Rochester Institute Of Technology Research Articles

(Invited) III-Nitride Ultraviolet LEDs and Lasers for Applications in Biology and Medicine

Solid-state ultraviolet (UV) light emitters are being developed for emerging biomedical applications such as surface sterilization, air/water purification, and medical treatments as a replacement for mercury vapor lamps. While these UV emitters offer many advantages over mercury lamps, such as more compact form factors, tunable emission wavelengths, and greatly increased lifetimes, they also suffer from a number of issues which hinder their implementation in many potential applications. UV emitters are based on AlGaN heterostructures which usually have very poor external quantum efficiencies (EQEs) of less than 10%, with EQEs decreasing with emission wavelength. This makes it very challenging to realize high efficiency UV emitters whose high energy photons are capable of inactivating viruses, bacteria, and other pathogens. This work discusses recent developments made by the Zhang Research Group at the Rochester Institute of Technology in improving the efficiencies of UV LEDs and lasers.

Include board members in peer groups, networking opportunities

While your nonprofit may frequently send senior staff and even the executive director to attend conferences, join peer groups and network with others in the field, it's not all that common for board members. And that's to their detriment, according to Eugene Fram, professor emeritus at Saunders College of Business at the Rochester Institute of Technology.

Peer groups, networking can aid board development

While it may be common for nonprofit executive directors and senior staff to attend conferences, join peer groups and network with others in the field, it's not all that common for board members. And that's to their detriment, according to Eugene Fram, professor emeritus at Saunders College of Business at the Rochester Institute of Technology.

Molecule Maker Lab Institute: Accelerating, advancing, and democratizing molecular innovation

AbstractMany of the greatest challenges facing society today likely have molecular solutions that await discovery. However, the process of identifying and manufacturing such molecules has remained slow and highly specialist dependent. Interfacing the fields of artificial intelligence (AI) and synthetic organic chemistry has the potential to powerfully address both limitations. The Molecule Maker Lab Institute (MMLI) brings together a team of chemists, engineers, and AI‐experts from the University of Illinois Urbana‐Champaign (UIUC), Pennsylvania State University, and the Rochester Institute of Technology, with the goal of accelerating the discovery, synthesis and manufacture of complex organic molecules. Advanced AI and machine learning (ML) methods are deployed in four key thrusts: (1) AI‐enabled synthesis planning, (2) AI‐enabled catalyst development, (3) AI‐enabled molecule manufacturing, and (4) AI‐enabled molecule discovery. The MMLI's new AI‐enabled synthesis platform integrates chemical and enzymatic catalysis with literature mining and ML to predict the best way to make new molecules with desirable biological and material properties. The MMLI is transforming chemical synthesis and generating use‐inspired AI advances. Simultaneously, the MMLI is also acting as a training ground for the next generation of scientists with combined expertise in chemistry and AI. Outreach efforts aimed toward high school students and the public are being used to show how AI‐enabled tools can help to make chemical synthesis accessible to nonexperts.

ALL: Supporting Experiential Accessibility Education and Inclusive Software Development

Creating accessible software is imperative for making software inclusive for all users.Unfortunately, the topic of accessibility is frequently excluded from computing education, leading to scenarios where students are unaware of either how to develop accessible software or see the need to create it. To address this challenge, we have created a set of educational labs that are systematically designed to not only inform students about fundamental topics in producing accessible software but also demonstrate its importance. Over the previous year, these labs were included in several Computer Science 2 offerings at the Rochester Institute of Technology, comprising a total of 500 student participants. This article discusses instructional observations from these offerings, some of which include the following: (i) many of the research findings from previous efforts remain true with the larger, more diverse evaluation; (ii) our created material and format reduced students’ belief that creating accessible software was difficult in relation to the baseline,; (iii) we observed that our created material and format benefited student opinion that creating accessible software is important, and (iv) computing majors may not be uniformly impacted by experiential educational accessibility material. The educational labs are publicly available on the project website (https://all.rit.edu).

Validation of Landsat-9 and Landsat-8 Surface Temperature and Reflectance during the Underfly Event

With the launch of Landsat-9 on 27 September 2021, Landsat continues its fifty-year continuity mission of providing users with calibrated Earth observations. It has become a requirement that an underflight experiment be performed during commissioning to support sensor cross-calibration. In this most recent experiment, Landsat-9 flew under Landsat-8 for nearly three days with over 50% ground overlap, from 13 to 15 November 2021. To address the scarcity of reference data that are available to support calibration and validation early-on in the mission, a ground campaign was planned and executed by the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) on 14 November 2021 to provide full spectrum measurements for early mission comparisons. The primary experiment was conducted in the Outer Banks, North Carolina at Jockey’s Ridge Sand Dunes. Full-spectrum ground-based measurements were acquired with calibrated reference equipment, while a novel Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS)-based platforms acquired hyperspectral visible and near-infrared (VNIR)/Short-wave infrared (SWIR) imagery data and coincident broadband cooled thermal infrared (TIR) imagery. Results of satellite/UAS/ground comparisons were an indicator, during the commissioning phase, that Landsat-9 is behaving consistently with Landsat-8, ground reference, and UAS measurements. In the thermal infrared, all measurements agree to be within 1 K over water and to within 2 K over sand, which represents the most challenging material for estimating surface temperature. For the surface reflectance product(s), Landsat-8 and -9 are in good agreement and only deviate slightly from ground reference in the SWIR bands; a deviation of 2% in the VNIR and 5–8% in the SWIR regime. Subsequent longer-term studies indicate that Landsat 9 continues to perform as expected. The behavior of Thermal Infrared Sensor-2 (TIRS-2) against reference is also shown for the first year of the mission to illustrate its consistent performance.

Producción científica sobre el uso de las TIC como herramienta de inclusión social para personas sordas: un análisis bibliométrico

Introduction: This article presents a bibliometric analysis on the scientific production related to the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) as a tool for the social inclusion of deaf people. Objective: The objective of this study is to identify the trends and patterns of scientific production in this field of research, as well as to determine the most relevant countries, authors and publication sources. Methods: A systematic search was carried out in Scopus, using the keyword "deaf" combined with "worker" in the area of computing. 140 scientific publications that met the inclusion criteria were selected. Results: The results of the bibliometric analysis show a significant increase in the number of publications related to the use of ICT as a tool for social inclusion for deaf people from the year 2008. In addition, six countries responsible for 56% of the production were identified. science: United States, India, United Kingdom, Brazil, Japan and Spain. The most published author is Bigham Jeffrey P., affiliated with Carnegie Mellon University. The universities with the highest affiliation in the publications are Carnegie Mellon and Rochester Institute of Technology. Conclusions: This bibliometric analysis reveals a growing interest in the use of ICT as a tool for social inclusion for deaf people, and provides valuable information on the most relevant countries, authors and publication sources in the study area. The results suggest the need to continue research in this area and promote international collaboration to advance the social inclusion of deaf people.

Meetings and Congresses

Meetings and Congresses

The Ground to Space CALibration Experiment (G-SCALE): Simultaneous Validation of UAV, Airborne, and Satellite Imagers for Earth Observation Using Specular Targets

The objective of the Ground to Space CALibration Experiment (G-SCALE) is to demonstrate the use of convex mirrors as a radiometric and spatial calibration and validation technology for Earth Observation assets, operating at multiple altitudes and spatial scales. Specifically, point sources with NIST-traceable absolute radiance signal are evaluated for simultaneous vicarious calibration of multi- and hyperspectral sensors in the VNIR/SWIR range, aboard Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), manned aircraft, and satellite platforms. We introduce the experimental process, field site, instrumentation, and preliminary results of the G-SCALE, providing context for forthcoming papers that will detail the results of intercomparison between sensor technologies and remote sensing applications utilizing the mirror-based calibration approach, which is scalable across a wide range of pixel sizes with appropriate facilities. The experiment was carried out at the Rochester Institute of Technology’s Tait Preserve in Penfield, NY, USA on 23 July 2021. The G-SCALE represents a unique, international collaboration between commercial, academic, and government entities for the purpose of evaluating a novel method to improve vicarious calibration and validation for Earth Observation.

Asian American Female Composers and Digital Memory

Asian American Female Composers and Digital Memory

Review: Cut/Copy/Paste: Fragments from the History of Bookwork, by Whitney Trettien

Book Review| September 01 2022 Review: Cut/Copy/Paste: Fragments from the History of Bookwork, by Whitney Trettien Cut/Copy/Paste: Fragments from the History of Bookwork by Whitney Trettien. University of Minnesota Press, 2022. 328 pp./$112.00 (hb) ISBN 1517904080, 328 pp./$28.00 (sb) ISBN 1517904099. Anne M. Royston Anne M. Royston Anne M. Royston is an assistant professor of English at Rochester Institute of Technology. Her book Material Noise: Reading Theory as Artist’s Book was published in 2019 by MIT Press. Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Afterimage (2022) 49 (3): 118–123. https://doi.org/10.1525/aft.2022.49.3.118 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Anne M. Royston; Review: Cut/Copy/Paste: Fragments from the History of Bookwork, by Whitney Trettien. Afterimage 1 September 2022; 49 (3): 118–123. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/aft.2022.49.3.118 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentAfterimage Search As we move further into a digitally assisted and digitally enabled (and sometimes, it seems, digitally dominated) future, we inevitably are compelled to return to the past, seeking older ancestors to make sense of new media. Whitney Trettien’s Cut/Copy/Paste: Fragments from the History of Bookwork carves another path into our current media landscape, this time beginning in the seventeenth century. Trettien, a scholar at the University of Pennsylvania, tends to create work that bridges the critical and the creative, including digitally born publications and the well-regarded digital literature piece Gaffe/Stutter (2003). With Cut/Copy/Paste her project is twofold: not only to add a link in the evolutionary history of the book, but also to suggest gentle revisions to our concept of book historical evolution as a whole. Focusing on bookwork at the margins, largely forgotten and ignored, Trettien gracefully draws out an argument for complicating our idea of book history with... You do not currently have access to this content.

Navigating as a Deaf and Hard of Hearing Undergraduate in Research Laboratories: Barriers and Inclusion

Preparing the next generation of scientists, particularly those from minority groups who are underrepresented in the nation’s scientific workforce, is part of the National Institute of General Medical Sciences’ (NIGMS) mission (NIGMS 5‐Year Strategic Plan Progress and Outcomes, 2020). The Research Initiative for Scientific Enhancement (RISE) Scientists‐in Training Program for Deaf and Hard‐of‐Hearing Undergraduates at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) is an effort to enhance the diversity of the biomedical sciences workforce by providing research‐intensive training for PhD‐bound deaf and hard of hearing (D/HH) undergraduates. RIT‐RISE is designed to support D/HH undergraduate students (known as RIT‐RISE scholars), who navigate academic and science communities differently from hearing students due to various systemic barriers. The D/HH population is unique and diverse in terms of communication and language preferences and identities. Unlike hearing peers, D/HH students often have to request accommodations through the university’s disability office so they can have access to scientific discourse that spontaneously occurs in the research lab. The RIT‐RISE team conducted a qualitative study to better understand D/HH STEM students’ experiences related to communication challenges in undergraduate research environments and to identify best practices to optimize communication access in research environments with mixed D/HH and hearing scientists and STEM students. Based on qualitative data gathered from interviews, focus groups, and lab observations, four main themes emerged from our study: (a) Communication and Environmental Barriers in Research Laboratories; (b) Creating Accessible and Inclusive Lab Environments; (c) Communication Strategies; and (d)Self‐Advocating for Effective Communication. Our findings contribute to the possible strategies to customize and optimize communication experiences and mentoring experiences for all D/HH students.

Marketing a library in a hockey rink: lessons in embracing change

In 2021, Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) Libraries temporarily relocated to a hockey rink while the campus library building underwent two years of extensive renovation and construction. Faced with a daunting move and upset patrons in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, RIT Libraries embraced the unexpected with creativity and humor. RIT Libraries gained buy-in and converted critics into fans by developing an integrated campaign as unconventional as their new home and engaging staff and campus partners throughout.

Hierarchies and Constellations: Language Attitudes and Ideologies of Signed Languages

Journal of SociolinguisticsVolume 26, Issue 1 p. 113-117 DIALOGUE: COMMENTARY Hierarchies and Constellations: Language Attitudes and Ideologies of Signed Languages Joseph C. Hill, Corresponding Author Joseph C. Hill jchnss@rit.edu orcid.org/0000-0001-5193-6851 Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, New York Correspondence Joseph C. Hill, Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, New York. Email: jchnss@rit.eduSearch for more papers by this authorEyasu Hailu Tamene, Eyasu Hailu Tamene Addis Ababa University, Addis Ababa, EthiopiaSearch for more papers by this author Joseph C. Hill, Corresponding Author Joseph C. Hill jchnss@rit.edu orcid.org/0000-0001-5193-6851 Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, New York Correspondence Joseph C. Hill, Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, New York. Email: jchnss@rit.eduSearch for more papers by this authorEyasu Hailu Tamene, Eyasu Hailu Tamene Addis Ababa University, Addis Ababa, EthiopiaSearch for more papers by this author First published: 01 February 2022 https://doi.org/10.1111/josl.12525Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Volume26, Issue1February 2022Pages 113-117 RelatedInformation

Global Pride: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Interpreting

This open-forum article highlights an interview conducted with Colin Allen, a Visiting Lecturer from the National Technical Institute for the Deaf at Rochester Institute of Technology and Abigail Gorman, an activist and graduate student at Birkbeck College, University of London, in the UK. In this interview, they highlight their experiences while coordinating International Sign interpreters for Global Pride, a virtual international global event that took place in June 2020. This was the first time that Global Pride has provided communication access to the international deaf LGBTIQA+ Community via sign interpreting services. (For the purposes of this article, LGBTQIA+ refers to lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, intersex, queer, and asexual. The plus sign allows for the inclusion of different subsects, such as allies, polyamorous, androgynous, and pansexual.) Providing sign language access across multiple time zones for a 24-hour livestreamed event was a “first” for both Global Pride organizers and the two deaf interpreter coordinators. Their experiences offer interpreters and educators a glimpse in some of the many exciting developments of a world that has had to pivot a number of conferences and events to online platforms amid a global pandemic.

DCT-Based Local Descriptor for Robust Matching and Feature Tracking in Wide Area Motion Imagery

We introduce a novel discrete cosine transform-based feature (DCTF) descriptor designed for both robustly matching features in aerial video and tracking features across wide-baseline oblique views in aerial wide area motion imagery (WAMI). Our DCTF descriptor preserves local structure more compactly in the frequency domain by utilizing the mathematical properties of the discrete cosine transform (DCT) and outperforms widely used the spatial-domain feature extraction methods, such as speeded up robust features (SURF) and scale-invariant feature transform (SIFT). The DCTF descriptor can be used in combination with other feature detectors, such as SURF and features from accelerated segment test (FAST), for which we provide experimental results. The performance of DCTF for image matching and feature tracking is evaluated on two city-scale aerial WAMI data sets (ABQ-215 and LA-351) and a synthetic aerial drone video data set digital imaging and remote sensing image generation (Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT)-DIRSIG). DCTF is a compact 120-D descriptor that is less than half the dimensionality of state-of-the-art deep learning-based approaches, such as SuperPoint, LF-Net, and DeepCompare, which requires no learning and is domain-independent. Despite its small size, the DCTF descriptor surprisingly produces the highest image matching accuracies ( F <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">1</sub> = 0.76 and ABQ-215), the longest maximum and average feature track lengths, and the lowest tracking error (0.3 pixel, LA-351) compared with both handcrafted and deep learning features.

Exhibition Review: Stacey Steers: Night Reels

Review| June 01 2021 Exhibition Review: Stacey Steers: Night Reels Stacey Steers: Night Reels: George Eastman Museum. Rochester, New York: February 19–June 6, 2021. John Aäsp John Aäsp John Aäsp is an artist, writer, and curator based in Rochester, New York, where he is gallery director for the College of Art and Design at Rochester Institute of Technology. Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Afterimage (2021) 48 (2): 131–138. https://doi.org/10.1525/aft.2021.48.2.131 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation John Aäsp; Exhibition Review: Stacey Steers: Night Reels. Afterimage 1 June 2021; 48 (2): 131–138. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/aft.2021.48.2.131 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search nav search search input Search input auto suggest search filter All ContentAfterimage Search Night Reels, a solo exhibition surveying the work of Denver-based artist and filmmaker Stacey Steers, currently on view at the George Eastman Museum, is really two shows. One is a continuous screening of three of Steers’s animated films, playing back-to-back in a room just inside the entrance, while the other is an exhibition of multimedia installations in the larger Project Gallery, in the far back corner of the museum. Steers’s stop-motion animated collages Phantom Canyon (2006), Night Hunter (2011), and Edge of Alchemy (2017) have a tactile visual magic, amplified by original soundtracks, each by a different composer. They are experimental and delightful, but dark and personal, plunging deep into Dada and surrealist traditions. Every second of motion in Steers’s films is composed of up to eight individual collages, which means each film (ranging from ten to twenty minutes in length) is built frame by frame, taking years to... You do not currently have access to this content.

About the Contributors

About the Contributors

Preferred white balance for applications using virtual backgrounds

AbstractUnder the current COVID‐19 global pandemic, most of the world is operating online, which has increased the importance of better understanding the perceived color quality of video conference calls. We performed two experiments to evaluate the white balance appearance preference for images simulating a scene from a video conference call where a person is using a virtual background. Due to the dissimilarities of the light sources used for the subject and the background scene, the overall picture may look aesthetically unappealing. The first experiment was designed to assess the preference of white balance for images containing a foreground subject, with three different skin tones: light, medium, and dark, and a background scene, with five different color temperature appearances, cool to warm. The background scenes include famous attractions in the United States, water bodies, foliage, and a few less common scenes like a sculpture at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) and a ColorChecker. Observers were presented with a pair of images of the same subject with same background scene, but with different white balance appearance. These comparisons were performed for each foreground subject with all background scenes. Both experiments were performed by naïve observers, who were from around the globe with no knowledge of color science and observers from the Munsell Color Science Lab (MCSL) at the RIT. The results show that observers' preference increases as we go from cooler to warmer appearance for the Canyon, RIT, Snow, Flower, and Autumn backgrounds, and vice versa for the Lake background. The Golden Gate background results are the most scattered among all scenes with very small differences in their scale values. MCSL observers show a strong agreement in preference to warmer appearance for light and dark skin tones for the RIT scene, and neutral and warmer appearance for medium skin tone for the RIT and Golden Gate scenes, respectively. To understand the relation between the background scene and foreground subject's white balance appearance, a second experiment was performed. The subjects had three different appearances: cool, neutral, and warm. Based on the results of the first experiment, five scenes with two white balance appearances, the most preferred rendition and the neutral rendition (original appearance at the time of the scene was captured), were used for the second paired comparison study. The results indicated that preference varied based on the foreground subject skin tone and background scene. However, the background preferences follow similar trends to the first experiment. There were variations in the degree of agreement, some showed very strong agreement, like dark skin tone with the RIT background, whereas for others, like autumn background with light skin tone, preferences were more scattered. Overall, the differences in the scale values were smaller as compared to the first experiment, which indicates that, as we present the observers with more options, the decision became harder.

Whole-Genome Sequencing and Annotation of 10 Endophytic and Epiphytic Bacteria Isolated from Lolium arundinaceum.

We report the whole-genome sequence and annotation of 10 endophytic and epiphytic bacteria isolated from the grass Lolium arundinaceum as part of a laboratory exercise in a Fundamentals of Plant Biochemistry and Pathology undergraduate course (BIOL403) at the Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, New York.