Thursday, February 17, 2022

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• Quantum Quest Seed Fund call for proposals
• Registration now open for the Teaching and Learning Conference
• Artificial Intelligence with human understanding
• Homes sell for 8.2 per cent less after catastrophic floods
• Thursday's notes

Quantum Quest Seed Fund call for proposals

The Transformative Quantum Technologies (TQT) program has opened another call for proposals for the Quantum Quest Seed Fund (QQSF). The funding opportunity opened February 14, 2022. 

The research focus area for the funding proposals includes the development of new ideas and applications for quantum devices. Proposals are encouraged that articulate the use of quantum properties in existing systems including superposition, tunneling, entanglement in applications, and the development of new systems that display quantum properties.

Each project must have only one Lead Principal Investigator (PI). The PI shall have an existing tenure-track appointment within one of Waterloo’s Faculties. Collaborations with other researchers are permitted. Proposals are encouraged that originate from investigators new to the quantum community. To comply with the Canada First Research Excellence Fund (CFREF) award administration, QQSF will only accept applications that do not replace or displace the funding that is available through Tri-Council agency’s regular programming.

Investigators are encouraged to explore collaborations with the three quantum programs supported by CFREF (UW TQT, Universite de Sherbrooke Institut Quantique and UBC Stewart Blusson Quantum Matter Institute). Applicants have the option of selecting “joint CFREF project” in the application form, and completing the requisite details. For joint projects, preference will be given to proposals that effectively combine the complementary strengths from the different programs. UWaterloo Principal Investigators shall complete the application and budget for the research activities they are responsible for on the joint project; these activities will be funded directly by TQT. Report requirements are detailed in the Acknowledgement.

Funding decisions for this program will be made by the Quantum Quest Seed Fund Committee comprising representation from Math, Science and Engineering. Successful proposals will be notified in April.

The QQSF provides funding in the amount of up to $50,000 per year for a two-year period. Projects funded under QQSF are expected to lead to other sources of follow-on external funding.

Please refer to the Guidelines to access the application documents: https://tqt.uwaterloo.ca/opportunities/quantum-seed/. 

The application process involves completion and submission of the Application Form (includes Budget Justification), Budget Worksheet, Acknowledgement, Principal Investigator’s CV, and the UW Coversheet for Sponsored Research.

The submission deadline is Friday March 11, 2022 at 5:00 p.m. Late or incomplete submissions will not be accepted.

Registration now open for the Teaching and Learning Conference

A message from the Centre for Teaching Excellence (CTE).

Registration is now open for our 13^th annual University of Waterloo Teaching and Learning Online Conference taking place on April 27-28, 2022. Last year saw over 500 faculty members, staff, and students gather to learn from and with one another around the theme of learning through assessment in our learners and approaches to teaching. Our 2022 conference theme is Fostering Partnerships in Pedagogy.

We are excited to welcome Alison Cook-Sather, Mary Katharine Woodworth Professor of Education at Bryn Mawr College and Director of the Teaching and Learning Institute at Bryn Mawr and Haverford Colleges, as our keynote speaker, as well as Sean Geobey (Assistant Professor in Social Innovation and Social Entrepreneurship in the University of Waterloo's School of Environment, Enterprise and Development (SEED)) and Diana Skrzydlo (Continuing Lecturer in the Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science, the Math Faculty Teaching Fellow, and the current Director of the MActSc program in the University of Waterloo), who will each recreate a successful instructional approach in our Igniting Our Practice plenary session, which showcases some of the excellent teaching being done on our campus.

The registration deadline is Monday, April 25, 2022.

Artificial Intelligence with human understanding

By Melanie Scott. This article was originally published on Waterloo News.

Whether it’s a digital assistant, like Siri, predictive text, social media or a vehicle with autonomous functions, many of us use or rely on some form of Artificial Intelligence (AI) daily. 

Within the next few years, AI systems will become even more complex in their interactions with people and other AI agents. We’ll see evidence of this in fields such as consumer and financial markets, law, cybersecurity and health care. Kate Larson, a professor in the David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science, and her colleagues have argued that if AI does not engage well with humans, it could fail to deliver benefits. “There are ongoing issues of ethics, regulation and privacy,” she says. “If we don’t design AI systems people can trust, there will be a backlash.” 

Larson conducts research on Multiagent Systems — AI systems that interact with one another — and recently collaborated on a research paper discussing the need for co-operative AI. 

Co-operative AI refers to the ability of AI agents to work alongside or with other AI agents or people. It can also refer to AI that is used to better support teamwork and collaboration. 

A need for AI with social understanding 

Although it is used by billions of people daily, AI has limited understanding when it comes to interacting with humans and other agents. Early multi-agent research focused on AI that learns to beat an opponent — for example in two-player zero-sum games such as chess or Go. “This is a start, but it is not how the world works,” Larson says. “We need to look at how to change the questions and approaches we are taking when designing AI, so that we have a stronger focus on co-operative intelligence.” 

Already, there is a need for AI that has social understanding and can interact with others. Autonomous vehicles, for example, are not driving in isolation. They’re driving alongside pedestrians, cyclists and other vehicles, and have human operators. We train them through simulations to show them the correct way of behaving to keep people safe. 

“We’re seeing some unintended consequences of AI that doesn’t have social understanding,” Larson says, referencing social media algorithms that have contributed to the spread of misinformation. “Algorithms like these are meant to improve user engagement, but this may not be the metric we want to focus on. If we began AI design by thinking about cooperation and social factors, we might be able to better think through potential ramifications, rather than trying to reverse or fix negative societal or human impact later.”  

AI research at Waterloo

Larson, who is a University Research Chair and was also appointed a Pasupalak AI Fellow, has always been interested in group dynamics and organizing groups of people to complete projects or take meaningful action. She is currently collaborating with other researchers on a climate change project that uses AI to predict wildfires and support their reduction and control. 

She also supervises students who are interested in building and researching teams of AI agents and studying how they can learn to cooperate within their team, as well as students who look at using ideas from machine learning to learn better ways of voting.

Waterloo has a multitude of AI researchers, groups and initiatives, including the Waterloo Artificial Intelligence Institute and the Artificial Intelligence Group. Larson is a member of both groups and believes there are many opportunities available on campus for further exploration of co-operative AI and interdisciplinary collaboration on the topic. 

The future of co-operative AI 

“There has been a revolution of interest in AI in the last decade,” Larson says. “AI has moved from research and labs and has become integrated into many facets of our society.” 

Larson and her colleagues believe that co-operative AI is unlikely to emerge as a by-product of AI research and needs its own field of study. They warn that progress toward socially valuable AI will be stunted unless cooperation is at the centre of the research. To successfully build and design AI models that have social understanding and can truly benefit humanity, AI researchers will need to co-operate themselves across a variety of disciplines and fields. 

“If we are going to make positive advances, we will have to take an interdisciplinary approach,” Larson says. “We’ll need to work closely with those in other fields, such as psychology, philosophy, law and policy, history and sociology. It’s essential to work alongside researchers that study and understand co-operation.”

Homes sell for 8.2 per cent less after catastrophic floods

Flooding has pushed down housing prices in communities across Canada.

New findings show that over the past eight years, catastrophic flooding in communities resulted in an average 8.2 per cent reduction in the final sale price of houses, 44.3 per cent reduction in the number of houses listed for sale, and 19.8 per cent more days on the market to sell a house.

These findings are presented in a new report from the Intact Centre on Climate Adaptation, University of Waterloo. The study focuses on five Canadian cities, each of which had experienced catastrophic flooding between 2009 and 2020: Grand Forks, B.C.; Burlington, Ontario; Toronto; Ottawa; and Gatineau, Que.

The impact of flooding was measured for periods of six months before and after flood events. Attribution of flood impacts was determined by comparing changes in nearby non-flooded control communities over identical time frames.

“The findings of this report do not surprise me,” said Gary Will of Will Davidson LLP, a firm that advises on flood risk.  “They underscore the impact on housing prices and the need to actively reduce flood risk through updated flood plain modelling and mapping, and to re-think development, without delay, as flooding affects everyone from planners, homeowners to government decision-makers.”

The study also examined the impact of community-level flooding on mortgage arrears and deferrals in two Canadian cities for six months pre and post flooding. Results showed no change in homeowners’ ability to pay their mortgage, but a reduction in the appraised value of a house due to flooding would influence limits on lending by mortgage providers.

As noted by Steve Mennill, Chief Climate Officer, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC), “For most homeowners, their house is their biggest financial investment. As this report clearly shows, an all-of-society effort to protect that investment from the growing threat of flooding would be of great benefit to many Canadians.”

Study co-author Dr. Blair Feltmate said, “Canada must learn to manage flood risk, rather than chase it. Recognizing that residential flooding is the most costly and pervasive impact of extreme weather, municipal planners should double-down on ensuring that adaptation factors into community design.”

Actions recommended in the report to give Canadians guidance to limit flood risk include:

Home flood protection guidance: Municipalities, banks, insurers and real estate associations should distribute guidance to homeowners on means to lower the risk of basement flooding.

Climate Adaptation Home Rating Program (CAHRP): The federal government should link the CAHRP to EnerGuide home energy audits.

Flood risk maps: The federal government should update flood risk maps and ensure they are publicly accessible.

Residential flood risk scores: The federal government should develop a home flood-risk scoring system based on postal code (as already exists in the US).

Natural infrastructure: All governments should commit to retaining and restoring natural infrastructure (forests, grasslands, wetlands) to limit current and future flood risk.

Community flood risk mitigation: Communities should act now to identify and protect areas at high risk of flooding.

Canada has the tools necessary to mitigate flood risk, today. If these tools are not mobilized, with a sense of urgency, flood disasters as seen on Canada’s west and east coasts in November 2021 will be increasingly commonplace.

Thursday's notes

The latest WaterTalk featuring David Sedlak will take place today at 1:00 p.m. and is entitled The Next Water Revolutions.

"Climate change, development and an underinvestment in water infrastructure are increasing stress on water systems worldwide," says the talk's abstract. "Although some of the world’s water problems can be addressed by employing existing technologies and policy reforms, there are opportunities to develop new approaches to water treatment and management that can address water scarcity, escalating costs and environmental impacts. This talk will describe the current status of water systems and opportunities from researchers to be part of a revolution in the way that water is treated and managed."

David Sedlak is the Plato Malozemoff Professor in the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering at UC Berkeley where he is the Director of the Berkeley Water Center and Deputy Director of the NSF engineering research center for Reinventing the Nation’s Urban Water Infrastructure (ReNUWIt). 

At 1:30 today, the Interdisciplinary Centre on Climate Change will host Climate Change Communications: Research spotlight with Ashley Rose Mehlenbacher. "How we talk about climate change can shape how we take action to address it," says a note from IC3. "Join Ashley Rose Mehlenbacher alongside Sara Doody and Carolyn Eckert for our first research spotlight of 2022. They’ll share their research focusing on communication strategies that make a climate impacted future more present, thus generating climate action. They will also discuss research about how we might think and talk about responsibility to future generations and how this might shape our climate actions."

Finally today, Research Talks with The Right Honourable Michaëlle Jean, entitled “Black History is World History: From Moment to Global Movement,” is set to take place from 3:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. Registration is required.