Tuesday, May 07, 2024

GIST-MIT CSAIL researchers develop a biomechanical dataset for badminton performance analysis

The MultiSenseBadminton dataset can be used to build AI-based coaching assistants for badminton players

GIST (GWANGJU INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY)

GIST Researchers Capture Biomechanics of Badminton Players with Sensors and Cameras — IMAGE:
THE DATASET PROPOSED BY THE RESEARCHERS CAPTURES BADMINTON PLAYERS’ MOVEMENTS AND RESPONSES, AIDING AI-DRIVEN COACHING ASSISTANTS TO IMPROVE STROKE QUALITY FOR ALL SKILL LEVELS.
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CREDIT: SEUNGJUN KIM AT GWANGJU INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY (GIST)

In sports training, practice is the key, but being able to emulate the techniques of professional athletes can take a player’s performance to the next level. AI-based personalized sports coaching assistants can make this a reality by utilizing published datasets. With cameras and sensors strategically placed on the athlete's body, these systems can track everything, including joint movement patterns, muscle activation levels, and gaze movements.

Using this data, personalized feedback is provided on player technique, along with improvement recommendations. Athletes can access this feedback anytime, and anywhere, making these systems versatile for athletes at all levels.

Now, in a study published in the journal Scientific Data on April 5, 2024, researchers led by Associate Professor SeungJun Kim from the Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology (GIST), South Korea, in collaboration with researchers from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), CSAIL, USA, have developed a MultiSenseBadminton dataset for AI-driven badminton training.

“Badminton could benefit from these various sensors, but there is a scarcity of comprehensive badminton action datasets for analysis and training feedback,” says Ph.D. candidate Minwoo Seong, the first author of the study.

Supported by the 2024 GIST-MIT project, this study took inspiration from MIT's ActionSense project, which used wearable sensors to track everyday kitchen tasks such as peeling, slicing vegetables, and opening jars. Seong collaborated with MIT’s team, including MIT CSAIL postdoc researcher Joseph DelPreto and MIT CSAIL Director and MIT EECS Professor Daniela Rus and Wojciech Matusik. Together, they developed the MultiSenseBadminton dataset, capturing movements and physiological responses of badminton players. This dataset, shaped with insights from professional badminton coaches, aims to enhance the quality of forehand clear and backhand drive strokes. For this, the researchers collected 23 hours of swing motion data from 25 players with varying levels of training experience.

During the study, players were tasked with repeatedly executing forehand clear and backhand drive shots while sensors recorded their movements and responses. These included inertial measurement units (IMU) sensors to track joint movements, electromyography (EMG) sensors to monitor muscle signals, insole sensors for foot pressure, and a camera to record both body movements and shuttlecock positions. With a total of 7,763 data points collected, each swing was meticulously labeled based on stroke type, player’s skill level, shuttlecock landing position, impact location relative to the player, and sound upon impact. The dataset was then validated using a machine learning model, ensuring its suitability for training AI models to evaluate stroke quality and offer feedback.

“The MultiSenseBadminton dataset can be used to build AI-based education and training systems for racket sports players. By analyzing the disparities in motion and sensor data among different levels of players and creating AI-generated action trajectories, the dataset can be applied to personalized motion guides for each level of players,” says Seong.

The gathered data can enhance training through haptic vibration or electrical muscle stimulation, promoting better motion and refining swing techniques. Additionally, player tracking data, like that in the MultiSenseBadminton dataset, could fuel virtual reality games or training simulations, making sports training more accessible and affordable, potentially transforming how people exercise.

In the long run, the researchers speculate that this dataset could make sports training more accessible and affordable for a broader audience, promote overall well-being, and foster a healthier population.

***

Reference

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-024-03144-z

About Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology (GIST)

The Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology (GIST) was founded in 1993 by the Korean government as a research-oriented graduate school to help ensure Korea's continued economic growth and prosperity by developing advanced science and technology with an emphasis on collaboration with the international community. Since that time, GIST has pioneered a highly regarded undergraduate science curriculum in 2010 that has become a model for other science universities in Korea. To learn more about GIST and its exciting opportunities for researchers and students alike, please visit: http://www.gist.ac.kr/.

About the authors

SeungJun Kim is an Associate Professor at the Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology (GIST), overseeing the human-centered intelligent systems laboratory. Previously, he served as a special faculty at the Human-Computer Interaction Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, leading research in XR, robotics, and human-AI interaction. Dr. Kim holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from KAIST and an M.S. and Ph.D. in Mechatronics from GIST. His research focuses on sensory intelligence and augmentation through multimodal XR in ubiquitous computing environments, recognized with paper awards from UbiComp, IEEE ISMAR, and ACM AutoUI.

Minwoo Seong is an applied AI researcher and specializes in sensory reconstruction of human motions in real and virtual worlds. Seong holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering and an M.S. in Robotics from Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology (GIST), from where he is currently pursuing his Ph.D. Seong’s work has earned recognition, including the Best Paper Award from KCC and a runner-up award at the IJCAI 2023.

JOURNAL

Scientific Data

DOI

10.1038/s41597-024-03144-z

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Data/statistical analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

MultiSenseBadminton: Wearable Sensor–Based Biomechanical Dataset for Evaluation of Badminton Performance

Small pump for kids awaiting heart transplant shows promise in Stanford Medicine-led trial

Pump for kids’ failing hearts

Peer-Reviewed Publication

STANFORD MEDICINE

A small, implantable cardiac pump that could help children await heart transplants at home, not in the hospital, has performed well in the first stage of human testing.

The pump, a new type of ventricular assist device, or VAD, is surgically attached to the heart to augment its blood-pumping action in individuals with heart failure, allowing time to find a donor heart. The new pump could close an important gap in heart transplant care for children.

In a feasibility trial of seven children who received the new pump to support their failing hearts, six ultimately underwent heart transplants and one child’s heart recovered, rendering a transplant unnecessary. The results will be published May 7 in the Journal of Heart and Lung Transplantation. The study was led by the Stanford School of Medicine and included several medical centers in the United States.

If the early results are confirmed in a larger trial of the device, waiting for a heart transplant could become easier for small children and their families. The new pump, called the Jarvik 2015 ventricular assist device, is slightly larger than an AA battery and can be implanted in children weighing as little as 18 pounds. With the pump implanted, kids can take part in many normal activities while they wait for a heart transplant.

By contrast, the only ventricular assist device available to support small children whose hearts are failing, a pump called the Berlin Heart, is not implantable; it is as big as a large suitcase. It weighs between 60 and 200 pounds depending on the model, and is attached to the child with two cannulas almost as large as garden hoses.

The Berlin Heart also carries a fairly high stroke risk and requires hospitalization in most instances, meaning kids often endure monthslong hospital stays while they wait for a donor heart. As a result, the burden on children awaiting heart transplant is much higher than it is for adults implanted with heart pumps, who are routinely discharged from the hospital with similar diagnoses.

“While we are extremely grateful to have the Berlin Heart, a life-saving device, ventricular assist devices for adults have been improving every decade, but in pediatrics we’re using technology from the 1960s,” said the study’s lead author, pediatric cardiologist Christopher Almond, MD, professor of pediatrics at Stanford Medicine.

Implantable ventricular assist devices have been available to adults for more than 40 years, Almond noted. Not only do these devices fit inside patients’ chests but they tend to be safer and easier to use than external devices like the Berlin Heart. Patients can live at home, go to work or school, take walks and ride bicycles.

The lag in pediatric technology is a problem for other devices designed to help children with heart conditions, and in pediatrics in general, Almond noted. “There’s a huge difference in the medical technology available to kids and adults, which is an important public health problem that that markets have struggled to fix because conditions like heart failure are rare in children,” he said.

The study’s senior author is William Mahle, MD, chief of cardiology at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta.

Far fewer children than adults need heart transplants, leaving little incentive for medical device companies to develop a miniaturized pump for children. But the lack of a small ventricular assist device for children strains the medical system, as children attached to the Berlin Heart accrue large medical bills and can occupy hospital beds in specialized cardiovascular care units for several months, potentially reducing the availability of these beds for other patients.

Promising early findings

The feasibility trial of the Jarvik 2015 ventricular assist device included seven children with systolic heart failure. The condition affects the heart’s largest pumping chamber, the left ventricle, which pumps blood from the heart throughout the body. Six children had systolic heart failure caused by a disease called dilated cardiomyopathy, in which the heart muscle becomes enlarged and weakened and does not pump correctly. One child’s heart was failing because of complete heart block (electrical failure of the heart) stemming from lupus, an autoimmune disease. All children in the trial were on a heart transplant list.

Each child had a Jarvik 2015 device surgically implanted at the left ventricle, the heart’s largest pumping chamber. At the same time, each was started on medication to prevent blood clots and lower the risk of stroke. When they received their pumps, the children were 8 months to 7 years old and weighed 18 to 46 pounds. The pump can be used for children who weigh up to 66 pounds.

If the new pump is approved by medical regulators, physicians estimate that about 200 to 400 children worldwide would be candidates for its use each year.

The trial assessed whether the pump could support patients for at least 30 days without ceasing to function or causing severe stroke. The researchers also collected preliminary safety and performance data to help them design a larger pivotal trial for possible Food and Drug Administration approval.

Although the pump is ideally intended to allow children to await heart transplants at home, because they were part of a clinical trial, the participants stayed in the hospital for monitoring until they received a heart transplant or recovered. The researchers tracked participants’ blood pressure, a marker for blood clot and stroke risk; measured hemoglobin levels to check whether the pumps were breaking red blood cells; and monitored patients for other complications.

The median time the children used the pump was 149 days. Six children received heart transplants, and one child’s heart recovered.

A few children experienced complications on the new pump. The child whose heart recovered had an ischemic stroke (from a blood clot) when the heart became strong enough to compete with the pump. The pump was removed, and the child continued to recover and was alive a year later. Another patient experienced failure of the right side of the heart and was transferred to a Berlin Heart pump to await transplant.

For most patients, complications were manageable and generally comparable to what physicians expect when a child is attached to a Berlin Heart.

Questionnaires about quality of life showed that most children were not bothered by the device, did not feel pain from it and could participate in most play activities. One family reported that their toddler was able to maintain much more mobility with the pump than his older sibling who had previously been supported with the Berlin Heart.

Larger trial planned

The National Institutes of Health has awarded funding for an expanded trial that will enable researchers to further test the utility of the new pump and generate data to submit to the FDA for approval. The next phase of research is launching now; investigators aim to enroll the first patient by the end of 2024. The research team plans to enroll 22 participants at 14 medical centers in the United States and two sites in Europe.

“We’re excited to launch the next phase of the research,” Almond said. “We’ve overcome a number of challenges to get the work this far, and it’s very exciting that there may be better options on the horizon for children with end-stage heart failure who require a pump that can act as a bridge to transplant.”

Researchers contributed to the study from the University of Texas Southwestern; Texas Children’s Hospital, Houston; Columbia University; Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta; Nemours Children’s Hospital, Florida; Vanderbilt University Medical Center; the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute; Carelon Research; Stollery Children’s Hospital; the Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto; Boston Children’s Hospital; Cincinnati Children’s Hospital; and the University of Oklahoma, Tulsa.

The study was funded by a contract from the National Institutes of Health/National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institution (grant number HHS N268201200001I).

# # #

About Stanford Medicine

Stanford Medicine is an integrated academic health system comprising the Stanford School of Medicine and adult and pediatric health care delivery systems. Together, they harness the full potential of biomedicine through collabora

JOURNAL

The Journal of Heart and Lung Transplantation

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

7-May-2024

Millions in costs due to discharge of scrubber water into the Baltic Sea

CHALMERS UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY

Discharge from ships with so-called scrubbers cause great damage to the Baltic Sea. A new study from Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, shows that these emissions caused pollution corresponding to socio-economic costs of more than EUR 680 million between 2014 and 2022. At the same time, the researchers note that the shipping companies' investments in the much-discussed technology, where exhaust gases are "washed" and discharged into the sea, have already been recouped for most of the ships. This means that the industry is now making billions of euros by running its ships on cheap heavy fuel oil instead of cleaner fuel.

“We see a clear conflict of interest, where private economic interests come at the expense of the marine environment in one of the world's most sensitive seas," says Chalmers doctoral student Anna Lunde Hermansson, who is one of the authors of the new study, published in Nature Sustainability.

The study has been prompted by the ongoing discussion on a potential ban of scrubber water discharge – where large volumes of polluted water is produced and discharged from the ships' exhaust gas cleaning systems. The issue is on the agenda at multiple levels within the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and is also being discussed at EU level as well as on national levels such as the Swedish Parliament, although a Swedish decision on a ban is yet to be made.

Anna Lunde Hermansson and Chalmers colleagues Erik Ytreberg and Ida-Maja Hassellöv have been researching the environmental impact of shipping for many years and are contributing with their expertise in both international and national contexts. In a previous study, for example, they have shown that more than 200 million cubic metres of environmentally hazardous scrubber water is discharged into the Baltic Sea annually and that scrubber discharge water accounts for up to 9 percent of the total emissions of certain carcinogenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) into the Baltic Sea.

Excluding oil spill costs

In the new study, the Chalmers researchers calculated both the external costs of scrubber water discharge, and the financial balance sheets of over 3,800 vessels that invested in the scrubber technology. As for the costs associated with the degradation of marine ecosystems, the study shows that between the years 2014 and 2022, scrubber water discharges have polluted at a cost of over EUR 680 million in the Baltic Sea area. The calculations are based on models for willingness to pay to avoid marine environmental degradation, but according to the researchers, the estimates should be regarded as an underestimate. For example, direct costs associated with heavy fuel oil spills from ships using scrubbers are not included. The multi-million euro sum that it costs to clean up oil after ships have grounded and leak oil, for example Marco Polo on the Swedish coast of Blekinge last autumn, are not included in the calculations.

“If the scrubbers had not existed, no ships today would have been allowed to run on this dirty residual fuel. That is why the scrubber issue is highly relevant to push the shipping industry towards less negative environmental impact," says Lunde Hermansson.

Restrictions in several countries

In terms of the shipowner perspective, the researchers calculated the costs of installing and maintaining the scrubber systems, as well as the monetary gain from running the scrubber-equipped vessels on the cheaper and dirtier heavy fuel oil instead of the more expensive low-sulphur fuel alternatives. According to the calculations, the majority of the shipping companies that invested in scrubbers have already reached break even, and the total surplus by the end of 2022 for all of the 3,800 vessels, was EUR 4.7 billion. The researchers also note that more than 95 percent of the most common scrubber system (so-called open loop) are repaid within five years.

“From the industry's point of view, it is often stressed that shipping companies have acted in good faith by investing in technology that would solve the problem of sulphur content in air emissions and that they should not be penalised. Our calculations show that most investments have already been recouped and that this is no longer a valid argument," says Lunde Hermansson.

Recently, Denmark has decided to ban the discharge of scrubber water into so-called territorial waters, within 12 nautical miles of the coast. A number of countries around the world, such as Germany, France, Portugal, Turkey and China, have also adopted national bans or restrictions.

In Sweden, there is currently no general ban, although some ports, such as the Port of Gothenburg, have banned the discharge of scrubber water in their area.

“We now hope that the issue will also be given priority in the Swedish Parliament. This is a low-hanging fruit where we can reduce our negative impact on the vital marine environment,” says Lunde Hermansson.

More about the research:

The article "Strong economic incentives of ship scrubbers promoting pollution" has been published in Nature Sustainability. The study was conducted by Anna Lunde Hermansson, Ida-Maja Hassellöv, Tiia Grönholm, Jukka-Pekka Jalkanen, Erik Fridell, Rasmus Parsmo, Jesper Hassellöv and Erik Ytreberg. The researchers are active at Chalmers University of Technology, the Finnish Meteorological Institute and IVL, the Swedish Environmental Research Institute.

The research was funded by the Swedish Agency for Marine and Water Management, the Swedish Transport Administration and the EU's Horizon 2020.

Read previous press releases:

Research reveals large emissions from ship scrubbers

Marine environment at risk due to ship-emissions

More about scrubbers:

A scrubber can be described as a cleaning system for the exhaust gases formed during the combustion of heavy fuel oil, which has been the most common marine fuel since the 1970s. Seawater is pumped up and sprayed over the exhaust gases, which means that the emissions of sulphur compounds do not reach the air. The vessels thus comply with the requirements introduced by the International Maritime Organization, IMO, in 2020. The problem is that the water absorbs both the sulphur from the exhaust gases, which leads to severe acidification, and pollutants such as heavy metals and toxic organic compounds. The polluted scrubber water is then often pumped directly into the sea.

Since the mid-2010s, the number of vessels equipped with scrubbers has increased. In a study conducted in 2018, there were 178 ships with scrubbers in the Baltic Sea – today, researchers expect at least four times that. Globally, there are about 5,000 vessels, which corresponds to around five per cent of the total global fleet. Since it is mainly ships with high fuel consumption that invest in scrubbers, this five percent accounts for 25 percent of the global demand for heavy fuel oil.

A number of countries in the world have restricted or banned the discharge of scrubber water. Read more about this in a report from the International Council on Clean Transportation: Global update on scrubber bans and restrictions - International Council on Clean Transportation (theicct.org)

For more information, please contact:

Anna Lunde Hermansson, PhD student, Department of Mechanics and Maritime Sciences, Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden,
anna.lunde.hermansson@chalmers.se, +46 31 772 18 66

Erik Ytreberg, Senior Researcher, Department of Mechanics and Maritime Sciences, Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden,
erik.ytreberg@chalmers.se, +46 31 772 27 49

Ida-Maja Hassellöv, Associate Professor, Department of Mechanics and Maritime Sciences, Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden,
ida-maja@chalmers.se, +46 31 772 31 39

The researchers speak Swedish and English and may be available for live and pre-recorded interviews. At Chalmers, we have podcasting studios and film equipment on site and can assist requests for TV, radio, or podcast interviews.

JOURNAL

Nature Sustainability

DOI

10.1038/s41893-024-01347-1

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Computational simulation/modeling

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Strong economic incentives of ship scrubbers promoting pollution

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

7-May-2024

Turbid waters keep the coast healthy

ROYAL NETHERLANDS INSTITUTE FOR SEA RESEARCH

Satellite view of Zeeland, the Netherlands, featuring the Oosterschelde and Westerschelde, where clear water highlights the need for increased turbidity for coastal protection. Credit: basemaps, Esri, Maxar, Earthstar Geographics, and the GIS User Communi — IMAGE:
SATELLITE VIEW OF ZEELAND, THE NETHERLANDS, FEATURING THE OOSTERSCHELDE AND WESTERSCHELDE, WHERE CLEAR WATER HIGHLIGHTS THE NEED FOR INCREASED TURBIDITY FOR COASTAL PROTECTION. *CREDIT: BASEMAPS, ESRI, MAXAR, EARTHSTAR GEOGRAPHICS, AND THE GIS USER COMMUNITY*
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CREDIT: SATELLITE VIEW OF ZEELAND, THE NETHERLANDS, FEATURING THE CREDIT: BASEMAPS, ESRI, MAXAR, EARTHSTAR GEOGRAPHICS, AND THE GIS USER COMMUNITY

Turbid waters keep the coast healthy

To preserve the important intertidal areas and salt marshes off our coasts for the future, we need more turbid water. That is one of the striking conclusions from a new study conducted by a Dutch-Chinese team of researchers and published today in Nature Geoscience."These natural areas outside our dikes are essential for nature and coastal defense. But because how we are now building in the Delta and the hinterland, coastal defense is endangered in the long term," warns NIOZ researcher Tim Grandjean.

Satellite measurements

For his research, Grandjean linked decades of satellite measurements of tidal areas around the world with data on the turbidity of the water, which is also measured by satellites. Importantly, Grandjean has established a lower limit for the necessary turbidity of the water in deltas worldwide. A very clear relationship emerged in the long term: intertidal areas only grow when the water is turbid enough. "After all, turbid water means more sand and silt particles in the water, which can allow the coast to grow," the researcher explains.

Vulnerable tidal flats due to human interventions

Worldwide, the turbidity of many coastal waters has been declining for decades, making the tidal flats sensitive to loss. Additionally, sea level rise requires that water has higher turbidity to continue to maintain tidal flats. The relatively low turbidity globally threatens essential areas for biodiversity and coastal safety. After all, tidal flats are important foraging areas for birds and contribute to wave attenuation.

Coastal defenses must improve

Globally, the determination of the necessary turbidity for the preservation of tidal flats by Grandjean provides an essential basis for rethinking human interventions in deltas. We need to think more carefully about the ways in which human activities affect the coast, on which we rely for our safety. These challenges are not unique to any one region but are evident globally due to extensive human modifications to natural water systems. For instance, the construction of large dams, such as the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River, has significantly reduced the sediment supply downstream. This reduction is crucial for the propagation of tidal flats, leading to sediment starvation that hinders the natural rebuilding of intertidal zones, vital for coastal protection and biodiversity.

Similarly, in the Netherlands, the construction of the storm surge barrier in the Oosterschelde in the 1980s has led to severe 'sand starvation'. Because of this barrier, less sand can flow from the North Sea into the estuary, resulting in clearer water that fails to replenish the intertidal areas, thus causing them to erode. "In the long run, this is not sustainable," Grandjean believes. "When too much intertidal area disappears outside the dikes of Zeeland, the safety of the complete coast is at stake. So not only for nature, but also for safety, we must begin to protect the areas outside the dikes much more effectively. The water has to become murkier, so we may have to consider dismantling the Oosterschelde storm surge barrier in the future. A careful balance between nature conservation and coastal protection is essential, ensuring that both goals strengthen rather than counteract each other."

Detailed measurements provide insight

Tim Grandjean defended his PhD on this topic on April 24th and has also collected new data on the dynamics of intertidal areas. These data provide insight into the short-term vulnerability. He used a technique that was developed in NIOZ workshops. "The dynamics of intertidal areas can be measured with very expensive sensors or with labour-intensive, manual measurements. However, this way, we could never collect data in many different places at the same time. The technicians at NIOZ developed sensors that were cheap enough to record the height of the bottom to the millimetre, several times a day, at different locations along the Western and Eastern Scheldt for several years now."

Heavy dynamics

Those precise measurements show that at high tide, an intertidal zone can easily vary one or two centimeters in height within a single day. "For you or me, a centimeter more or less under our boots may not matter, but if you are a worm or a mussel, or a seed of eelgrass, that is indeed too much dynamics," Grandjean says.

Measures that can work

Grandjean also looked at the grounds between groynes constructed by the province of Zeeland, to improve the quality of tidal nature along part of the banks of the Westerschelde. "Of course, we already knew that these groynes, along rivers and coasts, can protect, but our measurements show that benthic life along the Westerschelde also benefits from these measures. The dynamics decrease enough in time and space for benthic animals to settle better." Additionally, the reduction in flow between the groynes could potentially benefit the stability of the intertidal coastal areas in the long term and mitigate the effects of rising sea levels. However, further research is essential for understanding this dynamic and its long-term effects.

To preserve the important intertidal areas and salt marshes off our coasts for the future, we need more turbid water. That is one of the striking conclusions from a new study conducted by a Dutch-Chinese team of researchers and published today in Nature Geoscience."These natural areas outside our dikes are essential for nature and coastal defense. But because how we are now building in the Delta and the hinterland, coastal defense is endangered in the long term," warns NIOZ researcher Tim Grandjean.

Satellite measurements

Vulnerable tidal flats due to human interventions

Coastal defenses must improve

Detailed measurements provide insight

Heavy dynamics

Measures that can work

Satellite image of the Yangtze near Shanghai, China, where the turbid, brown water illustrates high sediment delivery. Credit: basemaps, Esri, Maxar, Earthstar Geographics, and the GIS User Community

CREDIT

Credit: basemaps, Esri, Maxar, Earthstar Geographics, and the GIS User Community

JOURNAL

Nature Geoscience

DOI

10.1038/s41561-024-01431-3

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

6-May-2024

Cybersecurity education varies widely in US

Reports and Proceedings

WASHINGTON STATE UNIVERSITY

PULLMAN, Wash. -- Cybersecurity programs vary dramatically across the country, a review has found. The authors argue that program leaders should work with professional societies to make sure graduates are well trained to meet industry needs in a fast-changing field.

In the review, published in the Proceedings of the Association for Computing Machinery’s Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, a Washington State University-led research team found a shortage of research in evaluating the instructional approaches being used to teach cybersecurity. The authors also contend that programs could benefit from increasing their use of educational and instructional tools and theories.

“There is a huge variation from school to school on how much cybersecurity content is required for students to take,” said co-author Assefaw Gebremedhin, associate professor in the WSU School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and leader of the U.S. Department of Defense-funded VICEROY Northwest Institute for Cybersecurity Education and Research (CySER). “We found that programs could benefit from using ideas from other fields, such as educational psychology, in which there would be a little more rigorous evaluation.”

Cybersecurity is an increasingly important field of study because compromised data or network infrastructure can directly impact people’s privacy, livelihoods and safety. The researchers also noted that adversaries change their tactics frequently, and cybersecurity professionals must be able to respond effectively.

As part of the study, the researchers analyzed programs at 100 institutions throughout the U.S. that are designated as a National Security Administration’s National Center of Academic Excellence in Cybersecurity. To have the designation, the programs have to meet the NSA requirements for educational content and quality.

The researchers assessed factors such as the number and type of programs offered, the number of credits focused on cybersecurity courses, listed learning outcomes and lists of professional jobs available for graduates.

They found that while the NSA designation provides requirements for the amount of cybersecurity content included in curricula, the center of excellence institutions vary widely in the types of programs they offer and how many cybersecurity-specific courses they provide. Half of the programs offered bachelor’s degrees, while other programs offered certificates, associate degrees, minors or concentration tracks.

The most common type of program offered was a certificate, and most of the programs were housed within engineering, computer science, or technology schools or departments. The researchers found that industry professionals had different expectations of skill levels from what graduates of the program have.

The researchers hope the work will serve as a benchmark to compare programs across the U.S. and as a roadmap toward better meeting industry needs.

With funding from the state of Washington, WSU began offering a cybersecurity degree last year. The oldest cybersecurity programs are only about 25 years old, said Gebremedhin, but programs have traditionally been training students to become information technology professionals or system administrators.

“In terms of maturity, in being a discipline as a separate degree program, cybersecurity is relatively new, even for computer science,” said Gebremedhin.

The field is also constantly changing.

“In cyber operations, you want to be on offense,” he said. “If you are to defend, then you need to stay ahead of your attacker, and if they keep changing, you have to be changing at a faster rate.”

This work was supported by the U.S. Department of Defense in collaboration with the Air Force Research Laboratory and Griffiss Institute.

DOI

10.1145/3626252.3630757

ARTICLE TITLE

A Critical Review of Cybersecurity Education in the United States