Harvard Professor Research Misconduct Upsetting
September 15, 2012
A surprising case of research misconduct has been uncovered recently at Harvard University. A psychology professor at the Ivy League school resigned ten months after being accused by faculty of fabricating data and manipulating results in experiments. In “Feds: Ex-Harvard Prof Faked Data in Experiments” on Phys.org, we learn about the report from the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Research Integrity that states that former professor Marc Hauser was solely responsible for eight instances of scientific misconduct.
The article tells us more about the trouble at Harvard:
“The federal document found six cases in which Hauser engaged in research misconduct in work supported by the National Institutes of Health. One paper was retracted and two were corrected. Other problems were found in unpublished work. Hauser says he has fundamental differences with the findings but acknowledges he made mistakes.”
We are surprised to see such misconduct at a prestigious university and are left to wonder if search has become so difficult that even trusted professors have resorted to just winging it. We are also disappointed as researchers that such forged documents are likely abound online.
Andrea Hayden, September 15, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Googlers and Academics Team Up on Machine Learning Book
September 5, 2012
Want to know how to build software that makes smart software capable of doing work once done by humans? A new book tells you how, we learn from Google Research‘s blog post, “Machine Learning Book for Students and Researchers.” The description reads:
“Our machine learning book, The Foundations of Machine Learning, is now published! The book, with authors from both Google Research and academia, covers a large variety of fundamental machine learning topics in depth, including the theoretical basis of many learning algorithms and key aspects of their applications. The material presented takes its origin in a machine learning graduate course, ‘Foundations of Machine Learning’, taught by Mehryar Mohri over the past seven years and has considerably benefited from comments and suggestions from students and colleagues at Google.”
The book is published by MIT Press, and Mehryar Mohri teaches his related course at New York University‘s Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences. The book is designed to serve as both a textbook and a reference for researchers. It makes an effort to fully address topics the authors felt have been given short shrift, like regression, multi-class classification, and ranking.
At 70 dollars, this tome is not exactly free. However, if you are in the machine learning field, it may well be worth the investment.
Cynthia Murrell, September 05, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Duolingo Offers Free Language Learning as Crowd-Sourcing Project
August 3, 2012
An interesting approach to language learning recently caught my attention as I was browsing the Web: part crowd-sourcing project to translate the Web and part language-learning site.
Duolingo is a free service using real-world content to help users learn and practice a new language as they simultaneously help translate Websites and other online documents. The project was started by Professor Luis von Ahn, creator of reCAPTCHA, and currently only offers support for Spanish and German, as well as English for Spanish speakers.
The company website shares more about the service:
“The Service allows users to learn or practice a language while they translate content from the Web. Users are presented with different types of educational activities; while they perform these activities, they also generate valuable data such as translations of Web content.”
The service currently offers a beta version for learning French and there are reports that Portuguese, Italian, and Chinese are on the way. The company also announced on its Facebook page in July that a mobile version would be added soon.
We think this free service may be as good as commercial alternatives because of the tremendous features that it offers that work surprisingly well. I tried out the Spanish version and was pleasantly surprised and how fun and useful the service was. Now I’m eagerly awaiting the Italian service to really get involved in the site.
Andrea Hayden, August 3, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Thetus Takes a Big Step for Education in Portland
July 27, 2012
Thetus just took a big step for education by jumping on board a special education program at the local college. The Thetus site proudly announced their future in education in the article, “Thetus Joins the Portland Cooperative Education Program.”
The Portland Cooperative Education Program (PCEP) connects local software companies with Portland State Universities Computer Science students. The students participate via internships with approved companies. Thus, students gain hands on experience in an internship atmosphere. PCEP hopes the end result will help students to focus their development and integrate more easily into a work atmosphere.
The students involved will have a specific regime, which is:
“Students round out their classroom experience by working 20 hours a week for four consecutive 6-month terms in the three tracks: Software Engineering/Software Development, Quality Assurance, and/or Developer Operations. The student changes companies at least once during their 24-month program.”
Thetus was created in 2003 and has provided semantic knowledge modeling and discovery solutions ever since. They specialize in extracting and managing information to support business decision making.
The internship program is a great way to further education with real life skills. By interning at Thetus students will gain insight into a variety of markets, such as energy, environmental, law enforcement, defense and intelligence.
Thetus is doing really good in Portland and joining the PCEP just earned them a spot on the honor roll.
Jennifer Shockley, July 27, 2012
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