Oct. 29, 2024

UC IRVINE NEWS

How AI is changing financial research

Devin Shanthikumar, associate dean of undergraduate programs at the Paul Merage School of Business, is at the forefront of AI-driven financial research. Her current work examines how AI can be used to track extreme sentiment on social media platforms like Seeking Alpha and how AI can improve financial analyst forecasting. “Social media can drive us to become more extreme,” Shanthikumar said, “but it could also have the opposite effect – helping us learn from each other and meet closer in the middle.”

Tips for coping with election stress

For many people, the buildup to the Nov. 5 presidential elections is stressful. Judy Hao, a senior staff psychologist with the Counseling Center, has assembled seven timely tips for staying engaged and motivated this election season.

UCI Health’s new ultrasound treatment for liver cancer

The UCI Health Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center is the first National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer center in California to offer a novel technology that uses highly focused sound waves to treat liver cancer. Dr. Nadine Abi-Jaoudeh, (above, center, with Dr. Matt Kaluza, Dr. Joseph Breuer, Dr. Zain Lalani, Gabriel Punsalan, CRNA, and Dr. Angelica Gordon) and her UCI Health interventional radiology team recently used the ultrasound technology, called histotripsy, to treat the first patients at UCI Medical Center. “Histotripsy liquifies the cancer tissue without using heat or radiation and without any damage to healthy cells,” she said. “It is completely noninvasive, without even a needle puncture.”

UC NEWS

UCI Medical Center nurse recognized

Each month, UC Spotlight celebrates the UC locations, teams and individual staff members who are helping to make UC a great place to work. The October edition highlights Muriel Moyo, a nurse manager in the medical intensive care unit at UCI Medical Center, who has been honored with a 40 Under 40 Award from the Greater Irvine Chamber of Commerce. The annual 40 Under 40 event recognizes leaders who are making a positive contribution to the community through their work. Moyo’s leadership has led to more engaged nurses, less turnover and greater patient safety.

#UCIconnected

A professor’s ‘Random Walk’ boosts creativity

Vidyanand Choudhary of the Merage School of Business has crafted a pioneering approach to understanding and enhancing creativity. Along with Shai Vardi, a professor at Purdue University, he created a computer model combining the notion of semantic networks with a concept from physics known as Brownian motion, which describes random movements of particles, to model creativity. The model draws inspiration from computer science, physics and neuroscience to demonstrate how creative ideas are generated, with the potential to help AI and humans boost their creative output. “As academics and researchers, our goal is to build one brick at a time,” Choudhary said. “It’s our hope that this research can be a useful brick that provides others the foundation to facilitate useful and inventive ideas to build upon.”

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