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Mark your calendars for the next Webinar!
June 30, 2020 at 11:00AM EDT, Global surveillance of COVID-19 by mining news media using a multi-source dynamic embedded topic model by David Buckeridge, an ISCB COVID-19 Webinar |
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| As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to unfold, understanding the global impact of non-pharmacological interventions (NPI) is important for formulating effective intervention strategies, particularly as many countries prepare for future waves. We used a machine learning approach to distill latent topics related to NPI from large-scale international news media. We hypothesize that these topics are informative about the timing and nature of implemented NPI, dependent on the source of the information (e.g., local news versus official government announcements) and the target countries. Given a set of latent topics associated with NPI (e.g., self-quarantine, social distancing, online education, etc), we assume that countries and media sources have different prior distributions over these topics, which are sampled to generate the news articles. To model the source-specific topic priors, we developed a semi-supervised, multi-source, dynamic, embedded topic model. Our model is able to simultaneously infer latent topics and learn a linear classifier to predict NPI labels using the topic mixtures as input for each news article. To learn these models, we developed an efficient end-to-end amortized variational inference algorithm. We applied our models to news data collected and labelled by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Global Public Health Intelligence Network (GPHIN). Through comprehensive experiments, we observed superior topic quality and intervention prediction accuracy, compared to the baseline embedded topic models, which ignore information on media source and intervention labels. The inferred latent topics reveal distinct policies and media framing in different countries and media sources, and also characterize reaction COVID-19 and NPI in a semantically meaningful manner. |
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Let us know how the COVID-19 Pandemic is impacting you
As we consider how we can best serve and support the bioinformatics and computational biology research community during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond, we’d like to hear from you about how current circumstances are affecting your ability and/or desire to participate in face-to-face events, and what might be helpful alternatives to such programs. Please take ~5 minutes to take our community assessment survey. Your feedback will help guide our strategic discussions. |
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Register Today for the Hackathon@ISMB 2020
With the COVID-19 pandemic, we realized that some of the capabilities for sharing structures and structural analyses with peers, in preprints through URLs could be a valuable mechanism to enable collaborative research between scientists. We are racing to add functionality to broaden analytical capabilities to analyze membrane proteins, cell surface proteins, and to bridge the worlds of sequencing, structure, and function. We also need to make structural information accessible to scientists with little knowledge in structure. The software has integrated the visualization of sequence (1D) and structure (3D) and started on 2D, initially at the ISMB 2016 hackathon. We propose to prototype new functionality on that same hackathon model, this time online at ISMB2020. To register for the hackathon, please complete this application form. Applications are due 11 July 2020 by 4pm EDT. |
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Bioinformatics Workshop Fiesta 2020/21
BWF is a joint effort that aims to grow bioinformatics skills and competencies in the community. The series offers a plethora of 16 workshops of choice, with a proposed pathway. We invite all passionate educators to join us as instructors for BWF 2020/21 workshops (www.ambis.org.sg/bwf-2020), which will be held virtually (online) from August 2020 to June 2021. Register your interest here:
https://bit.ly/bwfinstructor |
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ISCB COVID-19 Section - Call for Submissions
If you are a member of ISCB we encourage you to submit entries to the Science collection and Tutorial collection. Your submission entails a pointer to the science content, a short description of background or purpose (two lines) and lists your name as submitter. Submission will be subjected to a basic check of scope and purpose.
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ECCB 2020 Goes Virtual
The ECCB2020 Organising Committee has been closely monitoring the COVID-19 situation globally and its impact on the conference. As the situation continues to change rapidly, our top priority remains to ensure the health and safety of all the ECCB2020 participants. This is the reason that leads us to announce that ECCB in its traditional format will be postponed to 2022 and a fully virtual edition for ECCB2020 will be organized. This virtual edition - the first one in 19th editions - will be structurally simpler to facilitate attendees' interactions while keeping the spirit of the ECCB series. |
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Call for Papers: Publish your software tools in the
ISCB Community Journal
Did you know you can publish an article describing new software tools you have created? Software tool articles cover all aspects of your software, from details of the code used and examples of data inputs, to tips for other researchers on maximizing the tool’s potential. Benefit from proper code syntax highlighting, interactive figures, Code Ocean capsules, and indexing through Scopus and PubMed to increase the visibility of your research. Find out more here and submit today to the ISCB Community Journal on F1000Research. |
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ISCB Art in Science Award - Final Call
As part of the virtual ISMB 2020, the ISCB Art in Science Competition is a way to show the beauty of science in art form, especially topics related to Computational and Molecular Biology. All interested members may submit images that have been generated as part of a research project and other creative efforts that involve scientific concepts or employ scientific tools and methods. Find the beauty of science through art! - Submit your artwork. |
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| Don't Miss! Important Deadlines below! |
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Abstracts deadline: August 24, 2020 |
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June 30, 2020 at 11:00AM EDT, Global surveillance of COVID-19 by mining news media using a multi-source dynamic embedded topic model by David Buckeridge, an ISCB COVID-19 Webinar |
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SAVE THE DATE!
November 16 - 18, 2020 |
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SAVE THE DATE!
December 03 - 05, 2020 |
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ISCB Career Center
ISCB Career Center – the place to post a job, search for a job, or upload your CV. Job posting and CV upload is complimentary for members. Nonmember may also participate for a nominal fee.
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Members Corner
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Support ISCB!
Giving back never felt so good - Donate Now to the Anna Tramontano Fund to help support the next generation of computational biologists!
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ISCB Membership
Expand Your Knowledge, ISCB Members enjoy of complimentary access to ISCBacademy. Don't miss these benefits & more!
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Senior Member Designation
The senior member designation is attained by members who are one decade post degree and who have demonstrated sustained contributions to the field of computational biology or to ISCB. |
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Support ISCB!
AmazonSmile is a simple and automatic way for you to support ISCB every time you shop, at no cost to you. Shop on amazon.com with the added bonus that Amazon will donate a portion of the price to ISCB!
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