Photos and Reflections on a Great Ice Show Today

Today the Wild Weather Ice Show took place at the FMC Ice Sports Arena in Greenfield, Massachusetts.

My husband and I shuttled several of my daughter's Deerfield Academy friends to the arena to watch the show and to see our daughter, Alexandra, skate in her senior solo. There is nothing like the cheering and enthusiasm of Deerfield students!

The event took place at 2PM and the show was fabulous. Skaters skated as soloists, in pairs, and in small groups and there were several invited skaters including Junior National ice dance competitors as well as adult skaters.

Skaters skated to such songs as "Oh What a Beautiful Morning," "Singing in the Rain," "Gone with the Wind," and even "Over the Rainbow" and "Let it Snow."

The emcee and organizer of this rousing show was my daughter's truly special coach, Ms. Suzy McCaughtry. She wrote a touching tribute to my daughter who is a senior at Deerfield that was published in the program. We can't thank Suzy sufficiently for the wonderful journey that she has taken our daughter on -- as her skating coach and mentor. Because of Suzy, my daughter has medaled at regional and national skating competitions, passed additional skating tests, was an invited soloist at the ice show at the 2012 Bay State Games at Williams College, and has had the opportunity to coach young skaters, whom she adores. All such experiences in just the past two years!

I wish that Alexandra could take her coach along with her to college next Fall.

Congrats to all the skaters today for such a memorable afternoon!

General Strike Disrupts Spain but Our Conference Poster Makes It Through

If you have international collaborators, colleagues, and friends, you may hear of world news events before any official news reports.

This happened to me this morning, when I received a message from Professor Tina Wakolbinger of the Vienna University of Economics and Business. She was to present, with her doctoral student, a poster based on the paper that we have been working on, along with another co-author, Dr. Fuminori Toyasaki of York University in Canada. Both Tina and Fuminori had been my doctoral students at the Isenberg School of Management and are doing terrific research in supply chains and sustainability as well as in the financial funding of humanitarian organizations.

The title of our paper that was to be presented in poster format was, "The Influence of Technical, Market and Legislative Factors on E-Waste Flows" and the venue was the International Closed-Loop Conference in Zaragoza, Spain. A clip from the poster is featured above.

The message from Tina said that she had made it to Zaragoza, Spain and was at the International Closed-Loop Conference. The agenda for the conference can be downloaded here.

There was a general strike yesterday in Spain, so the trains did not run and they drove over a thousand miles by car (that is academic dedication). According to Mapquest, this trip is estimated at 19 hours!

Then Zaragoza was blocked because of people walking and striking, so they drove around for 2 hours.

They finally made it to the hotel around 10 PM.

Then the Internet did not work ....

Several of the conferees could not come because of cancelled flights (including Dr. Toyasaki). Other speakers were planning on Skyping in because they could not come as well.

Later, I read online about the general strike that had crippled Spain and that had brought transportation to a standstill. At least 58 had been arrested and there have also been injuries. The strike is against austerity measures of the government.

But our conference poster made it through, thanks to Professor Tina Wakolbinger and Thomas Nowak.

Now, they have to make it safely back to Vienna!

Thrilling New Big Data R&D Initiative from NSF-NIH

Yesterday was an exciting day for big data with the U.S. federal government announcing a major new research initiative on big data at a level of funding of $200 million.

Even The New York Times yesterday featured an article on the joint program between the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). According to the article: Big data refers to the rising flood of digital data from many sources, including the Web, biological and industrial sensors, video, e-mail and social network communications. The emerging opportunity arises from combining these diverse data sources with improving computing tools to pinpoint profit-making opportunities, make scientific discoveries and predict crime waves, for example.

There was a great quote in the article by Dr. Farman Jahanian of the National Science Foundation’s Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) directorate: "Data, in my view, is a transformative new currency for science, engineering, education, commerce and government." “Foundational research in data management and data analytics promise breakthrough discoveries and innovations across all disciplines.”

Just a few minutes before logging off for the night, to settle down and read The Times, I received the following email from Dr. Jahanian announcing the great news:

Dear Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) Community,

This afternoon at a White House event, the Administration unveiled a Big Data Research and Development Initiative, which creates enormous opportunities for extracting knowledge and insights from large and complex collections of digital data. The CISE community is well poised to become an active participant in this new initiative.

NSF Director, Dr. Subra Suresh, joined other federal science agency leaders to discuss cross-agency plans and announce new research efforts to address big data. NSF will direct its current efforts to develop new methods to derive knowledge from data; construct new infrastructure to manage, curate and serve data to communities; and forge new approaches for associated education and training.

The cornerstone of the announcements includes a joint NSF-NIH solicitation on foundational research for big data. The "Core Techniques and Technologies for Advancing Big Data Science & Engineering," or "Big Data" (http://www.nsf.gov/funding/pgm_summ.jsp?pims_id=504767>) program aims to advance the core scientific and technological means of managing, analyzing, visualizing and extracting information from large, diverse, distributed, and heterogeneous data sets in order to accelerate progress in science and engineering research. Specifically, it will fund research to develop and evaluate new algorithms, technologies, and tools for improved data management, data analytics, and e-science collaboration environments.

Other announcements included anticipated cross-disciplinary efforts such as an Ideas Lab to explore ways to use big data to enhance teaching and learning effectiveness, and the use of NSF’s Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship, or IGERT, mechanism to educate and train researchers in data enabled science and engineering.

For more information, please see the NSF press release (http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=123607&org=NSF&from=news)...). We look forward to your participation.

Best,

Farnam

Farnam Jahanian
Assistant Director for CISE
National Science Foundation

Learn the Languages of the Internet, Solve Problems, and Communicate

Having returned from a two week stint at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, I was surrounded by different languages, most, notably, Swedish (but also Turkish, Farsi, Hindi, and even Greek).

While there as a Visiting Professor of Operations Management (an appointment over two years), I had numerous amazing discussions with my new colleagues as well as the students and postdocs from many different countries.

I have always loved different languages and am fluent in English, Ukrainian, and Russian, and also quite versatile in Spanish and German.

I also love problem solving, especially problems associated with networks (from transportation and logistics to finance and even electric power).

The problems that fascinate me are large-scale since I am interested in systems -- if I get another paper to review on a "multitiered supply chain consisting of a single manufacturer and a single retailer," I will scream. When does such a supply chain structure exist in reality?

I believe in rigor in terms of math modeling (this is critical and a highly creative and satisfying endeavor) but without the right algorithms, and these must be implemented in code, there is no problem resolution / solution.

Frankly, I wonder whether some of the papers that have been sent my way are by authors who have not had the opportunity to learn the joys of computer programming, an essential skill that I have written about.

The New York Times has a great article by Jenna Wortham entitled, "A Surge in Learning the Language of the Internet," which notes how more people are being drawn to learn computer languages in the Internet age, especially given the importance of web design. Clearly web design has both scientific aspects to it but also aesthetic aspects and when it comes to problem solving and web design you can really unleash your creativity.

Going back now to my recent experiences in Sweden -- one of my colleagues there brought up a story (yes, we were discussing languages and some of the jobs we had held) that, when he was a child back in 1981 and summering on an island in Sweden, a nuclear Russian submarine landed and the news even made CNN! I had told him that this incident and it was a very dangerous incident that almost brought peace-loving Sweden to the brink of war, reminded me of the movie, "The Russians are Coming, the Russians are Coming," which is even a favorite among my Russian expat friends. He even saw some of the submariners exiting the sub. He shared the link on this major event with me.

I told my colleague that my first job out of college (equipped with two degrees from Brown University -- one in Applied Math (with operations research in my toolbox and one in Russian Languages and Literature), my first job in industry in gorgeous Newport, Rhode Island, was coding in AN-UYK assembly language to design software for the safe transiting of US submarines (yes, so that they would not get detected by guess whom?). Even then, it was always about networking and transportation for me and implementing algorithms in code.

Learn as many languages as you can, including computer languages, and use them. These are skills that will get you far professionally and personally.

The 2012 Social Computing, Behavioral-Cultural Modeling, and Prediction Conference

I am flying to the 2012 International Conference on Social Computing, Behavioral-Cultural Modeling, and Prediction (SBP 2012) this Sunday.

The conference takes place at the University of Maryland, College Park.

The program is single-track and the papers are all refereed and published in a Springer volume.

I am the tutorial chair of this conference (and served in this capacity last year as well).

The tutorials take place on Monday, April 2.

The information on the tutorials is below.

Dynamic Network Analysis − Kathleen M. Carley

Dynamic network analysis enables the analyst to assess change in groups and organizations as they move through time and space on multiple dimensions. By focusing on the network of relations that connect who, what, how, why, where and when we are better able to assess and predict change and identify emergent leaders. This tutorial provides an overview of dynamic network analysis, it's value for identifying emergent leaders, and the capabilities for spatio-temporal reasoning about groups and organizations.

Kathleen M. Carley, Harvard Ph.D., is a faculty member at Carnegie Mellon University, in the School of Computer Science, the department Institute for Software Research. She is also the founder and director of the center for Computational Analysis of Social and Organizational Systems (CASOS). Her research combines cognitive science, social networks and computer science to address complex social and organizational problems. Her specific research areas are dynamic network analysis, computational social and organization theory, adaptation and evolution, text mining and the impact of telecommunication technologies and policy on communication, information diffusion, disease contagion and response within and among groups particularly in disaster or crisis situations. She and members of her center have developed novel tools and technologies for analyzing largescale geo-centric dynamic-networks and various multi-agent simulation systems. These tools include: ORA, a statistical and graphical toolkit for analyzing and visualizing multi-dimensional networks; AutoMap, a text-mining system for extracting semantic networks from texts and then cross-classifying them using an organizational ontology into the underlying social, knowledge, resource and task networks; CEMAP, a system for extracting networks from email and blogs; and SORASCS, a service oriented plus architecture for designing and sharing workflows in the human socio-cultural space. Her simulation models meld multi-agent technology with network dynamics and empirical data. Three of the large-scale multi-agent network models she and the CASOS group have developed are: BioWar a city-scale dynamic-network agent-based model for understanding the spread of disease and illness due to natural epidemics, chemical spills and weaponized biological attacks; Construct an agent-based dynamic-network based nmodel for assessing network evolution and the diffusion of information and beliefs under diverse socio-demograohic and media environments; and RTE a model for examining state failure and the escalation of conflict at the city, state, nation and international as changes occur within and among red, blue and green forces.

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Crowdsourcing, Human Computation, and Collective Intelligence − Haym Hirsh

"Crowdsourcing," "human computation," and "collective intelligence" refer to various ways that information and communications technologies are bringing people and computing together to achieve outcomes that were previously beyond our individual capabilities or expectations. Google's search algorithms, Wikipedia's millions of articles, Amazon's recommendations, and open source software's multiple successes are prominent examples of the many ways in which technology and people are being brought together to exhibit new behaviors and outcomes that exceed those previously possible by people or machines in isolation. This tutorial will survey the state of the art and emerging topics in this area. Attendees will acquire knowledge of a wide range of examples in this area, a conceptual framework for relating them to each other, and an appreciation of our growing experience with how such systems can be used in unintended and undesirable ways.

Haym Hirsh is Professor of Computer Science at Rutgers University. His research focuses on crowdsourcing, data mining, human computation, and machine learning, especially targeting question that integrally involve both people and computing. From 2006-2010 he served as Director of the Division of Information and Intelligent Systems at the Nation al Science Foundation, and most recently was a visiting scholar at MIT's Center for Collective Intelligence. Haym received his BS from the Mathematics and Computer Science Departments at UCLA and his MS and PhD from the Computer Science Department at Stanford University.

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Public Health Concepts: An Introduction for Modelers − Nathaniel Osgood & Patricia L. Mabry

This tutorial is designed to introduce people with backgrounds in computer science, mathematics, engineering, physics, and related disciplines to fundamental concepts in health-related research, and provide resources and strategies for applying for National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant funding. The tutorial is aimed at health at the behavioral and social levels, rather than at biomedical and biological levels. The tutorial is aimed at systems scientists who have little or no formal background or training in the health-related disciplines, with the goal of helping prepare them to apply their methodological skills in the health domain. The tutorial will lay out the concepts necessary to facilitate the building of health related models, improve their quality, and help build cross-disciplinary relationships (i.e., bridge to health researchers). The tutorial will include: an explanation of the rationale for modeling in health; a description of classification of issues in the public health space (e.g., environmental health, communicable diseases); an appreciation for the diversity of disciplines within the health arena; and a brief discussion of specific topics of interest to the NIH. Also covered in this tutorial: important terminology issues to be aware of when working across domains; an exploration of the time dimension and its impact on health issues; a brief review of types of models and the health problems they are well suited to addressing; and major public health data types and sources that modelers should be familiar with. Presenters will also give an overview of funding agencies that support public health modeling with an emphasis on the component organizations within NIH along with specific funding opportunities at NIH and strategies for preparing grant applications. Some attention will also be paid to issues surrounding tenure and interdisciplinary work, training challenges and opportunities, and resources for learning more.

Learning Objectives:

• Understand why investigators in public health are motivated to use systems science methodologies
• Understand some basic terminology used in the public health field
• Appreciate the diversity of disciplines within health; be able to name the broad domains of health and understand their differences
• Be aware of the pitfalls of working across disciplines and how to address them proactively
• Be aware of the types of data and a few of the large data sets frequently used in health
• Name several major funders of health research and understand how their missions differ
• Be aware of a variety of journals and conferences that welcome systems science health projects
• Obtain some ideas for identifying collaborators in the health field and for developing partnerships
• Be exposed to some existing work featuring systems science methodologies applied to health problems
• Obtain resources and some explanation of the NIH grants process and specific funding opportunities
• Obtain resources on where to learn more about the above topics

Nathaniel Osgood is an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Associate Faculty in the Department of Community Health & Epidemiology and Division of Bioengineering at the University of Saskatchewan. His research is focused on providing tools to inform understanding of population health trends and health policy tradeoffs. This work includes both application and methodological components. On the application side, Dr. Osgood works closely with cross-disciplinary teams applying simulation modeling, smartphone-based epidemiological sensing platforms, Bayesian inference and mathematical analysis to address urgent public health challenges in both the chronic and infectious disease areas. Dr. Osgood's methodological work seek to advance the science and art of model building and epidemiological data collection for models through improved formalisms, algorithms, ubiquitous sensing frameworks, analysis techniques, and software tools. Dr. Osgood received his PhD in 1999 from MIT's Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. Prior to joining the U of S faculty, he worked for many years in a number of academic and industry positions, including on industry & academic projects applying modeling to tobacco and environmental epidemiology, health informatics, and multi-framework modeling for natural resource policy-making.

Dr. Patricia L. Mabry, is a Senior Advisor in the Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (OBSSR) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) where she is facilitating the emergence of a new field that integrates systems science with health-related behavioral and social science research. Dr. Mabry’s specific achievements include issuing funding opportunity announcements in systems science (including PAR-11-314(R01) and PAR-11-315(R21) Systems Science and Health in the Behavioral and Social Sciences) and leading the development of an annual training course, the Institute on Systems Science and Health (ISSH). She co-leads (with the National Institute on Child Health and Human Development) Envision, a collaboration of modeling teams aiming to inform policy interventions to combat obesity. Envision is an activity of the National Collaborative on Childhood Obesity Research (NCCOR). Dr. Mabry was Conference Chair for the 2010 International Conference on Social Computing, Behavioral Modeling, and Prediction (SBP10) and the Organizing Chair for the 2011 Conference of the System Dynamics Society.

Dr. Mabry has authored a number of peer reviewed publications including articles in The Lancet, the American Journal of Public Health, and the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. She is Guest Editor of the upcoming special issue of Health Education and Behavior entitled, Systems Science Applications in Health Promotion and Public Health. She is a Guest Editor of the March 2010 supplement of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine entitled, Increasing Tobacco Cessation in America: A Consumer Demand Perspective and is also a Guest Editor for the 2011 Special Issue of Research in Human Development entitled, Embracing Systems Science: New Methodologies for Developmental Science.

Dr. Mabry has been recognized for her leadership in systems science and health; she was a member of the team that received the inaugural Applied Systems Thinking Prize from the Applied Systems Thinking Institute in 2008.

Dr. Mabry earned her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Virginia (1996) and since then has worked in small business, academia, and government.

This is the third SBP Conference that I have been involved in and I find them always very engaging professionally and intellectually and also socially.

Thanks to the wonderful sponsors who make this conference possible.

Photos of Great Public Transportation in Sweden from Ferries to Trams and Busses

One of the highlights of my recent two weeks in Sweden in the city of Gothenburg.was watching and then making use of the public transportation.

The first time that I had lived in Sweden was when my family and I lived in Stockholm in 1996 and I was a Distinguished Guest Professor at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH). I had been selected as the professor to increase the visibility of female academics. It was a magical time and my daughter even attended a Swedish preschool (called daghes).

Not only is Gothenburg the second largest city in Sweden, after Stockholm, but its public transportation system is fabulous and its port fascinating. As someone, who has done a lot of research on transportation and logistics, I really appreciated the ferries, busses, and especially the trams snaking around the lovely city.

Above are some photos that I took of the ferries, trams, and busses. My wonderful host, Dr. Jonas Floden, treated me to a delicious lunch two Saturdays ago and we took the ferry (in the top photo above) to the restaurant and then a tram back to the School of Business, Economics and Law at the University of Gothenburg.

I look forward to returning soon to explore this wonderful part of Sweden again.

Refuse to Lose Although We Did Against Stanford at Madison Square Garden

The motto, "Refuse to Lose," came from our former basketball coach at UMass Amherst, John Calipari, who needs no introduction. He is now the coach of the University of Kentucky team, which will play against the University of Louisville, also located in Kentucky, in the Final Four NCAA championship this coming weekend in New Orleans. Even yesterday's New York Times had extensive coverage of his team and the upcoming game.

Yesterday, UMass Amherst played a semifinal game at the NIT basketball tournament against Stanford University in Madison Square Garden in NYC. I had two classes to cover so I could not make it to the game. However, since it was televised on national TV, I did watch the second half with my husband and even our daughter joined in after skating at the Mullins Center (this venue is also where our basketball team plays and trains).

The UMass basketball team members played their hearts out in NYC and although we lost, 74-64, to Stanford this was an outstanding season (and I was even getting updates on how the team was doing when I was in Gothenburg, Sweden for two weeks).

My daughter told me that our star point guard, Chaz Williams, who went to Iona Prep and is from Brooklyn, tweeted yesterday morning that he had not slept well and that concerned me but the spirit and stamina of this team makes us all at UMass very proud. The coach, Derek Kellogg, lives in our general neighborhood, and I salute what he, his staff, and his players have accomplished this season.

Hearing the UMass fans shouting, "Go, UMass!" throughout the game last night in Madison Square Garden and seeing so much maroon and white was terrific.

Tomorrow night the NIT matchup is between Minnesota and Washington at Madison Square Garden, so it will be interesting who ultimately wins the NIT basketball championship.