Title
Topic
-
‘Encrypted Databases Made Secure Yet Maintainable’
“State-of-the-art encrypted databases (EDBs) can be divided into two types: one that protects the whole DBMS engine in a trusted domain, and one that protects only operators that support queries over encrypted data. Both types have limitations when dealing with malicious database administrators (DBAs). The first type either exposes the data to DBAs or makes maintenance operations difficult if the DBA role is eliminated. The second type is vulnerable to abuse of the operator interfaces; … we devise a smuggle attack that enables DBAs to secretly and effectively access data.” Find the paper and full list of authors at USENIX.
-
‘Toward Computationally-Supported Roleplaying for Perspective-Taking’
“Designing and studying computationally-supported roleplaying for changing social perspectives of players is a complex and challenging problem. As indispensable components of roleplaying games (RPGs), narratives have the potential to promote successful perspective-taking. … We first present the design of a visual novel style RPG scenario addressing xenophobia and bullying, using an interactive narrative powered by a computational narrative engine. We then report on a usability evaluation of our interactive narrative system and an empirical evaluation of the RPG’s effectiveness in promoting successful perspective-taking through a crowdsourced online experiment.” Find the full list of authors in the International Conference on Human-Computer…
-
‘Multi-Modal Interactive Perception in Human Control of Complex Objects’
“Tactile sensing has been increasingly utilized in robot control of unknown objects to infer physical properties and optimize manipulation. However, there is limited understanding about the contribution of different sensory modalities … in robots and in humans. This study investigated the effect of visual and haptic information on humans’ exploratory interactions with a ‘cup of coffee,’ an object with nonlinear internal dynamics. … The results highlight how visual and haptic information regarding nonlinear internal dynamics have distinct roles for the interactive perception of complex objects.” Find the paper and full list of authors in the International Conference on Robotics and…
-
‘SHAI 2023: Workshop on Designing for Safety in Human-AI Interactions’
“Generative ML models present a novel opportunity for a wider group of societal members to engage with AI, imagine new use cases, and applications. … However, owing to the novelty and despite best intentions, inadvertent outcomes might accrue leading to harms, especially to marginalized groups in society. …. Our workshop is aimed at such practitioners and researchers at the intersection of AI and HCI who are interested in collaboratively identifying challenges and solutions to create safer outcomes with Generative ML models.” Find the paper and full list of authors in the Companion Proceedings of the 28th International Conference on Intelligent…
-
‘Exploring the Use of Personalized AI for Identifying Misinformation on Social Media’
“This work aims to explore how human assessments and AI predictions can … identify misinformation on social media. To do so, we design a personalized AI which iteratively takes as training data a single user’s assessment of content and predicts how the same user would assess other content. We conduct a user study in which participants interact with a personalized AI that learns their assessments of a feed of tweets, shows its predictions of whether a user would find other tweets (in)accurate, and evolves according to the user feedback.” Find the paper and list of authors in the 2023 CHI…
-
‘Understanding Dark Patterns in Home IoT Devices’
“Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices are ubiquitous, but little attention has been paid to how they may incorporate dark patterns despite consumer protections and privacy concerns arising from their unique access to intimate spaces and always-on capabilities. … We update manual interaction and annotation methods for the IoT context, then analyze dark pattern frequency across device types, manufacturers, and interaction modalities. We find that dark patterns are pervasive in IoT experiences, but manifest in diverse ways across device traits.” Find the paper and the full list of authors in the Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems.
-
‘Doubly Efficient Private Information Retrieval and Fully Homomorphic RAM Computation From Ring LWE’
“A (single server) private information retrieval (PIR) allows a client to read data from a public database held on a remote server, without revealing to the server which locations she is reading. In a doubly efficient PIR (DEPIR), the database is first preprocessed, but the server can subsequently answer any client’s query in time that is sub-linear in the database size. … In this work we construct the stronger unkeyed notion of DEPIR, where the preprocessing is a deterministic procedure that the server can execute on its own.” Find the paper and full list of authors in the STOC 2023 proceedings.
-
‘Exploratory Thematic Analysis of Crowdsourced Photosensitivity Warnings’
“Films often include sequences of flashing lights for visual effect that may inadvertently trigger seizures when viewed by individuals with photosensitive epilepsy (PSE). Warnings about photosensitive risk in films can help people with PSE make informed decisions about their personal safety, but little is known about how to design such warnings and what information to include. To better understand the design space for photosensitive risk warnings, we conducted a qualitative analysis of 265 crowdsourced warnings about flashing lights in films.” Find the paper and the full list of authors at Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems 2023 proceedings.
-
‘Is “Categorical Imperative” Metaversal?: A Kantian Ethical Framework for Social Virtual Reality’
“The increasing adoption of social virtual reality (VR) environments for socializing and collaborating with others has led to a growing concern about ethical issues in these immersive environments. Beyond the introduction of some practical guidelines, theoretical work on this topic has been scant. In this paper, we propose an ethical framework for social VR based on Kant’s Theory of Morality. In so doing, we argue that the Kantian concept of categorical imperative does apply to social VR.” Find the paper and the full list of authors in the Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems 2023 proceedings.
-
‘”Who is the Right Homeless Client?”: Values in Algorithmic Homelessness Service Provision and Machine Learning Research’
“Homelessness presents a long-standing problem worldwide. Like other welfare services, homeless services have gained increased traction in Machine Learning (ML) research. Unhoused persons are vulnerable and using their data in the ML pipeline raises serious concerns about the unintended harms and consequences of prioritizing different ML values. … Unhoused persons were lost (i.e., humans were deprioritized) at multi-level ML abstraction of predictors, categories and algorithms. Our findings illuminate potential pathways forward … by situating humans at the center to support this vulnerable community.” Find the paper and full list of authors in the Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems,…
-
‘Why, When and From Whom: Considerations for Collecting and Reporting Race and Ethnicity Data in HCI’
“Engaging diverse participants in HCI research is critical for creating safe, inclusive, and equitable technology. However, there is a lack of guidelines on when, why, and how HCI researchers collect study participants’ race and ethnicity. Our paper aims to take the first step toward such guidelines by providing a systematic review and discussion of the status quo of race and ethnicity data collection in HCI.” Find the paper and full list of authors in the Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2023, proceedings.
-
‘Homo in Machina: Improving Fuzz Testing Coverage via Compartment Analysis’
“Fuzz testing is often automated, but also frequently augmented by experts who insert themselves into the workflow in a greedy search for bugs. In this paper, we propose Homo in Machina, or HM-fuzzing, in which analyses guide the manual efforts, maximizing benefit. As one example … we introduce compartment analysis. Compartment analysis uses a whole-program dominator analysis to estimate the utility of reaching new code, and combines this with a dynamic analysis indicating drastically under-covered edges guarding that code.” Find the paper and full list of authors in the proceedings of the 2023 IEEE Conference on Software Testing, Verification and…
-
Using ‘recycled plastic as a building material’ on exhibit at 2023 Venice Biennale
Assistant professor of architecture Ang Li exhibited work at the U.S. Pavilion of the 2023 Venice Biennale. Li’s work conducts “investigations into the use of recycled plastic as a building material and structural system.” Read more about Li’s work and the other invited artists at Archinect.
-
China Insights Series: How Chinese companies are reinventing management control
Professor George Yip gave a presentation in the China Insight Series. “China’s companies have long been acclaimed for their manufacturing prowess and, more recently, for their pragmatic approach to innovation. It’s time to recognize how they are also reinventing management control for the digital era through an approach we call ‘digitally-enhanced directed autonomy,’ which gives employees autonomy while monitoring more precisely how they exercise it.”
-
Self-reflection encouraged for teachers in ‘My Teaching Routine’
Mark Martin, assistant professor in computer science and education practice at Northeastern University London, has published a book called “My Teaching Routine.” “This book encourages you to reflect on your teaching style,” the publishing copy reads, “and challenges you to understand when things are going well, when things need change and when they need to be dropped.” A book launch was held on March 15, 2023, over Zoom.
-
Disability studies research incorporated into robotic sculpture
Laura Forlano, professor of art and design and communication studies, has had her work featured in a “robotic sculpture” designed by multimedia artist Itziar Barrio. “Some of the sculptures are programmed and inscribed with text that Forlano, a Type 1 diabetic, transcribed from the alert and alarm history from her ‘smart’ insulin pump and then annotated with field notes,” writes Smack Mellon, Barrio’s exhibition space in Brooklyn, New York. The exhibition’s title, “did not feel low, was sleeping,” is sourced from one of the sculptures in Barrio’s collaboration with Forlano. The exhibition ran from March to April, 2023.
-
‘Ungrading With Empathy: An Experiment in Ungrading for Intermediate Data Science’
“We implemented a model for grading weekly assignments in an intermediate data science course that explicitly gave students useful feedback on their code while not evaluating it on the traditional metrics of correctness or style. … Our ungrading policy was designed to extend empathy towards students and to give them useful, actionable feedback. Our policy reduced the stress that students felt each week, stabilized the amount of time they spent on assignments, and ask them to reflect on their code to request feedback from the teaching team.” Find the paper and the full list of authors in the SIGCSE 2023…
-
‘A Flexible Formative/Summative Grading System for Large Courses’
“We designed a formative/summative grading system in our CS0 and CS1 classes for both on-campus and online students to support a structured growth mindset. Students can redo formative assignments and are provided flexible deadlines. They demonstrate their mastery in summative assignments. While being inspired by other grading systems, our system works seamlessly with auto-grading tools used in large, structured courses. … These students went to the traditional follow-on CS2 course and 94% passed compared with 71% who took CS1 with a traditional grading system.” Read the paper and see the full list of authors in the proceedings of SIGCSE 2023.
-
‘Teaching Assistant Training: An Adjustable Curriculum for Computing Disciplines’
“We present an adaptable curriculum for training undergraduate and graduate teaching assistants (TAs) in computing disciplines that is modular, synchronous, and explicitly mirrors the teaching techniques that are used in our classes. Our curriculum is modular, with each component able to be expanded or compressed based on institutional needs and resources. It is appropriate for TAs from CS1 through advanced computing classes.” Read the paper and see the full list of authors in the proceedings of SIGCSE 2023.
-
Northeastern University Qualitative Research Conference builds ‘a global community’
Hosted by professors Stine Grodal and Jamie Ladge, as well as postdoctoral associate Gabriel Sala, the Northeastern University Qualitative Research Conference is “a free half-day online conference” that aims “to build a global community of qualitative scholars in order to advance qualitative methods and develop junior scholars.” The conference was hosted on March 1st, 2023.
-
Jornet receives best demo for ‘Adversarial Aerial Metasurfaces’ at ACM HotMobile 2023
“Electrical and computer engineering associate professor Josep Jornet received the Best Demo Award at the 24th International Workshop on Mobile Computing Systems and Applications (HotMobile) for the work titled ‘Adversarial Aerial Metasurfaces,’ with electrical engineering student Sherif Badran, PhD’26, and collaborators at Rice and Brown Universities.”
-
Bajpayee spotlight speaker at Orthopedic Research Society
Associate professor Ambika Bajpayee presented as a spotlight speaker at the 2023 Orthopedic Research Society conferences, from February 10-14. Her talk was on “Bioelectricity for Cartilage Drug Delivery and Imaging.”
-
Ganguly presents ‘a personal journey’ of climate resistance
“Auroop Ganguly, professor of civil and environmental engineering at Northeastern University, will share his personal journey building climate resilience. Professor Ganguly co-founded the climate analytics startup risQ, which models the complex financial risks posed by climate change.”