Episode 29: Floodlight™ and Searchlight™

Technology Today

Southwest Research Institute

Technology

4.8 • 19 Ratings

🗓️ 22 March 2021

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Machine learning is powering cutting-edge software tools, Floodlight™ and Searchlight™, helping chemists sift through an overflow of data. Chemists look for chemical signals in samples of food, drugs, personal care products, carpeting, upholstery and other items we use every day. Identifying these signals and studying these chemical fingerprints could improve health and safety by creating better products and better public policies. Floodlight and Searchlight are speeding up this process, churning out weeks of work in a fraction of the time and saving chemists from data overload. Listen now as SwRI Analytical Chemist Kristin Favela and SwRI Computer Scientist Michael Hartnett discuss how they combined their expertise to create these fast and precise machine learning tools.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Chemistry and computer science combine in innovative software systems, floodlight and searchlight.
0:06.4	They are machine learning tools that can analyze food, drugs, materials, even the air to detect chemicals.
0:13.8	What is the software's potential impact on health, safety, the environment, and more?
0:19.2	Here from the creators next on this episode of Technology Today.
0:26.3	We live with technology, science, engineering, and the results of innovative research every day.
0:32.7	Now, let's understand it better.
0:34.6	You're listening to the Technology Today podcast presented by Southwest Research Institute.
0:39.3	Hello and welcome to technology today. I'm Lisa Benia. In machine learning, a computer learns to recognize
0:46.3	patterns in data using algorithms. Floodlight and searchlight software, which we are discussing today,
0:52.3	illuminate patterns in complex chemical
0:55.7	data, identifying chemicals present in a sample. This type of analysis used to take chemists
1:02.0	weeks. Now, with this incredible technology speeding up the process, it takes just a fraction
1:07.6	of the time. Our guests today are Dr. Kristen Favela, an SWRI analytical chemist,
1:14.1	and SWRI research computer scientist Michael Hartnett. They combined their expertise to create
1:20.3	floodlight and searchlight. And this is really a great example of collaboration at SWRI,
1:26.4	merging different areas of research and development to
1:29.5	create a world-changing solution. Thank you for joining us, Kristen and Michael.
1:34.6	Thanks, Lisa. Happy to be here. Thank you for having us.
1:37.3	So we had a brief segment with you in episode 16 where you described your process creating
1:43.6	floodlight, but I'm really excited to have
1:45.9	more time with you today to talk about your newest software searchlight and really delve
1:51.0	into this technology.
	...

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