We are happy to share that BIU was recently granted 10.1 million NIS from Israel’s The Planning & Budgeting Committee (VATAT) for 4 data science projects in the areas of NLP, Vision, Speech and BioInformatics.
The list of projects:
AUDIENCE: Audio-Visual Analysis and Separation
Sharon Gannot, Ethan Fetaya, Jacob Goldberger (Engineering)
Learning Dynamic Vision and Language
Gal Chechik (Brain), Reut Tsarfaty, Yoav Goldberg (Computer Science)
SeqSpace: Supervised Prediction on Unstructured Data
Gur Yaari (Eng), Yoram Louzoun (Math), Omry Koren (Medicine), Sol Efroni (Life Sciences)
Language-portable NLP Infrastructure with Hebrew Data Science as a Case Study
In Tashpa the Data Science Institute circulated a call to its members for data science projects.
The competitive call received submissions by 46 PIs from 21 Departments. 14 projects by 21 PIs were accepted and granted a total of 900,000₪. The list of accepted grants:
Primary PI
PI2
Title
Dr. Dana Atzil
Revealing Verbal and Non-Verbal Signals of Positive Change in the Treatment of Depression via Multimodal Machine Learning
Prof. Hanoch Senderowitz
Prof. Leonid Eidelman*
Using machine learning to predict post-surgical complications from changes in element composition in different surgical cohorts
Dr. Mor Mitrani
An NLP-based platform for studying international relations
Prof. Oren Perez
Dr. Milana Frenkel-Morgenstern
Optimizing the Realization of Legal Rights by Alzheimer's and Dementia Patients Using AI
Prof. Ilanit Gordon
Dr. Ronny Bartsch
Predicting team-development from social affect regulation through the analysis of physiological networks
Prof. Michal Alberstein
Dr. Avshalom Elmalech
Data-driven MultiDoor Conflict Resolution-based Recommendation System
Prof. Sarit Kraus
Dr. Eliran Halali
AI for Explaining Decisions in Multi-Agent Environments (XMASE)
Dr. Elana Zion Golumbic
When human neurophysiology meets NLP: Deciphering the neural code for understanding real-life Hebrew speech
Dr. Rose Stamp
Dr. Svetlana Dachkovsky*
The First Comparative Corpus of Emotional Displays by Deaf & Hearing people
Dr. Yaakov Maman
Predictive tool for antigen receptors’ gene usage perturbation in the population
Dr. Ariel Rosenfeld
Lidia Izakson*
Major Depressive Disorder Prognosis Prediction: Data, Clinical Insights and Application
Prof. Shay Ben-Aroya
Prof. Erez Levanon
Deciphering and Harnessing A-To-I RNA Editing Architecture for Correction of Autism-Causing Mutations
Prof. Amir Leshem
Prof. David Sarne
Collaborative multi-agent Learning in communication limited environments and applications
Dr. Adam Zaidel
Explaining brain heterogeneity of perceptual inference through personality traits and network properties
Congrats to the winners and we are looking forward to learning about their progress in upcoming DSI dinner events.
פותח את שעריו למחקרים חדשניים ופורצי דרך מתחומים שונים.
רגע, מי אתם?
רטורנו היא קהילה טיפולית יהודית לטיפול ולמניעה של התמכרויות, הנמצאת בעמק האלה.
הקהילה כוללת את היחידות הבאות:
יחידת מניעה – אליה מגיעים מבקרים מבתי ספר, צוותים מקצועיים חיילים ועוד (כ-20,000 בשנה)
קהילה טיפולית – בה שוהים גברים הנגמלים מהתמכרויות לסמים, לאלכוהול ולהימורים (כ-40 בכל זמן נתון) ונשים (כ-8 בזמן נתון), לפרק זמן טיפולי של 8 חודשים.
קהילת נוער – (כ-35 נערים ו-6 נערות) המהווה מסגרת פנימייתית לנוער העושה שימוש בחומרים פסיכואקטיבים וכוללת טיפול בן 18 חודש ולימודים בבית ספר הנמצא במקום.
מחלקה אשפוזית לצעירות (גילאי 14-30) הנמצאות במצב אקוטי, הכוללת גמילה בת שלושה חודשים ולימוד בבית ספר טיפולי מלווה.
מסגרת אמבולטורית – הכוללת טיפול יום למכורים לסמים, לאלכוהול, להימורים למין ולאוכל, ויחידה לטיפול בבני משפחה של מכורים במסגרת זו מטופלים כ-20 גברים ו-30 נשים.
כמו כן לרטורנו חווה טיפולית המשלבת טיפול באמצעות סוסים וכן פינת חי לטיפול באמצעות בעלי חיים.
בנוסף, לפני כשנתיים, ייסדה רטורנו את מרכז האימפקט האוניברסיטאי – שיתוף-פעולה בינה לבין אוניברסיטת בר אילן, לשם לימוד מהידע הקיים בשטח, ויישום שיטות טיפול חדשניות ואינטרדיסציפלינריות שהוכחו מחקרית אך לצערנו, טרם הוטמעו בשטח.
מה אנחנו מחפשים?
מחקרים פורצי דרך חדשניים (בעדיפות לאינטרדיסציפלינריים – המשלבים אנשי אקדמיה מתחומי-דעת שונים ואנשי אקדמיה עם אנשי הצוות הטיפולי ברטורנו). חוקרים מתחומי הפסיכולוגיה, הסוציולוגיה, החינוך, הטיפול, הקרימינולוגיה, המחשבים, היהדות, המשפט, הכלכלה, המגדר או כל תחום רלוונטי אחר, המוצאים עניין בחקר תחום ההתמכרויות, מוזמנים, בחום רב, להציע נושאים למחקרים אצלנו ולשיתופי-פעולה עימנו.
אוקי אני בעניין, מה עכשיו?
יש לכם רעיון למחקר? כתבו לנו מספר שורות על הרציונל והשיטה ואנו נצוות אתכם לאדם המתאים ביחידות השונות ברטורנו, על-מנת לבחון את רלוונטיות המחקר ויכולת יישומו. בשלב הבא, תתבקשו להגיש הצעת מחקר שתעבור אישור מטעם ועדות המחקר והאתיקה האוניברסיטאיות ובמידת הצורך – של המשרד הרלוונטי (משרד הרווחה או הבריאות).
מה עוד?
בשלב זה לא נוכל לתת לכם תקציב למחקר
אך נוכל לספק שדה מחקר גדול ואוכלוסיות מחקר מרתקות וייחודיות שמוכנים ומעוניינים במחקר!
אנו ממוקמים בפינה נפלאה בעמק האלה. מוזמנים לבוא לבקר,
או לשאול כל מה שצריך במייל את הרכזת שלנו אילה אלבאז ayala@retorno.org
The Dynamic Processes of Psychopathology and Psychotherapy Lab (https://dplab-biu.wixsite.com/dplab) is looking for a software programmer for a short-term project (Start date: immediate). The lab is housed in the Department of Psychology at Bar Ilan University and directed by Dr. Yogev Kivity (https://psychology.biu.ac.il/en/node/1684).
We are looking for a developer that could write a Python code that will automate the transcription of audio files using Google Transcribe. The code will send audio files from a Google Drive folder for transcription using Google Speech-to-Text services (part of Google Cloud Platform – GCP) and then save the outputted transcription in another Google Drive folder.
The project is especially suitable for advanced Computer Science or Engineering students. Students will be paid on an hourly basis at a pre-agreed rate. For inquiries and application please contact Dr. Yogev Kivity (yogev.kivity@biu.ac.il) and include your CV and a short description of relevant experience.
The BIU LawData Lab at Bar Ilan-University Faculty of Law is now accepting applications for a post-doctoral fellowship, starting October 2021. The BIU LawData Lab (BIU Innovation Lab for Law, Data-Science and Digital Ethics at Bar-Ilan University Faculty of Law) is seeking candidates for a post-doctoral fellowship.
Eligibility:
PhD/JSD graduates or candidates who are at the final year of their doctoral program.
Candidates should have academic degrees in law or a related field (e.g., public policy, regulation). Additional degrees or training in computer science or data science are an advantage.
Candidates should be highly proficient in both Hebrew and English.
Candidates should have a background in at least one of the Lab’s areas of work: law and technology, law and data science, law and artificial intelligence, ethics and technology, data governance, data-driven research of the law. Experience in employing data-science methodologies (e.g., NLP and other text as data approaches, network analysis, etc.) is an advantage.
Fellowship Terms:
Duration: October 2021- September 2022.
Funding: A fellowship of 8,000 NIS per month.
Responsibilities: the fellow will manage the day-to-day operation of the lab. The fellow will take part in the lab’s research projects and activities (including conferences and seminars) and will be responsible for the lab’s administration. In addition, the fellow will guide a team of students in their preparation for a writing competition on law and technology held by the Ministry of Justice. In addition, the fellow is encouraged to lead independent research on topics related to the Lab’s work and to collaborate with affiliated faculty members.
How to apply:
Please send a CV (including a list of publications), 2-3 recommendation letters, and a short statement of interest and research agenda to dikan.law@biu.ac.il. Relevant candidates will be invited for an interview.
Deadline for submitting Applications: August 1, 2021.
The BIU AI machine learning (ML) and data science learning club aim at connecting researchers engaging in any type of ML (vision, NLP, speech, etc.) from BIU. Every week we will host researchers (mainly) from the Israeli academia and industry to further extend the knowledge of the members and to increase collaboration and innovation within BIU.
How to get information? There are several ways to get notified on learning club events:
First, you are highly encouraged to join the learning club google group (link): learning-club-biu. Note that all announcements (either event-related or not) will be made there.
Second, you may subscribe to the learning club google calendar: biu.learning.club. This will allow you to get exposed to all events and import them to your calendar.
Third, all evets will appear on the DSI website under the learning club events page (link).
Location and Time. The meetings are held on Sundays at 12 PM IDT. Exact details will be provided before each event.
The call for the VATAT scholarships for outstanding Postdoc students and VATAT scholarship for outstanding Data Science doctoral students in their first or second year was circulated. Details will be provided from the departments and in a separate email to the DSI members.
DSI additional call for PhD scholarships
We are happy to share that this year the DSI will also grant scholarships for outstanding Data Science doctoral students in their first or second year, intended exclusively for the DSI members’ students. Details will come later in a separate email to the DSI members.
HIDA
As part of the partnership between the Israel Data Science Initiative (IDSI) and the Helmholtz Information and Data Science Academy (HIDA) we recently circulated a call for the student exchange program. We are happy to share that we had two applications from BIU DSI members. We’ll keep updated with additional relevant HIDA programs and calls.
CFPs
EUMAS 2021 Call for Papers: The 18th European Conference on Multi-Agent Systems (EUMAS ’21) is organized by Ariel Rosenfeld (Bar-Ilan) and Nimrod Talmon (BGU) and will be held (virtually) at June 28-29, 2021; the deadline for submissions is March 14, 2021. See details here: https://biu-ai.com/EUMAS21/
Computing
R: There is an active community of R users with over 80 members. If you use R in your research and interested in being part of the community, please send an email to Dr. Yogev Kivity – yogev.kivity@biu.ac.il.
Oracle POC: As part of a POC with Oracle Cloud Platform they have offered us free credits to use their platform till the end of March. Platform includes a wide range of possible server configurations including strong GPUs. If interested please send an email to oren.glickman@biu.ac.il.
Google’s TensorFlow Research Cloud (TFRC) program enables researchers to apply for access to a cluster of more than 1,000 Cloud TPUs. For more information and application see – https://www.tensorflow.org/tfrc
Events
All relevant events are posted on the DSI website.
Workshop: State-of-the-Art Natural Language Processing (NLP) for Research in the Social Sciences and Humanities
Workshop on State-of-the-Art NLP will be held on Thursday May 27th, 2021 at Bar-Ilan University for research faculty and research students in the social sciences and humanities who wish to use up-to-date Natural Language Processing methods in their research domains.
We would like to remind you that we (the DSI) maintain a list of data science courses that are given at BIU, which can be easily explored by different category types. The interactive list is available on our website:
How can we analyze and share data without jeopardizing privacy?
Dr. Or Sheffet from the Faculty of Engineering will be teaching a course on Differential Privacy.
The course studies the theory underlying differential privacy its connections to a vast array of research areas: statistics, learning theory, cryptography, computational complexity, convex geometry, mechanism design, and more.
Eng. 83908: Mon, 17:00-19:00, Online (Zoom).
Faculty Credit Program (Google)
Google offers a faculty credit program providing cloud credit to students. Faculty members can apply specifying the course details and will issue individual coupons (typically of $50) that students can redeem and apply to their accounts.. These coupons are instrumentless so there is no credit card needed when using these credits. If during the course a student runs out of credits, one can always issue them more. For more information please see receiving and redeeming coupons.
Open Positions
M.A., Ph.D. and Postdoc positions
Prof. Sharon Gannot is looking for PhD students and/or Postdoctoral trainees with a strong background in statistical signal processing and machine learning. Experience in audio signal processing and high programming skills will be considered as an advantage. Suitable for advanced Computer Science or Engineering students. Details:: gannotsh@gmail.com
Tomer Kalisky’s single cell genomics lab is seeking M.Sc. and Ph.D. students. The group studies single-cell genomics in development, regeneration, and cancer using computational data analysis and machine learning algorithms. Qualifications: a strong background in engineering, physics, mathematics, computer science, or computational biology. Excellent undergraduate students are also encouraged to apply. Details: Tomer.kalisky@biu.ac.il.
Open PhD and MSc positions at the Neural Interfaces lab lead by Prof. Izhar Bar-Gad (Brain Research Center):
Identification of involuntary movements from video: In a joint project with Schneider children’s hospital they collected videos from Tourette syndrome patients displaying involuntary facial movements (motor tics).
Research definition: Unsupervised learning algorithms for identifying repeating behavioral motifs from the video.
Identification of animal behavior from a kinematic time series: They record kinematic signals (accelerometer, gyroscope, magnetometer) from animals during natural behavior. This information is consequently used to decode the behavior and link it to brain activity.
Research definition: Unsupervised learning algorithms for identifying repeating behavioral motifs from the kinematic signals.
Required background: Machine learning, Time series analysis.
The Smart Transportation Center (BIU + Technoin) is running a project that requires implementing a text classification system for academic articles. They are looking for a student to work on the project on an hourly basis. Estimated 100 hours over the next 3-4 months (budget of 7,000 NIS). For context see Initial Report on Knowledge Gap Identification – Big Data and Data Analytics Committee. Anyone interested can send an email to: oren.glickman@biu.ac.il
Industry
Google
Google offers courses/training in our cloud programs for Students and Faculty for Career readiness. This will allow the students to build skills for Cloud in two areas: Cloud Engineer and Data Analyst
Career readiness – information on the program and link for application – Link
For questions regarding Google programs and offers feel free to contact Ofra Shaltiel, Public Sector Business Manager, Google Cloud, Israel, EMEA. ofras@google.com
Nvidia Deep Learning Institute (DLI) Ambassadors
Nvidia Deep Learning Institute (DLI) is looking for PhD students/academic faculty members who wish to be Ambassadors – certified on Nvidia courses, and who may run Nvidia courses free of charge at the universities (note – these courses are usually paid courses). Up until now there were 6 ambassadors from 3 universities in Israel, and the desire is to expand the local ambassador numbers. Running these courses at the university can be a great benefit for students and faculty – where courses vary from Fundamentals of DL to areas like NLP, Video Analytics, and more. Courses usually run as 1 day seminars.
For more information on Nvidia DLI and the Ambassador program see these two links below:
2021 Internships with the Facebook Core Data Science team
Core Data Science (https://research.fb.com/teams/core-data-science/) at Facebook Research is accepting applications for an intern position with the team in Tel Aviv for the summer of 2021. For the Tel Aviv based internship they are looking for PhD students and postdocs with experience in ML, Statistics, or CS, including PhD students from other fields that have hands-on experience with those research areas. The internship program consists of 12-16 weeks of full-time paid work. The internships are planned for summer 2021, though there’s some flexibility.
