The Institute for Data Engineering and Science presents the 2019 IDEaS Distinguished Lecture on Wednesday, November 6. Peter S. Dodds, the Flint Professor of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of Vermont, will deliver “The Science of Stories: Measuring and Exploring the Ecology of Human Stories with Lexical Instruments.” The event will be held in the Marcus Nanotechnology Building, Rooms 1116-1118, from 3:00-4:00 p.m.
Abstract
I will survey our efforts at the Computational Story Lab to measure and study a wide array of social and cultural phenomena using “lexical meters” — online, interactive instruments that use social media and other texts to quantify population dynamics of human behavior. These include happiness, public health, obesity rates, and depression. I will explain how lexical meters work and how we have used them to uncover natural language encodings of positivity biases across cultures, universal emotional arcs of stories, links between social media posts and health, measures of fame and ultra-fame, and time compression for news. I will offer some thoughts on how fully developing a post-disciplinary, collaborative science of human stories is vital in our efforts to understand the evolution, stability, and fracturing of social systems.
Bio
Peter S. Dodds is the Flint Professor of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of Vermont. His research focuses on system-level big data problems in many areas, including language and stories, sociotechnical systems, contagion, and ecology. He is the director of UVM’s Complex Systems Center, co-director of UVM’s Computational Story Lab, and a visiting faculty fellow at the Vermont Advanced Computing Core. Dodds is the recipient of an NSF Career Award and has received funding from NSF, NASA, ONR, and the MITRE Corporation, among others.
Event Details
Peter S. Dodds, Flint Professor
Department of Mathematics and Statistics
University of Vermont
ABSTRACT
Complex systems often comprise many kinds of components which vary dramatically in size: numbers of organisms in species in ecologies, populations of cities and towns in countries, individual and corporate wealth in economies, and word frequency in natural language. Comparisons of component size distributions for two complex systems, or a system with itself at different time points, generally employ information-theoretic instruments, such as the Jensen-Shannon divergence. We argue that these methods are poorly motivated for many complex systems, lack transparency and adjustability, and should not be applied when component probabilities are non-sensible or are problematic to estimate. Here, we introduce rank turbulence divergence, a tunable instrument for comparing any two (Zipfian) ranked lists of components. We analytically develop our rank-based divergence in a series of steps, and realize the divergence as a 'rank turbulence divergence graph' which pairs a map-like histogram for rank-rank pairs with an ordered list of components according to divergence contribution. We explore the performance of rank turbulence divergence for four distinct settings: day-scale language use on Twitter; US baby names from 1880 to 2018; market cap US corporations from 1979 to 2018; and n-gram frequencies from the Google Books corpus. We provide a series of supplementary flip books' which demonstrate the tunability and storytelling power of our divergence. For systems where probabilities (or rates) are partially available, we put forward an analogous probability turbulence divergence. Finally, we compare our rank-based divergence to a family of generalized entropy divergences which includes the Jenson-Shannon Divergence.
Host: Joshua Weitz, Ph.D.
Event Details
The College of Sciences; the School of Literature, Media, and Communication; and the Georgia Tech Library invite all to the grand opening of the exhibit ASTOUNDING ELEMENTS: Celebrating the Periodic Table.
Since January, the College of Sciences has been hosting lectures, events, and activities to acknowledge the 150-year-long contribution of the periodic table to science. In collaboration with campus partners, the College of Sciences has brought the periodic table and chemical elements to the attention of the Georgia Tech community and the public through arts, athletics, academics, and fun. ASTOUNDING ELEMENTS brings many of these pieces together, including:
- Elements in science fiction, in collaboration with the School of Literature, Media, and Communication
- Periodic table makeover: design and prototypes, in collaboration with the School of Industrial Design, College of Design
- Art inspired by the periodic table and chemical elements, in collaboration with the Georgia Tech Office of the Arts
- Scavenger Hunt: buildings and element partners, in collaboration with various building managers on campus
- Favorite elements of Georgia Tech students, faculty, and staff
The exhibit will formally open with remarks from Ameet Doshi, Library Director of Service Experience and Program Design; Karen Head, associate chair of the School of Literature, Media, and Communication; and Susan Lozier, Dean of the College of Sciences.
Immediately following the opening remarks is a panel discussion: From Myth to Marvel: The Role of Elements in Science, Fiction, and Culture
The International Year of the Periodic Table has brought well-deserved attention to the periodic table and the chemical elements. As the world celebrates 2019 the 150th anniversary of the periodic table, chemical elements have never been so central to the global imagination. Just look at recent blockbuster films revolving around vibranium and infinity stones.
But did chemical elements really ever go out of style?
Moderated by Georgia Tech librarian and North Avenue Lounge radio host Charlie Bennett, this panel discussion brings two scientists and two science fiction authors together to explore how science and art have long influenced one other while shaping public understanding of the periodic table and chemical elements and their role in our everyday lives.
Georgia Tech physicist Deirdre Shoemaker and chemist M.G. Finn will have a conversation with Milton Davis, chemist and award-winning author of nineteen novels and editor of nine anthologies, and Amanda Weiss, an up-and-coming science fiction and fantasy author who teaches Japanese at Georgia Tech. Through their conversation, we hope to get a closer look at how new — and sometimes very old! — ideas about how the world works circulate through science, fiction, and culture at large.
About the Discussants
Charlie Bennett is the public engagement librarian and economics specialist at Georgia Tech. He holds a Master’s in Library and Information Science from Valdosta State University, and a B.S. in Economics and in Science, Technology, and Culture from Georgia Tech. His research interests include the role of the library in civic life and scholarly communication to the general public. Bennett produces and co-hosts the rock’n’roll library show "Lost in the Stacks" and the talk show "The North Avenue Lounge," both on WREK Atlanta, as well as the media podcast "Supercontext." The first science fiction he can remember reading is the Tripods trilogy by John Christopher, and he’s been fascinated by the genre ever since.
Milton J. Davis is a black speculative fiction writer. He is the author of 17 novels and editor or co-editor of seven anthologies. He owns MVmedia, LLC , a small publishing company specializing in science fiction, fantasy, and "Sword and Soul." Davies is also the technical director of Hill Manufacturing, a company specializing in maintenance chemicals and products. As a research chemist, he has developed polymers for the textile, janitorial, and computer industries. In 2004, he received a U.S. patent for a cleaning solvent and dispenser pen designed to remove conformal coatings and adhesives from circuit boards and other electrical equipment.
M.G. Finn is a professor and chair of Georgia Tech’s School of Chemistry and Biochemistry, a faculty member in the School of Biological Sciences, and the James A. Carlos Family Chair for Pediatric Technology. In his research, his laboratory develops new vaccines, ways to find and kill cancer cells, new materials for drug delivery and membrane-based separations, and ways to evolve molecules with desired functions. He is the editor-in-chief of the journal ACS Combinatorial Science. His science fiction inspirations are decidedly old-school, ranging from Ray Bradbury to Ursula K. Le Guin to Dan Simmons.
Deirdre Shoemaker is the Dunn Family Professor of Physics in Georgia Tech’s School of Physics. She is the director of the Georgia Tech Center for Relativistic Astrophysics and associate director of the Institute for Data Engineering and Sciences. Black holes, spacetime wrinkles and gravitational waves — understanding these and other aspects of gravity drives Shoemaker’s research. She is a member of the Astronomy and Astrophysics Advisory Council and the NASA LISA Study Team. She is also a member of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration, which detected gravitational waves for the first time on September 14 2015, ushering in the era of gravitational wave astronomy. The strange and wondrous predictions of Einstein’s theory are playing out in the universe, and Shoemaker is watching.
Amanda Weiss is an assistant professor of Japanese in the Georgia Tech School of Modern Languages. Prior to her work at Georgia Tech, she taught courses on East Asian media and society at Earlham College, Emory University, and Rikkyo University in Tokyo. She is completing her first book, "Han Heroes and Yamato Warriors: Competing Masculinities in East Asian War Cinema," based on her doctoral research in the University of Tokyo. She has started a second project, on the contemporary Japanese remembrance of Manchukuo, the puppet state of the Empire of Japan from 1932 until 1945.
Event Details
DUE TO ANTICIPATED BAD WEATHER, THIS EVENT IS RESCHEDULED FOR NOV. 1.
The Society of Physics Students and the Society of Women in Physics invite all to the 2019 Pumpkin Drop. The event aims to raise funds to support student travel to conferences.
Pumpkins can be carved or dropped from the top of the Howey Building. For the drop, pumpkins are first frozen in liquid nitrogen.
It's fun and messy, all for a good cause.
Event Details
The College of Sciences; the School of Literature, Media, and Communication; and the Georgia Tech Library invite all to preview the exhibit ASTOUNDING ELEMENTS: Celebrating the Periodic Table.
Since January, the College of Sciences has been hosting lectures, events, and activities to acknowledge the 150-year-long contribution of the periodic table to science. In collaboration with campus partners, the College of Sciences has brought the periodic table and chemical elements to the attention of the Georgia Tech community and the public through arts, athletics, academics, and fun. ASTOUNDING ELEMENTS brings many of these pieces together, including:
- Elements in science fiction, in collaboration with the School of Literature, Media, and Communication and the Georgia Tech Library
- Periodic table makeover: design and prototypes, in collaboration with the School of Industrial Design, College of Design
- Art inspired by the periodic table and chemical elements, in collaboration with the Georgia Tech Office of the Arts
- Scavenger Hunt: buildings and element partners, in collaboration with various building managers on campus
- Favorite elements of Georgia Tech students, faculty, and staff
Please join the formal opening on Nov. 7, 2019, 11 AM.
Event Details
The College of Sciences; the School of Literature, Media, and Communication; and the Georgia Tech Library invite all to the exhibit ASTOUNDING ELEMENTS: Celebrating the Periodic Table.
Since January, the College of Sciences has been hosting lectures, events, and activities to acknowledge the 150-year-long contribution of the periodic table to science. In collaboration with campus partners, the College of Sciences has brought the periodic table and chemical elements to the attention of the Georgia Tech community and the public through arts, athletics, academics, and fun. ASTOUNDING ELEMENTS brings many of these pieces together, including:
- Elements in science fiction, in collaboration with the School of Literature, Media, and Communication
- Periodic table makeover: design and prototypes, in collaboration with the School of Industrial Design, College of Design
- Art inspired by the periodic table and chemical elements, in collaboration with the Georgia Tech Office of the Arts
- Scavenger Hunt: buildings and element partners, in collaboration with various building managers on campus
- Favorite elements of Georgia Tech students, faculty, and staff
Event Details
The College of Sciences; the School of Literature, Media, and Communication; and the Georgia Tech Library invite all to a conversation among science fiction authors and scientists, as part of Georgia Tech's celebration of the International Year of the Periodic Table (IYPT).
IYPT has brought well-deserved attention to the periodic table and the chemical elements. As the world celebrates the 150th anniversary of the periodic table, chemical elements have never been so central to the global imagination. Just look at recent blockbuster films revolving around vibranium and infinity stones.
But did chemical elements really ever go out of style?
Moderated by Charlie Bennett, this panel discussion brings two scientists and two science fiction writers together to explore how science and art have long influenced each other while shaping public understanding of the periodic table and chemical elements and their role in our everyday lives.
Georgia Tech scientists Deirdre Shoemaker and M.G. Finn will have a conversation with Milton J. Davis, science fiction writer and chemist, and Amanda Weiss, an up-and-coming science fiction author who teaches Japanese at Georgia Tech. Through their conversation, we hope to get a closer look at how new — and sometimes very old! — ideas about how the world works circulate through science, fiction, and culture at large.
About the Discussants
Charlie Bennett is the public engagement librarian and economics specialist at Georgia Tech. He holds a Master’s in Library and Information Science from Valdosta State University, and a B.S. in Economics and in Science, Technology, and Culture from Georgia Tech. His research interests include the role of the library in civic life and scholarly communication to the general public. Bennett produces and co-hosts the rock’n’roll library show "Lost in the Stacks" and the talk show "The North Avenue Lounge," both on WREK Atlanta, as well as the media podcast "Supercontext." The first science fiction he can remember reading is the Tripods trilogy by John Christopher, and he’s been fascinated by the genre ever since.
Milton J. Davis is a black speculative fiction writer. He is the author of 17 novels and editor or co-editor of seven anthologies. He owns MVmedia, LLC , a small publishing company specializing in science fiction, fantasy, and "Sword and Soul." Davies is also the technical director of Hill Manufacturing, a company specializing in maintenance chemicals and products. As a research chemist, he has developed polymers for the textile, janitorial, and computer industries. In 2004, he received a U.S. patent for a cleaning solvent and dispenser pen designed to remove conformal coatings and adhesives from circuit boards and other electrical equipment.
M.G. Finn is a professor and chair of Georgia Tech’s School of Chemistry and Biochemistry, a faculty member in the School of Biological Sciences, and the James A. Carlos Family Chair for Pediatric Technology. In his research, his laboratory develops new vaccines, ways to find and kill cancer cells, new materials for drug delivery and membrane-based separations, and ways to evolve molecules with desired functions. He is the editor-in-chief of the journal ACS Combinatorial Science. His science fiction inspirations are decidedly old-school, ranging from Ray Bradbury to Ursula K. Le Guin to Dan Simmons.
Deirdre Shoemaker is the Dunn Family Professor of Physics in Georgia Tech’s School of Physics. She is the director of the Georgia Tech Center for Relativistic Astrophysics and associate director of the Institute for Data Engineering and Sciences. Black holes, spacetime wrinkles and gravitational waves — understanding these and other aspects of gravity drives Shoemaker’s research. She is a member of the Astronomy and Astrophysics Advisory Council and the NASA LISA Study Team. She is also a member of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration, which detected gravitational waves for the first time on September 14 2015, ushering in the era of gravitational wave astronomy. The strange and wondrous predictions of Einstein’s theory are playing out in the universe, and Shoemaker is watching.
Amanda Weiss is an assistant professor of Japanese in the Georgia Tech School of Modern Languages. Prior to her work at Georgia Tech, she taught courses on East Asian media and society at Earlham College, Emory University, and Rikkyo University in Tokyo. She is completing her first book, "Han Heroes and Yamato Warriors: Competing Masculinities in East Asian War Cinema," based on her doctoral research in the University of Tokyo. She has started a second project, on the contemporary Japanese remembrance of Manchukuo, the puppet state of the Empire of Japan from 1932 until 1945.
Event Details
A Frontiers in Science Lecture to celebrate 2019, the International Year of the Periodic Table
In 1997, the Japanese oceanographer Yoshiyuki Nozaki compiled a periodic table of ocean chemistry, encapsulating the distribution of elements as a function of depth. In this periodic table, many elements share similar patterns, classified into just a few categories. The similarities indicate a common set of mechanisms behind the ocean cycling of elements.
The interaction of ocean circulation, chemistry, and biology sets the distribution of elements in the ocean. For example, nonreactive elements are nearly uniformly distributed in the water column, homogenized by ocean circulation and mixing.
Nutrient elements are depleted near the surface because of biological consumption and enriched in mid-depth due to decomposition of organic matter. Some trace metals – such as Fe, Zn, Ni, and Cd – follow this pattern. In contrast, some heavy metals – like Al, Mn, Co, and Pb – are subsumed into particles and removed from seawater.
Building on the insights from Nozaki’s periodic table, this talk will interpret recent measurements of changing seawater chemistry, highlighting the importance of rising carbon dioxide concentration in the air, climate change, and pollution of rivers and atmosphere.
About the Speaker
Takamitsu “Taka” Ito is an associate professor in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, where he teaches physical and chemical oceanography. He received a Ph.D. in Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences in 2005 from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His research has focused on the cycling of carbon, oxygen, and iron in the global oceans, using observations, theory, and computational modeling.
About Frontiers in Science Lectures
Lectures in this series are intended to inform, engage, and inspire students, faculty, staff, and the public on developments, breakthroughs, and topics of general interest in the sciences and mathematics. Lecturers tailor their talks for nonexpert audiences.
About the Periodic Table Frontiers in Science Lecture Series
Throughout 2019, the College of Sciences will bring prominent researchers from Georgia Tech and beyond to expound on little-discussed aspects of chemical elements:
- Feb. 6, James Sowell, How the Universe Made the Elements in the Periodic Table
- March 5, Michael Filler, Celebrating Silicon: Its Success, Hidden History, and Next Act
- April 2, John Baez, University of California, Riverside, Mathematical Mysteries of the Periodic Table
- April 18, Sam Kean, Author, The Periodic Table: A Treasure Trove of Passion, Adventure, Betrayal, and Obsession
- Sept. 12, Monica Halka, The Elusive End of the Periodic Table: Why Chase It?
- October 15, David Clark, Plutonium Chemistry and the Battlefields of the Cold War
- October 31, Taka Ito, Turning Sour, Bloated, and Out of Breath: Ocean Chemistry under Global Warming
- Nov. 12, Margaret Kosal, The Geopolitics of Rare and Not-So-Rare Elements
Closest public parking for the Oct. 31 lecture is Area 6 (Fifth Street and Spring) or Area 8 (Tech Square) on the parking map, https://pts.gatech.edu/visitors#l3.
Refreshments are served, and periodic table t-shirts are raffled, at each lecture.
Event Details
The 2019 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded jointly to William G. Kaelin Jr., Sir Peter J. Ratcliffe, and Gregg L. Semenza “for their discoveries of how cells sense and adapt to oxygen availability.” Kaelin is a professor at Harvard Medical School. Ratcliffe is the director of clinical research at Francis Crick Institute in London. Semenza is a professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
Much of the life on Earth that we humans experience uses oxygen to convert food – carbohydrates, fats, and proteins – into energy to drive life’s processes. In complex, multicellular organisms, including humans, cells in various tissues and organs experience different levels of oxygen, says Amit Reddi, an assistant professor in the School of Chemistry. “As a consequence, every cell must have the ability to sense oxygen and adapt metabolism to changes in oxygen levels.”
Kaelin, Ratcliffe, and Semenza contributed to figuring out exactly how cells sense and respond to oxygen. “Their work has had profound implications for modern medicine, including understanding and treating various cancers, where cells may no longer synchronize energy metabolism to oxygen levels, as well as a number of vascular diseases, where oxygen transport is no longer efficient,” Reddi says. “I’m thrilled for the new Nobel laureates.”
Reddi was an NIH Ruth L. Kirchstein postdoctoral fellow at Johns Hopkins University where Semenza is a faculty member. He says he often found inspiration from Semenza's studies on oxygen sensing, which guided his thinking on new conceptual paradigms for how life copes with oxygen.
Part of Reddi’s research is related to how reactive oxygen species (ROS), which are all derived from oxygen, can themselves signal metabolic changes in cells. “Our work is focused on how certain ROS are made and how they can be used to signal changes in metabolism and physiology,” Reddi says. “Because all ROS originate from oxygen, we believe that another layer of oxygen sensing is through the production and sensing of certain ROS.”
The Nobel Prize winners discovered how cells adapt to changes in oxygen level, particularly in low-oxygen conditions, says Young Jang, an assistant professor in the School of Biological Sciences. “Their discoveries laid the foundation for our understanding of how cells generate energy, make new blood cells, and how cancer cells grow.”
Jang’s research on stem cell metabolism and aging is directly related to oxygen sensing. Normally, mitochondria – the powerhouse of the cell – uses oxygen to generate ATP, the cell’s fuel. But in aged cells, regulation of oxygen is altered and mitochondria generate ROS. Excess ROS production and oxidative damage to proteins, lipids, and DNA/RNA are key culprits that cause cellular aging, Jang says.
Briefly, Jang overlapped with Kaelin in Harvard. He recalls that Kaelin’s lab “was interested in knowing whether oxygen sensing and metabolic changes can be communicated from one organ to another. He wanted to use parabiosis to test his idea.” Parabiosis is the physical joining of two individuals enabling cells, tissues, and organs to communicate through blood. It is another research area for Jang.
“I am very happy for Dr. Kaelin and his cowinners,” Jang says.
The National Institutes of Health know a good investment when they see one, and they definitely see one in Joe Lachance, researcher in the Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience at the Georgia Institute of Technology. And to prove it, the NIH recently granted Lachance an R35 Maximizing Investigators’ Research Award (MIRA).
The grant, valued at $1.88 million over five years, will support Lachance’s research strategy, which includes the analysis of ancient and modern genomes, mathematical modeling, and the development of new bioinformatics tools.
Lachance, whose research bridges the gap between evolutionary genetics and genetic epidemiology, is motivated by several questions: How have hereditary disease risks evolved in the recent past? What sorts of genetic architectures are more likely to result in health inequities? How can genomic medicine be extended to people with different ancestries?
“We’ve taken an evolutionary perspective toward genetic medicine and global health,” says Lachance, assistant professor in the School of Biological Sciences, whose research is directly related to the NIH’s All of Us initiative.
The R35 MIRA program was designed to increase the stability of funding for NIGMS-supported investigators like Lachance, improving their ability to take on ambitious projects and take more creative approaches to biomedical problems.
“This grant, I think, demonstrates great confidence in our approach to the research,” Lachance said. “It enables us to devote more our time and energy on doing the actual science and developing the next generation of researchers.”
Pages
