Title

Topic

  • ‘Sustainable HCI Under Water: Opportunities for Research with Oceans, Coastal Communities and Marine Systems’

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    “Although the world’s oceans play a critical role in human well-being, they have not been a primary focus of the sustainable HCI (SHCI) community to date. In this paper, we present a scoping review to show how concerns with the oceans are threaded throughout the broader SHCI literature and to find new research opportunities. We identify several themes that could benefit from focused SHCI research, including marine food sources, culture and coastal communities, ocean conservation, and marine climate change impacts and adaptation strategies.” Find the paper and full list of authors at the Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems.

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  • ‘Opportunities for Nature-Based Solutions To Contribute to Climate-Resilient Development Pathways’

    “There is potential for nature-based solutions (NbS) to contribute to climate-resilient development (CRD) due to their integrated approach to mitigation, adaptation, and sustainable development. … A CRD pathways (CRDP) approach helps to analyze the complexities of the relationship between CRD and NbS, and a climate justice lens enables the identification of the multiple ways that NbS can support or undermine CRD. … We present a framework that combines climate justice and CRDP in an analytical tool for understanding the potential for a NbS to support CRD.” Find the paper and full list of authors in Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability.

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  • ‘Rapid Convergence: The Outcomes of Making PPE During a Healthcare Crisis’

    “The U.S. National Institute of Health (NIH) 3D Print Exchange is a public, open-source repository for 3D printable medical device designs with contributions from clinicians, expert-amateur makers, and people from industry and academia. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the NIH formed a collection to foster submissions of low-cost, locally manufacturable personal protective equipment (PPE). We evaluated the 623 submissions in this collection … [and] found an immediate design convergence to manufacturing-focused remixes of a few initial designs affiliated with NIH partners and major for-profit groups.” Find the paper and full list of authors at ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction.

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  • ‘OPTIMISM: Enabling Collaborative Implementation of Domain Specific Metaheuristic Optimization’

    “For non-technical domain experts and designers it can be a substantial challenge to create designs that meet domain specific goals. This presents an opportunity to create specialized tools that produce optimized designs in the domain. However, implementing domain-specific optimization methods requires a rare combination of programming and domain expertise. … We present OPTIMISM, a toolkit which enables programmers and domain experts to collaboratively implement an optimization component of design tools.” Find the paper and full list of authors in the Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems proceedings.

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  • ‘The First COVID Wave: Comparing Experiences of Adults Age 50 and Older in the U.S. and Europe’

    “The first wave of COVID-19, from March to September 2020, had significant health, social, and financial consequences for older Americans and their European peers. Comparing their COVID-19 experiences is important for understanding the variable impacts of the pandemic. … During the first COVID-19 wave, older Americans were much more likely than their European peers to report at least one of the four adverse COVID-19 experiences we studied. These experiences could have lasting effects on older adults in the U.S.” Find the paper and full list of authors at The Commonwealth Fund.

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  • How a deep dive into the internet’s vital protocols earned a ‘Best Paper’ honor

    Milton Posner, for the Khoury College of Computer Science, details how “A Formal Analysis of Karn’s Algorithm,” a paper written by professor Cristina Nita-Rotaru, PhD. student Max von Hippel, and “Lenore Zuck at the University of Illinois Chicago, and Ken McMillan at the University of Texas at Austin,” has won a best paper award for its exploration of a protocol important to the basic functioning of the internet.

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  • ‘Closing the Gap in Merger Enforcement’

    “Most mergers in industries with only a handful of competitors are anticompetitive, so why don’t we block them?” asks Neal F. Finnegan Distinguished Professor of Economics John Kwoka. “The fix is to use a structural presumption to lower the burden for regulators,” he argues, stating that “a well-designed merger enforcement policy should focus on mergers with the greatest likelihood of anticompetitive outcomes,” which has not recently been true of United States policy.

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  • ‘Documentary Film and Institutional Behavioral Change: A Student-Driven Mobilization for Sustainability’

    “There are multiple methods available to convey the need for sustainability. However, most often communications are limited to one discipline or one instructional medium, which limits engagement and even interest. In the summer of 2021, students at Northeastern University working with their faculty advisor, adopted a multidisciplinary approach to discussing sustainability by producing a documentary film. The subject of the film is waste resulting from convenience consumption of coffee at the University’s multiple coffee shops.” Find this book chapter and the full list of authors in Educating the Sustainability Leaders of the Future.

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  • Ozone Tattoo project empowers citizen scientists to track pollution in their communities

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    The revolutionary Ozone Tattoo project, created by professor Dietmar Offenhuber, teaches observers how to identify the specific damage patterns of ground-level ozone on plant leaves. The project is now a Falling Walls 2023 award winner.

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  • Understanding human decision-making during supply chains shortages

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    “Research conducted by mechanical and industrial engineering associate professor Jacqueline Griffin, professor Ozlem Ergun, and professor Stacy Marsella [in the Khoury College of Computer science, titled] ‘Agent-Based Modeling of Human Decision-Makers Under Uncertain Information During Supply Chain Shortages’ was published in the proceedings from the 2023 International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems.”

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  • ‘Aligning Economic Measurement With Well-Being: Sustainability’

    “Gross domestic product (GDP) has been the prevailing global metric for measuring economic growth for the past 70 years. This is the same time period that is credited with the observation of manmade climate change. … To the extent that market prices and participants do not include holistic impacts of resource use and instead determine value based on immediate gratification, GDP growth is correlated with negative externalities, which impose limits on the future quality of life. … In this chapter, we explore how GDP gained traction on a global scale and how the indicator is tied to climate change.”

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  • ‘The Interplay Among Savings Accounts and Network-Based Financial Arrangements: Evidence From a Field Experiment’

    “This paper studies how formal financial access affects network-based financial arrangements. We use a field experiment that granted access to a savings account to a random subset of households in 19 Nepalese villages. Exploiting a unique panel dataset that follows all bilateral informal financial transactions before and after the intervention, we show that households that were offered access to an account increased their loans and total transfers to others, independent of the treatment status of the receiver.” Find the paper and full list of authors at The Economic Journal.

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  • ‘Small Business Lending and the Bank-Branch Network’

    “I examine the role of bank’s distance to the borrower and the proximity of other lenders for the transmission of financial shocks across the bank network. I use a novel dataset of small business lending based on information from the Community Reinvestment Act, which measures lending at census tract groups within each county and yields rich variation. … I document that small banks with increased liquidity from proximity to local oil booms, originate more loans to firms far from these booms, and lenders with above-average geographic exposure to residential booms reduce lending in census tract groups with stable house prices.”

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  • ‘Designing Engagement: A Student-Based Perspective of the Economics of Crime’

    “This paper, developed by participants in an Economics of Crime course at Northeastern University in conjunction with their professor, highlights student perspectives of the relationship between the economic system, its operations and institutions, and the marginalization and victimization of Black people. The paper addresses specific attributes of the course curriculum that facilitated student understanding of these topics, and in doing so suggests an alternative pedagogy for discussing crime from an economics disciplinary perspective.” Find the paper and full list of authors at Contemporary Justice Review.

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  • Hajjar receives leadership award for contributions to civil engineering education

    “The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) has awarded … Jerome F. Hajjar, CDM Smith Professor and chair of the department of civil and environmental engineering at Northeastern University, the 2023 Thomas A. Lenox Excellence in Civil Engineering Education (ExCEEd) Leadership Award for extraordinary leadership in civil engineering education. The award was presented at the Civil Engineering Division Banquet at the 2023 Annual Conference of the American Society for Engineering Education in Baltimore, Maryland.”

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  • Developing new generation of intelligent tutoring systems for advanced manufacturing

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    “Mechanical and industrial engineering assistant professor Mohsen Moghaddam is leading a $850K NSF grant for ‘Accelerating Skill Acquisition in Complex Psychomotor Tasks via an Intelligent Extended Reality Tutoring System.’ Project collaborators include Northeastern University co-principal investigators Kemi Jona, assistant vice chancellor for digital innovation and enterprise learning, Casper Harteveld, associate professor of game design and associate dean of the College of Arts, Media and Design and Mehmet Kosa, postdoctoral research associate working with Casper. This project builds upon the ongoing research of the PI at the intersection of AI and augmented, virtual, and mixed reality, sponsored by NSF, DARPA, and…

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  • Air Force Office of Scientific Research provides $540K grant for video anomaly detection

    “Electrical and computer engineering and Khoury College of Computer Science professor Yun Raymond Fu received a $540,000 Air Force Office of Scientific Research grant to address video anomaly detection through deep learning and perturbation techniques.”

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  • Northeastern researchers claim two editorial roles for Written Communication

    Mya Poe, associate professor in the department of English and Tieanna Graphenreed, PhD. student in English, have become co-editors of Written Communication, along with Dylan B. Dryer, University of Maine. They write that they “hope to further enrich Written Communication in four ways: First, we aim to increase the journal’s visibility as a potential home for work by scholars based in Asia, Africa, and South America. … Second, Written Communication will continue to advance methodological representation. … Third, we are planning to roll out a series of novel text-types. … Fourth, … we hope to reanimate the journal’s important role…

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  • Wanunu receives $2M grant for ‘single-molecule’ protein identification

    “Meni Wanunu, associate professor of physics and bioengineering affiliated faculty member, received a $2,000,000 R01 grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH)/National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) for ‘Asymmetric Single-Chain MspA Nanopores for Electroosmotic Stretching and Sequencing Proteins.’ … [Wanunu and collaborators] will develop a next-generation single-molecule protein sequencer based on engineered high-resolution nanopores. Protein identification and/or single-molecule protein sequencing from minute amounts could revolutionize our understanding of health by providing a picture of the molecular state of the cell at the level of its most functional molecules.”

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  • Advancing distributed optimization for non-convex problems

    “Mechanical and industrial engineering assistant professor Shahin Shahrampour has received a $500,000 NSF grant, in collaboration with Texas A&M University, to address ‘Consensus and Distributed Optimization in Non-Convex Environments With Applications to Networked Machine Learning.'”

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  • Improving efficiency of data-centric computing

    “Electrical and computer engineering professor Edmund Yeh was awarded a patent for ‘Network and Method for Servicing a Computation Request.'”

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  • Minkara serves as moderator for intersection of disability panel

    “Bioengineering assistant professor Mona Minkara served as a moderator for the ‘Intersection of Disability Panel’ at the Disrupting Ableism and Advancing STEM: A National Leadership Summit held on June 5, 2023.” Click on “Learn More” to watch the video.

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  • Understanding cell transitions in tumor development

    “University distinguished professor Herbert Levine, physics and bioengineering, in collaboration with Brown University and MD Anderson Cancer Center, is leading a $1,200,000 NSF grant for determining the ‘Regulation of Cellular Stemness During the Epithelial-Mesenchymal Transition (EMT).'”

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  • ‘Predictors and Consequences of Pro-Environmental Behavior at Work’

    “Increasingly, people are looking for meaning through their jobs, for employers that have a positive impact on the world, and for workplaces that promote mission-driven behavior. One such mission that is a growing priority is addressing climate change, especially for younger cohorts entering the workforce. Addressing the climate crisis will necessitate substantial changes at all levels of society, including organizational change. This paper examines individual, social, and contextual variables that are associated with pro-environmental behavior (PEB).” Find the paper and full list of authors at ResearchGate.

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  • The math says that parents shouldn’t worry over shootings as students head back to school, says Northeastern researcher

    Professor of criminology, law and public policy James Alan Fox, and a principal researcher for the Northeastern University Mass Killing Database, writes that, while anxiety around rising numbers of school shootings are understandable, “The real epidemic is fear.” Fox argues that the data shows “Our nation’s schools are safe. In fact, only one-half of 1% of school-age victims of gun homicide are killed at school. Children are safer in school, where they have supervision and structure, than on playgrounds, ball fields and street corners. Indeed, some are safer at school than in their own home.”

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  • ‘Microbial Chemolithoautotrophs are Abundant in Salt Marsh Sediment Following Long-Term Experimental Nitrate Enrichment’

    “Long-term anthropogenic nitrate (NO3−) enrichment is a serious threat to many coastal systems. Nitrate reduction coupled with the oxidation of reduced forms of sulfur is conducted by chemolithoautotrophic microbial populations in a process that decreases nitrogen (N) pollution. However, little is known about the diversity and distribution of microbes capable of carbon fixation within salt marsh sediment and how they respond to long-term NO3− loading. We used genome-resolved metagenomics to characterize the distribution, phylogenetic relationships, and adaptations important to microbial communities within NO3− enriched sediment.” Find the paper and full list of authors at FEMS Microbiology Letters.

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  • ‘Workforce Ecosystems and AI’

    “Companies increasingly rely on an extended workforce (e.g., contractors, gig workers … and technologies such as algorithmic management and artificial intelligence) to achieve strategic goals and objectives. When we ask leaders to describe how they define their workforce today, they mention a diverse array of participants, beyond just full- and part-time employees, all contributing in various ways. … Our ongoing research on workforce ecosystems demonstrates that managing work across organizational boundaries with groups of interdependent actors in a variety of employment relationships creates new opportunities and risks for both workers and businesses.” Find the paper and full list of authors…

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  • Questions of equitability surround low-emission zones

    A As London attempts to expand its Ultra-Low Emissions Zone, the policy faces backlash, as the pay-to-drive policies “punish the poorest drivers and offer no alternatives in places with limited public transit,” writes professor Joan Fitzgerald. While these zones may be helpful in the fight against climate change, without public services like “adequate public transportation, safe bike lanes, and fair subsidies for purchasing compliant vehicles,” she continues, low-emission zones “are unjust and lose necessary political support.”

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  • ‘Adolescent Friendship, Cross-Sexuality Ties and Attitudes Toward Sexual Minorities: A Social Network Approach to Intergroup Contact’

    “Social ties between members of in- and outgroups are theorized to reduce individual levels of prejudice. However, instances of intergroup contact are not isolated events; cross-group interactions are embedded in broader networks defined by various social processes that guide the formation and maintenance of interpersonal relationships. This project reconsiders the potential benefits of intergroup contact by applying a network perspective to examine whether friendships between youth of different sexualities can shape individuals’ homophobic attitudes.” Find the paper and full list of authors in Social Science Research.

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  • Developing a Computer Model for Carbon Dioxide Conversion

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    “Chemical engineering associate professor Richard West … assistant professor Magda Barecka and … assistant professor Qing Zhao were awarded a $500,000 grant for ‘Accelerating Electrocatalyst Innovation: High-Throughput Automated Microkinetic, Multiscale and Techno-economic Modeling’ as part of the Creating Revolutionary Energy and Technology Endeavors (CREATE) Exploratory Topic managed by the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E). The objective of CREATE Exploratory Topic is to identify and support disruptive energy-related technologies and have the potential for large-scale impact. Northeastern University will develop a computer model that could identify new avenues for producing essential chemical ingredients using carbon dioxide, a waste product of fossil…

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