Congratulations to Mairead Moloney, PhD and her co-authors on the publication of a paper “Social Determinants of Sleep Health Inequities Among Rural Appalachian Adults” by JAMA Network Open journal. Read more “Social Determinants of Sleep Health Inequities”
Abstract
Marine biodiversity underpins ecosystem health and is critical for the provision of essential ecological services. Global efforts to mitigate biodiversity loss are underway but require comprehensive knowledge on the biogeography of species to be effective. However, key challenges limit comprehensive mapping of species distributions, including the complexity of ocean ecosystems and the difficulty of sampling the marine realm.
Global initiatives such as AquaMaps pioneered large-scale marine species mapping using species distribution models or Ecological Niche models and provided the knowledge base for effective marine conservation and management. Recently, methodological and data advances have enabled a more modern and robust approach that enables higher resolution outputs more suited to conservation applications at all scales.
Building on AquaMaps, we develop a next-generation marine species habitat suitability modelling platform called AquaX, providing a suite of advances that include an ensemble of ten machine learning algorithms, enabling spatial uncertainty assessments, validation indices, and ecological niche representation at a ten-fold improved spatial resolution of 0.05°. Furthermore, AquaX integrates (i) accepted taxonomy from the World Register of Marine Species, (ii) species-specific ecological, physiological, and biogeographical information (D3-Ocean system), (iii) updated occurrence records validated through expert input, and (iv) refined species range maps using expert knowledge and biogeographical divisions.
AquaX also projects species’ habitat suitability for both present and future conditions based on two time periods and three climate scenarios. This work provides species range maps for numerous species compared to previously available datasets and improves the accurate use of observational data. The approaches described here improve predictive accuracy at scales more relevant to marine biodiversity conservation and offer an openly accessible tool to support marine biodiversity research and conservation planning under accelerating environmental change.
AquaX represents an important step forward in species distribution modeling, enabling researchers and policymakers to better understand marine biodiversity patterns and develop more effective conservation strategies.
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Reygondeau, Gabriel, et al. “AquaX: An Enhanced and Revised AquaMaps Framework to Model Marine Species Distributions and Biodiversity.” bioRxiv, 20 Oct. 2025, https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.10.19.683322v1.
Sleep disturbance is highly prevalent in cancer survivors and their family caregivers. This article looks at identifying critical factors using machine learning to address the complexities of multidimensional and multi-level factors involved in sleep health of both patients and caregivers simultaneously. Read more “ML Framework Informs Sleep Functioning in Adults with Cancer and their Caregivers”
Global atmospheric general circulation models with simplified physics and boundary conditions are powerful tools that help us to understand fundamental climate dynamics and diagnose more comprehensive modeling systems. Read more “A Simplified-Physics Atmosphere General Circulation Model for Idealized Climate Dynamics Studies”
Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the second leading cause of cancer death in the U.S. and the rural Appalachia area suffers the highest CRC incidence and mortality rates. There are several non-clinical health-related social determinant factors (SDOH) associated with cancer mortality. Read more “Machine Learning Study Looks at Cancer Mortality in Rural Appalachia”
Colleges and universities are transforming into engines of dynamic economic growth, workforce development, and real-world innovation. In collaboration with HTC VIVE, Virtualware Co. has just released the whitepaper on “How Universities and Colleges are Fostering Innovation-Driven Regional Economic Development Initiatives.” Read more “Whitepaper on Transforming Colleges and Universities into Engines of Innovation”
Congratulations to authors Rajesh Pasupuleti, Ravi Vadapalli, Christopher Mader, and Timothy Norris on the publication of their paper “Popular LLM-Large Language Models in Enterprise Applications” from the 2024 2nd International Conference on Foundation and Large Language Models (FLLM2024) by IEEE Xplore.* Read more “Popular LLM-Large Language Models in Enterprise Applications”
Recent work on human movement dynamics has been accepted for publication in Physical Review E (PRE), a reputable journal in the field of statistical physics. This research is the result of a significant collaboration between the Department of Physics and the Department of Psychology at the University of Miami, as well as external contributors. Read more “Emergence of Social Phases in Human Movement”
Alberto Cairo recently appeared on The PolicyBiz Podcast and shared that talking to Jon Schwabish is always a pleasure. Jon, he says, is one of the most active and knowledgeable people in the visualization world, author of a few really good books—Alberto’s favorite is Better Data Visualizations: A Guide for Scholars, Researchers, and Wonks, and, Alberto added, Jon is a great popularizer of their craft. Read more “Alberto Cairo Discusses the Present and Future of Visualization with Jon Schwabish”
With a fascinating career that has “tracked alongside the major technological developments in and out of the newsroom that brought us to the current point in data visualization,” Prof. Alberto Cairo was described in a Microsoft / Story Labs profile as “always in the vanguard of visual journalism.” Read more “Available Now: “The Art of Insight: How Great Visualization Designers Think””