On October 29 and 30 the National Science and Technology Medals Foundation will host Science Unscripted: Conversations with AI Experts, two early evening events at UMBC from 5:00 to 8:00pm that bring together AI experts to discuss how AI will impact our lives. The events will be held in the Fine Arts Recital Hall with doors open at 5:00 prior to the 5:30 start and will conclude with a reception starting at 7:00pm with food and drinks. Both events are free, but registration is requested.

These events are a part of the NSTMF’s Science Unscripted program. Through the SU program, the Foundation is building an inclusive coalition of inspired STEM students. By highlighting voices often left unheard in the STEM community, we show audiences that there is no “right” way to be a trailblazer in science and technology. Each evening, attendees will have the chance to hear about the lives and experiences of the women and men dedicated to creating smart, socially conscious AI.

Tuesday, Oct. 29: Code-ifying AI is a a discussion about AI policy. A panel including UMBC Professor Cynthia Matuszek, Dr. José-Marie Griffiths and moderated by Rosario Robinson will examine what it will take to govern AI as well as the implications of incorporating AI into our everyday lives. Register on Eventbright.

Wednesday, Oct. 30: Decoding Bias in AI is a panel discussion about implicit bias and how we can create more socially conscious AI with UMBC Professor James Foulds, Loretta Cheeks, Emmanuel Johnson and moderator Deborah Kariuki. Implicit bias remains one of the most prevalent concerns about incorporating AI into the mainstream, and our panel is poised to deliberate the ethics and possible solutions to this issue. Register on Eventbright.

The events will be webcast live with closed-captions on Facebook, and the full event videos will be available on our YouTube channel afterward. Webcast audiences are encouraged to participate in the conversation using #ScienceUnscripted on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

Both events are no-cost, equal access (ADA compliant), and open to the public. Save your seat on Eventbrite for day one at Code-ifying AI and for day two at Decoding Bias in AI.

Correlation analysis with small sample sizes

Peter Schreier, Univ. of Paderborn, Germany

2:00-3:00 Tuesday, 18 June 2019, ITE 325B, UMBC

Most common techniques for correlation analysis (e.g., canonical correlation analysis) require sufficiently large sample support, but in many applications only a limited number of samples are available. Correlation analysis with small sample sizes poses some unique challenges. In this talk, I will focus on the problem of determining the correlated components between two or more data sets when the number of samples from these data sets is extremely small. Applications are plentiful, and among them I will discuss the identification of weather patterns in climate science and analyzing the effects of extensive physical exercise on the autonomic nervous system.

Peter Schreier was born in Munich, Germany, in 1975. He received a Master of Science from the University of Notre Dame, IN, USA, in 1999, and a Ph.D. from the University of Colorado at Boulder, CO, USA, in 2003, both in electrical engineering. From 2004 until 2011, he was on the faculty of the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia. Since 2011, he has been Chaired Professor of Signal and System Theory at Paderborn University, Germany. He has spent sabbatical semesters at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, HI, and Colorado State University, Ft. Collins, CO.

From 2008 until 2012, he was an Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing, from 2010 until 2014 a Senior Area Editor for the same Transactions, and from 2015 to 2018 an Associate Editor for the IEEE Signal Processing Letters. From 2009 until 2014, he was a member of the IEEE Technical Committee on Machine Learning for Signal Processing, and he currently serves on the IEEE Technical Committee on Signal Processing Theory and Methods. He is the Chair of the Steering Committee of the IEEE Signal Processing Society’s Data Science Initiative, and he serves on the IEEE SPS Regional Committee for Region 8. He was the General Chair of the 2018 IEEE Statistical Signal Processing Workshop in Freiburg, Germany.

Tensor Decomposition of ND data arrays

Prof. David Brie, University of Lorraine

2:00pm Thursday, 13 June 2019, ITE 325B, UMBC

The goal of this talk is to give an introduction to tensor decompositions for the analysis of multidimensional data. First, we recall some basic notions and operations on tensors. Then two tensor decompositions are presented: the Tucker decomposition (TD) and the Candecomp/Parafac decomposition (CPD). A particular focus is placed on the identifiability conditions of the CPD. Finally, various applications in biology are presented.

David Brie received the Ph.D. degree in 1992 and the Habilitation à Diriger des Recherches degree in 2000, both from Université de Lorraine, France. He is currently full professor at the Department of Telecommunications and Networking of the Institut Universitaire de Technologie, Université de Lorraine, France. He is editor-in-chief of the French journal “Traitement du Signal” since 2013 and will be co-general chair of the next IEEE CAMSAP 2019. His current research interests include vector-sensor-array processing, spectroscopy and hyperspectral image processing, non-negative matrix factorization, multidimensional signal processing, and tensor decompositions.

UMBC’s 15th Digital Entertainment Conference

11:00am-5:00pm, Saturday, May 11, 2019

Commons Sports Zone, UMBC

The Digital Entertainment Conference (DEC) is an annual student-organized event that brings professional game developers from the area to UMBC to talk about their experience in the game industry. DEC’19 will be held 11-5 on Saturday, May 11 in the Sports Zone of the UMBC Commons building. Attend to meet professions from the local game industry, see games made by UMBC students, and network with game developers.

DEC’19 is free to attend and open to UMBC students, high school students, UMBC alumni and anyone interested in game development. A free catered lunch is provided and parking on campus is free on weekends on any lot marked A, B, or C.

This year’s speakers include: Greg Lane, Community Manager at Big Huge Games; Dorian Newcomb, Co-founder and Art Director at Mohawk Games; Andrei Shulgach, Composer for games and short films and UI Implementer at UX is Fine; Rebecca Bushko: Software Engineer at Big Huge Games; Eric Jordan, Senior Software Engineer at Firaxis Games and the first president of the UMBC Game Developers Club.

The DEC’19 is co-sponsored by the UMBC Game Developers club and Computer Science Education Club and funded by the COEIT Dean’s Office’s Collaborative Student Funding Program.

The Evolution of Mobile Authentication

Prof. Keith Mayes, Royal Holloway University of London

1:00pm Tuesday 30 April 2019, ITE325, UMBC

Mobile communication is an essential part or modern life, however it is dependent on some fundamental security technologies. Critical amongst these technologies, is mobile authentication, the ability to identify valid users (and networks) and enable their secure usage of communication services. In the GSM standards and the 3GPP standards that evolved from them, the subscriber-side security has been founded on a removable, attack-resistant smart card known as a SIM (or USIM) card. The presentation explains how this situation came about, and how and why the protocols and algorithms have improved over time. It will cover some work by the author on a recent algorithm for 3GPP and then discuss how Machine-to-Machine and IoT considerations have led to new standards, which may herald the demise of the conventional removable SIM, in favour of an embedded eSIM.

Professor Keith Mayes B.Sc. Ph.D. CEng FIET A.Inst.ISP, is a professor of information security within the Information Security Group (ISG) at Royal Holloway University of London. Prior to his sabbatical, he was the Director of the ISG and Head of the School of Mathematics and Information Security. He is an active researcher/author with 100+ publications in numerous conferences, books and journals. His current research interests are diverse, including, mobile communications, smart cards/RFIDS, the Internet of Things, and embedded systems. Keith joined the ISG in 2002, originally as the Founder Director of the ISG Smart Card Centre, following a career in industry working for Pye TVT, Honeywell Aerospace and Defence, Racal Research and Vodafone. Keith is a Chartered Engineer, a Fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology, a Founder Associate Member of the Institute of Information Security Professionals, a Member of the Licensing Executives Society and an experienced company director and consultant. He is active in the UK All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Cyber Security and is an adjunct professor at UMBC.

IBM Cloud Academy Workshop

9am-5pm Friday, May 3, 2019

UMBC will host an all-day IBM Watson Cloud Academy Workshop 9am-5pm on May 3 taught by Prof. Anand Singh of NCSU. All faculty, students and staff are welcome to attend. We also welcome government and industry partners. Register for the free workshop here.

The workshop will provide hands-on training on many of the IBM Watson, analytics and IoT cloud services that can be used in support of a wide-range of AI/cognitive-based research projects and curricula. It will also provide use cases of many typical biomedical, engineering and other problems that can be solved using these technologies.

The workshop will end with a project planning clinic, whereby faculty can discuss proposed projects. To prepare for this hands-on workshop, participants should obtain a free IBM Cloud trial accounts and review the educational modules/material as outlined below:

• Obtain a free IBM Cloud trial account (that will provide you with free access to a subset of Watson services).
• Click on Watson and then select Cloud Access and then follow the directions to get your free account.
• Go to the free Educator Guides page
• Review the material for the “Updated Watson Education Guide” and complete the Lab and Exercises.
• Go to the Watson Academic Engagement page and go through the “Application Starter Kit”, “API Documentation,” and “Watson on Github” and other material there.
• Go to the IBM Watson Academy page and go through the material under “IBM Watson and Cloud Platform”, especially material on NLP, Dialog, Assistant, Discovery and Watson Knowledge Studios.

Register for the free workshop here.