizing these intrinsic mixed-state SPT ensembles is constructed using solvable coupled-wire models that incorporate quenched disorder or quantum channels. A detailed comparison of the hierarchical structure of boundary anomalies in both pure and mixed states is presented.” Find the paper and full list of authors in Physical Review B.
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‘Effective Theory Building and Manifold Learning’
“Manifold learning and effective model building are generally viewed as fundamentally different types of procedure. After all, in one we build a simplified model of the data, in the other, we construct a simplified model of the another model. Nonetheless, I argue that certain kinds of high-dimensional effective model building, and effective field theory construction in quantum field theory, can be viewed as special cases of manifold learning. I argue that this helps to shed light on all of these techniques.”
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“Recent genome-wide association studies have identified a missense variant p.A165T in mitochondrial amidoxime-reducing component 1 (mARC1) that is strongly associated with protection from all-cause cirrhosis and improved prognosis in nonalcoholic steatohepatitis. The precise mechanism of this protective effect is unknown. … To investigate the mechanism, we have generated a knock-in mutant mARC1 A165T and a catalytically dead mutant C273A (as a control) in human hepatoma HepG2 cells, enabling characterization of protein subcellular distribution, stability, and biochemical functions of the mARC1 mutant protein expressed from its endogenous locus.” Find the paper and full list of authors in Journal of Biological Chemistry.
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‘SoK: Technical Implementation and Human Impact of Internet Privacy Regulations’
“Growing recognition of the potential for exploitation of personal data and of the shortcomings of prior privacy regimes has led to the passage of a multitude of new privacy regulations. Some… have been the focus of large bodies of research by the computer science community, while others have received less attention. In this work, we analyze a set of 24 privacy laws and data protection regulations drawn from around the world… and develop a taxonomy of rights granted and obligations imposed by these laws.” Find the paper and list of authors in the 2024 IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy proceedings.
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An ‘intellectual mixtape’ on hip-hop: ‘That’s the Joint!’
Murray Forman, professor in the College of Arts, Media and Design, has co-edited the third edition of “That’s the Joint!: The Hip-Hop Studies Reader,” which originally released in 2004. “This intellectual mixtape,” according to the publisher’s webpage, brings together 46 readings across a variety of key topics, including “the history of hip-hop, authenticity debates, gender, the globalization of hip-hop,” and much more. The editors have also included critical introductions to place each piece in context. Forman co-edited the volume with Mark Anthony Neal and Regina N. Bradley.
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Helping managers help you by ‘Creating an Environment for Successful Projects’
“Creating an Environment for Successful Projects,” by Randall Englund, lecturer in Northeastern University’s College of Professional Studies, and Robert J. Graham, aims to make organizations as “project-friendly” as possible. Now in its third edition, “For over twenty years,” according to the publisher’s webpage, this volume “has been a staple for upper managers who want to help projects succeed.” In some ways helping upper managers get out of the way of their own organization, this book helps managers empower their teams “and shows how to develop project management as an organizational practice.”
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In ever-more digitalized world, we all need a ‘Handbook of Social Computing’
This new handbook, co-edited by Francesca Grippa in Northeastern’s College of Professional Studies, responds “to the increasingly blurred boundaries between humans and technology,” according to the publisher’s webpage. Geared toward practitioners across disciplines, from computer scientists and social network analysts to sociologists, this volume “illustrates the diverse ways in which digital technologies can be used to analyze social behavior, recognize individual and group interaction patterns and improve daily life.”
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Excelling in law school exams may be exercise in ‘Getting to Maybe’
Originally published in 1999, professor of law Jeremy R. Paul’s “Getting to Maybe: How To Excel on Law School Exams” — co-written with Richard Michael Fischl — has been released in a second edition. “What sets it apart from its competitors is its frank recognition that law exams test legal reasoning,” according to the publisher’s copy, “and that legal reasoning cannot be reduced to any simple ‘check the boxes’ template.” Rather than relying on binary right-or-wrong answers, “Getting to Maybe” prepares students to argue their points, “mobilizing persuasive arguments on multiple sides of legal problems.”
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‘Analyzing High-Throughput Assay Data To Advance the Rapid Screening of Environmental Chemicals for Human Reproductive Toxicity’
“While high-throughput (HTP) assays have been proposed as platforms to rapidly assess reproductive toxicity, there is currently a lack of established assays that specifically address germline development/function and fertility. We assessed the applicability domains of yeast (S. cerevisiae) and nematode (C. elegans) HTP assays in toxicity screening of 124 environmental chemicals, determining their agreement in identifying toxicants and their concordance with reproductive toxicity in vivo.” Find the paper and full list of authors at Reproductive Toxicology.
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‘Through the Theory of Mind’s Eye: Reading Minds with Multimodal Video Large Language Models’
“Can large multimodal models have a human-like ability for emotional and social reasoning, and if so, how does it work? Recent research has discovered emergent theory-of-mind (ToM) reasoning capabilities in large language models (LLMs). LLMs can reason about people’s mental states by solving various text-based ToM tasks that ask questions about the actors’ ToM (e.g., human belief, desire, intention). … Thus, we consider videos a new medium for examining spatio-temporal ToM reasoning ability. Specifically, we ask explicit probing questions about videos with abundant social and emotional reasoning content.”Find the paper and full list of authors at ArXiv.
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‘On-Demand Auxeticity and Co-Existing Pre-Tension Induced Compression Stage … with Kinematically Constrained 3D Suture Tiles’
“By incorporating concepts from auxeticity, kinematic constraints, pre-tension induced compression (PIC), and suture tessellations, tiled sandwich composites are designed, demonstrating behaviors attributed to the synergy between auxeticity and pre-tension induced contact and compression, simultaneously triggered by a threshold strain. The designs can theoretically achieve on-demand Poisson’s ratio in the widest range (−∞, +∞), and once triggered, the Poisson’s ratio is stable under large deformation.”Find the paper and full list of authors in Nature Communications.
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‘Digital Avatars: Framework Development and Their Evaluation’
“We present a novel prompting strategy for artificial intelligence driven digital avatars. To better quantify how our prompting strategy affects anthropomorphic features like humor, authenticity, and favorability we present Crowd Vote – an adaptation of Crowd Score that allows for judges to elect a large language model (LLM) candidate over competitors answering the same or similar prompts. To visualize the responses of our LLM, and the effectiveness of our prompting strategy we propose an end-to-end framework for creating high-fidelity artificial intelligence (AI) driven digital avatars.” Find the paper and full list of authors at ArXiv.
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‘When Being Managed by Technology: Does Algorithmic Management Affect Perceptions of Workers’ Creative Capacities?’
“Artificial intelligence is rapidly being integrated into human roles in the workplace. One example is algorithmic management, where employees are supervised in the execution of their tasks by algorithms. Unfortunately, we know little about how algorithmic management affects the perceptions of employees managed by these algorithms. In three experiments, we explore people’s beliefs about the creative capacities of employees who are managed by algorithms.”
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‘Navigating the Paradox: Challenges and Strategies of University Students Managing Mental Health Medication in Real-World Practices’
“Mental health has become a growing concern among university students. While medication is a common treatment, understanding how university students manage their medication for mental health symptoms in real-world practice has not been fully explored. In this study, we conducted semi-structured interviews with university students to understand the unique challenges in the mental health medication management process and their coping strategies, particularly examining the role of various technologies in this process. We discovered that … the medication management process for students was a highly dynamic journey involving frequent dosage changes.” Find the paper and full list of authors at ArXiv.
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‘Revisiting the Musical Reminiscence Bump: Insights From Neurocognitive and Social Brain Development in Adolescence’
“Music listening is enjoyed across the lifespan and around the world. This has spurred many theories on the evolutionary purpose of music. The Music for Social Bonding hypothesis posits that the human capacity to make music evolved for the purpose of creating and preserving relationships between one another. … we propose that neurocognitive changes in the reward system make adolescence an ideal developmental time window for investigating interactions between prosocial behavior and reward processing, as adolescence constitutes a time of relative increase in music reward valuation.” Find the paper and full list of authors in Frontiers in Psychology.
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The hardest part of your job may be the people you work with (including you)
Odds are that your job is most challenging when working with others — Loredana Padurean, associate teaching professor at Northeastern University, has written “The Job Is Easy, the People Are Not: 10 Smart Skills To Become Better People,” which collects 10 interviews “with professional managers and academic leaders” and 10 skills that Padurean believes could replace “soft” skills. This book provides “practical suggestions about how to develop your own smart skills,” according to the book’s webpage, and might help some readers “realize that you are also one of the people that makes the job harder than it should be!”
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Increasing participation with ‘Conversational Design’
Michael Arnold Mages, assistant professor of art and design in the College of Arts, Media and Design, has published “Conversational Design: Improving Participation and Decision-Making in Public Organizations.” This new book helps public-facing organizations retain participation rates among their stakeholders and promises to “improve co-design and informed decision-making practices” by offering “practical tools and case studies to stimulate participation and foster better conversations.” Aimed at “both practitioners and scholars of design,” “Conversational Design” seeks to bridge the gap between policymakers, designers and “citizen voices.”
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‘Effects of AI Feedback on Learning, the Skill Gap and Intellectual Diversity’
“Can human decision-makers learn from AI feedback? Using data on 52,000 decision-makers from a large online chess platform, we investigate how their AI use affects three interrelated long-term outcomes: Learning, skill gap, and diversity of decision strategies. … Access to AI feedback increases, rather than decreases, the skill gap between high- and low-skilled individuals.”
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‘Where Is All the Deviance? Liminal Prescribing and the Social Networks Underlying the Prescription Drug Crisis’
“The misuse of prescription drugs is a pressing public health crisis in the United States that is fueled by high-risk prescribing. We show that high-risk prescribing comprises two distinct practices: (1) routinely overprescribing to patients whose prescription-fill patterns are consistent with misuse or abuse, which conforms to the definition of deviance in sociology, and (2) routinely overprescribing to patients whose prescription-fill patterns are within possible bounds of medical use, which does not.”
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Zhang receives Responsible Research in Management award
Assistant professor of management and organizational development Victoria Zhang has received the Responsible Research in Management Award from the Academy of Management for her paper “Where Is All the Deviance? Liminal Prescribing and the Social Networks Underlying the Prescription Drug Crisis.” “This annual award recognizes and celebrates recent research that benefits society by producing credible and useful knowledge,” the Academy of Management noted in their announcement.