Welcome back to Science Fair, Bwog’s weekly roundup of science events happening around campus. As always, email science@bwog.com if you want your event featured.

Towards Software/Hardware Co-Design for FHE ASIC Accelerators

• Monday, February 20, 11 am to 12 pm.
• Computer Science Building 453.
• “The rapid expansion and increased popularity of cloud computing comes with no shortage of privacy concerns about outsourcing computation to semi-trusted parties. While cryptography has been successfully used to solve data-in-transit (e.g., HTTPS) and data-at-rest (e.g., AES encrypted hard disks) concerns, data-in-use protection remains unsolved. Fully homomorphic encryption, the ability to meaningfully manipulate data while data remains encrypted, has emerged as a prominent solution. The performance degradation compared to non-private computation, however, limits its practicality. In this talk, we will discuss our ongoing efforts towards accelerating homomorphic encryption at the software and hardware level. We will present the first ASIC instantiation of a fully homomorphic encrypted co-processor, as well as discuss the software innovations of E3, our framework for compiling C++ programs to their homomorphically encrypted counterparts.” More information here.

Structure, Function and Restoration of Mechanosensitive Ion Channels in Auditory Hair Cells

• Monday, February 20, 12 pm.
• 601 Fairchild.
• “Sensory transduction in the inner ear converts sound information into electrical signals that are transmitted to the brain. My lab has identified the elusive mechanosensitive ion channel critical for sensory transduction in auditory hair cells. For this seminar I will present structural and functional data supporting this conclusion. In addition to our basic science discoveries, our findings have translational relevance because the gene that encodes the hair cell transduction channel is the target of numerous genetic mutations that cause deafness in humans… We aim to develop these approaches into treatments for the benefit of patients with genetic inner ear disorders.” More information here.

Symposium: The Future of Quantum

• Monday, February 20, 12:30 to 1:30 pm.
• Center for Theoretical Physics (Pupin Hall 8th Floor).
• “In this special event the panel will discuss the current status and future prospects of ‘quantum’ focusing on opportunities in the theoretical understanding, experimental creation, and potential exploitation of large-scale quantum coherence and entanglement. Topics will include the theoretical basics of quantum advantage, the theoretical computer science of quantum devices, current and prospective quantum hardware and simulation modalities, quantum networking and the government and private funding landscapes. The Symposium will be informal and interaction with the audience is encouraged. While the discussion will be at an advanced level, high-level quantum physics expertise is not necessary.” More information here.

Statistics Seminar – Jiayang Sun

• Monday, February 20, 4:10 to 5:10 pm.
• School of Social Work, Room 903.
• “Feature selection is critical for developing drug targets or understanding reproductive success at high altitudes. However, selected features depend on the model assumption used for feature selection. Determining variable transformations to make the model more realistic or interpretable is not trivial in the case of many features or variables. This talk presents our advance toward a semi-parametric learning pipeline to study feature, transformation, and model selection in a ‘triathlon.’ We introduce a concept of transformation necessity-sufficiency guarantee, open up dialogues for paradigm changes, provide our learning procedure for explainable models, illustrate its performance, and demonstrate its application in understanding social, physiological, and genetic contributions to reproductive success of Tibetan women. This is the joint work with Shenghao Ye, Cynthia Beall, and Mary Meyer.” More information here.

“Warming of the Arctic” in the 19205 – 1940s: Influence on Marine Environment and Resources, and on the Soviet Understanding of Climate Change

• Tuesday, February 21, 12 to 1:30 pm.
• Online and in-person, International Affairs Building, Room 1219.
• “The arctic climate is currently changing faster than the climate of the planet; this phenomenon is known as ‘Arctic amplification.’ However, even before the beginning of the anthropogenic global climate change, the Arctic climate was quite changeable. The observations of the rapid warming of the Arctic caused by natural factors in the 1920s-1940s led scientists to acknowledge the possibility of short-term changes of the climate in general… This talk, on the one hand, illustrates climate as a driver for changes in abundance and migrations patterns of fish species important for the ecosystems of these seas and for the economy. On the other hand, the talk focuses on Russian scientists and their international networks, through which new knowledge on the changes of Arctic climate circulated. In addition, the legacy of this period for the Soviet / Russian climate science is discussed.” More information here.

Decoding Dark Matter with Stellar Streams from Beyond the Milky Way

• Wednesday, February 22, 4:05 to 5:05 pm.
• Pupin 1402.
• “In the coming decade, thousands of stellar streams will be observed around the halos of external galaxies with the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, Euclid, and the Vera C. Rubin Observatory.  Stellar streams form when a dwarf galaxy or a cluster of stars is torn apart due to an underlying galactic potential, leaving behind a swath of thousands of stars that exhibit coherent, ordered motion. These streams are sensitive to the distribution of dark matter and to the population of dark matter subhalos in galaxies, both of which depend on the mass and interactions of the dark matter particle. In this talk, I discuss the status of the search for dark matter and how we can use the incoming wealth of stellar stream data to rule out dark matter candidates.” More information here.

Columbia University 7th Annual Engineering in Medicine Symposium

• Thursday, February 23, 10:30 am to 6 pm.
• Online event, register here.
• “A symposium exploring the interface of engineering and medicine and the path from bench to bedside. The five sessions will showcase the role of engineering in the fields of single cell, machine learning, neuroscience of decision-making, development and aging, and tissue engineering and instructive biomaterials.” More information here.

Sequence-Defined Chemical Polymers from a Repurposed Translation Machine

• Thursday, February 23, 4:30 to 5:30 pm.
• Havemeyer 209.
• “One can imagine three different strategies to exploit the translational apparatus to biosynthesize sequence-defined chemical polymers that are not strictly L-alpha-amino acid oligomers. This lecture will describe recent progress towards and the relative merits of at least two of these different approaches.” More information here.

The Amazon Tipping Point: Moving Beyond Myths and Towards Solutions

• Thursday, February 23, 2:30 to 3:30 pm.
• 10th Floor Schermerhorn Extension.
• “Paulo Brando is an internationally-recognized expert on tropical ecology whose research explores the vulnerability of terrestrial natural systems to repeated disturbances and prolonged degradation. His research combines field manipulation experiments, statistical and dynamic vegetation models, and remote sensing.” Contact ln2489@columbia.edu for inquiries.

Columbia at Hadrian’s Villa: New Results and New Questions

• Friday, February 24, 4:10 to 6 pm.
• Online (attend here) and in-person (807 Schermerhorn).
• “Over the past two years, the Advanced Program of Ancient History and Art has continued to work at Hadrian’s Villa despite the challenges posed by the pandemic. This talk will present the many remarkable results achieved thanks to the dedication and professionalism of the APAHA team members and student excavators. Discoveries and accomplishments that will be discussed include: the final plan of the so-called Medianum Building; the rich long-term story of this building and those adjacent to it, with their complex sequence of phases; new mosaic floors, including the largest brought to light by APAHA to date; several lead tokens featuring Egyptian deities, which shed new light on religious life at the villa; and the interpretation of masonry remains excavated in previous years.” More information here.

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