news 2021

In a unique collaboration with ECAL/University of Art and Design Lausanne , researchers have developed an algorithm designed to generate some of the world's first Chinese typefaces, using machine learning. One-thousand years ago during the medieval Song dynasty, the artist and engineer Bi Sheng invented the first movable type printing technology, using porcelain and wood pieces arranged and organized for printed Chinese characters.

With the help of artificial intelligence and four collaborative robots, researchers at ETH Zurich are designing and fabricating a 22.5-metre-tall green architectural sculpture. Working with Müller Illien Landscape Architects, Timbatec and other partners from industry and research, researchers from the group led by ETH architecture professors Fabio Gramazio and Matthias Kohler are creating a green architectural sculpture for the Tech Cluster Zug.

Researchers at ETH Zurich have discovered major vulnerabilities in DRAM memory devices, which are widely used in computers, tablets and smartphones. The vulnerabilities have now been published together with the National Cyber Security Centre, which for the first time has assigned an identification number for it.

Uncovering the mechanisms of learning via synaptic plasticity is a critical step towards understanding how our brains function and building truly intelligent, adaptive machines. Researchers from the University of Bern propose a new approach in which algorithms mimic biological evolution and learn efficiently through creative evolution.

Researchers in EPFL's College of Humanities have used machine learning to reveal how humans bridge the often-significant gaps between signal and meaning in communication. Robert Lieck and Martin Rohrmeier of the Digital and Cognitive Musicology Laboratory (DCML) used machine learning and artificial intelligence to explore the alignments and misalignments between signals - such as words and gestures - and meaning in communication.

ETH Zurich and UNIGE establish an interdisciplinary unit dedicated to science in diplomacy in the heart of international Geneva. This joint lab will bring scientific insights and methods into diplomatic, international conflict resolution and help address the global challenges our societies are facing.

Researchers in the Friedrich group have contributed to create an atlas that links subcellular structures to gene expression in each cell of the sea worm Platynereis dumerilii , a key model organism for the study of development and evolution. The atlas will help researchers to shed light onto molecular and cellular mechanisms at play in our very ancient ancestors.

Under an initiative by EPFL's Center for Imaging, a team of engineers from EPFL and Universidad Carlos III de Madrid have developed a plugin that makes it easier to incorporate artificial intelligence into image analysis for life-science research. The plugin, called deepImageJ, is described in a paper appearing today.

If only it were less prone to error, quantum physics might already be giving us instant solutions to seemingly unsolvable problems. researchers are therefore working to develop systems that are more robust. In crude terms, our digitally driven information society is based on a simple binary opposition: 0 or 1.

For a long time, the development of quantum computers was concerned with theoretical and hardware aspects. But as the focus shifts towards programming, software and security issues, the classical computer sciences are coming back into play. Physicists had long nurtured the ambition to build a quantum computer.

Researchers from the University of Basel have developed an augmented reality app for smartphones in order to help people reduce their fear of spiders. The app has already shown itself to be effective in a clinical trial, with subjects experiencing less fear of real spiders after completing just a few training units with the app at home.

Using artificial intelligence, a team from the UNIGE has developed a device for the early detection of autism spectrum disorder in children. Individuals affected by autism spectrum disorder often present communication issues and difficulties in social interactions. Although very frequent, this disorder is challenging to diagnose before the age of five.

EPFL engineers are pioneering an energy-saving technology that uses fiber optics to boost the performance of supercomputers. Optical technology is used for transmitting, storing, displaying and identifying data. It provides the processing speed that data centers need by offering efficient means for communication and analysis operations.

Scientists have developed a deep learning-based method called LiftPose3D, which can reconstruct 3D animal poses using only 2D poses from one camera. This method will have impact in neuroscience and bioinspired robotics. "When people perform experiments in neuroscience they have to make precise measurements of behavior," says Professor Pavan Ramdya at EPFL's School of Life Sciences, who led the study.

Taking a novel perspective, researchers have studied political polarization in online news consumption rather than content production, looking at whether the backlink structure of online news networks alone, or users' explicit reading choices contribute to the partisan divide. In the past decade it seems political polarization has been on the rise, as measured by voting behavior and general affect towards opposing partisans and their parties.

Two physicists, from EPFL and Columbia University, have introduced an approach for simulating the quantum approximate optimization algorithm using a traditional computer. Instead of running the algorithm on advanced quantum processors, the new approach uses a classical machine-learning algorithm that closely mimics the behavior of near-term quantum computers.

Neuroscientists often use calcium imaging to analyze neuronal activity in the intact brain. But this method provides only an indirect and slow measure of action potential firing, creating the need to reliably reconstruct action potentials from calcium signals. Peter Rupprecht, a former PhD candidate in the Friedrich group, developed a novel algorithm based on machine learning that is very effective, easy to use, and highly robust.

EPFL and the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) join forces to establish a new PSI research division: Scientific Computing, Theory, and Data. In collaboration with EPFL, the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) is officially expanding its own focus areas and establishing a new research division: Scientific Computing, Theory, and Data.

The future quantum computers should be capable of super-fast and reliable computation. Today, this is still a major challenge. Now, computer scientists led by ETH Zurich conduct an early exploration for reliable quantum machine learning. Anyone who collects mushrooms knows that it is better to keep the poisonous and the non-poisonous ones apart.

New EPFL research has found that almost half of local Twitter trending topics in Turkey are fake, a scale of manipulation previously unheard of. It also proves for the first time that many trends are created solely by bots due to a vulnerability in Twitter's Trends algorithm. Social media has become ubiquitous in our modern, daily lives.