July 27, 2022

On Aug. 8-9, Michigan Tech is hosting a Software Carpentries Workshop for students, faculty and staff. The workshop will be held in GLRC 202 from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. each day.

The Carpentries teach skills that are immediately useful for researchers, using lessons and datasets that allow researchers to quickly apply what they have learned to their own work.

This workshop covers basic concepts and tools, including program design, version control and task automation. The curriculum will include:

• The Unix Shell
• Programming with Python
• Version Control with Git
• Plotting and Programming with Python

The target audience members are learners who have little to no prior computational experience, and the instructors put a priority on creating a friendly environment to empower researchers and enable data-driven discovery. Even those with some experience will benefit, as the goal is to teach not only how to do analyses, but how to manage the process to make it as automated and reproducible as possible.

Space is limited and it will likely fill quickly. The workshop is free for all Michigan Tech students, faculty and staff.

Register for the workshop. Confirmation of your registration will be mailed Monday (Aug. 1). If more participants sign up than there are seats available, priority will be given to graduate students.

Please visit the workshop webpage for more information.

Questions can be emailed to Laura Brown (CS) at lebrown@mtu.edu.

Ph.D. in Biochemistry/Molecular Biology candidate Arslan Amer will present their doctoral thesis defense at 11 a.m. Friday (July 29) via Zoom.

Amer's defense is titled "Investigating Cysteine Dependence in Pancreatic cancer and Determining the Regulatory role of Selenoprotein Sepp1 in Ferroptosis."

Amer is advised by Xiaohu Tang.

From the abstract:
Pancreatic cancer is predicted to become the second deadliest cancer by the mortality rate in 2030. Almost 96 percent of pancreatic cancer patients tend to die in the first 5 years after diagnosis. Current therapeutic options are still limited with surgical resection or systemic chemo/radiotherapy. There is a strong need for effective targeted therapy options. Cancer is uncontrolled growth and proliferation associating with many metabolic alterations. Cysteine metabolism can be one of such examples, as cysteine is not only needed for protein production and cytoskeletal machinery, but also a limiting factor in glutathione (GSH) production, which acts as a cofactor to enzyme GPX4, a peroxidase known for reducing lipid peroxidation. Lack of cysteine leads to loss of GPX4 function, making cells vulnerable to reactive oxygen species (ROS) stress, inducing cell death. ... Overall, our study suggests inhibition of both GPX4 and Trx pathways as a potential adjuvant-therapy to overcome drug resistance in epithelial-type PDAC. We also show a protective role of Sepp1 in cysteine depletion through modulating the Trx pathway and its potential as a biomarker for cysteine-dependence.

Valentina Valori from Technische Universität Ilmenau, Germany (TU Ilmenau), will be giving a research seminar today (July 27) at 2 p.m. in Fisher 101. The topic is "The search for extreme events in convective turbulence."

More about this research and the Marie Skłodowska-Curie project that it is related to are available at TU Ilmenau's website.

Michigan Tech Athletics has announced the hiring of Riley Schreck as assistant strength and conditioning coach.

Schreck will assist head strength and conditioning coach Jordan Ferguson in developing, implementing and leading sport-specific strength and conditioning programs that facilitate maximum benefits for all student-athletes to optimize performance and decrease injury potential for MTU's 14 NCAA Division II programs and Esports.

"Riley will be a very valuable addition to our staff," Ferguson said. "He brings a lot of experience with multiple sports, and we are excited to have him working with the student-athletes here at Michigan Tech." 

"I love it here in Houghton," Schreck said. "Being tucked away in the trees has me feeling right at home. I'm excited to continue on the strong traditions at MTU and help build the strength and conditioning department."

Read more at the Michigan Tech Athletics website.

Chee-wooi Ten (ECE/ICC) is a co-author of a paper recently published in the journal IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid.

The paper is titled “Implementation of Risk-Aggregated Substation Testbed Using Generative Adversarial Networks.”

Co-authors of the paper are Zhiyuan Yang, Shipeng Zhang, Xueyue Pang and Hao Sun of Guangdong Electric Power Design Institute, China; and Ting Liu of Xi’an Jiaotong University, China.

A citation for the paper is available on the Institute of Computing and Cybersystems Blog.

Dukka KC (CC/CS/ICC) was a moderator for several lectures and discussion panels at the 30th Conference on Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology, held July 10-14 in Madison, Wisconsin.

The conference was presented by the International Society for Computational Biology (ISCB).

Read more on the Computing News Blog.

Day one of a two-day economic roundtable held at Michigan Tech’s Memorial Union Building on July 25-26 was covered by ABC 10, WLUC TV6 and WJMN Local 3. Ruiting Zhan (ChE) and Dennis Livesay (CC) were quoted.

The first day’s discussion centered on mining and electric vehicle battery recycling. Zhan’s comments described the status of research on transformative lithium-ion recycling technology happening at Tech, while Livesay’s comments emphasized computing’s importance to the industries of today and tomorrow.

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Canada’s University Magazine listed Michigan Tech as No. 3 in its list of the top 10 colleges in Michigan.

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The State Aviation Journal mentioned Michigan Tech in a story about the winners of the 2021-22 TRB Airport Cooperative Research Program University Design Competition for Addressing Airport Needs. 

A team of four students from MTU’s Built World Enterprise placed third in the competition’s Runway Safety/ Runway Incursions/ Runway Excursions Including Aprons, Ramps, and Taxiways category.

YSI/Xylem to Demo Small ASVs at GLRC

Please join us at the Great Lakes Research Center (GLRC) docks tomorrow (July 28) from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. to see demonstrations of several small autonomous surface vehicles (ASVs) by YSI/Xylem staff. The vehicles will include their rQPOD and Hycat.

From 9 a.m. to noon, YSI will focus on thoroughly working through the entire data collection process — from mission planning to data collection and post-processing.

From 1-3 p.m., YSI staff will be available for more impromptu demonstrations and discussions of your project and research needs.

Come see these specialized vehicles at work!

To have your event automatically appear, please submit them to the University Events Calendar.

LECO's Metallographic Bus Demo

Wednesday, July 27, 9 a.m. | Michigan Tech Campus, Parking Lot 14

LECO's Mobile Laboratory is Coming to Michigan Tech LECO's Metallographic Bus will be on campus July 27 at 9 am in Lot 14. LECO mobile laboratories provide the opportunity to...

Adult Huskies Swim Training Summer 2022 Session 3 (Individual Medley/Speed Focus)

Wednesday, July 27, 5:00 p.m.–5:50 p.m. | Student Development Complex (SDC), Pool

Adult Huskies Swim Training provides additional attention and competitive guidance to swimmers ages 18 and older who are looking to improve their swimming skills and fitness...

Copper Harbor Aquatic Invasive Species Workshop

Wednesday, July 27, 5 p.m.–7 p.m. | Copper Harbor Community Center (Grant Township Town Hall)

KISMA is hosting a free Aquatic Invasive Species (AIS) workshop highlighting invasive European frog-bit and Phragmites. Topics such as identification, impacts, management and...