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Exculsive club
Computer science's Jin Tian is the latest in his academic department
to receive a NSF Early Career Award
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When it comes time for the National Science Foundation (NSF) to hand
out Early Career Awards in computer science, the organization looks to
Iowa State University.
For the fourth straight year, a junior professor in the Department of
Computer Science has received the prestigious honor.
This year Jin Tian, assistant professor of computer science, is the honoree.
He joins fellow computer science professors Lu Ruan, Wallapak Tavanapong
and YanBin Jia to form their own little exclusive club.
Tian has received a five-year $455,000 Early Career Award for his project,
"Reasoning with Cause and Effect: Model Testing, Axiomatization and
Identification."
"This project addresses fundamental issues in causal reasoning with
the long-range goal of developing theoretical foundations that will facilitate
building intelligent systems capable of operating autonomously in dynamic
and uncertain environments," Tian said.
The assistant professor utilizes causal Bayesian networks in his research
as the primary mathematical language to represent and reason about causal
relationships. The project will address several related topics including
axiomatizing causal reasoning, model testing, identifying causal effects
and causal reasoning in structural equation models.
Tian has undertaken the research due to the challenges involved in building
intelligent systems capable of understanding the notion of causality,
which is basic to human thought.
"The intelligent systems should be able to act rationally under uncertainty
and be able to adapt to changing environments," he said.
That's the case with human beings. When individuals become ill, they can
figure out the reasons why and seek appropriate treatment.
But that isn't the case with robots.
"Robots behave independently like a human being," Tian said.
"But when a machine discovers a diagnostic problem it would be extremely
helpful if the machine can find out what causes this problem."
Tian feels that if his research is successful, it will provide powerful
tools for industry for reasoning with cause and effect.
He hopes to develop new algorithms for predicting causal effects.
"This research should have applications in artificial intelligence
systems," he said.
Specifically the algorithms will work with machines that are equipped
with incomplete models of environment and are required to control their
environment with no prior manipulative training.
"The algorithms will help decide whether the observations available
are sufficient for controlling one's environment, whether additional observations
are required, or whether the assumptions need to be refined," he
said.
The results should have applications in both the health and social science
fields Tian said.
Every NSF Early Career Award must have an educational component. Tian
will use some of the NSF funding for curriculum development, study mentoring
activities, and involving undergraduate students in the research project.
Around LAS
April 5-18, 2004
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