Researchers Blazing New Trails with Superchip Named After Computing Pioneer
Apr 17, 2024 —
![NVIDIA GH200 Grace Hopper Superchip](/sites/default/files/styles/news_first_image/public/news-images/GH200%20Superchip_cropped.jpg?itok=GXyEOu1R)
Computing research at Georgia Tech is getting faster thanks to a new state-of-the-art processing chip named after a female computer programming pioneer.
Tech is one of the first research universities in the country to receive the GH200 Grace Hopper Superchip from NVIDIA for testing, study, and research.
Designed for large-scale artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing applications, the GH200 is intended for large language model (LLM) training, recommender systems, graph neural networks, and other tasks.
Alexey Tumanov and Tushar Krishna procured Georgia Tech’s first pair of Grace Hopper chips. Spencer Bryngelson attained four more GH200s, which will arrive later this month.
“We are excited about this new design that puts everything onto one chip and accessible to both processors,” said Will Powell, a College of Computing research technologist.
“The Superchip’s design increases computation efficiency where data doesn’t have to move as much and all the memory is on the chip.”
A key feature of the new processing chip is that the central processing unit (CPU) and graphics processing unit (GPU) are on the same board.
NVIDIA’s NVLink Chip-2-Chip (C2C) interconnect joins the two units together. C2C delivers up to 900 gigabytes per second of total bandwidth, seven times faster than PCIe Gen5 connections used in newer accelerated systems.
As a result, the two components share memory and process data with more speed and better power efficiency. This feature is one that the Georgia Tech researchers want to explore most.
Tumanov, an assistant professor in the School of Computer Science, and his Ph.D. student Amey Agrawal, are testing machine learning (ML) and LLM workloads on the chip. Their work with the GH200 could lead to more sustainable computing methods that keep up with the exponential growth of LLMs.
The advent of household LLMs, like ChatGPT and Gemini, pushes the limit of current architectures based on GPUs. The chip’s design overcomes known CPU-GPU bandwidth limitations. Tumanov’s group will put that design to the test through their studies.
Krishna is an associate professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering and associate director of the Center for Research into Novel Computing Hierarchies (CRNCH).
His research focuses on optimizing data movement in modern computing platforms, including AI/ML accelerator systems. Ph.D. student Hao Kang uses the GH200 to analyze LLMs exceeding 30 billion parameters. This study will enable labs to explore deep learning optimizations with the new chip.
Bryngelson, an assistant professor in the School of Computational Science and Engineering, will use the chip to compute and simulate fluid and solid mechanics phenomena. His lab can use the CPU to reorder memory and perform disk writes while the GPU does parallel work. This capability is expected to significantly reduce the computational burden for some applications.
“Traditional CPU to GPU communication is slower and introduces latency issues because data passes back and forth over a PCIe bus,” Powell said. “Since they can access each other’s memory and share in one hop, the Superchip’s architecture boosts speed and efficiency.”
Grace Hopper is the inspirational namesake for the chip. She pioneered many developments in computer science that formed the foundation of the field today.
Hopper invented the first compiler, a program that translates computer source code into a target language. She also wrote the earliest programming languages, including COBOL, which is still used today in data processing.
Hopper joined the U.S. Navy Reserve during World War II, tasked with programming the Mark I computer. She retired as a rear admiral in August 1986 after 42 years of military service.
Georgia Tech researchers hope to preserve Hopper’s legacy using the technology that bears her name and spirit for innovation to make new discoveries.
“NVIDIA and other vendors show no sign of slowing down refinement of this kind of design, so it is important that our students understand how to get the most out of this architecture,” said Powell.
“Just having all these technologies isn’t enough. People must know how to build applications in their coding that actually benefit from these new architectures. That is the skill.”
![Will Powell GH200 1.jpg Will Powell NVIDIA GH200 Grace Hopper Superchip](/sites/default/files/news-images/Will%20Powell%20GH200%201.jpg)
Bryant Wine, Communications Officer
bryant.wine@cc.gatech.edu
Grappling With Uncertainty Amid Cyberattacks
Apr 17, 2024 —
![Ryan Shandler](/sites/default/files/styles/news_first_image/public/news-images/Ryan.jpg?itok=P1WKgB0n)
Ryan Shandler's latest study looks at the effects of uncertainty on the public following a cyberattack.
“What I’ve repeatedly found is that people are terrified of cyberattacks, because, frankly, cyberattacks are scary,” said Ryan Shandler, assistant professor of political science in Georgia Tech’s School of Cybersecurity and Privacy, where his research focuses on how people react to cyberattacks. “People don’t fully understand them. They don’t know who’s behind them.”
Shandler’s latest study looks at the effect this uncertainty has on public opinion after a cyber incident.
“When faced with the unknown, people conjure visions of doom, where one bad guy in his mom’s basement clicks a button and takes over the world.”
According to Shandler, even a minor cyberattack can generate the kind of fear that “changes world views or causes people to vote a certain way, sacrificing their civil liberties for security and surveillance, regardless of how intrusive.” By way of example, Shandler refers to a digital mishap hyperbolically reported as a major cyberattack on a Florida water plant that actually resulted from an employee mistake.
“These reactions from the general public, even when they don’t know who is behind an attack, can have strong political and societal consequences,” he said.
Shifting the Focus
Sometimes he refers to this uncertainty as “a shadow of ambiguity.” Shandler and his collaborators have added a new element to the body of cyber-conflict literature, most of which deals with ambiguity from an operational or strategic perspective. His team has written an article for a special issue of the Journal of Peace Research that focuses on the uncertainty surrounding cybersecurity incidents. Shandler also co-edited the issue.
The researchers surveyed 2,025 participants, who were asked to evaluate potential cyber threat scenarios and decide on various retaliatory measures.
A typical question presented two scenarios positing a cyberattack on the U.S. In one, intelligence sources might be 70% certain that China was the perpetrator; in the other, intelligence might be 40% certain it was caused by the United Kingdom. Other options in the scenario included the proposed means of retaliation and the chance of conflict escalation. Participants were asked which strategic course they preferred — whether to retaliate and, if so, against whom.
“As the government’s certainty percentage goes down, the level of support for retaliation goes down, which is unsurprising,” said Shandler, whose collaborators on the study were Nathaniel Porter of Virginia Tech and Eric Jardine of cybersecurity firm Chainalysis. “But when we dig a little deeper, we can see that it depends on who the other country is. If we’re 50% sure China is behind it, we tend to lean more toward retaliation than if we’re 50% sure that England is behind it.”
Mental Shortcuts
Faced with the complexities of cyberspace and the potential threats inhabiting it, most people will fall back on mental shortcuts when forced to decide in the face of uncertainty, the researchers assert. As such, perceptions of countries as adversaries or allies play a role in decision-making.
Political partisanship also played a role in how people responded to the scenarios. For Republicans, the perception of another country as an ally or rival mattered more than it did for Democrats. This also wasn’t particularly astonishing to the researchers.
“We didn’t want to guess — we wanted to find out how people react when faced with the ambiguity of a cyberattack,” Shandler said. He and his colleagues hoped to identify what they called a “certainty threshold.”
That is, they wanted to answer a basic question: How sure do authorities need to be about the perpetrator to gain public support for economic, diplomatic, or military responses? After gathering and crunching the numbers, the researchers put the threshold at 60% certainty, though it shifts depending on the identity of the presumed attacker.
Shandler’s colleagues in the School of Cybersecurity and Privacy are mostly computer scientists who work in bits, bytes, and rational logic — everything is mapped out and orderly, unlike human beings, who aren’t logical or rational.
“People are not computer code. We’re messy, emotional, and use mental shortcuts to make decisions,” Shandler said. “So, we thought a human analysis of the uncertainty that is so much a part of cyberspace would be a good idea.”
Ultimately, Shandler hopes his research will force policymakers and national security officials to pay more attention to the way the public experiences cyber threats, because voters won’t write a blank check and support retaliation in response to every attack.
“When states volley cyberattacks back and forth, the public gets caught in the crossfire, and they need to be a stakeholder in decisions about how to react,” he said.
Authorities should be more open with the public, he added. That would go a long way toward demystifying cyberattacks and avoiding the potential of a mass panic.
“In my experience, mystifying the situation is how we get to the theories of cyber doom and Armageddon and Mission Impossible and the robots coming to get us,” Shandler said. “I think what people are imagining is much worse than the reality. It’s the lack of information that scares them.”
CITATION: Eric Jardine, Nathaniel Porter, Ryan Shandler. "Cyberattacks and public opinion – The effect of uncertainty in guiding preferences," Journal of Peace Research. doi.org/10.1177/0022343323121
How Different Fields Are Using GenAI to Redefine Roles
Apr 16, 2024 —
![headshot of Maryam Alavi](/sites/default/files/styles/news_first_image/public/news-images/maryam-alavi-new_2.jpg?itok=fJ3esJRs)
There is an expectation that implementing new and emerging Generative AI (GenAI) tools enhances the effectiveness and competitiveness of organizations. This belief is evidenced by current and planned investments in GenAI tools, especially by firms in knowledge-intensive industries such as finance, healthcare, and entertainment, among others. According to forecasts, enterprise spending on GenAI will increase by two-fold in 2024 and grow to $151.1 billion by 2027.
However, the path to realizing return on these investments remains somewhat ambiguous. While there is a history of efficiency and productivity gains from using computers to automate large-scale routine and structured tasks across various industries, knowledge and professional jobs have largely resisted automation. This stems from the nature of knowledge work, which often involves tasks that are unstructured and ill-defined. The specific input information, desired outputs, and/or the processes of converting inputs to outputs in such tasks are not known a priority, which consequently has limited computer applications in core knowledge tasks.
GenAI tools are changing the business landscape by expanding the range of tasks that can be performed and supported by computers, including idea generation, software development, and creative writing and content production. With their advanced human-like generative abilities, GenAI tools have the potential to significantly enhance the productivity and creativity of knowledge workers. However, the question of how to integrate GenAI into knowledge work to successfully harness these advantages remains a challenge. Dictating the parameters for GenAI usage via a top-down approach, such as through formal job designs or redesigns, is difficult, as it has been observed that individuals tend to adopt new digital tools in ways that are not fully predictable. This unpredictability is especially pertinent to the use of GenAI in supporting knowledge work for the following reasons.
Continue reading: How Different Fields Are Using GenAI to Redefine Roles
Reprinted from the Harvard Business Review, March 25, 2024
Maryam Alavi is the Elizabeth D. & Thomas M. Holder Chair & Professor of IT Management, Scheller College of Business, Georgia Institute of Technology.
Lorrie Burroughs
Advancing Clean Energy: Georgia Tech Hosts Energy Materials Day
Apr 16, 2024 —
![Chaouki Abdallah speaking at the Georgia Tech Energy Materials Day](/sites/default/files/styles/news_first_image/public/news-images/0A6A4130.jpg?itok=2JNDqFvd)
More than 400 people participated in Energy Materials Day on March 27, as researchers and industry leaders came together to discuss and advance energy materials technologies such as solar energy, carbon-neutral fuels, and batteries.
Energy materials are the things — natural, manufactured, or both — that aid the use of energy. They also play a key role in developing cleaner, more efficient energy solutions.
Energy Materials Day was co-hosted by Georgia Tech’s Strategic Energy Institute (SEI), the Institute for Materials (IMat), and the Georgia Tech Advanced Battery Center. The event evolved out of last year’s Georgia Tech Battery Day.
“As an engine of innovation in science and technology, Georgia Tech has incredible opportunities and the responsibility to conduct research to benefit society,” said Chaouki Abdallah, executive vice president for Research at Georgia Tech. “We call this ‘research that matters.’”
Events like Energy Materials Day are part of an ongoing, long-range effort to position Georgia Tech, and Georgia, as a go-to location for modern energy companies. Tech was recently ranked by U.S. News & World Report as the top public university for energy research. Abdallah also outlined why Georgia Tech, with more than 1,000 researchers across campus working in the energy space, is a natural fit for events that foster collaboration between the public and private sectors.
“Right here, right now, we have the opportunity to harness our collective powers, our collective knowledge, our collective resources to become a global engine of innovation,” he said.
Plenary speaker Danielle Merfeld, global chief technology officer at QCells, highlighted opportunities for the current and future clean energy infrastructure in the United States.
"At the heart of our discussions today [are these questions]: What is new technology, and how do you make it ... and make it at scale, in an affordable, accessible, and reliable way?” she said.
"... [The] good news is this country has taken a very deliberate step toward creating the most robust industrial policy we've had in decades. ... This is driving opportunity and creating the foundation for manufacturing. So, [we can] use that industrial base of making and consuming power [and] decarbonize the electric grid by 2035...."
“Events like this are so important to forwarding progress in research and industry,” said Eric Vogel, IMat’s executive director. “It’s important to bring together professionals throughout the industry to keep these lines of communication open.”
The day was divided into three tracks: battery materials and technologies, photovoltaics and the grid, and materials for carbon-neutral fuel production. Attendees were encouraged to listen to talks from all three areas. Each track included academic speakers who shared their research and private-sector speakers who described how technological advancements are affecting the industry.
“With its rich history in energy research, Georgia Tech remains a leader in addressing global energy challenges,” said Tim Lieuwen, executive director of SEI. “The success of Energy Materials Day is encouraging, and I eagerly anticipate continuing these discussions in 2025.”
![Danielle Merfeld presents the keynote at Energy Materials Day](/sites/default/files/news-images/0A6A4175.jpg)
![Danielle Merfeld presents the keynote at Energy Materials Day](/sites/default/files/news-images/0A6A4187.jpg)
Amelia Neumeister
Research Communications Program Manager
Georgia Tech Unveils New AI Makerspace in Collaboration with NVIDIA
Apr 11, 2024 —
![Some of the NVIDIA computer hardware in Georgia Tech's new AI Makerspace.](/sites/default/files/styles/news_first_image/public/news-images/ai-makerspace-nvidia-8655-t.jpg?itok=bXk4TwBm)
The Georgia Tech AI Makerspace is a supercomputer hub dedicated exclusively to teaching students. The first phase of the endeavor is powered by 20 NVIDIA HGX H100 systems, housing 160 NVIDIA H100 Tensor Core GPUs (graphics processing units), one of the most powerful computational accelerators capable of enabling and supporting advanced AI and machine learning efforts. (Photo: Candler Hobbs)
Georgia Tech’s College of Engineering has established an artificial intelligence supercomputer hub dedicated exclusively to teaching students. The initiative — the AI Makerspace — is launched in collaboration with NVIDIA. College leaders call it a digital sandbox for students to understand and use AI in the classroom
Initially focusing on undergraduate students, the AI Makerspace aims to democratize access to computing resources typically reserved for researchers or technology companies. Students will access the cluster online as part of their coursework, deepening their AI skills through hands-on experience. The Makerspace will also better position students after graduation as they work with AI professionals and help shape the technology’s future applications.
“The launch of the AI Makerspace represents another milestone in Georgia Tech’s legacy of innovation and leadership in education,” said Raheem Beyah, dean of the College and Southern Company Chair. “Thanks to NVIDIA’s advanced technology and expertise, our students at all levels have a path to make significant contributions and lead in the rapidly evolving field of AI.”
Jason Maderer, College of Engineering
Faculty Fellows Program Focuses on Energy Equity, Environmental Justice, and Community Engagement
Apr 11, 2024 — Atlanta
![Jung-ho (John) Lewe (left) of the Georgia Tech Aerospace Systems Design Laboratory at Georgia Tech and Erica Holloman-Hill (right)](/sites/default/files/styles/news_first_image/public/news-images/DSC_7665-Enhanced-NR.jpg?itok=6_KMmZ_O)
Jung-ho (John) Lewe (left) of the Georgia Tech Aerospace Systems Design Laboratory at Georgia Tech and Erica Holloman-Hill (right), a SCoRE adviser and chief envisioning officer/chief scientific officer of Ayika Solutions, a family-run environmental consulting firm that uplifts community-based climate change strategies, discuss their new partnership at the Georgia Tech Sustainability Showcase (March 2024) in a panel focused on community-engaged research, curated by the Faculty Fellows Program.
The Center for Sustainable Communities Research and Education (SCoRE — formerly SLS), in collaboration with the Strategic Energy Institute (SEI), the Brook Byers Institute for Sustainable Systems (BBISS), the Renewable Bioproducts Institute (RBI), and the Social Equity and Environmental Engineering Lab (SEEEL), launched the Energy Equity, Environmental Justice, and Community Engagement Faculty Fellows Program in November 2023. In this program, Georgia Tech faculty learn how to work with communities, bringing together their academic knowledge and the local expertise of communities that has been developed through lived experience and long-standing social action.
The inaugural fellows include 24 Georgia Tech faculty from five Colleges, as well as a faculty colleague from Georgia Gwinnett College and a partner from the Southeast Energy Efficiency Alliance, who are building relationships with each other and with community partners in the areas of energy equity and environmental justice. Since the launch, they have engaged in a wide array of events, including community benefit and development workshops, site visits to community-based organizations across the Atlanta region, and university-community gatherings and symposia.
The program is expected to result in both collective and individual deliverables. Collective deliverables include the development of network mapping tools to facilitate collaborations inside and outside Georgia Tech, a set of principles for conducting community-engaged research, a reflective essay on faculty training for community-engaged research, and ideas for future activities to facilitate university-community and interdisciplinary team formation. Fellows individually determine their deliverables, which run the gamut from exploring partnerships for a specific research project to writing a societal impact statement for a tenure package.
More broadly, the program aims to grow Georgia Tech’s collaborative expertise in community-engaged research by forming a supportive network of faculty interested in community-engaged sustainability research and education.
Faculty Affiliate: Patritsia Stathatou, Research Scientist, Renewable Bioproducts Institute, Georgia Tech
Sustainable energy sources and environmental justice go hand in hand. Although such technologies aim to minimize environmental impacts of modern societies, without considering issues of environmental justice and energy equity, these solutions can inadvertently perpetuate disparities by disproportionately benefiting certain communities while harming others. Bridging the gap between technological advancements and community benefits is paramount to creating an equitable energy future for all.
This program provides a unique opportunity to explore these interconnections, enhancing my knowledge in integrating community values and concerns into my research on alternative fuels and renewable energy sources. I am particularly excited about the hands-on approach of the program, which emphasizes listening sessions and workshops, allowing fellows to gain direct insights from various stakeholders. I hope that, through active participation in these sessions, I can further my understanding of the challenges faced by local communities and incorporate these insights into actionable solutions in my research.
In my project, I'm in a group crafting a reflective essay about our experiences with Community Engaged Research training. Our goal is to translate the insights gained from this pilot program into a publishable piece. Additionally, I'm acquiring valuable insights into the development of Broader Impact Statements and Community Benefits Plans, crucial parts of proposals for securing federal funding from NSF and DoE, respectively.
![Portrait of Patritsia Stathatou, Research Scientist at RBI and Faculty Affiliate](/sites/default/files/inline-images/patritsia%20stathatou.jpeg)
Faculty Affiliate: Sofia Perez-Guzman, Assistant Professor, School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Georgia Tech
The fellowship program has been a fantastic experience. I never imagined how much I would learn from this program about properly engaging with communities. As researchers, we might think we want to hear the needs that communities face to provide them with solutions. That is different than the way community-driven research should work. I’ve learned that researchers need to gain the communities’ trust, be present and participate in their events, and, more importantly, work at their pace and for their interests rather than push our research agendas for our professional benefit. I know there is still a lot more I must continue learning, but what I’ve learned so far has been an eye-opener that is making me rethink how to approach my research and its social aspect.
My project focuses on the social performance of supply chains, and I am seeking to put more emphasis on the “social” part of my research by making it more community-driven. That is why I applied for the fellowship. I am advancing two current projects as part of the fellowship. One relates to increasing food accessibility to vulnerable populations via community-driven freight transportation solutions. I want to bring food closer to people and do it by co-designing solutions with the communities. The second project relates to forming a team to pursue research on enhancing community resilience to extreme weather events for the mobility of people and goods. The fellowship and a Sustainability Next seed grant from BBISS are helping me move forward with this project.
![Faculty Fellow Sofia Perez-Guzman (third from right) joins SCoRE staff on a site visit to the ArtsXchange in East Point to explore mutual interests related to community resiliency (April 5, 2024)](/sites/default/files/inline-images/Arts%20XChange-LR.jpg)
Faculty Fellow Sofia Perez-Guzman (third from right) joins SCoRE staff on a site visit to the ArtsXchange in East Point to explore mutual interests related to community resiliency (April 5, 2024)
Priya Devarajan
Research Communications Program Manager || SEI | RBI
Georgia Tech Partners with The Carter Center to Support Guinea Worm Disease Eradication
Apr 09, 2024 —
![A dog in Chad is tethered to prevent the spread of Guinea worm disease. The number of human and animal cases of the disease in Chad dropped by 27% from 2021 to 2022. [Courtesy of Carter Center]](/sites/default/files/styles/news_first_image/public/news-images/tethered-dog-in-chad.jpg?itok=RtN2MnxA)
A dog in Chad is tethered to prevent the spread of Guinea worm disease. The number of human and animal cases of the disease in Chad dropped by 27% from 2021 to 2022.
Photo Courtesy of the Carter Center
Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) researchers have teamed up with The Carter Center to support dracunculiasis eradication efforts, using mathematical modeling and analytics. Dracunculiasis, or Guinea worm disease (GWD), is caused by the parasite Dracunculus medinensis. Currently, there is no diagnostic test to detect pre-patent infection, no vaccine, and no treatment for GWD. Eradication efforts focus on community-based surveillance, health education, targeted treatment of water sources with larvicide, and most importantly, behavioral changes, such as filtering drinking water and preventing humans and animals, mainly domesticated dogs with emerging worms, from entering and contaminating water sources. “Given the year-long life-cycle of the disease, mathematical modeling is a valuable tool for fine-tuning interventions and evaluating resource allocation decisions,” said Pinar Keskinocak, professor in the School of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISyE) and the director of the Center for Health and Humanitarian Systems.
Disease Dynamics
Dracunculus medinensis is a parasite that infects in a vicious cycle. When a human or animal host ingests either water contaminated with infective Guinea worm larvae or raw or undercooked aquatic animals that harbor the infectious larvae, the larvae mate in the host’s body, and, after 10-14 months, a pregnant female worm that can be as long as one meter emerges slowly and painfully from the host’s body. To seek relief, the host might immerse the affected body part into a water source (e.g., a pond), releasing the worm’s larvae into the water source, contaminating it, and continuing the infection cycle. In particular, worms emerging from dogs can contaminate drinking water sources used by people and in turn, lead to infection of people or other dogs in the community.
Progress Toward GWD Eradication
GWD eradication efforts worldwide have been supported by the collaboration of many entities, including The Carter Center, ministries of health in endemic countries, WHO, CDC, UNICEF, and others. Since 1986, The Carter Center has led the international Guinea worm eradication campaign, which has eliminated the ancient disease in 16 countries in Africa and Asia. In 2022, Guinea worm was reported in five African countries.
Together with The Carter Center and Chad’s national Guinea Worm Eradication Program, Georgia Tech researchers have developed an agent-based simulation model that incorporates the life-cycle of the worm, daily interactions between dogs and water sources, seasonality of infections, and environmental factors such as rainfall and temperature. The models can also capture the influence of dog movement between multiple regions/water sources. Using these mathematical models in a wide range of simulated scenarios, the researchers evaluated the impact of combinations of interventions (such as water treatment or tethering of dogs). The results from the simulated scenarios suggest that historical levels of interventions in Chad, even when adjusted to regional differences, might not be sufficient to interrupt GWD transmission in dogs within the next five years. Hence, there is a need to improve intervention implementation fidelity, adjust implementation approaches, or implement new interventions.
GWD Eradication Onward
New interventions, such as a diagnostic test that can detect pre-patent infection, could help accelerate the progress toward eradication. To guide research and development of such a test, WHO initiated the development of target product profiles (TPPs), outlining preferred and minimally acceptable criteria for novel diagnostic tests, which could be, according to WHO, “a game changer in speeding up a global eradiation of the parasite.”
Georgia Tech researchers adapted an agent-based simulation model and evaluated a wide range of scenarios to assess the impact of a new diagnostic test to detect pre-patent infection in dogs on the disease spread. In the mathematical model, each dog is represented by an "agent," which mimics the dog behavior, their interactions with the water source, and the progression of the disease within a dog.
In the absence of a treatment for GWD, the research results quantify the impact of the diagnostic accuracy (sensitivity and specificity) of the test, but also emphasize the importance of rollout decisions and the compliance of dog owners with the recommended tethering practices. “The potential benefits of testing depend on test accuracy, but also on several other factors, e.g., how the test is deployed, and how it affects owners’ behaviors regarding tethering of dogs with positive or negative test results,” said Hannah Smalley, a research engineer in ISyE. “For example, even if the test could detect pre-patent infections in dogs with perfect accuracy, if dogs are not tested frequently enough, or if owners do not consistently tether test-positive dogs, then the impact of such a diagnostic test could be limited.” The timing of when, i.e., how far in advance of worm emergence, the test can detect pre-patent infection is also important. For example, if the test could not only detect pre-patent infection but also accurately estimate the timing of worm emergence, this could increase the owners’ compliance with tethering recommendations during the time period leading to estimated worm emergence, reduce the need for long-term tethering, and reduce the resources (human and financial) needed to support the intervention.
Recommendations from the research are included in the WHO’s TPP for a diagnostic test to detect pre-patent Guinea worm infections in animals. “This important research highlights how a novel diagnostic test that can detect pre-patent Guinea worm infections could help, especially if used in conjunction with existing interventions,” said Adam Weiss [Director of The Carter Center’s Guinea Worm Eradication Program], “and we are looking forward to continuing our collaborations with Georgia Tech as a means to support GWD eradication efforts.”
“Potential Impact of a Diagnostic Test for Detecting Prepatent Guinea Worm Infections in Dogs,” Hannah Smalley, Pinar Keskinocak, Julie Swann, Christopher Hanna, and Adam Weiss, The American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, 2024, DOI: https://doi.org/10.4269/ajtmh.23-0534
![Meeting of Program Managers](/sites/default/files/news-images/GroupPhoto_Guinea_Worm.jpg)
Guinea Worm Eradication Program, 27th International Review Meeting of Program Managers, The Carter Center
Media Contact: Tess Malone, Senior Research Writer/Editor
tess.malone@gatech.edu
Vogel to Lead Institute for Matter and Systems
Apr 22, 2024 —
![Eric Vogel, IMat executive director](/sites/default/files/styles/news_first_image/public/news-images/eric-vogel-horiz.jpg?itok=LWWLQz-G)
Effective July 1, Eric Vogel will become the executive director of the Institute for Matter and Systems (IMS), Georgia Tech’s newest Interdisciplinary Research Institute (IRI) that will launch on the same date.
As an evolution of the Institute for Materials (IMat) and the Institute for Electronics and Nanotechnology (IEN), IMS aims to enable convergent research at Georgia Tech related to the science, technology, and societal underpinnings of innovative materials and devices. Additionally, IMS seeks to integrate these innovations into systems that enhance human well-being and performance across information and communication, the built environment, and human-centric technologies that improve human health, wellness, and performance.
“Executive Vice President for Research Chaouki Abdallah and I are very excited about the launch of IMS, which positions Georgia Tech for integration of science and technology from atoms to devices, while explicitly drawing in researchers in the social sciences, design, business, and computing,” said Vice President of Interdisciplinary Research Julia Kubanek.
“IMS will ensure relevance across Georgia Tech through its newly configured Internal Advisor and Ambassador Board with representation across all six Colleges and GTRI,” she said. “Additional advisory committees representing IMS employees and facility users will ensure that we don’t sacrifice any of the research excellence for which IEN and IMat are known. With IMS I expect we will be even better positioned to tackle research problems that will have the greatest positive societal impact.”
Vogel will continue in his current position as the executive director of IMat until the launch of IMS. In addition to leading and growing IMat, Vogel is the Hightower Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Georgia Tech’s School of Materials Science and Engineering, and he served as the IEN deputy director prior to leading IMat.
“It is an honor to be appointed executive director of the Institute for Matter and Systems, and I look forward to collaborating with the talented faculty and staff associated with it,” said Vogel. “This opportunity allows us to leverage the core competencies of IEN and IMat while extending our capabilities beyond nanotechnology and materials science. Together, we will be a hub for interdisciplinary research ranging from advanced materials to complex systems that solve global challenges.”
Georgia Tech’s IRIs facilitate collaboration between researchers and students from its six Colleges, the Georgia Tech Research Institute, national laboratories, and corporate entities to tackle critical topics of strategic significance for the Institute as well as for local, state, national, and international communities. IMS will also house and maintain the state-of-the-art Materials Characterization Facility and one of the largest academic cleanrooms in the nation, which offers a broad range of fabrication capabilities from basic discovery to prototype realization.
Before joining Georgia Tech in 2011, Vogel was an associate professor of materials science and engineering and electrical engineering at the University of Texas at Dallas. During this time, he also served as the associate director of the Texas Analog Center of Excellence and led UT Dallas’s involvement in the Southwest Academy for Nanoelectronics.
Prior to UT Dallas, he led the CMOS and Novel Devices Group and established the Nanofabrication Facility at the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Vogel holds a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from North Carolina State University and a B.S. in electrical engineering from the Pennsylvania State University. His research focuses on the development and fundamental understanding of electronic and nanomaterials and devices.
Laurie Haigh
Research Communications
LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA Detects Remarkable Gravitational-Wave Signal
Apr 09, 2024 —
![The coalescence and merger of a lower mass-gap black hole (dark gray surface) with a neutron star (greatly tidally deformed by the black hole's gravity). Credit: Ivan Markin, Tim Dietrich (University of Potsdam), Harald Paul Pfeiffer, Alessandra Buonanno (Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics)](/sites/default/files/styles/news_first_image/public/news-images/tidal_deformation2.png?itok=O6xP6m6Y)
This story was first published in the LIGO newsroom at CalTech.
In May 2023, shortly after the start of the fourth LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA observing run, the LIGO Livingston detector observed a gravitational-wave signal from the collision of what is most likely a neutron star with a compact object that is 2.5 to 4.5 times the mass of our Sun. Neutron stars and black holes are both compact objects, the dense remnants of massive stellar explosions.
What makes this signal, called GW230529, intriguing is that the mass of the heavier object falls within a possible mass-gap between the heaviest known neutron stars and the lightest black holes. The gravitational-wave signal alone cannot reveal the nature of this object, and future detections of similar events, especially those accompanied by bursts of electromagnetic radiation, could hold the key to solving this cosmic mystery.
"Gravitational waves offer an unprecedented glimpse into the cosmos, allowing us to study black holes and neutron stars at vast intergalactic distances," says Surabhi Sachdev, an assistant professor in the School of Physics at Georgia Tech and co-chair of the compact binary coalescence working group for the LIGO Scientific Collaboration.
"These cosmic messengers are unveiling a surprising population of compact objects with masses that defy our previous understanding based solely on electromagnetic observations," Sachdev explains. "The latest in this list is GW230529, a compact object with a mass that falls within the theorized 'mass gap' between neutron stars and black holes – a region once thought to be devoid of such objects. The ability to peer through this new window is reshaping our knowledge of the densest objects in the universe."
The mass gap between neutron stars and black holes
Before the detection of gravitational waves in 2015, the masses of stellar-mass black holes were primarily found using x-ray observations while the masses of neutron stars were found using radio observations. The resulting measurements fell into two distinct ranges with a gap between them from about 2 to 5 times the mass of our Sun. Over the years, a small number of measurements have encroached on the mass-gap, which remains highly debated among astrophysicists.
Analysis of the signal GW230529 shows that it came from the merger of two compact objects, one with a mass between 1.2 to 2.0 times that of our Sun and the other slightly more than twice as massive. While the gravitational-wave signal does not provide enough information to determine with certainty whether these compact objects are neutron stars or black holes, it seems likely that the lighter object is a neutron star and the heavier object a black hole. Scientists in the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA Collaboration are confident that the heavier object is within the mass gap.
Gravitational-wave observations have now provided almost 200 measurements of compact-object masses. Of these, only one other merger may have involved a mass-gap compact object – the signal GW190814 came from the merger of a black hole with a compact object exceeding the mass of the heaviest known neutron stars and possibly within the mass gap.
“With the observation of GW230529, comes excitement, not just for this observation, but future observations as well," says Megan Arogeti, a graduate student in the School of Physics at Georgia Tech working on post-merger signals from compact binary mergers.
"With every observed gravitational wave signal with at least one neutron star progenitor, we have an opportunity to further our understanding of extremely dense nuclear matter," Arogeti says. "As our detector sensitivity increases, we can hope to observe more gravitational waves from the collision of neutron stars and black holes as well as the collision between two neutron stars, which could potentially feature a special postmerger signal allowing us to probe nuclear matter in a higher mass regime than we have been able to so far."
The fourth observing run with more sensitive detectors
The highly successful third observing run of the gravitational-wave detectors ended in spring 2020, bringing the number of known gravitational-wave detections to 90. Before the start of the fourth observing run O4 on May 24, 2023, the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA researchers made improvements to the detectors, the cyberinfrastructure, and the analysis software that allow them to detect signals from further away and to extract more information about the extreme events in which the waves are generated.
Just five days after the launch of O4, things got really exciting. On May 29, 2023, the gravitational-wave signal GW230529 passed by the LIGO Livingston detector. Within minutes, the data from the detector was analyzed and an alert (designated S230529ay) was released publicly announcing the signal. Astronomers receiving the alert were informed that a neutron star and a black hole most likely merged about 650 million light-years from Earth. Unfortunately, the direction to the source could not be determined because only one gravitational-wave detector was observing at the time of the signal.
The fourth observing run is planned to last for 20 months including a couple of months break to carry out maintenance of the detectors and make a number of necessary improvements. By January 16, 2024, when the commissioning break started, a total of 81 significant signal candidates had been identified. GW230529 is the first of these to be published after detailed investigation.
Resuming the observing run
The fourth observing run will resume on April 10, 2024 with the LIGO Hanford, LIGO Livingston, and Virgo detectors operating together. The run will continue until February 2025 with no further planned breaks in observing. The sensitivity of the detectors should be slightly increased after the break.
While the observing run continues, LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA researchers are analyzing the data from the first half of the run and checking the remaining 80 significant signal candidates that have already been identified. By the end of the fourth observing run in February 2025, the total number of observed gravitational-wave signals should exceed 200.
Gravitational-wave observatories
LIGO is funded by the NSF, and operated by Caltech and MIT, which conceived and built the project. Financial support for the Advanced LIGO project was led by NSF with Germany (Max Planck Society), the U.K. (Science and Technology Facilities Council) and Australia (Australian Research Council) making significant commitments and contributions to the project. More than 1,600 scientists from around the world participate in the effort through the LIGO Scientific Collaboration, which includes the GEO Collaboration. Additional partners are listed at https://my.ligo.org/census.php.
The Virgo Collaboration is currently composed of approximately 880 members from 152 institutions in 17 different (mainly European) countries. The European Gravitational Observatory (EGO) hosts the Virgo detector near Pisa in Italy, and is funded by Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) in France, the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN) in Italy, and the National Institute for Subatomic Physics (Nikhef) in the Netherlands. A list of the Virgo Collaboration groups can be found at: https://www.virgo-gw.eu/about/scientific-collaboration/. More information is available on the Virgo website at https://www.virgo-gw.eu.
KAGRA is the laser interferometer with 3 km arm-length in Kamioka, Gifu, Japan. The host institute is Institute for Cosmic Ray Research (ICRR), the University of Tokyo, and the project is co-hosted by National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ) and High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK). KAGRA collaboration is composed of over 400 members from 128 institutes in 17 countries/regions. KAGRA’s information for general audiences is at the website https://gwcenter.icrr.u-tokyo.ac.jp/en/. Resources for researchers are accessible from http://gwwiki.icrr.u-tokyo.ac.jp/JGWwiki/KAGRA.
![Surabhi Sachdev](/sites/default/files/news-images/Surabhi%20Sachdev.jpeg)
Media Contacts
Georgia Tech College of Sciences
Jess Hunt-Ralston
jess@cos.gatech.edu
LIGO-Virgo-Kagra Collaboration
Susanne Milde, LVK Communications Group Lead
+49 172-393-1349
susanne.milde@ligo.org
Caltech
Whitney Clavin
626-390-9601
wclavin@caltech.edu
MIT
Abigail Abazorius
617-253-2709
abbya@mit.edu
Virgo
Isabel Cordero
isabel.cordero@uv.es
EGO
Vincenzo Napolano
+39 347-299-4985
mailto:napolano@ego-gw.it
NSF
Jason Stoughton, Staff Associate for Science Communications
703-292-7063
jstought@nsf.gov
KAGRA
Shinji Miyoki
+81-578-85-2623
kagra-pub@icrr.u-tokyo.ac.jp
Neuroscience Study Taps Into Brain Network Patterns to Understand Deep Focus, Attention
Apr 08, 2024 —
![Photo credit: Paul Skorupskas, unsplash.com](/sites/default/files/styles/news_first_image/public/news-images/paul-skorupskas-7KLa-xLbSXA-unsplash.jpeg?itok=s-OBTGCM)
From completing puzzles and playing music, to reading and exercising, growing up Dolly Seeburger loved activities that demanded her full attention. “It was in those times that I felt most content, like I was in the zone,” she remembers. “Hours would pass, but it would feel like minutes.”
While this deep focus state is essential to highly effective work, it’s still not fully understood. Now, a new study led by Seeburger, a graduate student in the School of Psychology, alongside her advisor, Eric Schumacher, a professor in the School of Psychology is unearthing the mechanisms behind it.
The interdisciplinary Georgia Tech team also includes Nan Xu, Sam Larson and Shella Keilholz (Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering), alongside Marcus Ma (College of Computing), and Christine Godwin (School of Psychology).
The researchers’ study, “Time-varying functional connectivity predicts fluctuations in sustained attention in a serial tapping task,” was published in Cognitive, Affective, and Behavioral Neuroscience earlier this year, and it investigates brain activity via fMRI during periods of deep focus and less-focused work.
The work is the first to investigate low-frequency fluctuations between different networks in the brain during focus, and could act as a springboard to study more complex behaviors and focus states.
“Your brain is dynamic! Nothing is just on or off,” Seeburger explains. “This is the phenomenon we wanted to study. How does one get into the zone? Why is it that some people can sustain their attention better than others? Is this something that can be trained? If so, can we help people get better at it?”
The dynamic brain
The team’s work is also the first to study the relationship between fluctuations in attention and the brain network patterns within these low-frequency 20-second cycles. “For quite a while, the studies on neural oscillations focused on faster temporal frequencies, and the appreciation of these very low-frequency oscillations is relatively new,” Seeburger says. “But, these low-frequency fluctuations may play a key role in regulating higher cognition such as sustained attention.”
“One of the things we've discovered in previous research is that there's a natural fluctuation in activity in certain brain networks. When a subject is not doing a specific task while in the MRI scanner, we see that fluctuation happen roughly every 20 seconds,” adds co-author Schumacher, explaining that the team was interested in the pattern because it is quasi-periodic, meaning that it doesn’t repeat exactly every 20 seconds, and it varies between different trials and subjects.
By studying these quasi-periodic cycles, the team hoped to measure the relationship between the brain fluctuation in these networks and the behavioral fluctuation associated with changes in attention.
Your attention needed
To measure attention, participants tapped along to a metronome while in an fMRI scanner. The team could measure how “in the zone” participants were by measuring how much variability was in each participant’s taps — more variability suggested the participant was less focused, while precise tapping suggested the participant was “in the zone.”
The researchers found that when a subject’s focus level changed, different regions of the brain synchronized and desychronized, in particular the fronto-parietal control network (FPCN) and default mode network (DMN), The FPCN is engaged when a person is trying to stay on task, whereas the DMN is correlated with internally-oriented thoughts (which a participant might be having when less focused). “When one is out-of-the-zone, these two networks synchronize, and are in phase in the low frequency,” Seeburger explains. “When one is in the zone, these networks desynchronize.”
The results suggest that the 20-second patterns could help predict if a person is sustaining their attention or not, and could provide key insight for researchers developing tools and techniques that help us deeply focus.
The big picture
While the direct relationship between behavior and brain activity is still unknown, these 20-second patterns in brain fluctuation are seen universally, and across species. “If you put someone in a scanner and their mind is wandering, you find these fluctuations. You can find these quasi-period patterns in rodents. You can find it in primates,” Schumacher says. “There's something fundamental about this brain network activity.”
“I think it answers a really fundamental question about the relationship between behavior and brain activity,” he adds. “Understanding how these brain networks work together and impact behavior could lead to new therapies to help people organize their brain networks in the most efficient way.”
And while this simple task might not investigate complex behaviors, the study could act as a springboard to move into more complicated behaviors and focus states. “Next, I would like to study sustained attention in a more naturalistic way,” Seeburger says. “I hope that we can further the understanding of attention and help people get a better handle on their ability to control, sustain, and increase it.”
![Dolly Seeburger](/sites/default/files/news-images/Dolly_Seeburger.jpeg)
![Eric S.](/sites/default/files/news-images/Eric%20Schumacher.jpg)
Written by Selena Langner
Contact: Jess Hunt-Ralston