{"id":11535,"date":"2017-05-02T11:45:28","date_gmt":"2017-05-02T15:45:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/hic\/?p=11535"},"modified":"2017-05-02T11:48:26","modified_gmt":"2017-05-02T15:48:26","slug":"data-mechanics-student-poster-session-solves-urban-challenges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/hic\/2017\/05\/02\/data-mechanics-student-poster-session-solves-urban-challenges\/","title":{"rendered":"Data Mechanics Student Poster Session Solves Urban Challenges"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hosted by the Hariri Institute, in collaboration with the Smart-city Cloud-based Open Platform and Ecosystem (SCOPE) project<\/a>, students in CS Lecturer\u00a0Andrei Lapets’ Data Mechanics<\/em> class had the opportunity to share the results of\u00a0their semester-long work, which focused on real-life challenges\u00a0faced by Boston residents and organizations. Over 50 students presented posters that answered\u00a0questions such as how to find the best area to live, what is the correlation between food accessibility and obesity, and what steps to take regarding rising sea levels.<\/p>\n

Minteng Xie, Yue Lei, and Zhi Dou found a solution to quantify the best living areas in Boston, based on individual preferences. Using algorithms they created to analyze\u00a0data from the City of Boston, they were able to use\u00a0average rent costs, transportation accessibility, food establishments and crime records to create a system that allows users\u00a0to find their preferred living area. They created a platform in which\u00a0each\u00a0user rates his or her personal\u00a0preferences, and their algorithm then uses\u00a0this information to provide\u00a0a list of the top 5 recommended neighborhoods for that user.<\/p>\n

“It seems like a simple idea, but many don’t know where they want to live,” Xie said of the project. “We used data from the City’s open platform that helped us find incidents in crime, food establishment licenses, and the number of MBTA stops in order to create the algorithm.”\u00a0The platform\u00a0the trio created is even interactive, allowing users to track the crime rates in their\u00a0recommended neighborhood back to 2013. The City’s open data platform has contributed\u00a0tremendously in these projects, giving students access to basic data that allowed them to build their projects. Additional data sets\u00a0were provided by the Massachusetts Department of Transportation, Boston Public Schools, and a variety of other sources.<\/p>\n

\"DSC03966\"
Lingyi Gu, Wei Wei, and Jerry Wu, tackle the city’s bussing problem as part of the BPS Bus Transportation Challenge.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Lingyi Gu, Wei Wei, and Jerry Wu tackled the City’s bussing problem. Earlier in April, the City of Boston announced its Bus Transportation Challenge, which called on\u00a0students and professionals alike to find a solution for how\u00a0to get the city’s 30,000 students to their schools on time while reducing costs. Currently, the City spends\u00a0over $100 million on student\u00a0transportation, making it one of the most expensive bussing systems in the country.<\/p>\n

Students expressed their excitement and interest in working on challenges of urban-living, which gave them a chance to see how public agencies and private organizations\u00a0might work on these issues at a higher level. Students noted the experiential learning component to the class, recognizing\u00a0how their ability\u00a0to address real-world problems\u00a0and bring computational\u00a0solutions\u00a0to life\u00a0will greatly contribute to their professional aspirations post-graduation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hosted by the Hariri Institute, students in Lecturer Andrei Lapets’ CS591 Data Mechanics class had the opportunity to share the results of their semester-long work, which focused on real-life faced by Boston residents and organizations. Over 50 students presented posters that answered questions such as how to find the best area to live, what is the correlation between food accessibility and obesity, and what steps to take regarding rising sea levels.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8550,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[11716],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/hic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11535"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/hic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/hic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/hic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8550"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/hic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11535"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/hic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11535\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11615,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/hic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11535\/revisions\/11615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/hic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/hic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/hic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}