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Topic
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Cassella added to Fulbright Specialist Roster
“Electrical and computer engineering associate professor Cristian Cassella was recommended by a panel of the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and World Learning to join the prestigious Fulbright Specialist Roster for a tenure of three years. The program, which is part of the larger Fulbright Program, pairs highly qualified U.S. academics and professionals with host institutions in over 150 countries to share their expertise, strengthen institutional linkages, hone their skills, gain international experience and learn about other cultures while building capacity at their overseas host institutions.”
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‘Native Capillary Electrophoresis–Mass Spectrometry of Near 1 MDa Non-Covalent GroEL/GroES/Substrate Protein Complexes’
“Protein complexes are essential for proteins’ folding and biological function. Currently, native analysis of large multimeric protein complexes remains challenging. Structural biology techniques are time-consuming and often cannot monitor the proteins’ dynamics in solution. Here, a capillary electrophoresis-mass spectrometry (CE–MS) method is reported to characterize, under near-physiological conditions, the conformational rearrangements of ∽1 MDa GroEL upon complexation with binding partners involved in a protein folding cycle.” Find the paper and full list of authors at Advanced Science.
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‘Emotion Regulation Convoys: Individual and Age Differences in the Hierarchical Configuration of Emotion Regulation Behaviors in Everyday Life’
“A key limitation of studying emotion regulation behavior is that there is currently no way to describe individual differences in use across a range of tactics, which could lead to investigations of intraindividual changes over time or interindividual differences as a function of personality, age, culture, or psychopathology diagnosis. We, therefore, introduce emotion regulation convoys. This research tool provides a snapshot of the hierarchy of emotion regulation tactics an individual favors across everyday life situations and how effective they are at regulating moods.” Find the paper and full list of authors at Research Gate.
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AI-driven testing for cellular networks
“Electrical and computer engineering assistant research professor Michele Polese is leading a $2 million project awarded by the Wireless Innovation Fund for ‘AutoRAN: Automated End-to-End Continuous Testing for Open and Disaggregated Cellular Systems.’ … The project will explore the use of AI and large language models to streamline the process of testing the performance of multi-vendor Open RAN networks. Electrical and computer engineering assistant research professor Salvatore D’Oro, associate research scientist Leonardo Bonati, principal research scientist Pedram Johari and professor Tommaso Melodia will also be collaborating on this project.”
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‘Linear Extension and Calcification Rates in a Cold-Water, Crustose Coralline Alga are Modulated by Temperature, Light and Salinity’
“Long-lived crustose coralline algae are important ecosystem engineers and environmental archives in regions where observations of climate variability are sparse. … Here, we present the results of the first, to-our-knowledge, controlled laboratory experiment isolating the effects of light, temperature, and salinity on calcification rates of C. compactum. Algal calcification rates were modulated by a combination of light exposure, salinity, and temperature, where temperature and salinity were positively correlated, and light level was negatively correlated with calcification rate.” Find the paper and full list of authors in Limnology and Oceanography.
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Karma receives NASA grant to study alloy solidification in space
The COMPASS project — “Computational Modeling of Columnar‐Equiaxed Alloy Solidification Micro‐Structures” — “uses computational modeling and space experiments conducted aboard the International Space Station to develop a fundamental understanding of the alloy solidification process used to make a wide range of technological materials.”
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Jaeggi and Seitz receive DoD grant to develop attention-measuring tools in high performers
“In this collaborative project that involves groups from Washington University (St. Louis), Brown University, University of California, Irvine, as well as several groups in Australia, we develop tools / apps to assess attention control in high-performing adults (e.g., pilots or air-traffic controllers) using computational modeling as well as behavioral and neuroimaging methods. Furthermore, we build evidence-based interventions to maximize and improve attention control functions in various [stressful] environments … The outcome of our project will provide a better understanding of the human attention system and the interventions will enable individuals to maintain high levels of focus and concentration even in…
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‘Enabling Rotation Over Electrophoretic Motion in Janus Particles Under Applied Electric Field’
“Janus particles (JPs) comprising metal and dielectric halves are capable of propulsion perpendicular to an applied electric field, with promising applications in targeted drug delivery and microrobotics. Yet, not all JP geometries behave the same when activated. We explore hemispherical, snowman and matchstick-like particle dynamics and evaluate threshold values for which electric torque can overcome induced charge electrophoresis. We define conditions where JPs are more likely to undergo rotation in place rather than linear motion, highlighting design features which should be considered when using these particles as materials.” Find the paper and full list of authors at Applied Physics Letters.
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‘The Effects of Lithium Chloride Exposure on the Reproduction of Caenorhabditis elegans’
“Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans) are model organisms that share similar anatomical structures to humans. By exploring the effects of lithium chloride (LiCl) on C. elegans, we can collect crucial data regarding the compound’s impact on patients taking psychiatric medications containing LiCl. Here we performed an egg retention assay on nematode populations to explore how LiCl can influence reproduction. We found a statistically significant difference in eggs retained between control and experimental groups, suggesting that LiCl has negative effects on reproductive health.” Find the paper and full list of authors at MicroPublication Biology.
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Ionescu receives NSF CAREER award to study ‘molecular mechanisms of skeletal growth’
“This Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award will focus on elucidating the molecular mechanisms of skeletal growth. … Estrogen plays a vital role in growth plate closure for both sexes [of mammals] by converting androgens to estrogens through aromatase in growth plate cartilage. Deficiency or resistance to estrogen leads to growth plate fusion failure and ongoing height increase in adulthood. However, the exact mechanism by which estrogen regulates growth plate closure is still unknown. Understanding this mechanism may clarify species-specific skeletal differences or variations between bones from different anatomical locations.”
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Two members of the Northeastern community elected ACM Fellows for contributions to artificial intelligence and advances in computer science
Professor of the practice at Northeastern University Kenneth Church and Northeastern graduate Natasha Noy have been elected 2023 ACM Fellows. Both Church and Noy have advanced research in artificial intelligence, and both have worked on tools to support other researchers’ efforts.
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For teaching computers to see, Northeastern professor receives eminent achievement award
A leading researcher in the field of computer vision — which uses artificial intelligence to process images received from cameras that “mimic human eyes” — Yun Raymond Fu, distinguished professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering, has received the 2024 Edward J. McCluskey Technical Achievement Award for making “impactful contributions” over a nearly 20-year career.
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‘Covalent Inhibition of Pro-Apoptotic BAX’
“BCL-2-associated X protein (BAX) is a promising therapeutic target for activating or restraining apoptosis in diseases of pathologic cell survival or cell death, respectively. In response to cellular stress, BAX transforms from a quiescent cytosolic monomer into a toxic oligomer. … In this study, we performed a disulfide tethering screen to discover C126-reactive molecules that modulate BAX activity. We identified covalent BAX inhibitor 1 (CBI1) as a compound that selectively derivatizes BAX at C126 and inhibits BAX activation by triggering ligands or point mutagenesis.” Find the paper and full list of authors at Nature Chemical Biology.
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Vision paper: ‘Towards Mobility Data Science’
“Mobility data captures the locations of moving objects such as humans, animals and cars. With the availability of GPS-equipped mobile devices and other inexpensive location-tracking technologies, mobility data is collected ubiquitously. In recent years, the use of mobility data has demonstrated significant impact in various domains including traffic management, urban planning and health sciences. In this paper, we present the emerging domain of mobility data science. Towards a unified approach to mobility data science, we envision a pipeline having the following components: mobility data collection, cleaning, analysis, management and privacy.” Find the paper and full list of authors at ArXiv.
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‘Distributed Cognition Approach to Understanding Compensatory Calendaring Cognitive Systems of Older Adults With Mild Cognitive Impairment’
“While consumer digital calendars are widely used for appointment reminders, they do not fulfill all of the compensatory functions that are supported by calendars designed for cognitive rehabilitation therapies. … We employed a Distributed Cognition framework to elucidate how older adults with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and their care partners manage calendaring details when supported by a traditional rehabilitation calendar. … We used a Distributed Cognition framing to articulate information flows and breakdowns in participants’ calendaring systems.” Find the paper and full list of authors in the International Conference on Ubiquitous Computing and Ambient Intelligence proceedings.
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‘An Efficient OFDM-Based Monostatic Radar Design for Multitarget Detection’
“In this paper, we propose a monostatic radar design for multitarget detection based on orthogonal-frequency division multiplexing, where the monostatic radar is co-located with the transmit antenna. The monostatic antenna has the perfect knowledge of the transmitted signal and listens to echoes coming from the reflection of fixed or moving targets. We estimate the target parameters, i.e., range and velocity, using a two-dimensional periodogram. By this setup we improve the periodogram estimation performance under the condition of low signal-to-noise ratio using Zadoff-Chu precoding and the discrete Fourier transform channel estimation.” Find the paper and authors list at IEEE Access.
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‘DREiMac: Dimensionality Reduction With Eilenberg-MacLane Coordinates’
“DREiMac is a library for topological data coordinatization, visualization, and dimensionality reduction. Currently, DREiMac is able to find topology-preserving representations of point clouds taking values in the circle, in higher dimensional tori, in the real and complex projective spaces, and in lens spaces. In a few words, DREiMac takes as input a point cloud together with a topological feature of the point cloud (in the form of a persistent cohomology class), and returns a map from the point cloud to a well-understood topological space.” Find the paper and full list of authors at the Journal of Open Source Software.
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Halacheva receives NSF grant for representation theory research
“This project delves into several research directions within representation theory, which is the mathematical framework for studying objects through their symmetries and the operations which preserve them. Such operations can carry a classical, or even more intriguingly a quantum algebraic structure. … Quantum groups and the theory surrounding them are now a thriving source of uncovering new mathematical principles. This project will develop a richer understanding of this theory by building a common ground for combining algebraic, combinatorial and higher-structural categorical techniques for the study of quantum groups and associated diagram algebras.”
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Zhu receives NSF grant for ‘Microlocal Analysis and Singularities’
“Degenerations and singularity formations play important roles in the study of differential geometry and arise naturally in multiple other areas of mathematics, including, algebraic geometry, mathematical physics, number theory and representation theory. This project concerns the geometry of singularities and has interesting connections with an array of disciplines including modeling of electromagnetic systems, gauge theory and string theory. Building on her track record, the PI plans to use effective techniques to solve a wide variety of problems and discover new and sharper analytic results. Alongside her research, the PI will engage in various outreach activities.”
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Laredo receives NSF grant to bridge ‘classical and quantum symmetries’
“This project stems from the recent discovery that quantum groups naturally arise from the Stokes data of differential equations associated to classical symmetries. The main goals are to further explore this bridge between classical and quantum symmetries. Of particular interest is the extension to difference equations, which are natural discretisations of differential equations, and whose Stokes data are not well-understood beyond the one-variable case. Another important direction will the study of the integrable systems, or constants of motion, corresponding to these differential and difference equations. The project will provide research training opportunities for graduate students.”
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Hughes receives funding for maintenance of eelgrass seeds
“This project,” funded by the Massachusetts Department of Fish and Game, “funds a research assistant to collect and maintain a supply of eelgrass seeds that can be used in restoration efforts. They will also help MA DMF develop best practices for seed collection, storage, and distribution in support of state-wide restoration projects.”
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Bi receives NIH grant for ‘biophysical modeling for collective tissue mechanics’
“Organ surfaces, made of epithelial or endothelial cells, serve as physical barriers. These cells are generally static but can transition to a dynamic, migratory state during physiological processes like development and repair. … Key questions remain about how curvature affects cell collective movement and the mechanics of multilayered tissues like mammalian epidermis. … To address these gaps, I plan to develop computational models that go beyond the conventional 2D approach, incorporating curved and multilayered 3D surfaces. This will include new models exploring the biomechanical relationship between nuclear shapes and cell proliferation.”
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Ferrins receives ACS Medicinal Chemistry Predoctoral Fellowship
“This fellowship funds a year of research in the field of medicinal chemistry through a sponsorship by Genentech.”
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“This grant is from the NSF Designing Materials to Revolutionize and Engineer our Future (DMREF) program and aims to accelerate the discovery and deployment of multi-layer twisted 2D systems for quantum optoelectronics.”
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Seitz receives NIH grant to study working memory
“This proposal aims to improve the rigor and reproducibility of research on plasticity in human working memory (WM), and related executive functions (EFs) in adolescent youth. We address a critical gap between research and practice that is characterized by a growing commercial space marketing cognitive training approaches (with WM being one of the most common targets), which are particularly catering to typically developing children and those diagnosed with ADHD to improve mental health and scholastic performance.”
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Schultz receives NOAA grant to study carbon dioxide removal
“This project will focus on two [carbon dioxide removal] approaches with direct influence on the ocean sediment: seaweed farming and further sinking into the deep ocean and restoration of ‘blue carbon’ coastal ecosystem, more specifically cessation of bottom trawling to preserve sediment carbon. We will do so by developing a new model for the ocean sediment and benthos that can be coupled to existing ocean models to simulate these strategies and quantify their effect on the carbon cycle as well as understand potential feedbacks that could impact the ocean ecosystem.”