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  • Bridging the digital divide: NAU researcher using innovative technology, social science to improve lives in underserved communities
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chris_heiser

Posted by chris_heiser on July 22, 2019

Feb. 12, 2019

For many Americans, having 24/7 access to fast, easy, affordable Internet connectivity is a ubiquitous part of daily life. Because Internet providers are not financially motivated to invest in the infrastructure required to provide access in remote, rural regions, however—especially for thousands of Indigenous people living on tribal lands in the United States and Canada—Internet connectivity there often is slow, unreliable, poor quality or even nonexistent.

As a result, these underserved populations are still on the wrong side of the so-called digital divide—missing out on a wide range of educational, cultural and economic opportunities widely available to the rest of the country.

Assistant professor of computer science Morgan Vigil-Hayes in Northern Arizona University’s School of Informatics, Computing, and Cyber Systems is working on a significant project aimed at bringing more reliable Internet access to some of these areas. Using her expertise in network analysis techniques, Vigil-Hayes is designing and implementing community-centric networked systems that can operate in resource-limited environments.

[Read more…] about Bridging the digital divide: NAU researcher using innovative technology, social science to improve lives in underserved communities

Filed Under: Community service, Research, Scholarly Tagged With: ARORA, ASU, education, NSF, SICCS, telecommunications, UCSB

Posted by chris_heiser on July 22, 2019

Taking a human’s temperature is a good way to determine if their body is under stress or getting sick.

The same is true of places on Earth that are prone to drought stress in a warming climate. That’s the idea behind Drought Eye, a new tool developed by Bijan Seyednasrollah of Northern Arizona University’s Center for Ecosystem Science and Society (Ecoss) and School of Informatics, Computing, and Cyber Systems (SICCS). By taking the temperature of a given region’s air and plant canopy, the tool offers farmers, scientists and city and land managers a faster way to measure whether that region may experience drought.

By comparing the temperature of the air and the temperature of the plant canopy, Seyednasrollah came up with a thermal stress indicator that is simple to calculate anywhere a weather station exists. He and colleagues at Duke University, where he completed his doctorate, then compared this thermal stress indicator against 15 years of data and found it “predicted” where droughts occurred with higher accuracy than traditional monitoring methods. The data, which lives on a public website Seyednasrollah and his colleagues created, can help communities better prepare for wildfires, water restrictions and other impacts of drought.

[Read more…] about ‘Maybe I could just do this:’ NAU researcher helps develop near real-time drought monitoring tool

Filed Under: Project, Scholarly Tagged With: Agriculture, Drought Eye, Ecoss, NASA, PhenoCam, SICCS, USFS

Posted by chris_heiser on July 22, 2019

April 8, 2019

Cryptocurrency, or digital currency, was introduced in 2009 by Bitcoin, and the market has since expanded to include many other brands such as Ethereum, Ripple, Litecoin and Zcash.

Because it is based on unique blockchain technology, a decentralized network that doesn’t require a third party to process transactions, cryptocurrency operates independently from the global banking system. Data stored in a blockchain is permanent and cannot be modified, and it has been adapted for a wide variety of uses beyond cryptocurrency.

The privacy that users of a network based on blockchain technology have, however, is a major drawback. Because users are nearly impossible to identify, these networks attract terrorists, criminals and black market businesses who wish to remain anonymous. Some experts believe that blockchain technology poses one of the biggest potential threats to U.S. national security.

A team of cybersecurity researchers from NAU’s School of Informatics, Computing, and Cyber Systems, led by professor of practice Bertrand Cambou, was recently awarded a $125,000 grant by the U.S. Air Force Research Lab (AFRL) to study how to apply NAU’s technology to secure the blockchain with novel digital signature schemes.

[Read more…] about Cybersecurity team at NAU testing ternary computing to secure blockchain technology for cryptocurrency, other applications

Filed Under: Grant, Research Tagged With: blockchain, cryptocurrency, SICCS

Posted by chris_heiser on July 22, 2019

April 29, 2019

No matter where you are in the United States, some food in your kitchen probably started its life in Fresno, California.

How do you know? Vegetables, like every other product, follow a supply chain that moves it from where it’s grown to where it’s used. That supply chain can be tracked through data, and that data can paint a powerful picture of how food, water and energy move throughout the United States. The data illustrates how every corner of America is connected.

The FEWSION Project is the brainchild of data whisperer Ben Ruddell, an associate professor in the School of Informatics, Computing, and Cyber Systems (SICCS) at Northern Arizona University, who leads a multi-institution team of engineers and data scientists. FEWSION is a data fusion project that maps the food, energy and water supply chains for every community in the United States. Those maps are now available for public use through the FEW-View website, allowing people to see whether their gas prices could be affected by a Gulf Coast hurricane or how much New Englanders should worry about water shortages on the other side of the country. (Answers: Possibly and a lot.) This data was collected by hundreds of researchers at federal agencies and universities throughout the country and for the first time has been put into a searchable and visual form for anyone to use.

“This is a way to see that big data, to see your supply chains, see your lifelines,” Ruddell said. “We look at exposure. If you have a lot of exposure in your supply chain, there is a strong potential for you to be affected by a drought, storm or decision far away.”

[Read more…] about Data scientists mapped supply chains of every U.S. city. What it says is bigger than just where your food comes from.

Filed Under: Grant, Project, Research, Scholarly Tagged With: Agriculture, FEWSION, NSF, SICCS

Posted by chris_heiser on July 22, 2019

June 10, 2019

On a planet that just hit an atmospheric carbon concentration of 415 ppm, accurately predicting where the carbon is going in the future has never been more important.

Much of what we know about where carbon will be on the globe in 12, 25 or 100 years is due to innovative predictive modeling tools like the ones researcher Yiqi Luo develops at Northern Arizona University’s Center for Ecosystem Science and Society (Ecoss). Many carbon cycle models, or computer programs that run equations to simulate earth processes and interactions, are written in the programming language Fortran and require time and enormous computing power to run. By teaching other modelers a faster “matrix approach” and data assimilation, Luo and his research group hope to accelerate the improvement of carbon cycle models used in universities and research centers across the globe.

So, as NAU classes were winding down this spring, Luo and his research group were powering up a high-intensity, two-week training course on carbon cycle modeling. More than 30 trainees from Finland, Denmark, Belgium, China, South Korea and Canada traveled to Flagstaff to learn new modeling skills in Luo’s course: “New Advances in Land Carbon Cycle Modeling.”

[Read more…] about In search of mathematical magic: international group comes to NAU to learn how to build a better carbon cycle model

Filed Under: Research, Scholarly, Student-related Tagged With: ecology, Ecoss, mathematics, SICCS

Posted by chris_heiser on July 22, 2019

April 9, 2019

Andrew Richardson

Richardson, who came to NAU from Harvard University, is a professor in the School of Informatics, Computing, and Cyber Security (SICCS) and the Center for Ecosystem Science and Society (Ecoss). He studies forest science and ecophysiology, with his research incorporating plant biology, earth system science, computer science, remote sensing, applied mathematics, engineering, atmospheric science and micrometeorology. He is a world-renowned expert in phenology, the study of seasonal rhythms of plants and animals in various ecosystems. Richardson created PhenoCam, a system of networked digital cameras that have more than 500 sites through North America that monitor vegetation phenology at the ecosystem scale. PhenoCam is supported by $2 million in grants and contracts and all of the data collected, including more than 30 million images, are publicly available in near real-time for use in research and community.

The framework for PhenoCam, which combines strengths from biological and ecological sciences and programming and data sciences, is being adopted as a core measurement strategy in long-term global research networks throughout the world.

In 2018 alone, Richardson earned grants from several major federal agencies, bringing in $9.7 million in external awards to fund his research. He has published more than 190 peer-reviewed papers and Clarivate Analytics has identified him as a highly cited researcher in environment/ecology and agricultural sciences. He has received more than $40 million in grant funding in his career.

Richardson, who said his first reaction to the news that he had been selected for this honor was disbelief and to ask a coworker to verify that it was President Cheng’s voice on the message, has made significant discoveries and leading-edge contributions to research related to terrestrial ecosystem carbon cycling. The basic science underlying his work is helping to shape the field of carbon management and is leading to a reassessment of the role old nonstructural carbons play in supporting tree growth and metabolism.

“There are a lot of really exciting developments at NAU these days, and it is amazing to be part of this energetic and vibrant academic community,” Richardson said. “I am very fortunate to have wonderful colleagues in SICCS and Ecoss and a great lab group that I work with every day. Being appointed as a Regents’ Professor is a tremendous honor, and I am thrilled to have my academic work recognized with this distinction.”

[Read more…] about ABOR names three new Regents’ Professors at NAU

Filed Under: Grant, Publication, Research Tagged With: earth science, Ecoss, PhenoCam, phenology, SICCS

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School of Informatics, Computing, and Cyber Systems
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Building 90
School of Informatics, Computing, and Cyber Systems (Building #90)
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Flagstaff, AZ 86011
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Flagstaff, AZ 86011
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