With much of the world now socially distanced to stem the tide of a global pandemic, it seems a lifetime ago that more than 220 attendees gathered on the evening of Feb. 28 to attend the 2020 Hall of Fame Celebration for the Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences (ICS) and Samueli School of Engineering. There was no way to know that widespread quarantines were just around the corner, but this year’s event could not have happened at a better time — or place. As UCI alumni and their family and friends, along with faculty and staff, playfully explored a room full of interactive science-based exhibits, there was no doubting that the Discovery Cube Orange County was the perfect place to honor the achievements of computer scientists and engineers.
[Read more…]‘Just Code It’ Introduces Middle Schools Girls to Computer Science
When computer science major Bhavani Panda first came to UCI, she was determined to join a campus club related to her major. So when she learned about Women in Information and Computer Sciences (WICS), it was a perfect fit. Now the third-year undergraduate is co-chair of WICS Community Outreach with fellow computer science major Diellza Sopi, and the two have developed a new program, Just Code It, focused on introducing middle school girls to web development. Although WICS has helped with similar outreach programs in the past, this is the first time the student club has organized its own program from scratch.
Computer Science Team Develops CoronavirusTwitterMap
The research team of Computer Science Professor Chen Li, along with Ph.D. students Qiushi Bai and Yicong Huang, has developed a website called CoronavirusTwitterMap to support interactive visualization and analytics of coronavirus-related tweets in real time. The team started collecting tweets related to COVID-19 in January, and they plan to further improve the system by adding more information such as case numbers of different regions, and certain sentiments of the public as shown on social media. “We hope this website can help people easily visualize and analyze social media tweets temporally and geographically in real time so that we understand how the public is responding to the Coronavirus pandemic,” says Li.
TwitterMap is a research prototype powered by Cloudberry and Apache AsterixDB to support interactive analytics and visualization of large amounts of tweets.
Wired: “This Technique Uses AI to Fool Other AIs” (Sameer Singh quoted)
Artificial intelligence has made big strides recently in understanding language, but it can still suffer from an alarming, and potentially dangerous, kind of algorithmic myopia. Research shows how AI programs that parse and analyze text can be confused and deceived by carefully crafted phrases. A sentence that seems straightforward to you or me may have a strange ability to deceive an AI algorithm.
Read the full story at Wired.
UCI News: “UCI and Disney Research scientists develop AI-enhanced video compression model” (Stephan Mandt quoted)
A new artificial intelligence-enhanced video compression model developed by computer scientists at the University of California, Irvine and Disney Research has demonstrated that deep learning can compete against established video compression technology.
[Read more…]AI and Art: Lessons Learned from an Exhibit in Italy
What happens when you give art a voice? This isn’t a metaphorical question about artistic expression. It was a concept on display for six months at Italy’s Venice Biennale cultural festival, with three unique pieces — by artist Belu-Simion Fainaru and UCI Computer Science Professors Alex Nicolau and Alexander Veidenbaum and their students — literally speaking to viewers.
[Read more…]Computer Scientists Make a Splash in Art World Analyzing the Salvator Mundi
Questions have swirled around the Salvator Mundi for years, especially since it became the most expensive painting ever auctioned in 2017, selling for $450 million. Is it truly an authentic piece by Leonardo da Vinci? If so, why didn’t the artist, well versed in the physics of optics, distort the fabric of the robe behind the orb in the hand of Jesus? In the biography Leonardo Da Vinci (Simon & Schuster, 2017), Walter Issacson writes that “Leonardo failed to paint the distortion” and that he wanted to “impart a miraculous quality to Christ and his orb.”
[Read more…]Computer Science Majors Preston Tai and Brandon Tom Appointed UROP Fellows
UCI’s Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP) Faculty Advisory Board has appointed computer science majors Preston Tai and Brandon Tom as UROP Fellows for the 2019-2020 academic year. Tai and Tom will receive $250 in support of their proposed research project, “Python Parallelization in Academia,” under the supervision of Distinguished Professor of Computer Science Alexandru Nicolau.
[Read more…]UCI-led Project Seeks to Combat Wildfires
A UC Irvine-led team has received $3.6 million over three years for a project that uses science and engineering to help California fight wildfires. The research will integrate physics, chemistry, engineering, computer science and ecology to conduct and disseminate information supporting an increase in the pace and scale of prescribed fires in the region. Computer Science Professors Nalini Venkatasubramanian and Sharad Mehrotra are co-PIs on the grant.
Read the full story here.
ZotBins and Zero Waste Anteaters Support UC Goal for 2020
For almost a decade, the University of California has been pushing for zero waste by 2020, even implementing a #MyLastTrash campaign in 2017. The once far-off deadline is finally upon us, and although none of the 10 UC campuses have conquered the ambitious goal of diverting 90% of waste from local landfills, UCI is leading the pack at 80%. Now, as UCI approaches the finish line, it could get a boost from a group of ZerO Waste Anteaters (ZOWA) and their deployment of ZotBins.
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