Featured
EntityBot is a digital assistant that knows users’ actual needs
The digital assistant EntityBot could help make computer usage easier by making suggestions based on the user’s actual needs, such as recommending relevant information.
Transforming dextrous robotic grasping
FCAI researchers have recently developed two fast AI methods for grasping objects with multi-finger robotic hands, bringing us closer to the practical use of multi-finger robotic hands.
Computers can predict our preferences directly from our brain
A research team from Helsinki and Copenhagen demonstrates it is possible to predict individual preferences based on how a person’s brain responses match up to others. This could potentially be used to provide individually-tailored media content — and perhaps even to enlighten us about ourselves.
Other news
Professor Kari Tammi’s group develops digital twins for industrial use
Benefits from digital twins are huge, especially in industrial product development.
Major EU project will harness AI and genomics for disease prevention
An international collaboration project to develop and implement novel genome-based disease prediction tools has received over 10 million euros from the EU Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation program. The project aims to demonstrate the potential and benefits of powerful artificial intelligence (AI) technologies on the generation of genetic predictive scores and to test their clinical validity.
Finland is going up in the Global AI Index
Finland is now ranked number eleven in the new Global AI Index. One category where Finland is particularly good is research.
New organizational structure of HIIT and the HIIT community support
The HIIT SAB convened in November 2020 to provide support in strategic planning of HIIT and its activities. Since the previous HIIT SAB meeting in 2016, we have witnessed a lot of new developments in the landscape of information technology research in the capital area.
Euro-BioImaging is the leading European research infrastructure for imaging technologies that have a central role in driving fundamental research and applied innovations in both biological and biomedical research.
High Content Imaging and Analysis Unit (FIMM-HCA) at FIMM Technology Centre has now joined Euro-BioImaging in the Finnish Advanced Light Microscopy Node, allowing it to offer new expertise in high-throughput microscopy.
Euro-BioImaging offers its services via 25 internationally renowned imaging facilities called Nodes, which are located across eleven countries and the European Molecular Biology Laboratory, EMBL.
Video games evoke emotions that even music and cinema fail to reach
A recent doctoral dissertation shows players appreciate evoked emotional experiences, even when some are far from positive
Traditionally video games have not been thought to evoke strong and deep emotions. However, a recent doctoral dissertation by Julia Ayumi Bopp from Aalto University, showed that video games evoke a wide range of emotions in players[...]
AI predicts which drug combinations kill cancer cells
A machine learning model can help us treat cancer more effectively.
Researchers developed a machine learning model that accurately predicts how combinations of different cancer drugs kill various types of cancer cells.[...]
Full Stack Open course translated into Chinese by a volunteer
A Chinese software developer came across a course on the web that attracted his attention.
He translated the course into Chinese, and now the Full Stack Open course has gained 10,000 Chinese students.[...]
Airfloow from Portugal won the Venture with Air hackathon
Venture with Air competition attracted submissions from four continents.
Winning team’s software optimises air quality and energy consumption in buildings.[...]
Nitin Sawhney receives an Academy of Finland grant for analyzing and reconstructing crisis narratives
Professor Sawhney hopes that his collaborative research will offer insights into how crisis narratives emerge in society during the global pandemic
The Academy of Finland has granted special funding for research projects studying crisis preparedness and security of supply.[...]
New epidemic modelling facilitates assessment of corona strategies
The NordicMathCovid project aims to model corona and future epidemics more extensively than has been previously attempted.
It also builds towards long-term cooperation in mathematical modelling and extensive collection of health data.[...]
Aalto’s Mobile Cloud Computing group deepens understanding on the geometrical and operational meaning of sparsity and entropy
In the past hundred years, the measures to compute sparsity, traditionally in the form of entropy, have been characterized and qualified from the physical or operational, and information theoretic perspectives.
In this paper, instead, a classical mathematical approach using equivalence relations has enabled a minimal characterization of sparsity. [...]
Scientists develop a sound device to allow monkeys to play sounds and music
The use of sounds is a promising way to improve the life and wellbeing of animals living in captivity.
Sound is a promising way to stimulate zoo animals and increase their welfare, as shown by a study from Aalto University collaborating with Helsinki’s Korkeasaari Zoo. [...]
Machine Learning Coffee Seminars continue with a great lineup of speakers
FCAI’s highly popular seminar series Machine Learning Coffee Seminar (MLCS) started running again in September 2020, this time online.
The MLCS seminars take place weekly on Monday mornings and they are organized by FCAI and hosted by researchers at the University of Helsinki and Aalto University. [...]
Thirteen new units to ELLIS network
Ellis Unit Helsinki participates now in a network of 30 research units.
The ELLIS units will make a decisive contribution to securing Europe’s sovereignty and leadership in the research field of modern AI. [...]
International Dissertation Award to Jeremias Berg
Jeremias Berg receives the 2020 Doctoral Research Award of the Association for Constraint Programming.
Jeremias Berg of the Constraint Reasoning and Optimization Group has been awarded the 2020 Doctoral Research Award of the Association for Constraint Programming (ACP) for his PhD thesis Solving Optimization Problems via Maximum Satisfiability: Encodings and Re-Encodings. [...]
Students and companies work together in Data Science program.
MSc program´s Data Science Project course is built around data science projects for external clients, like companies or research organizations. The course instructors accept project proposals from potential clients until the end of November 2020.
During the course, students will work in teams to provide prototype products to the clients. [...]
Project manager for the ELISE project
Hanna Poikela will start on as a project manager in an EU-funded project called ELISE on September 1. 2020.
Ms Poikela will be responsible for the administrative coordination of this 12M€ project that brings together top AI experts from over 100 organizations in the ELLIS network of excellence (ellis.eu).[...]
Translation models made in Helsinki are now integrated in Hugging Face transformers
Huge contribution has been made to democratize natural language processing. Translation models made in Helsinki are now integrated in Hugging Face transformers, the world’s most popular library for working with deep neural NLP models.
In memoriam: Jorma Rissanen, inventor of arithmetic coding and celebrated information theorist
One of the most accomplished and celebrated Finnish scientists, Jorma Rissanen, passed away at age 87 after a long illness in Los Gatos, California, on 9 May 2020.
Jorma Rissanen’s career and discoveries have been a continuous source of inspiration for generations of researchers and students. He was perhaps best known for his Minimum Description Length (MDL) principle, a fundamental principle of inductive inference. [...]