Title
Topic
-
‘Effects of AI Feedback on Learning, the Skill Gap, and Intellectual Diversity’
“Can human decision-makers learn from AI feedback? Using data on 52,000 decision-makers from a large online chess platform, we investigate how their AI use affects three interrelated long-term outcomes: Learning, skill gap, and diversity of decision strategies. First, we show that individuals are far more likely to seek AI feedback in situations in which they experienced success rather than failure. … Furthermore, despite its individual-level benefits, access to AI feedback can have significant population-level downsides including loss of intellectual diversity and an increasing skill gap.”
-
‘Intrinsic symmetry-protected topological mixed state from modulated symmetries and hierarchical structure of boundary anomaly’
“We introduce a class of intrinsic symmetry-protected topological mixed state (mSPT) in open quantum systems that feature modulated symmetries, such as dipole and subsystem symmetries. Intriguingly, these mSPT phases cannot be realized as the ground states of a gapped Hamiltonian under thermal equilibrium. The microscopic form of the density matrix characterizing these intrinsic mixed-state SPT ensembles is constructed using solvable coupled-wire models that incorporate quenched disorder or quantum channels. A detailed comparison of the hierarchical structure of boundary anomalies in both pure and mixed states is presented.” Find the paper and full list of authors in Physical Review B.
-
‘Effective Theory Building and Manifold Learning’
“Manifold learning and effective model building are generally viewed as fundamentally different types of procedure. After all, in one we build a simplified model of the data, in the other, we construct a simplified model of the another model. Nonetheless, I argue that certain kinds of high-dimensional effective model building, and effective field theory construction in quantum field theory, can be viewed as special cases of manifold learning. I argue that this helps to shed light on all of these techniques.”
-
“Recent genome-wide association studies have identified a missense variant p.A165T in mitochondrial amidoxime-reducing component 1 (mARC1) that is strongly associated with protection from all-cause cirrhosis and improved prognosis in nonalcoholic steatohepatitis. The precise mechanism of this protective effect is unknown. … To investigate the mechanism, we have generated a knock-in mutant mARC1 A165T and a catalytically dead mutant C273A (as a control) in human hepatoma HepG2 cells, enabling characterization of protein subcellular distribution, stability, and biochemical functions of the mARC1 mutant protein expressed from its endogenous locus.” Find the paper and full list of authors in Journal of Biological Chemistry.
-
‘SoK: Technical Implementation and Human Impact of Internet Privacy Regulations’
“Growing recognition of the potential for exploitation of personal data and of the shortcomings of prior privacy regimes has led to the passage of a multitude of new privacy regulations. Some… have been the focus of large bodies of research by the computer science community, while others have received less attention. In this work, we analyze a set of 24 privacy laws and data protection regulations drawn from around the world… and develop a taxonomy of rights granted and obligations imposed by these laws.” Find the paper and list of authors in the 2024 IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy proceedings.
-
Woolston receives grant for Clostridia domestication
“Chemical engineering assistant professor Benjamin Woolston, in collaboration with Nicholas Sandoval from Tulane University and Aimee Shen from Tufts University, was awarded a $1,271,828 NSF grant for ‘New Approaches To Rapidly Domesticate Non-model Clostridia for Applications in Sustainability and Human Health.’ Clostridia are important microbes with diverse roles in biotechnology and human disease, but they are notoriously difficult to engineer. The research will develop novel approaches to streamline genetic engineering of these bacteria, as well as train other researchers in the use of these tools through a new hands-on summer short course at Northeastern.”
-
‘Analyzing High-Throughput Assay Data To Advance the Rapid Screening of Environmental Chemicals for Human Reproductive Toxicity’
“While high-throughput (HTP) assays have been proposed as platforms to rapidly assess reproductive toxicity, there is currently a lack of established assays that specifically address germline development/function and fertility. We assessed the applicability domains of yeast (S. cerevisiae) and nematode (C. elegans) HTP assays in toxicity screening of 124 environmental chemicals, determining their agreement in identifying toxicants and their concordance with reproductive toxicity in vivo.” Find the paper and full list of authors at Reproductive Toxicology.
-
‘Through the Theory of Mind’s Eye: Reading Minds with Multimodal Video Large Language Models’
“Can large multimodal models have a human-like ability for emotional and social reasoning, and if so, how does it work? Recent research has discovered emergent theory-of-mind (ToM) reasoning capabilities in large language models (LLMs). LLMs can reason about people’s mental states by solving various text-based ToM tasks that ask questions about the actors’ ToM (e.g., human belief, desire, intention). … Thus, we consider videos a new medium for examining spatio-temporal ToM reasoning ability. Specifically, we ask explicit probing questions about videos with abundant social and emotional reasoning content.”Find the paper and full list of authors at ArXiv.
-
‘On-Demand Auxeticity and Co-Existing Pre-Tension Induced Compression Stage … with Kinematically Constrained 3D Suture Tiles’
“By incorporating concepts from auxeticity, kinematic constraints, pre-tension induced compression (PIC), and suture tessellations, tiled sandwich composites are designed, demonstrating behaviors attributed to the synergy between auxeticity and pre-tension induced contact and compression, simultaneously triggered by a threshold strain. The designs can theoretically achieve on-demand Poisson’s ratio in the widest range (−∞, +∞), and once triggered, the Poisson’s ratio is stable under large deformation.”Find the paper and full list of authors in Nature Communications.
-
‘Digital Avatars: Framework Development and Their Evaluation’
“We present a novel prompting strategy for artificial intelligence driven digital avatars. To better quantify how our prompting strategy affects anthropomorphic features like humor, authenticity, and favorability we present Crowd Vote – an adaptation of Crowd Score that allows for judges to elect a large language model (LLM) candidate over competitors answering the same or similar prompts. To visualize the responses of our LLM, and the effectiveness of our prompting strategy we propose an end-to-end framework for creating high-fidelity artificial intelligence (AI) driven digital avatars.” Find the paper and full list of authors at ArXiv.
-
‘When Being Managed by Technology: Does Algorithmic Management Affect Perceptions of Workers’ Creative Capacities?’
“Artificial intelligence is rapidly being integrated into human roles in the workplace. One example is algorithmic management, where employees are supervised in the execution of their tasks by algorithms. Unfortunately, we know little about how algorithmic management affects the perceptions of employees managed by these algorithms. In three experiments, we explore people’s beliefs about the creative capacities of employees who are managed by algorithms.”
-
‘Navigating the Paradox: Challenges and Strategies of University Students Managing Mental Health Medication in Real-World Practices’
“Mental health has become a growing concern among university students. While medication is a common treatment, understanding how university students manage their medication for mental health symptoms in real-world practice has not been fully explored. In this study, we conducted semi-structured interviews with university students to understand the unique challenges in the mental health medication management process and their coping strategies, particularly examining the role of various technologies in this process. We discovered that … the medication management process for students was a highly dynamic journey involving frequent dosage changes.” Find the paper and full list of authors at ArXiv.
-
‘Revisiting the Musical Reminiscence Bump: Insights From Neurocognitive and Social Brain Development in Adolescence’
“Music listening is enjoyed across the lifespan and around the world. This has spurred many theories on the evolutionary purpose of music. The Music for Social Bonding hypothesis posits that the human capacity to make music evolved for the purpose of creating and preserving relationships between one another. … we propose that neurocognitive changes in the reward system make adolescence an ideal developmental time window for investigating interactions between prosocial behavior and reward processing, as adolescence constitutes a time of relative increase in music reward valuation.” Find the paper and full list of authors in Frontiers in Psychology.
-
NIH MIRA Award for to combat bacterial infections
“Bioengineering assistant professor Mona Minkara was awarded a $1.95 million NIH R35 Maximizing Investigator’s Research Award (MIRA) for Early-Stage Investigators for ‘Foundational Investigations Into Bacterial Surface Glycan Dynamics.’ The project aims to advance knowledge of bacterial and glycan behavior, leading to new ways to enhance health and prevent infections.”
-
‘Effects of AI Feedback on Learning, the Skill Gap and Intellectual Diversity’
“Can human decision-makers learn from AI feedback? Using data on 52,000 decision-makers from a large online chess platform, we investigate how their AI use affects three interrelated long-term outcomes: Learning, skill gap, and diversity of decision strategies. … Access to AI feedback increases, rather than decreases, the skill gap between high- and low-skilled individuals.”
-
‘Where Is All the Deviance? Liminal Prescribing and the Social Networks Underlying the Prescription Drug Crisis’
“The misuse of prescription drugs is a pressing public health crisis in the United States that is fueled by high-risk prescribing. We show that high-risk prescribing comprises two distinct practices: (1) routinely overprescribing to patients whose prescription-fill patterns are consistent with misuse or abuse, which conforms to the definition of deviance in sociology, and (2) routinely overprescribing to patients whose prescription-fill patterns are within possible bounds of medical use, which does not.”
-
‘Developing a Culture of Cybersecurity’
“In a prelude to the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Russian hackers probed and attacked Ukrainian computer networks to find vulnerabilities and exfiltrate information that might be useful in future conflicts. … As we broadened our investigation beyond NotPetya to include other cyberattacks and hacking incidents, we were able to find a consistent pattern of cultural failures linked to misaligned incentives, a disconnect between top management and technical personnel, and a general lack of awareness and engagement of the existential threat posed by cyberattacks.”
-
‘Tracking COVID-19 Infections Using Survey Data on Rapid At-Home Tests’
“In this survey study conducted among 306,799 residents aged 18 years or older across 50 US states and the District of Columbia, the proportion of individuals reporting a positive COVID-19 infection in a longitudinal nonprobability survey closely tracked the institutionally reported proportions in the US. … This study suggests that nonprobability online surveys can serve as an effective complementary method to monitor infections during an emerging pandemic and provide an alternative for estimating infections in the absence of institutional testing when at-home tests are widely available.” Find the paper and full list of authors in JAMA Network Open.
-
‘Measuring Enlarged Mentality: Development and Validation of the Enlarged Mentality Scale’
“Hannah Arendt’s concept of enlarged mentality (also referred to as representative thinking) has received much attention from theorists and philosophers, but it has not been a central concept in the empirical political communication literature. This article explicates the concept of enlarged mentality and argues for its relevance to political communication theory and research. … We offer suggestions on how the measure of enlarged mentality could be useful for different areas of political communication research.” Find the paper and full list of authors in the International Journal of Public Opinion Research.
-
Vidrin meditates on partnering, power and care in dance
In an essay for The Blackwood Gallery, assistant professor of theatre Ilya Vidrin meditates on “the invisible boundaries that separate” him and his dance partner. Vidrin considers that “the power dynamics of the dance floor can be fraught, and any miscommunication or misunderstanding can complicate those dynamics and cause harm,” while also leaving space for “possibility and hope,” he writes.
-
Patent granted for engineered bacteria ‘secreting therapeutic proteins’
“Engineered bacteria that secrete therapeutic polypeptides, pharmaceutical compositions comprising the bacteria, methods for producing recombinant polypeptides, and methods for using the bacteria for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes are provided,” the abstract reads.
-
‘Evolve or Dissolve: Shaping Your Corporate Culture for a Remote Reality’
As remote work has become more prevalent, distinguished professor Paula Caligiuri identifies a significant challenge now facing corporate cultures, and she provides five strategies to shape this culture: emphasize regular communication and visibility; foster connection and collaboration; reinforce and adapt company values; use myGiide to socialize employees; and recognize and reward cultural contributions.
-
‘Operando Raman Spectroscopy Reveals Degradation Byproducts From Ionomer Oxidation in Anion Exchange Membrane Water Electrolyzers’
“This work showcases the discovery of degradation mechanisms for nonplatinum group metal catalyst (PGM free) based anion exchange membrane water electrolyzers (AEMWE) that utilize hydroxide ion conductive polymer ionomers and membranes in a zero gap configuration. An entirely unique and customized test cell was designed from the ground up for the purposes of obtaining Raman spectra during potentiostatic operation. These results represent some of the first operando Raman spectroscopy explorations into the breakdown products that are generated from high oxidative potential conditions with carbonate electrolytes.” Find the paper and full list of authors in Journal of the American Chemical Society.
-
‘Non-Volatile Magnon Transport in a Single Domain Multiferroic’
“Antiferromagnets have attracted significant attention in the field of magnonics, as promising candidates for ultralow-energy carriers for information transfer for future computing. … In multiferroics such as BiFeO3 the coupling between antiferromagnetic and polar order imposes yet another boundary condition on spin transport. Thus, understanding the fundamentals of spin transport in such systems requires a single domain, a single crystal. We show that through Lanthanum (La) substitution, a single ferroelectric domain can be engineered with a stable, single-variant spin cycloid, controllable by an electric field.” Find the paper and full list of authors in Nature Communications.
-
‘Psychophysics of Neon Color Spreading: Chromatic and Temporal Factors Are not Limiting’
“Neon color spreading (NCS) is an illusory color phenomenon that provides a dramatic example of surface completion and filling-in. Numerous studies have varied both spatial and temporal aspects of the neon-generating stimulus to explore variations in the strength of the effect. Here, we take a novel, parametric, low-level psychophysical approach to studying NCS. … There is no evidence in this study that the processes underlying NCS are slower than the low-level processes of simple flicker detection. These results point to relatively fast mechanisms, not slow diffusion processes, as the substrate for NCS.” Find the paper and authors list in Vision…
-
‘Confinement of Excited States in Two-Dimensional, In-Plane, Quantum Heterostructures’
“Two-dimensional (2D) semiconductors are promising candidates for optoelectronic application and quantum information processes due to their inherent out-of-plane 2D confinement. In addition, they offer the possibility of achieving low-dimensional in-plane exciton confinement, similar to zero-dimensional quantum dots, with intriguing optical and electronic properties via strain or composition engineering. … Here, we report the observation of lateral confinement of excitons in epitaxially grown in-plane MoSe2 quantum dots (~15-60 nm wide) inside a continuous matrix of WSe2 monolayer film via a sequential epitaxial growth process.” Find the paper and full list of authors in Nature Communications.