During the School of Computing and Information’s first Modeling and Managing the World’s Systems Conference in Pittsburgh last year, stakeholders from academia, government, industry and nonprofit sectors discussed the potential of using artificial intelligence and big data to create computer models that can solve complicated problems.

At this year’s event in the nation’s capital, attendees took things a step further with a showcase of current modeling research from across the globe.

“Someone said, last year, we got to know each other. This year, we got to know each other’s work,” said SCI Dean Paul Cohen on the final day of the conference.

More than 130 people attended the second annual conference, which was hosted May 13-15 by SCI’s Modeling and Managing Complicated Systems (MOMACS) Institute at the Hall of States Building in Washington, D.C.

The event featured keynote addresses from National Science Foundation (NSF) Assistant Director Jim Kurose on how modeling informed his work before and after his time at NSF, and from Startup in Stealth founder and CEO Adam Bly on how to introduce complex systems work to the world at large. There were also spirited panel discussions and presentations on topics such as modeling gender equality in the household and using AI to guide complex decisions surrounding transportation, land use and more in the world’s cities.

Modeling in action

Attendees who submitted papers for the conference also had the benefit of sharing their own research during lightning talks, poster sessions and demonstrations of modeling in action that were conducted on site. The modeling process uses massive stores of data from a broad range of sources, combined with artificial intelligence and machine learning, to create models that provide insights on how complex systems such as the global economy or climate operate.  

Lisa Thaltheimer, who is pursuing a PhD in climate science from Oxford University, used data sets that featured interviews with Somalian citizens combined with information about severe weather events and rises in violence on the ground to model the impact climate change has on displacement and conflict in the region. She said the combined data sets provided insights showing how migration and conflict were affected not only by climate, but also by cultural events.

“It found Ramadan offsets the temperature and displacement effect,” she said. “People don’t have the energy to fight.”

Kush Kumar Yadav, a research associate at The Ohio State University, created a plan to model the hepatitis E virus infection in animals so that researchers can better understand why the strain of the disease that infects humans leads to 30% pregnancy mortality, while the ones affecting animals don’t have the same effects.

“In order to understand the virus/host interaction, we always need an animal [who has died from the virus]. We noticed the animals who were infected weren’t dying from it, so we need a model to understand why this virus is particularly fatal to humans,” Yadav explained.

The diversity of topics and networking opportunities were enough to engage attendees who were already discussing plans for the third conference before the second was over.

“Once is an instance, twice is a trend,” said Cohen. “I’m looking forward to the next one.”

For more information about MOMACS, visit momacs.pitt.edu and read more at Pittwire.