User:Crepaci

About Me

I'm Charlie Repaci, a senior at Simmons University studying Data Science, with a special interest in Biochemistry and Sociology. This summer I am working with Dr. Shion Guha and doctoral candidate Devansh Saxena on Developing Ethical Algorithms for Placement Stability in the Foster Care System.

Work Log

Week 1

June 1 to June 7

1. Orientation
   • Introduction to other mentors, mentees, and REU heads Dr. Praveen Madiraju and Dr. Dennis Brylow
   • Review of REU calendar and expectations
2. Data Science Bootcamp (talk by Dr. Madiraju)
   • Introduction and basics of data analysis with python (Anaconda and Jypyter Notebook; pandas, numpy, matplotlib, seaborn, scipy)
     • Read in data
     • Pre-processing
     • Modeling
     • Data visualization
3. Good Research Practices (talk by Dr. Brylow)
4. Literature Review
   • A Human-Centered Review of Algorithms used within the U.S. Child Welfare System
   • Toward Algorithmic Accountability in Public Services: A Qualitative Study of Affected Community Perspectives on Algorithmic Decision-making in Child Welfare Services
   • Child Welfare System: Interaction of Policy, Practice, and Algorithms
   • (Supplementary) Risk vs. Restriction: The Tension between Providing a Sense of Normalcy and Keeping Foster Teens Safe Online

Week 2

June 8 to June 14

1. Responsible Conduct of Research Training (talk by Dr. Brylow)
   • Ethical treatment of data
   • Authorship, credit, plagiarism
   • Human participants
   • Intellectual property
   • Conflicts of interest and professional standards
2. Worked on getting Citi certification for all three RCR sessions
3. Technical Writing Workshop (talk by Dr. Brylow and Dr. Madiraju)
   • What the sections of a technical paper are
   • What the publication process is like
   • General tips
4. Literature review
   • Governing Algorithms: A Provocation Piece
   • Algorithmic Accountability Reporting: On the Investigation of Black Boxes
   • Thinking Critically About and Researching Algorithms
   • (Supplementary) Algorithm in Digital Keywords: a Vocabulary of Information, Society, and Culture
5. Meeting with mentors
   • Github created for the project
   • Questions and discussion of the literature reviewed
   • Planned work for the next two weeks

Week 3

June 15 to June 21

1. Set up Wiki entrees for myself and my project
2. Meeting with all REU interns to discuss our projects so far and any problems we have run into
3. Literature review
   • Street-Level Algorithms: A Theory at the Gaps Between Policy and Decisions
   • Algorithms as culture: Some tactics for the ethnography of algorithmic systems
   • (Supplementary) Algorithms as fetish: Faith and possibility in algorithmic work
4. Meeting with Devansh to discuss the first dataset
   • Understand variables and components -- reading the documentation that comes with datasets
   • Import dataset into R and common problems

Week 4

June 22 to June 28

1. Importing data
   • Need SAS to run a program included with the data files that creates .sas7bdat and .sas7bcat files from the .dat files that were given to us
   • Some are not importing correctly for yet unknown reasons
2. Student Check-In (by Dr. Brylow and Dr. Madiraju)
3. Research Presentation (talk by guest lecturer Dr. Walter Bialkowski)
   • Blood donation and potential risk of lower bone density to donors due to prolonged and repeated exposure to the anticoagulant citrate added to the blood (and then returned to the donor) during the donation process
   • Study 1: Data analysis of Scandinavian blood donor data
     • Concluded that there was no association between blood donation and the number of bone fractures donors had later in life
     • Limitations included differences in blood donation policy, process, and popularity of varying donation types between Scandanavia and the United States
   • Study 2: Longitudinal study of blood donors
     • Concluded that current guidelines were enough to protect adult male donors between the ages of 20 and 65
     • Limited in that conclusion can not be extrapolated to women or to men outside that age range
4. Presentation on work done in weeks 3 and 4 to mentors (readings, problems with data)

Week 5

June 29 to July 5

Week 6

July 6 to July 12

Week 7

July 13 to July 19

Week 8

July 20 to July 26

Week 9

July 27 to August 2

Week 10

August 3 to August 9