April 3, 2008, 8:26 PM CT

Computer System Consistently Makes Most Accurate NCAA Picks

Sports professionals and fans get pretty emotional about their picks for the NCAA basketball tournament each year, and that emotion often clouds their judgment.

But three engineering professors at the Georgia Institute of Technology have created a computer ranking system, called LRMC, that consistently predicts NCAA basketball rankings more accurately than the AP poll of sportswriters and the ESPN/USA Today poll of coaches, formulas (the Ratings Percentage Index), other computer models (the Massey ratings and the Sagarin ratings), and even the tournament seeds themselves.

After correctly picking all four of this year's finalists, the LRMC method has now identified 30 of the last 36 Final Four participants (83 percent accuracy over the past nine years of NCAA tournaments) as one of the top two teams in their region. Over the same nine-year stretch, the seedings and polls have correctly identified only 23, and the RPI indentified 21.

LRMC (Logistic Regression Markov Chain) is a college basketball rankings system designed to use only basic scoreboard data, including which teams played, which team had home court advantage and the margin of victory. It was originally designed by Joel Sokol and Paul Kvam and has been maintained and improved by Sokol and George Nemhauser, all three optimization and statistics professors in the Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Georgia Tech......... Posted by: Jim      Read more         Source

April 1, 2008, 10:15 PM CT

Soccer robots compete for the title

Robot soccer is an ambitious high-tech competition for universities, research institutes and industry. Several major tournaments are planned for 2008, the biggest of which is the 'RoboCup German Open'. From April 21-25, over 80 teams of researchers from more than 15 countries are expected to face off in Hall 25 at the Hannover Messe. In a series of soccer matches in several leagues, they will be putting the latest technologies on display. The tournament is being organized and carried out by the Fraunhofer Institute for Intelligent Analysis and Information Systems IAIS in Sankt Augustin.

For a machine, a soccer match is a highly complex endeavor. Robots must be able to reliably recognize the ball, the sidelines and the goalposts in addition to distinguishing between their teammates and opponents. To this end, they are outfitted with all sorts of high-tech equipment: cameras and sensors scan the robots' surroundings, internal processors convert data to define game tactics and defense strategies, and innovative engines allow the automated players to sprint across the field and unexpectedly fake out their opponents.

There are now nine leagues, each of which has its own technological focus. In the middle-size league, robots get around on wheels. Four players and a goalkeeper compete for each team on a 20 x 14-meter pitch with standard soccer goals. They must be able to function completely independently and are equipped with internal camera systems that process information in real time. What's more, the robots can move up to two meters per second......... Posted by: Jim      Read more         Source

April 1, 2008, 10:11 PM CT

Can a laser scanner drive a car?

A car that navigates city streets without a driver - steered only by a computer? That might seem impossible to a number of. But scientists from Fraunhofer and the FU Berlin are presenting such an automated vehicle at this year's Hannover Messe on April 21 through 25, 2008 (Hall 25, Stand H25). Its core element is a three-dimensional laser scanner.

Can a computer steer a car through a city without a driver's help? The 'Spirit of Berlin', a vehicle developed jointly by scientists at the Fraunhofer Institute for Intelligent Analysis and Information Systems IAIS in Sankt Augustin and their colleagues at the Freie Universität Berlin, proves that it is possible. The vehicle, which will be on display at this year's Hannover Messe, made it to the semi-finals of the 'DARPA Urban Challenge' competition entirely alone -without a driver or a remote control. The Urban Challenge for unmanned vehicles is organized by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the research arm of the United States Department of Defense. In November 2007, the third edition of the event was held at the site of a former air force base in California for the first time.

One of Spirit of Berlin's most important sensors is a rotating 3-D laser scanner that was developed at the Fraunhofer IAIS. The scanner classifies the navigable route and is able to distinguish the street from footpaths, parking lots, houses and pedestrians. "The scanner, which is fixed to the roof of the car, constantly moves laser beams back and forth through a mirror on a vertical axis - it moves the laser beam from top to bottom and back again," explains IAIS project manager Dr. Hartmut Surmann. "If anything gets in the way, such as a pedestrian, the laser beam is reflected and sent back to the scanner. The software analyzes the information while the car is in motion and steers the vehicle in the right direction. The system comprises two back-to-back laser scanners that rotate in the same way as the flashing lights on police cars and are thus able to 'see' all of the car's surroundings." The lasers can record two complete images per second. One of the challenges involved is to keep adjusting the recorded values to allow for the distance covered. "At a speed of 36 kilometers per hour, the car moves 10 meters per second. Consequently, the measured data must constantly be adjusted to the car's current position," Surmann explains......... Posted by: Jim      Read more         Source

April 1, 2008, 8:46 PM CT

Fear of messing up may cause whites to avoid blacks

Democratic consultant Donna Brazile brought home Americas reluctance to talk openly about race in a New York Times article that preceded the Barack Obama speech that now has the whole nation buzzing. In essence, she said in her quote, any serious discussion about race has the effect of clearing a room.

Braziles remark and the presidential hopefuls groundbreaking speech about a subject that politicians generally tiptoe around in public hint at the complexities of race relations in America today. As we approach the second decade of the 21st century, research shows that a number of Americans feel anxious during interracial interactions whether or not race is even mentioned.

Now a provocative new study from Northwestern University suggests that whites who are especially worried about appearing racist seem to suffer from anxiety that instinctively may cause them to avoid interaction with blacks in the first place.

The Threat of Appearing Prejudiced and Race-based Attentional Biases, by Jennifer A. Richeson, associate professor of psychology and African-American studies and faculty fellow at the Institute for Policy Research (IPR) at Northwestern, and Sophie Trawalter, post-doctoral fellow, IPR, recently appeared in the journal Psychological Science.

Study participants indicated that they worry about inadvertently getting in trouble for somehow seeming biased. As a result, the study suggests, they behaved in a way that research shows people respond when faced with stimuli that cause them to feel threatened or anxious: they instinctively look at what is making them feel nervous and then ignore it......... Posted by: Tom      Read more         Source

April 1, 2008, 8:39 PM CT

Rich Terrorist, Poor Terrorist

New research suggests political freedom and geographic factors contribute significantly to causes of terrorism, challenging the common view that terrorism is rooted in poverty.

"There is no significant relationship between a country's wealth and level of terrorism once other factors like the country's level of political freedom are taken into account," says Alberto Abadie, public policy professor at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government.

Abadie's review of the World Market Research Centre's Global Terrorism Index found no clear connection between terrorism and poverty. Abadie's research was funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF).

The finding comes despite several international meetings designed to address issues of terrorism and poverty. For example, in March 2002, leaders from more than 50 nations met at a development summit in Monterrey, Mexico to call for more aid to poor countries to help eliminate extreme poverty as a motivation for terrorism.

Michael K. Moore, then the head of the World Trade Organization, reportedly told delegates, "Poverty in all its forms is the greatest single threat to peace, security, democracy, human rights and the environment".

But Abadie says the big takeaway from his study for policymakers is that eventhough development aid is important, it is not clear that it is an effective tool for reducing terrorism, at least not in the short-run. He says more attention should be paid to political freedom because it "correlates with terrorism, but in a complicated way"......... Posted by: Tom      Read more         Source

March 31, 2008, 9:18 PM CT

Are women voters more likely to vote for female candidates?

This research, which was conducted by University of Wisconsins Kathleen Dolan, examined the National Election Study (NES) data, which provided information about voters reactions to female candidates and whether gender affinity was correlation to the election booth decision. The findings provided interesting results.

While the research looked at gender affinity, and such other issues as the desire for gender-specific representation on certain political issues, and the political party affiliation of both the candidate and the voter, the research did not find an overwhelming or consistent gender gap supporting female candidates. Instead, information about the candidate herself, and her position on significant issues seemed to be more important to the voters choice.

"As the number of women who seek elective office increases, we have increased our understanding of the sometimes complex dynamics that their candidacies raise, concludes the author in the article. While women support female candidates, they are reviewed in the same way that all candidates are reviewed, through the lens of personal and political considerations that take a number of forms. Sometimes this leads to situations in which women are more likely to support female candidates than are men, but even in these situations, candidate sex may be only one of several important considerations......... Posted by: Tom      Read more         Source

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 00:29:36 GMT

Is it a Recession?

It's a recession when your neighbor loses his job; it's a depression when you lose yours. - Harry S. Truman

Well it may soon be official. Today the Commerce Department confirmed Gross Domestic Product grew at only 0.6% for the last quarter of 2007. In April, the report for the first quarter of 2008 will be out and it is expected to show negative growth. For those of you keeping score, if we get two quarters of negative growth, then it is officially a recession. Hold on, will know by June or July if we are in an official recession.

You see it does not matter that milk, bread, eggs, and cereal prices are killing you. It does not matter that gas prices are eliminating disposable income or that your job is in jeopardy. We are not officially in a recession, thank you.

That is until we get official word from the Commerce Department in June or July.

In an excellent article in January, Barbara Ehrenreich, writing for the Huffington Post, pointed out that over 50% of Americans already believe we are in a recession. For the public, the economists' definition is meaningless - hard times are hard times, with or without an economist's blessing. Technically, I suppose the proper comment is, "all leading indicators point to a recession." Posted by: Gregory Boop      Read more     Source

Sun, 30 Mar 2008 22:40:24 GMT

Just ask Carla Bruni-Sarkozy

Carla Bruni-Sarkozy may have given her first real speech yesterday, since touching down in the U.K on Wednesday, but it''s her outfits that have had the first and last diplomatic word.

Posted by: Michele Obi      Read more     Source

March 29, 2008, 12:27 AM CT

Something big is in the horizon

Something big is happening in the presidential primary on the democratic side. Just before the Wright controversy Obama was leading Clinton in almost all the national polls. Then the Wright controversy frenzy hit the media and Obama's rating went down and Clinton became the more favorite choice of the democrats. Now the trend is changing.

Obama was gaining momentum in the last few days and is emerging as the more favorable candidate over Clinton. On Friday Gallup daily tracking poll reported that Obama has 8 point lead over Clinton in the primary poll. This is not a temporary flip since Obama was slowing gaining grounds over Clinton. This eight-point lead is the highest lead for Obama since the beginning of Obama-Clinton race. The previous highest lead for Obama was 6 points, recorded on Feb 13, 2008. After the Wright controversy Clinton took over the lead and on Feb 18, 2008 at the height of the controversy Clinton enjoyed a healthy lead of 7 points over Obama. Now Obama has not only neutralized that 7 point lead of Clinton but has gone up further by another 8 points. See the Gallup daily tracking trends on the graph below (graph courtesy of gallop.com).

This trend is not limited to Gallup tracking poll. Similar trends are seen in other tracking polls and sporadic polls. Pew research poll done during 03/19 - 03/22 showed a 10 point lead for Obama. Rasmussen daily tracking poll shows a similar trend and come back of Obama support. This daily tracking poll shows 6-point lead for Obama......... Posted by: Brian      Read more         Source

March 27, 2008, 9:44 PM CT

Americans living longer, enjoying greater health

Average life expectancy continues to increase, and todays older Americans enjoy better health and financial security than any prior generation. However, rates of gain are inconsistent between the genders and across age brackets, income levels and racial and ethnic groups. Some critical disparities also exist between older Americans and older people in other industrialized countries. These and other trends are reported in Older Americans 2008: Key Indicators of Well-Being, a unique, comprehensive look at aging in the United States from the Federal Interagency Forum on Aging-Related Statistics.

Older Americans 2008, the fourth chartbook prepared by the Forum since 2000, provides an updated, accessible compendium of indicators, drawn from the most reliable official statistics about the well-being of Americans primarily age 65 and over. The indicators are categorized into five broad areaspopulation, economics, health status, health risks and behaviors and health care. The 160-page report contains data on 38 key indicatorsand a one-time special feature on health literacy.

The Foruma consortium representing 15 agencies with responsibilities for Federal data collection or aging programscollects, interprets and updates these data and makes them available to government agencies, policymakers, the media and the public......... Posted by: Tom      Read more         Source