Events
Past Event
WED@NICO SEMINAR: Lightning Talks with NU Scholars and Fellows!
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
12:00 PM
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Lower Level, Chambers Hall
Details
NICO is hosting another round of research lightning talks as a part of our Wednesdays@NICO seminar series. Open to Northwestern graduate student or postdoctoral fellows! If you are interested in giving a lightning talk (12 minutes with questions) to the broader NICO audience, please sign up here: bit.ly/lightning-nico
February 7th Speakers, Talk Titles and Abstracts:
Taekyun Kim - Postdoctoral Fellow, Kellogg School of Management, and NICO
Legal Systems are Becoming Less Disruptive Over Time
It has been found that science and technology has become less disruptive over time. There is reason to believe legal system has to keep up with scientific and technological advances. Therefore, we investigate the evolution of laws over time through citation network.
Feihong Xu – PhD Candidate, Interdisciplinary Biological Sciences Graduate Program, and the Amaral Lab
Robust Extraction of Pneumonia-Associated Clinical States from Electronic Health Records
Mining of electronic health records (EHR) promises to automate the identification of comprehensive disease phenotypes. However, the realization of this promise is hindered by both the unavailability of generalizable ground-truth information and data incompleteness and heterogeneity. We present here a data-driven approach to identify clinical states that we implement for 600 critical care patients recruited by the SCRIPT study.
Kumar Utkarsh – PhD Candidate, Engineering Sciences & Applied Mathematics, and the MMCS Lab
Pain Begets More Pain: A Self-Exciting Model for Pain Caused by Sickle Cell Disease
Sickle cell disease is a disorder that affects red blood cells and is associated with chronic pain as well as acute pain crises that often result in hospitalization. Our ongoing study is an effort to better understand pain events in sickle cell patients. We build on the theory of self-exciting point process, specifically Hawkes process, to develop a mathematical model that relies only on patient pain history. Our model is then fitted to data collected from 39 patients at the Duke University Sickle Cell Center and compared to simplistic yet plausible null models.
Location:
In person: Chambers Hall, 600 Foster Street, Lower Level
Remote option: https://northwestern.zoom.us/j/94379798895
Passcode: NICO2024
About the Speaker Series:
Wednesdays@NICO is a vibrant weekly seminar series focusing broadly on the topics of complex systems and data science. It brings together attendees ranging from graduate students to senior faculty who span all of the schools across Northwestern, from applied math to sociology to biology and every discipline in-between. Please visit: https://bit.ly/WedatNICO for information on future speakers.
Time
Wednesday, February 7, 2024 at 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
Location
Lower Level, Chambers Hall Map
Contact
Calendar
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
WED@NICO SEMINAR: Sourav Medya, University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) "AI for Patents: Progress, Pitfalls, and Potential"
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
12:00 PM
//
Lower Level, Chambers Hall
Details
Speaker:
Sourav Medya, Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Science, University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC)
Title:
AI for Patents: Progress, Pitfalls, and Potential
Abstract:
As the volume and complexity of patent data continue to grow, artificial intelligence offers powerful tools to transform how we analyze, manage, and generate intellectual property. This talk explores how AI—through the lenses of graph learning, multimodal modeling, and large language models—can be harnessed to enhance various aspects of the patent process. First, we will discuss how graph learning can uncover hidden structures among patents and provide insights into patent valuation. Next, we will explore the role of multimodal learning in understanding design patents by combining visual and textual features for improved patent-related tasks—such as patent classification and retrieval. Finally, we examine the emerging potential of large language models (LLMs) in assisting with patent drafting and refinement, making patent drafting more accessible. Together, these approaches highlight a new frontier in AI-assisted patent systems—where multimodal patent data can be jointly leveraged to support innovation, efficiency, and decision-making in the patent ecosystem. We will conclude the talk with some interesting research directions.
Speaker Bio:
Sourav Medya is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). His research focuses on the problems at the intersection of graphs, machine learning, and data science with a focus on bias, fairness, and interpretability. He also builds machine learning based techniques that have high impact in the areas such as healthcare, infrastructure, and computational social science.
Before joining UIC, Sourav was a research assistant professor in the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and the Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO). He received his Ph.D in Computer Science from University of California, Santa Barbara, and he received a Master of Engineering degree in Computer Science and Automation Department from Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, India.
Location:
In person: Chambers Hall, 600 Foster Street, Lower Level
Remote option: https://northwestern.zoom.us/j/91291365825
Passcode: NICO25
About the Speaker Series:
Wednesdays@NICO is a vibrant weekly seminar series focusing broadly on the topics of complex systems, data science and network science. It brings together attendees ranging from graduate students to senior faculty who span all of the schools across Northwestern, from applied math to sociology to biology and every discipline in-between. Please visit: https://bit.ly/WedatNICO for information on future speakers.
Time
Wednesday, April 9, 2025 at 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
Location
Lower Level, Chambers Hall Map
Contact
Calendar
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)