Using tweets to predict real-time food shortages
The sentiments and emotions expressed in tweets on Twitter can be used in real time to assess where supply chain disruptions due to a pandemic, war or natural disaster may lead to food shortages, according to researchers at Penn State and the Hamad Bin Khalifa University in Qatar.
IST’s Dongwon Lee receives Fulbright Cyber Security Scholar Award
Dongwon Lee, professor of information sciences and technology, is the recipient of a 2022 Fulbright Cyber Security Scholar Award. Lee will complete his Fulbright fellowship in the psychology department at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom as part of his sabbatical leave during the 2022-23 academic year.
New model could have ‘Moneyball’-like impact on baseball players’ value
In the movie “Moneyball,” a young economics graduate and a cash-strapped Major League Baseball general manager introduce a new way to evaluate baseball players’ value.
Scientists tap AI betting agents to help solve research reproducibility concerns
Scientists are increasingly concerned about that the lack of reproducibility in research may lead to, among other things, slower scientific output and less public trust in science.
College of IST announces eight seed grant recipients
The Penn State College of Information Sciences and Technology (IST) recently announced eight projects that will receive funding from the college’s seed grant program.
Guided understanding, not rules, could help children stay safer online
As an increasing number of children use digital technologies to play, communicate, create, socialize and learn, the number of opportunities for their privacy to be exploited continues to grow.
Facial recognition tech in public could yield perceptions of workplace fairness
Many people use facial recognition technology on their personal devices, to quickly and securely enter a password or complete an online transaction. But when that same technology is deployed in public settings — such as to screen airport passengers or to grant access to a secure location — how do individuals whose images are captured feel?
Science federation highlights Penn State proposal to combat diseases of despair
The Federation of American Scientists has chosen to highlight a proposal by Penn State researchers for the U.S.
James Wang named distinguished professor of IST
James Wang, professor in the College of Information Sciences and Technology, has been conferred the title of distinguished professor, the highest professorial distinction at the University.
Anna Squicciarini named Frymoyer Chair in IST
Anna Squicciarini, Penn State professor of information sciences and technology, has been named Frymoyer Chair in Information Sciences and Technology, effective Dec. 1.
'Black box gaslighting' challenges social-media algorithm accountability
Kelley Cotter, assistant professor in Penn State's College of Information Science and Technology, examined ongoing debate between social media influencers who claim their content is algorithmically suppressed and the social media platforms that deny it but do not provide transparent information on how they operate.
Penn State awarded $3.4 million contract to target plastic waste
Penn State has been awarded a $3.4 million contract from the REMADE Institute to fund research targeting the inefficient methods currently used to process and upcycle mixed plastic waste.
Paper on geovisual analytics wins “Test of Time” award
A 2011 paper authored by Penn State researchers outlining a geovisual analytics approach to support geographically grounded situational awareness of crisis events using social media was selected to receive the 2021 IEEE Symposium on Visual Analytics Science and Technology Test of Time award.
Fostering community across geographically dispersed university campuses
Many U.S. universities comprise a main campus and several branch campuses distributed throughout the state. Researchers in the College of Information Sciences and Technology investigated whether students at these various campuses feel that they belong to a unified university community.
IST research represented in 11 papers at 2021 CSCW
Eleven papers that involve researchers at the College of IST were accepted to this year’s Association for Computing Machinery’s 2021 Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing, a top venue for human-computer interaction research that will be held virtually Oct. 23-27.
Interactions with unreliable infrastructures could be key to smart city design
Research from the College of Information Sciences and Technology found that smart city designs should consider the daily experiences of citizens or allow them to adapt their own solutions, particularly in areas with historically unreliable infrastructures.
New game can help users identify, avoid online echo chambers
Researchers at the College of Information Sciences and Technology have developed a theory-based game that enables a player to test their own awareness of content that could result in an echo chamber and to observe how echo chambers are accelerated by the spread of misinformation.
Search engine could help researchers scour internet for privacy documents
Researchers say a search engine, which uses an artificial intelligence called natural language processing, could be an important tool for researchers trying to find ways to design a safer internet.
What was really the secret behind Van Gogh's success?
Before developing his famed “drip technique,” abstract artist Jackson Pollock dabbled in drawing, print making and surrealist paintings of humans, animals and nature.
Vasant Honavar named Huck Chair in Biomedical Data Sciences and AI
Vasant Honavar, professor in the College of Information Sciences and Technology, has been named the Dorothy Foehr Huck and J. Lloyd Huck Chair in Biomedical Data Sciences and Artificial Intelligence by the University’s Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences.
New tool fuses expert knowledge and deep learning features to detect sleep apnea
Individuals who suspect they have sleep apnea — and the doctors who diagnose them — could soon have more effective way to automatically detect the condition at home, thanks to a new method developed by researchers at the Penn State College of Information Sciences and Technology.
College of IST announces six seed grant recipients
The Penn State College of Information Sciences and Technology recently announced six projects that will receive funding from the college’s seed grant program. The program provides preliminary funding for IST researchers and collaborators to initiate new projects.
COVID-19 study aims to make local policy announcements more culturally dependent
Researchers from the Penn State College of Information Sciences and Technology recently studied a new form of crisis information exchange that has emerged between geographically dispersed areas to facilitate local crisis responses during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Surprisingly popular voting algorithm developed to recover ranked choices
Imagine you are asked to rank the counties in Pennsylvania in terms of number of COVID-19 infections. Or you may be asked to rank cities in Pennsylvania based on their populations.
Andrea Tapia named associate dean for research in the College of IST
Andrea Tapia, professor in the College of Information Sciences and Technology (IST), has been named IST’s associate dean for research, effective Sept. 1.
New tool could help authors bust writer's block in novel-length works
Authors experiencing writer’s block could soon have a new way to help develop the next section of their story. Researchers at the Penn State College of Information Sciences and Technology recently introduced a new technology that forecasts the future development of an ongoing written story.
New framework could help teachers personalize their professional learning
Digital badges used as emblems to indicate an accomplishment or skill is a concept familiar to online learners seeking advanced knowledge in their profession. For many learners, digital badges have been used as a motivation to continue along a prescribed path — often through workshop attendance or completion of required online learning modules.
Block by block: Researchers use Minecraft to advance artificial intelligence
Researchers received a $900,000 grant to create artificial intelligence that can plan for and solve future problems. They will test the new software on the video game Minecraft.
Counting pandemic behaviors to inform public health decisions
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought many significant changes to people's lives, but one of the most visible signals of this has been the proliferation of masks and other face-coverings in public spaces.
Honeypot security technique can also stop attacks in natural language processing
As online fake news detectors and spam filters become more sophisticated, so do attackers’ methods to trick them — including attacks through the “universal trigger.” In this learning-based method, an attacker uses a phrase or set of words to fool an indefinite number of inputs, which could lead to more fake news appearing in your social media fe
Networking and collaboration lead to best paper award for IST doctoral student
At the College of Information Sciences and Technology, doctoral student Jeongwon Jo has benefited from having access to an interdisciplinary network of experts and scholars to help advance her research.
Women and lower-education users more likely to tweet personal information
When it comes to what users share on Twitter, women and users who never attended college voluntarily disclose more personal information than users from other socioeconomic and demographic backgrounds — potentially making these populations more susceptible to online privacy threats, according to a recent study led by the Penn State College of Inf
Susser awarded Haile Family Early Career Professorship at IST
Assistant Professor Daniel Susser has been awarded the Haile Family Early Career Professorship in Information Sciences and Technology. The endowed position supports standout faculty members to foster a commitment to teaching, provide funds for emerging research, and offer recognition for their accomplishments.
IST faculty named executive VP of society on computer-human interaction
Shaowen Bardzell, professor of information sciences and technology, has been elected as executive vice-president for the Association for Computing Machinery Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction (ACM SIGCHI), the premier international society for all professionals, academics and students interested in human-computer interaction.
$1.2 million NSF grant to create search engine for online privacy research
A $1.2 million National Science Foundation (NSF) grant will help researchers build a search engine and create other resources for scientists who need to scour billions of online documents to improve online privacy.
IST research well-represented at top Communities and Technologies conference
A research group from the Penn State College of Information Sciences and Technology is well-represented at the virtual 10th International Conference on Communities and Technology, which began June 21. Five papers from the Center for Human-Computer Interaction were accepted to the conference, representing 20% of the papers program.
Clickbait headlines might not lure readers as much, may confuse AI
A Penn State team of researchers found that clickbait often did not perform any better and, in some cases, performed worse than traditional headlines. They also found that artificial intelligence systems designed to spot clickbait struggled with the task.
Parenting teens: Is there an app for that?
Penn State researchers, with funding from the Mental Research Institute, are developing a smartphone app to promote positive, engaged family relationships that support healthy development for adolescents.
Treating non-humans as stakeholders key to sustainable technologies
Researchers from the Penn State College of Information Sciences and Technology made a methodological contribution toward a potential answer to the challenging problem of how to operationalize posthuman concepts into practice for human-computer interaction through the art of noticing — specifically, observing birds to reimagine their relationship
Gamrat co-authors book chapter on state of microlearning in higher ed
Chris Gamrat, instructional designer at the College of Information Sciences and Technology, is co-author on a chapter in the new book Microlearning in the Digital
Essential workers' tweets show surprising positivity during pandemic
During the COVID-19 pandemic, essential workers tweeted less often than general users about COVID-19 but more about overall mental health issues, according to researchers at the Penn State College of Information Sciences and Technology.
Study of police language aims to find patterns that may lead to tragic outcomes
With a new grant from the National Institutes of Health, an interdisciplinary team of researchers aims to examine police radio communications to observe what happens during adverse encounters between police officers and male minority youth and study any patterns of interaction that may lead to unfortunate or tragic outcomes.
Two faculty members receive Amazon Research Awards
Penn State faculty members James Wang, professor of information sciences and technology, and Rui Zhang, assistant professor of computer science and engineering, each received a 2020 Amazon Research Award, which was announced publicly in April of this year.
2021 Guentter Outstanding Undergraduate Thesis Award finalists, winner named
Penn State University Libraries and the Schreyer Honors College recognized the 10th annual finalist presentations and winner of the recently endowed Robert F. Guentter Jr. Outstanding Undergraduate Thesis Award on May 6, immediately following the three finalists’ remote presentations.
Observing eco farmers could guide sustainable information technology innovation
Cutting-edge agricultural technology has advanced in recent years, introducing innovations from self-driving tractors and laser scarecrows to robotic bees that aid in pollination.
Virtual conference explores artificial intelligence in a post-COVID world
On May 13, the Penn State Center for Socially Responsible Artificial Intelligence hosted "AI in a Post-COVID World," a virtual conference that will brought together experts from a variety of disciplines to discuss how artificial intelligence has aided in tackling the COVID-19 pandemic.
Twitter data unveils issues nursing mothers face, informs proposed interventions
Social media has become a platform for new mothers to openly share their experiences of the joys and challenges of parenthood.
Amazon Alexa skill offers supportive care to breast cancer patients
Penn State researchers have developed an Amazon Alexa skill to remotely deliver validated interventions to metastatic breast cancer patients in the comfort of their own homes.
AI Hub to help enhance Penn State's global leadership in artificial intelligence
Penn State has launched an expanded initiative in Artificial Intelligence (AI), termed the AI Hub, which will bring together the University’s considerable resources and talent in AI to further advance its position as a global leader developing fundamental innovations in AI, in using AI and machine learning (ML) to solve the hardest challenges, a
Penn State center to advance AI tools to accelerate scientific progress
A new research center, the Center for Artificial Intelligence Foundations and Scientific Applications, or CENSAI, will unite Penn State researchers to explore the use of artificial intelligence as a tool to dramatically accelerate the scientific process, an initiative that the center’s organizers say could rapidly accelerate scientific progress.