New Algorithm Can ID Early Signs of Alzheimer’s, Dementia

The research newsletter of Stevens Institute of Technology Spring 2018

IMPACT

Researchers at Stevens have unveiled and verified a three-node demonstration quantum communications network, introducing an exciting new information technology to the Hoboken campus.

The Laboratory for Quantum Enhanced Systems and Technology (QuEST Lab), directed by physics professor Yuping Huang, successfully completed a single line-of-sight quantum link between two campus laboratories last year. In February, a third node was completed, tested and verified: an underground fiber-optic link to a kiosk in the university’s Samuel C. Williams Library.

“This hybrid-quantum network, which could be the first of its kind in a campus setting, will serve as a testbed for engineering innovations and, more importantly, as an open platform to encourage and engage students and scholars from broad backgrounds,” explains Huang.

Twin photons, routed simultaneouslyQuantum communications, first conceived in the 1980s, have yet to be implemented on an industrial scale. The physics have long been known, and the concept has been proven. But engineering workable networks in a cost-effective manner that can scale widely has proven more difficult.

The Stevens team hit upon the idea of building both line-of-sight and interconnected, fast-switched optic links into a hybrid, secure system.

A source laser in the QuEST lab creates twin photons in a lithium niobate waveguide. The twin photons are then routed simultaneously to a financial laboratory directly across a campus street (via line-of-sight technology) and the more distant campus library via belowground fiber optics. Three detectors, one in each location, flag individual photons and create private keys for data encryption.

Measurements of the pairs are made instantaneously and statistical probabilities are applied to verify that the photons appear in both locations and are, in fact, twins.

“This has been very challenging to engineer,” notes postdoctoral

researcher Yong Meng Sua. “The vast majority of photons are lost by scattering, deflection and absorption during transmission. Also, we need to discern true, signal-carrying photons from other background photons that may come from a variety of other sources.”

Security for private financial, medical dataNow that the concept has been demonstrated, Huang says Stevens will refine its setup. If the technology can be harvested and scaled up, applications include secure financial transactions, defense, medical and other sensitive data storage, and computational capabilities.

Current security technology depends upon algorithms which, though highly complex, can never be completely random nor foolproof. Very powerful computers could, in theory, be able to crack them. Quantum communications methods, if realized, offer a potentially powerful solution.

“Quantum communications provide ultimate security,” explains Huang, “because it is instantly known when information on the photons has been touched or altered, thanks to the principles of quantum mechanics.”

The Stevens team will next work to leverage high-dimensional entanglement, techniques to greatly increase the information capacity and robustness of the network.

Hybrid Quantum Communications Network Unveiled at StevensUniversity physics team deploys, verifies pathbreaking three-node network

Integrating Wearable Sensors, Monitoring Vital Signs

Super-Quantum LightSources from Nanotech

INSIDE HIGHLIGHTS: stevens.edu/research

STEVENS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY • stevens.edu/research

The advent of machine learning and other artificial intelligence technologies is transforming the world before our eyes. Insights and analytics from big data that would have been impossible even five years ago now empower medical diagnostics, facial recognition, self-driving vehicles, logistics planning and a host of other applications, technologies and ventures.

I am proud to report that Stevens Institute of Technology has made significant efforts in this critical area, attracting national media attention.

In this issue of IMPACT, you will learn about a few of our many research projects in this rapidly expanding field. You will read about an AI-powered application that can forecast early signs of dementia, Alzheimer’s disease and aphasia; a novel approach to monitoring vital signs using an intelligent signal processing technique; and a collaborative project to investigate the future role of AI in the workplace.

Future issues of this publication will report on additional Stevens AI and machine learning research projects in exciting areas such as computer vision, cybersecurity, autonomous travel and software verification.

In addition, Stevens has become a leading forum for discussion and thought leadership around machine learning and AI. During the past two years, major figures including Google Research Director Peter Norvig; Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence CEO Dr. Oren Etzioni; and Dr. Tom Mitchell, who created the world’s first machine learning department at Carnegie Mellon University, led campus discussions on these topics.

We will continue to conduct significant research and lead exciting new discoveries in these rapidly burgeoning areas. I invite you to learn more about our AI and machine learning work at stevens.edu/AI and to learn more about our research by visiting stevens.edu/research.

I hope you enjoy this exciting edition of IMPACT!

Mo Dehghani, Ph.D.Vice Provost for Research, Innovation and Entrepreneurship

As Artificial Intelligence Blossoms, Stevens Helps Lead the Way

Nearly 120,000 Americans wait for an organ transplant each year, but fewer than 30 percent of those waiting ultimately receive one.

Stevens researcher Robert Chang and a student team are working to address this shortage, developing new technologies that could one day enable organ, tissue and bone to be 3D-printed.

Developed in collaboration with MIT, the proposed system — known as melt electrospinning writing — promises to produce biological substrates by introducing electrical fields to the equation and dripping biomaterial onto a moving plate. By moving that plate as layers build up, a printer can potentially manufacture complex, highly accurate nanoscale substances.

That complexity is critical, explains Chang, because human cells require highly specific environments, including neighboring cells and adhesive contacts with matrix proteins, in order to grow and thrive. The new system is able to print cells directly into a substrate.

“We are combining mechanical engineering principles with cell biology,” explains Chang. “When you can build a reliable manufacturing process that yields a reproducible printed component with precise architecture, then colonize that component with stem cells, what you are basically engineering is a controlled biological response.”

Patent applications have been filed for the system.

AI-Driven 3D Bioprinting AdvancesStevens-MIT collaboration holds promise to address organ, bone shortages

Stevens researcher Filippos Tourlomousis Ph.D. ’17, now an MIT postdoc, working to devise Stevens’ melt electrospinning writing system

STEVENS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY • stevens.edu/research

Carbon Nanotubes As Super-Quantum Light SourcesNature Communications publishes Stevens advance in opticsCarbon nanotubes, stiffer than steel and harder than diamond, are increasingly being leveraged in electronics, optics, chemical manufacturing and solar energy, among other applications. As light sources, however, they’re not especially efficient.

But new Stevens research has challenged that limitation. Writing in Nature Communications, physicist Stefan Strauf and his team outlined a remarkable experimental increase in optical quantum efficiency from 2 percent to 62 percent using specially fabricated gold nanoantennae.

Strauf’s team wrapped the nanotubes with a polymer in helical form, then deployed large arrays of the bowtie-shaped nanoantennae. Functioning as plasmonic resonators, the arrays emitted photons up to 180 times faster in the new configurations, at speeds of up to 15 million photons per second.

Potential applications include quantum computing, cryptography, heat sensing and fiber-optical communication. The NSF-supported work was performed in collaboration with the City University of New York (CUNY), the National Renewable Energy Lab and Columbia University.

The U.S. marine transportation system is among the nation’s most critical infrastructure sectors. Disruption or incapaci-tation of navigation, inventory and port facility systems affect homeland security, personal safety and the economy: one 2017 cyberattack delayed operations for weeks and cost a major port operator up to $300 million.

Now Stevens is leading several efforts to build new cyberdefense.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded the university’s Maritime Security Center (MSC) a multi-year project to develop new research and curricula around maritime cybersecurity. The project, a collaboration among Stevens, Rutgers University and Texas Southern University, will enable creation of new academic programs in maritime cybersecurity; workshops, seminars, course materials and internships; and research to inform systems and awareness across the maritime enterprise.

A second project, in conjunction with the American Bureau of Shipping, will develop cyber-awareness training for the U.S. Coast Guard and risk-based performance standards for vessel owners and port facility operators. MSC investigators will identify vulnerabilities in maritime IT and operational systems, then develop new standards the Coast Guard can utilize to conduct security reviews and educate port partners as they upgrade cybersecurity.

Building Maritime Cybersecurity Defenses

Stevens’ bowtie-shaped gold nanoantenna concentrates light energy in a 10-nm gap, enhancing optical emission rates by up to 180x

Alzheimer’s disease, dementia and aphasia afflict tens of millions worldwide.

The disorders can be difficult to diagnose during their early stages, when they may resemble forgetfulness or symptoms of the normal aging process. And tests used to diagnose the disorders, such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), computed topography (CT) and other procedures, may be prohibitively expensive for

some patients. In some nations up to 90 percent of cases may go undiagnosed as a result.

Now a team of Stevens researchers has developed a new algorithm, based on natural language processing and machine learning, that promises to inexpensively alert patients and physicians to the early signs of Alzheimer’s and other brain disorders.

Mining text for warning signs, with high accuracyThe technology works by analyzing speech and writing, mining text for patterns or linguistic cues that may hint at health issues.

To test the method, researchers Rajarathnam Chandramouli and K.P. Subbalakshmi acquired clinical datasets of transcribed interviews with Alzheimer’s, dementia and aphasia patients as well as interviews with unafflicted control groups.

The team then created and ran algorithms to scan and compare those databases against each other, scanning for differences in word choice and frequency; emotional content; sentence length; and other variables. The best-peforming algorithm distinguished an Alzheimer’s patient from a healthy individual with 85 to 90 percent accuracy.

Scanning social media, voice call contentNext, the Stevens team will consult with collaborating psychologists and neurologists to further refine targets of inquiry. At first, says Chandramouli, the technology will likely be used to sample extracts of voice conversations.

“You might have a person phone in to a number loaded with an automatic set of questions,” explains Chandramouli. “The caller’s answers could be recorded, encoded and analyzed, and you receive a secure email back with the results. A physician can then decide to follow up and order MRIs, CT scans or other tests as needed.”

The technology will be applied to text extracts such as social media posts and blog entries in future experiments, he adds. Algorithms and tools to identify post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression at early stages are also likely to be developed and tested as well.

Stevens AI CanID Early Signs ofAlzheimer’s, Dementia

DEPLOYING GAME THEORY IN AEROSPACE, DEFENSE RESEARCH

Stevens systems engineering professor Paul Grogan has been awarded a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant to study the design and management of large-scale systems, particularly those in national defense and space exploration. Grogan’s three-year project will focus on the development of information-based tools for use in domains with distributed system architectures.

Systems-scale projects typically begin with strict, client-defined design objectives and requirements — but those can hamper innovation, explains Grogan. The NSF project will investigate ways of rethinking system engineering processes, utilizing game-theory techniques to develop mathematical frameworks that usefully characterize multi-actor system-design problems as sets of decisions and value flows.

Study: Paid-Leave Policies Generate Economic BenefitsPaid family-leave policies in the U.S. have generated intense controversy. In the absence of federal laws to compel or facilitate paid leave, four states currently require employers to provide temporary paid leave for family and medical circumstances. Debates continue over the merits of extending paid leave to additional states and nationwide.

But new research demonstrates how state-enacted policies may create significant economic benefits by keeping labor force participation robust — particularly ahead of a coming wave of aging baby-boom generation adults, many of whom will soon require care from children who may also be working full time.

Joelle Saad-Lessler, a Stevens professor of business, examined labor data in California, which in 2004 became the first state to implement a paid leave law. Saad-Lessler’s team analyzed 2001, 2004 and 2008 Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) data sets. Their conclusion: the state’s labor force participation rate of professionals caring for a sick parent, spouse or child increased 8 percent in the short term and 14 percent in the long run. (Notably, those gains occurred only among women; men, the study found, did not increasingly re-enter the work force later.)

A small decline did occur in full-time employment participation, the team learned, as some workers transitioned to part-time roles under the new policy. But the alternative — professionals leaving the workforce entirely to care for family — was largely avoided.

The research was sponsored by the Center for American Progress.

NEWS & NOTES

THROUGH COLLABORATION…IMPACT • Spring 2018

Yehia Massoud, former head of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), has been named Dean of Stevens’ School of Systems & Enterprises. While at

WPI, Massoud developed the first realization of compressive sensing systems for signals, a key component of implantable and wearable systems recording biomedical data. He has published more than 220 papers.

Chemistry professor Athula Attygalle was honored with a 2017 Edison Patent Award by the Research & Development Council of New Jersey for his work in mass spectrometric analysis utilizing helium-plasma and charge-exchange ionization techniques.

Professor EH Yang was named plenary speaker for ASME’s 2018 International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition (IMECE), the world’s largest mechanical engineering conference. The event will take place in Pittsburgh in November.

Muhammad Hajj was named as new director of Stevens’ Davidson Laboratory, an internationally renowned marine research research facility. He will begin July 1. Hajj, who will also chair the university’s Civil, Environmental and Ocean Engineering Department, currently serves as a chaired professor and graduate school associate dean at Virginia Tech.

Tsinghua University, ranked by U.S. News & World Report as the world’s foremost computer engineering university, formalized a new reciprocal relationship with Stevens and brought a delegation to campus to discuss collaboration and tour Stevens’ laboratories.

Maritime Security Center Director Hady Salloum received $725,000 in new Air Force and DARPA grants for projects in defense and port resilience, including maritime collision avoidance research.

Environmental engineering professor Dibyendu “Dibs” Sarkar received a $580,000 award from the U.S. Office of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to further research in methods of

utilizing plants to treat soils contaminated with lead. Sarkar also received National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) support for a separate project working to upgrade stormwater management practices in urban coastal communities.

Chemistry professor Yong Zhang published a paper, “Cyclopropanations via Heme Carbenes: Basic Mechanism and Effects of Carbene Substituent, Protein Axial Ligand, and Porphyrin Substitution” in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

Computer science professor Wendy Hui Wang and Stevens alumnus Boxiang Dong Ph.D. ’17 won the Best Paper Award at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers’ (IEEE)

International Conference on Information Reuse and Integration for their paper, “EARRING: Efficient Authentication of Outsourced Record Matching.”

A paper authored by electrical and computer engineering professor Negar Tavassolian and graduate student Amir Mirbeik-Sabzevari on “Ultra-Wideband Millimeter-Wave Dielectric Characteristics of Freshly-Excised Normal and Malignant Human Skin Tissues” was accepted by IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering.

Environmental engineering professor Valentina Prigiobbe had two papers accepted for publication: “Effect of Ionic Strength on Barium Transport in Porous Media” by the Journal of Contaminant

Hydrology and “Estimation of Nucleation and Growth Parameters from In Situ Raman Spectroscopy in Carbonate Systems” by the Journal of Environmental Chemical Engineering.

Much of the recent conversation about technological innovation and artificial intelligence has focused on the potential displacement of workers that may be looming as automation takes hold on a global scale. But there’s another possibility that has received far less attention: the idea that work might be restructured so that technological change augments, rather than replaces, people in the workplace.

Jeff Nickerson, a Stevens associate dean of research and expert in collective intelligence, has received National Science Foundation (NSF) support to explore this possible future in greater detail.

In collaboration with Syracuse University, Stevens will create a research network and series of events and colloquia to help define the future of AI and machine learning in the workplace. Experts from wide-ranging disciplines will join the effort.

The project will run through 2022.

Can Automation Complement Workers?NSF-backed Stevens effort explores a future of intelligent workplaces

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Monitoring heartbeats and vital signs in real time has long been a challenge. With more than 2,000 deaths from cardiovascular disease each day in the U.S. alone, that challenge has never been more urgent.

Stevens researcher Negar Tavassolian is testing two novel ideas that may help solve this puzzle.

In one project, Tavassolian and doctoral student Chenxi Yang will harvest data from small, lightweight motion sensors strapped to subects’ chests with Velcro. The monitors, about the shape and size of a domino, are far smaller and lighter than current state-of-the-art Holter technology. Tiny gyroscopes and accelerometers within the devices collect and transmit data about linear and rotational motions of the chest wall that can be processed to extract accurate heartbeat measurements and warn of irregularities such as heart failure or hypertensive heart disease.

The team plans to use intelligent digital signal-processing techniques to analyze data collected by the sensors. Algorithms will separate out extraneous motions such as walking and breathing from heartbeat signals; additional machine learning-driven algorithms will then use data culled from cardiac disease patients and healthy subjects to spot abnormal beats.

In early testing on a small set of cardiovascular patients at Columbia University Medical Center and healthy subjects on the Stevens campus, the researchers classified normal and abnormal heartbeats with 98 to 99.5 percent accuracy.

Tavassolian also investigates the use of small Doppler radars to measure heartbeats and respiration rates.

A hospital room with this technology embedded, she notes, could touchlessly and continuously monitor patients’ vital signs while also factoring in and discarding the vital signs of doctors, nurses and orderlies passing through the room.

Early experiments have demonstrated the concept is workable. Heartbeat intervals, calculated using an optimized antenna configuration a short range away and using enhanced signal-processing methods on the data, mirrored real-time fingertip pulse readings of subjects more than 98 percent of the time. Next Tavassolian’s team hopes to detect the vital signs of multiple subjects in a space simultaneously and at greater range by directing two focused beams at subjects.

ABOUT STEVENSStevens Institute of Technology is a premier, private research university situated in Hoboken, New Jersey overlooking the Manhattan skyline. Since our founding in 1870, technological innovation has always been the hallmark and legacy of Stevens’ education and research. A range of academic and research programming spanning business, computing, engineering, the arts and other fields actively advances the frontiers of science and leverages technology to confront our most pressing global challenges. Stevens is home to three national research centers of excellence as well as interdisciplinary research programs in artificial intelligence and cybersecurity; data science and information systems; complex systems and networks; financial systems and technologies; biomedical engineering, healthcare and life sciences; and resilience and sustainability. Stevens is currently in the midst of executing a 10-year strategic plan, The Future. Ours to Create., which is growing and transforming the university, further extending the Stevens legacy to create a forward-looking, far-reaching institution with global impact.

Integrating Wearable Sensors, Radar and AI to Monitor Vital SignsCollaborations with Columbia, Rutgers could lead to better, cheaper detection of heart disease

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Above: Cardiomechanical sensors Left: pulse train of a subject (blue), reconstructed with nearby Doppler radar, closely matches a reference heartbeat signal (red)