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What is VIRTUAL RESEARCH ASSISTANT (VRA)?
A web-based novel recommender platform that will facilitate research collaborations among scientists, enhance use/reuse of datasets, and make it easier for researchers to find relevant publications, datasets, collaborators, funding opportunities, and more. By leveraging natural language processing techniques and deep learning algorithms, the VRA will provide researchers with personalized recommendations tailored to their specific interests and research needs.
Prototype available here: http://genestudy.org/recommends/#/
Team
Faculty: Ashraf Yaseen, Hulin Wu, Tru Cao
Students: Jie Zhu, Zitong Zhang, Rachit Sabharwal
Postdoc: Braja Gopal Patra
Programmer: Leqing Wu
Published papers
ӿZitong Zhang, §Ashraf Yaseen, Hulin Wu. Statistical Interpretation for Word Embeddings in Natural Language Processing. International Journal of Data Science and Analytics. (accepted) 8/2025
ӿZitong Zhang, §Ashraf Yaseen, Hulin Wu. Scholarly recommendation system for NIH funded grants based on biomedical word embedding models. Natural Language Processing Journal. August 2024. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nlp.2024.100095
ӿZitong Zhang, §Ashraf Yaseen. A Content-Based Dataset Recommendation System for Biomedical Datasets. 2023 6th International Conference on Information and Computer Technologies (ICICT), Raleigh, NC, USA, 2023 pp. 198-202. doi: 10.1109/ICICT58900.2023.00040
ӿZitong Zhang, Braja Gopal Patra, §Ashraf Yaseen, ӿJie Zhu, ӿRachit Sabharwal, Kirk Roberts, Tru Cao, and Hulin Wu. Scholarly Recommendation Systems: A Literature Survey. Knowledge and Information Systems (2023), https://doi.org/10.1007/s10115-023-01901-x
ӿJie Zhu, §Ashraf Yaseen, Luis Leon-Novelo. Incorporating uncertainty quantification for actionable insights and performance improvement of academic recommenders. Knowledge 2023, 3, 293-306. https://doi.org/10.3390/knowledge3030020
ӿJie Zhu, Braja Patra, Hulin Wu, §Ashraf Yaseen. A novel NIH research grant recommender using BERT. PLoS One. 2023 Jan 17;18(1):e0278636. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0278636
ӿJie Zhu, §Ashraf Yaseen. A Recommender for Research Collaborators Using Graph Neural Networks. Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence. 2022 Aug 1;5:881704. doi: 10.3389/frai.2022.881704. PMID: 35978654; PMCID: PMC9376356.
ӿJie Zhu, Hulin Wu, §Ashraf Yaseen. Sensitivity Analysis of a BERT-based scholarly recommendation system, FLAIRS Conference Proceedings, 35. 2022. https://doi.org/10.32473/flairs.v35i.130595.
ӿJie Zhu, Braja Patra, Hulin Wu, §Ashraf Yaseen. Recommender system of scholarly papers using public datasets, AMIA Jt Summits Transl Sci Proc. 2021 May 17;2021:672-679. PMID: 34457183; PMCID: PMC8378599.
Theses/Dissertations
Jie (Ginny) Zhu, PhD. Virtual Research Assistant (VRA): a platform for recommending datasets, grant announcements, and collaborators for population health professionals. Spring 2022
Zitong Zhang, PhD. (Biomedical) Data Sets and Research Grants Recommendation Systems: Methods and Statistical Evaluation. Fall 2024
Rachit Sabharwal, MS. BIOREC: A biomedical recommendation system for academic conferences and journals. Spring 2022
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