Newsletter
Recognition of Excellence: Prof. Nitin Agarwal Receives the 2026 UA Little Rock Faculty Award for Research and Creative Endeavors
Prof. Nitin Agarwal, Founding Director of the COSMOS Research Center, has been named the recipient of the 2026 UA Little Rock Faculty Excellence Award in Research and Creative Works. The prestigious award recognizes his exceptional research leadership and sustained contributions to social computing, artificial intelligence, cognitive security, and online behavior analysis.
Hot off the Press: A More Accurate Way to Discover Dangerous Drug Interactions
We are pleased to announce our recent publication in Scientific Reports, published by Nature Portfolio, which introduces a new model called Protein Sequence-Structure Similarity Network (PS3N) for discovering dangerous drug-drug interactions (DDIs). Unlike older models that mostly look at surface-level chemical traits, our approach dives deeper into the biological structures of how drugs interact with the body’s proteins. Rigorous testing of PS3N on drug databases revealed up to 98% precision and 95% accuracy in identifying risks that traditional tools might miss. The model further uncovered 297 entirely new interactions never before reported in clinical literature. This breakthrough offers a much more reliable way for healthcare providers and researchers to identify harmful drug combinations before they ever affect a patient.
Research Spotlight: The Role of YouTube Algorithms and Creator Patterns in Shaping Human Behavior
COSMOS Research Center presented three studies at the 14th International Conference on Complex Networks and their Applications (Complex Networks) in New York, USA, that redefine digital media as an active force in shaping human behavior. While the three studies used large-scale auditing of YouTube, analyzing massive datasets of 84,816 videos, 14,000 videos, and 157,235 YouTube shorts, respectively, they differ in scope. One study investigates how algorithms influence user activity levels, while the others examine how creators maintain internal consistency and coherence within specific channels. By employing advanced AI, ranging from tools that can visually measure the physical energy in videos to programs that analyze both text and visual patterns to group similar channels together, this research provides critical tools for auditing algorithmic fairness and understanding the long-term strategies that govern our daily information feed and physical engagement.
New Hire: Femi Alayesanmi, Graduate Assistant at COSMOS Research Center
COSMOS welcomes Femi Alayesanmi as a new Graduate Research Assistant. He is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Information Science at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and brings more than seven years of software engineering experience in financial technology. At COSMOS, Femi will work with Prof. Nitin Agarwal on artificial intelligence and machine learning research. He will bring skills from his background in software engineering, product management, and cloud engineering to COSMOS projects.