September 2024
COSMOS Makes a Splash at the 30th AMCIS 2024
The annual Americas Conference on Information Sciences (AMCIS) leads academic research dedicated to information science taking place in the US and from the North and South Americas, and is an Association for Information Sciences (AIS) conference. This year, the theme was around “Elevating Life Through Digital Social Entrepreneurship.” Namely, the conference highlighted the disparities in access to technology, especially in marginalized communities, and emphasized the importance of providing equal digital opportunities to promote inclusive growth. Additionally, it explored the challenges of developing sustainable business models that prioritize social impact.
Research Spotlight: Narratives and Bias
In this month’s research spotlight, COSMOS highlights recent research that uses AI as an integral part across multiple aspects of its methodology. Specifically, the study titled “Decoding YouTube’s Recommendation System: A Comparative Study of Metadata and GPT-4 Extracted Narratives” explores the role of YouTube’s recommendation system in shaping user experiences. The study was published at the 4th International Workshop on Computational Methods for Online Discourse Analysis (BeyondFacts 2024), which took place from 13 to 17 May in Singapore.
Cosmographer Corner: Dr. Thomas Marcoux, Data Scientist
COSMOS, in this edition of Cosmographer Corner, highlights the work of former University of Arkansas at Little Rock graduate and Cosmographer Dr. Thomas Marcoux.
Dr. Marcoux—who is now a Senior Data Scientist working for Bayer—started his graduate education at UA Little Rock in 2015, studying for his master’s in computer science. After starting his PhD, he joined COSMOS as a graduate research assistant in 2018. He received his PhD in computer & information sciences in 2022, and worked as a postdoc for COSMOS post-graduation.
COSMOS to Conduct Social Media Analysis Training
From September 26th through 28th, COSMOS will host a hybrid in-person and virtual training course, taught by Dr. Nitin Agarwal and based on his US Department of Defense-funded research, on social media analysis techniques; each day will have scheduled instruction from 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM (US Central time zone), with lunch and coffee breaks.
Cosmographers’ Summer 2024 Internships
Internships offer students valuable opportunities that can significantly influence their academic journeys. For the COSMOS research team, these experiences have been particularly beneficial, providing numerous advantages. Internships enable students to tackle challenges from diverse angles, pushing them to rethink assumptions and inspiring innovative thinking. COSMOS welcomes from summer internships Manohar Koya, Imran Mohammed, Remi Oni, Diwash Poudel, Precious Sani, and Shadi Shajari.