According to new estimates from the Global Carbon Project, an initiative led by Stanford University scientist, Rob Jackson, global fossil-fuel carbon dioxide emissions will reach another record high though the rate of emissions growth is slower than in the previous two years. Researchers warn emissions could keep increasing for a decade or more unless energy, transportation and industry policies change dramatically across the world.
The AI Index, an independent initiative at Stanford's Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence Institute (HAI), tracks, collates, and visualizes data relating to artificial intelligence. Its mission is to provide unbiased, rigorous, and comprehensive data for policymakers, researchers, journalists, executives, and the general public to develop a deeper understanding of the complex field of AI. The 2019 edition tracks three times as many data sets as the 2018 edition and introduces two tools to help navigate the data: The Global AI Vibrancy Tool and arXiv Monitor.
Eleven new, early-stage energy research projects at Stanford were funded by the Precourt Institute, TomKat Center for Sustainable Energy and Bits and Watts initiative. Among the projects funded is a study on Environmental justice consequences of transportation choices with Ines Azevedo, PI who presented at the CARS Annual Meeting in November. See the complete list of projects here.
A team of researchers at Stanford and University of Massachusetts Amherst published a paper in Science outlining a new technique that translates a goal, such as to avoid gender or racial bias, into mathematical criteria to allow a machine-learning algorithm to train an AI application to avoid that behavior. “We want to advance AI that respects the values of its human users and justifies the trust we place in autonomous systems,” said Emma Brunskill, an assistant professor of computer science at Stanford and senior author of the paper.
The Stanford Energy Global Council (seen at left), a new group led by Stanford University's Precourt Institute for Energy published its key messages from the first round-table held in August with leaders in the transportation sector. The council will publish a paper on the future of transportation this spring.
Chris Gerdes, co-leader of a team focused on campus makerspaces, draws on his lab's experience building an entire car at Stanford's Product Realization Lab, noting, "You don't really understand something unless you've built it and broken it." Through this experience, Gerdes' team placed high value on community, fostering of creativity and openness as essential to successful makerspaces.
The team from Chris Gerdes’ Dynamic Design Lab are training MARTY, an all-electric, autonomous DeLorean, to use all the friction between the tire and the road to get the vehicle out of harm’s way to handle emergency maneuvers or slippery road surfaces. The MARTYkhana video shows the autonomous control system developed by DDL’s Jon Goh and Tushar Goel applying drifting skills in an intense driving course that only top human drivers can reliably handle.
Recent work by Stanford and SLAC researchers have shown a promising approach to converting carbon dioxide which yields four times more ethane, propane and butane. The team created a new catalyst by combining ruthenium and iron oxide nanoparticles. The group would like to reduce the use of noble gases such as ruthenium and optimize the catalyst so it can selectively make only specific fuels.
Debra Sivas, Professor, Environmental Law and director of the Environmental and Natural Resources Law and Policy Program weighs in on the Trump administration's plan to roll back several key climate-change regulations including stricter fuel efficiency/vehicle pollution standards among others.
An evidence-based toolkit for governments looking to spark innovation was developed by researchers from Stanford University and MIT. Five policies which can effectively drive innovation are outlined as well as a few others that may boost innovation but aren't bolstered by much evidence. Lower U.S. federal funding for R&D which tends to focus on big picture projects with bigger payoffs which benefit entire industries has slowed economic growth in the U.S.
