Carry the Two

Typical invasive species that pop to mind tend to be large animals like the common carp in the Mississippi River, or species obviously detrimental to their non-native habitat like zebra mussels in the Great Lakes. But what about smaller species that are difficult to spot and that are located in remote areas of the country? It turns out, researchers can use statistical methods to help assess remote ecosystems that may be in danger. In the case of today’s topic, we take a look at the invasive wooly adelgid in the Appalachian mountains.

Remember, for the rest of this mini season, we have a recurring guest joining us! Meet Carry the Two’s Statistician-in-Residence, Tiffany Christian! She’s a PhD student in the Statistics department at Northwestern University and will be leading us through some fascinating research.

Find our transcript here: LINK

Curious to learn more? Check out these additional links:

Find the research we discuss in this episode here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0378112713008219

Learn about the topics covered in IMSI’s fall program, Confronting Global Climate Change: https://www.imsi.institute/activities/confronting-global-climate-change/

Follow more of IMSI’s work: www.IMSI.institute, (twitter) @IMSI_institute, (instagram) IMSI.institute

Follow Tiffany Christian: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tiffany-christian-733137b5/

This episode was audio engineered by Tyler Damme.

Music by Blue Dot Sessions.

Have you noticed how summer days seem so much hotter in the city center as compared to the burbs or out in the country? Part of this is due to the “heat island effect,” where heat absorbing materials like concrete and asphalt make areas that are less green feel much hotter. As it turns out, even in big cities, not all neighborhoods are equally affected…  But why?

To help answer this question and for the rest of this mini season, we have a recurring guest joining us! Meet Carry the Two’s Statistician-in-Residence, Tiffany Christian! She’s a PhD student in the Statistics department at Northwestern University and will be leading us through some fascinating research.

Find our transcript here: LINK

Curious to learn more? Check out these additional links:

Find the research we discuss in this episode here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-22799-5%5C

Learn about the topics covered in IMSI’s fall program, Confronting Global Climate Change: https://www.imsi.institute/activities/confronting-global-climate-change/

Follow more of IMSI’s work: www.IMSI.institute, (twitter) @IMSI_institute, (instagram) IMSI.institute

Follow Tiffany Christian: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tiffany-christian-733137b5/

This episode was audio engineered by Tyler Damme.

Music by Blue Dot Sessions.

For this episode, host Sadie Witkowski goes a bit off-script. Sadie is joined by sports reporter Jon Zaghloul to interview rookie Cubs pitcher and applied math University of Chicago undergraduate Wilson Cunningham. This conversation ranges from interests in mathematics and statistics to applying those statistics to baseball.

Find our transcript here: LINK

Curious to learn more? Check out these additional links:

University of Chicago’s story about Wilson’s baseball career: https://news.uchicago.edu/story/cubs-prospect-pitcher-wilson-cunningham-balances-rigorous-uchicago-college-education-baseball-training

Chicago Tribune’s story about Wilson’s baseball career: https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-university-chicago-cubs-baseball-rookie-pitcher-20220723-66rzhlqhuredta67nchmfcg7xy-story.html

Discover more about UChicago’s Computational and Applied Mathematics Program: https://cam.uchicago.edu/

Hear more of Jon’s reporting: https://linktr.ee/jonzsports

Follow more of IMSI’s work: www.IMSI.institute, (twitter) @IMSI_institute, (instagram) IMSI.institute

Follow Wilson Cunningham: @wils_cunningham

Follow Jon Zaghloul: @JonZSports 

This episode was audio engineered by Tyler Damme.

Music by Blue Dot Sessions.

The Institute for Mathematical and Statistical Innovation (IMSI) is funded by NSF grant DMS-1929348.

We're taking a short break to prepare our mini season, as well as start working on season 2. So stay tuned!

Find our transcript here: LINK

Follow more of IMSI’s work: www.IMSI.institute, (twitter) @IMSI_institute, (instagram) IMSI.institute

This episode was audio engineered by Tyler Damme.

Music by Blue Dot Sessions.

Even if you don’t think you’re good at math, it turns out that our brains are basically little statistical machines. Learning a new language, whether as a baby or as an adult attempting to become bilingual, means recognizing the underlying statistical patterns within language. Don’t believe us? Take it from the researchers at Duolingo! 

We’re rounding out our first season of the show with Duolingo learning scientist Ben Reuveni, PhD.

Find our transcript here: LINK

Curious to learn more? Check out these additional links:

Put your statistical learning to the test at www.duolingo.com

To learn more about language and how the folks at Duolingo think about it, check out https://blog.duolingo.com/

keep your eyes open for the recently announced Duolingo Math app https://www.duolingo.com/math

Follow more of IMSI’s work: www.IMSI.institute, (twitter) @IMSI_institute, (instagram) IMSI.institute

Follow Ben Reuveni: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ben-reuveni/

This episode was audio engineered by Tyler Damme.

Music by Blue Dot Sessions.

Self-driving cars evoke an image of perfectly synchronized traffic moving through streets as all the vehicles coordinate with each other. Of course, this is a future vision and not the current state of autonomous vehicles. But the process of going from a few self-driving cars to a fully automated grid will be a slow process.

Sharon Di, traffic engineer and Columbia University researcher, is here to help explain how engineers and policymakers think about these issues.

Find our transcript here: LINK

Curious to learn more? Check out these additional links:

Video of waymo car failing to merge: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/video/sciencetech/video-1752896/Video-Waymos-self-driving-minivans-struggles-merge-left-lane.html

Arizona ring road experiment: http://csl.arizona.edu/content/dampening-traffic-waves-autonomous-vehicles

Academic review article about AV ring road studies: https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3494577

Video of Sharon’s talk at IMSI: https://www.imsi.institute/videos/driving-and-routing-games-for-autonomous-vehicles-on-networks-a-mean-field-game-approach/

Video explainer on traffic and self-driving cars: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHzzSao6ypE

Check your feed to see previous episodes mentioned, including Dario on Honeybees and Merouane on 5G.

Follow more of IMSI’s work: www.IMSI.institute, (twitter) @IMSI_institute, (instagram) IMSI.institute

Follow Sharon Di: https://www.civil.columbia.edu/faculty/sharon-di

This episode was audio engineered by Tyler Damme.

Music by Blue Dot Sessions.

Some rare weather events, like the 100-year-flood, are confusingly named. This is because 100 years refers to a statistical probability and not a guaranteed rate. That, combined with our changing climate, means predicting future weather events can be difficult. Thankfully, we have statistical tools to help us with this problem!

Sadie and Ian speak with Richard Smith about climate change, rare weather events, and how climate modeling works.

Find our transcript here: LINK

Curious to learn more? Check out these additional links:

Learn about the topics covered in IMSI’s fall program, Confronting Global Climate Change: https://www.imsi.institute/activities/confronting-global-climate-change/

Watch Richard’s presentation on detection and attribution for spatial extremes: https://www.imsi.institute/videos/detection-and-attribution-for-spatial-extremes/

Thanks to the Texas Tribune for their reporting on the 2021 winter storm and Hurricane Harvey. Specifically,

https://www.texastribune.org/2022/02/17/texas-winter-storm-2021-stories/

https://www.texastribune.org/2018/01/06/tide-high-wading-through-hurricane-harveys-damage-audio/

Follow more of IMSI’s work: www.IMSI.institute, (twitter) @IMSI_institute, (instagram) IMSI.institute

Follow Richard Smith: https://rls.sites.oasis.unc.edu/

This episode was audio engineered by Tyler Damme.

Music by Blue Dot Sessions.

5G technologies have long been the subject of concerns and conspiracy theories, especially because many 5G towers rolled out around the same time as the start of the COVID19 pandemic. This episode’s guest, Merouane Debbah, has heard all sorts of stories because of his research. Merouane uses math to study wireless communication and how to improve cell phone technology, including 5G (and 6G!) networks.

In this episode, Sadie and Ian talk about the history of wireless technology, the future of AI, and the math behind it all. 

Find our transcript here: LINK

Curious to learn more? Check out these additional links:

https://www.imsi.institute/videos/distributed-network-design-in-the-era-of-deep-learning-part-1/

https://www.imsi.institute/videos/distributed-network-design-in-the-era-of-deep-learning-part-2/

(One of Merouane’s talks for IMSI - Introduction to Distributed Solutions)

Looking towards 6g and beyond: https://wired.me/technology/artificial-intelligence/tii-op-ed-ai-cross-center-unit/

Teaching machines to talk like humans: https://www.bizpreneurme.com/researchers-teaching-machines-to-talk-like-humans/

Scientific article on distributed signal processimg: https://arxiv.org/abs/2206.00422

Follow more of IMSI’s work: www.IMSI.institute, (twitter) @IMSI_institute, (instagram) IMSI.institute

Follow Merouane Debbah: @debbahmerouane

This episode was audio engineered by Tyler Damme.

Music by Blue Dot Sessions.

Welcome to the second episode of Carry the Two! We’re the show for people who enjoy discovering hidden elements that impact our lives in the most unexpected ways.

In this episode, Ian and Sadie talk about how honeybees decide on new hive locations when they outgrow their current home. With the help of mathematician Dario Bauso, they learn how researchers use mean field games to model such decision-making and how it applies to other cases as well.

Find our transcript here: LINK

Curious to learn more? Check out these additional links:

https://www.imsi.institute/videos/mean-field-game-for-collective-decision-making-in-honeybees-via-switched-systems/ (Dario’s talk at IMSI)

https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9529000

L. Stella, D. Bauso,  P. Colaneri, "Mean-Field Games for Collective Decision-Making in Honeybees via Switched Systems", IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, online doi: 10.1109/TAC.2021.3110166

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0005109818305375

L. Stella and D. Bauso, “Bio-inspired evolutionary dynamics on complex networks under uncertain cross-inhibitory signals", Automatica vol. 100, 2019, pp. 61--66

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0073216

D. Pais et al., "A mechanism for value-sensitive decision-making", PLoS ONE, vol. 8, no. 9, Sep. 2013

10.1109/LCSYS.2018.2838445

L. Stella and D. Bauso, “Bio-Inspired Evolutionary Game Dynamics in Symmetric and Asymmetric Models",  IEEE Control Systems Letters, 2.3 2018 pp. 405--410 

Follow more of IMSI’s work: www.IMSI.institute, (twitter) @IMSI_institute, (instagram) IMSI.institute

Follow Dario Bauso: @g_t_engineering

This episode was audio engineered by Tyler Damme.

Music by Blue Dot Sessions.

Special thanks to Dario Bauso, the Institute for Mathematical and Statistical Innovation, the University of Chicago, and the National Science Foundation. The Institute for Mathematical and Statistical Innovation (IMSI) is funded by NSF grant DMS-1929348.

Welcome to the very first episode of Carry the Two! We’re the show for people who enjoy discovering hidden elements that impact our lives in the most unexpected ways, and today we’re taking a look at how Carrie Diaz Eaton and colleagues use the tool set of mathematics to reflect on STEM (science, technology, engineering, & mathematics) policy documents. Specifically, Carrie used her mathematical know-how to quantify how a policy document from the National Academies of Science, Medicine, and Engineering was altered between the interim and final report. And, what those changes meant for issues of including diverse audiences in STEM.

Find our transcript here: LINK

Curious to learn more? Check out these additional links:

https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/5837t/

https://inquire.catapult.bates.edu/

https://www.msri.org/workshops/1022/schedules/30110 (MSRI video of her talk)

Follow more of IMSI’s work: www.IMSI.institute, (twitter) @IMSI_institute, (instagram) IMSI.institute

Follow Carrie Diaz Eaton: @mathprofcarrie

This episode was audio engineered by Tyler Damme.

Music by Blue Dot Sessions.

Special thanks to Carrie Diaz Eaton, the Institute for Mathematical and Statistical Innovation, the University of Chicago, and the National Science Foundation. The Institute for Mathematical and Statistical Innovation (IMSI) is funded by NSF grant DMS-1929348.

Check out our new mathematics and statistics podcast, Carry the Two, coming out on June 21st.