Count Insects to Help Tackle Global Problems and Win Cash

July 12, 2012 By IdeaConnection

There’s no getting away from them; insects are deeply woven into the fabric of our lives. On the plus side they pollinate our food crops, enrich the ecosystem when their bodies decompose, and some of the substances they produce are used for numerous applications. But there are many foes lurking in the insect world that cause disease and devastate crops.

An enormous amount of effort has gone into coming up with ways of eradicating insects but many of these tend to be blanket efforts that kill off the good guys as well as the bad.

Eamonn Keogh’s lab at the University of California, Riverside Bourns College of Engineering hopes to change that with devices that can more accurately count and classify bugs, but they need help to make them better.

Keogh and his students have built sensors to record data from flying insects. Their contraptions are small plastic boxes (containing up to 100 insects) that are connected to a laser that shines through the box to an optical sensor on the other side. When an insect passes through the light the sensor collects a brief snippet of the sound it makes.

Computational Entomology

Keogh’s plan is to merge computer science with entomology, creating a new field he’s dubbed computational entomology that will inexpensively count and classify bugs.   The aim is to better identify those that cause harm so that improved and more targeted interventions can be deployed.

His current device classifies insects with 80% accuracy but he’s after 99% accuracy which he believes can be achieved with a computer program that can take in two audio snippets and analyze their similarity.

“We have no idea what is possible,” Keogh said. “It’s possible the first person could improve it to 100percent. I doubt it. But it’s possible.”

And so he’s launched a competition to produce the best distance (similarity) measure for insect flight sounds. And as an incentive there’s a prize of $500 and an engraved trophy for the winner.

To find out more about the contest and details of how to enter click here.


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