Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering

Analyzing Social Media Data
Morgan Madeira
Junior, Computer Science

Social media has increasingly become an outlet for expression for a large part of our society. Literature suggests that analyzing data from these sites can lead to improvements in areas such as health-care and search-ad targeting. Users of these sites often associate with many other users described as “friends,” even if they do not have a strong connection, or what would be described as friendship in daily life. It is valuable to determine the strength of relationships between users and to identify communities within social networks. These communities represent people with similar characteristics, which are used by applications to solve many real-world problems. For instance, it is useful to identify groups that are interested in a specific movie genre. Information about these groups can be used to target movie advertisements towards the people most interested in that genre. These types of problems have similar characteristics to identifying close friends. We have created a system to collect and analyze the data about user characteristics, while being respectful of privacy concerns. The system is composed of a front end Facebook application and a back end machine-learning based tool. The front end component gathers data about a user and their friends. The back end uses the collected data and machine-learning techniques to determine relationships between users.

In her own words:

We asked Morgan a few questions about her research project, which was funded by an Undergraduate Research Award (URA). Here's what she said:

Briefly summarize your research in non-technical terms:  My research focuses on identifying communities in social media sites. For my current project, I use Facebook data to predict close groups of friends. Then, I evaluate the accuracy of my predictions based on user reports of their closest friends. Real-world problems with similar characteristics to identifying close friends are useful in many applications.

When did you start this research?  I’ve been working in the Ebiquity lab since fall 2010, but have only been working on this project since spring 2011. Dr. Penny Rheingans referred me to work with Dr. Joshi because he was looking for undergraduate women interested in research.

Why is your research important? There is an immense amount of data in social media sites, which many people use for daily communication and expression. My research helps find ways to determine what information in the data is useful, and how it can be used to solve real-world problems.

What has been the biggest challenge so far? The biggest challenge so far has been making time for classwork and research. I’m taking a full schedule of classes, so it is difficult to find time for research when class assignments are my first priority.

The biggest reward? The biggest reward has been applying class material to outside work and learning about research. I appreciate and enjoy research more than I ever thought I would.

What advice would you give to students interested in pursuing undergraduate research? My best advice would be to investigate the ongoing research at UMBC. Then, try to determine what area you are most interested in, and find a faculty member that does work in that area. Approach them and express your interest in working with them on a research project. There is a good chance they will want to work with you or will help you find another faculty mentor.

Don't forget to see Morgan's poster presentation at URCAD on Wednesday, April 25 in the University Center (UC) Ballroom from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

CRA-W Distinguished Lecture Series
University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC)

Panel Discussion: Graduate School: Before, During, and After

10:00-11:00am Monday 16 April, 2012, UC 310, UMBC

Panelists

Dr. Ellen Zegura, Georgia Tech
Dr. Jeffrey Forbes, National Science Foundation
Mr. James MacGlashan (UMBC CSEE Ph.D. Candidate)
Ms. Alyson Young (UMBC HCC Ph.D. student)

As part of CRA-W's Distinguished Lecture event on Monday, April 16, we will be holding a panel about grad school and beyond.  The panelists are our two Distinguished Lecture visitors and two UMBC Ph.D. students. Topics will include why going to grad school, deciding between an M.S. and a Ph.D., how to succeed during grad school, and career possibilities after grad school. The panel is targeted at undergraduates who are considering applying to grad school, as well as graduate students in their early years.

Light refreshments will be served

SHORT BIOs

PROFESSOR ELLEN ZEGURA received the BS degree in Computer Science, the BS degree in Electrical Engineering, the MS degree in Computer Science and the DSc degree in Computer Science from Washington University, St. Louis. Since 1993, she has been on the faculty in the College of Computing at Georgia Tech. She currently serves as Professor and Chair of Computer Science. She received an NSF CAREER Award in 1995, a Washington University distinguished Alumni Award in 2008, and was selected as an IEEE Fellow in 2010. She was elected to the CRA Board of Directors in 2011.

Professor Zegura has conducted research and taught in computer networking for over 20 years. Her research interests include the Internet, with a focus on its topological structure and services, as well as mobile wireless networking. In network topology, she is the co-creator of the GT-ITM suite of Internet topology modeling tools, which remains in use 15 years after its original release. In mobile wireless networking, she and her colleagues invented the concept of message ferries to facilitate communications in environments where network connectivity is unreliable and/or sparse. Almost four years ago, she helped create the Computing for Good initiative in the College of Computing, a project-based teaching and research activity that focuses on the use of computing to solve pressing societal problems.

PROFESSOR JEFFREY FORBES is an Associate Professor of the Practice of Computer Science at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. He is currently on leave with the National Science Foundation as a Program Director for the Education and Workforce Program in the Division of Computer and Network Systems, Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering. He received his B.S. and Ph.D. Degrees in Computer Science from Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley, respectively. His research interests include computer science education, intelligent agents,and social information processing.

Host: Professor Marie desJardins

Next Century Corporation is looking for prospective software engineers to join their team as interns and full time employees. The local technology company was named one of Baltimore Magazine’s “Best Places to Work” in 2011.

“Next Century is driven by something far deeper than software, hardware, and dollars and cents,” says the company’s website. “We believe the solutions we provide have the power to save lives, promote freedom, and improve our world in exponential ways.”

Next Wednesday, April 11, 2012, Next Century staff will arrive at the UMBC campus for Next Century Corporation Corporate Visibility Day. The day will give students an opportunity to network with staff members. At Noon, catch president John McBeth discuss the company’s inception, followed by a lecture by UMBC alumna and Next Century Senior Software Engineering Christine Stepnitz entitled: “High Availability Systems: Planning for Failure. When your system has to be up 100% of the time, what happens when it goes down? And how can you turn that into an OK thing?”

Next Century Corporation Corporate Visibility Day will be held Wednesday, April 11 in the University Center Ballroom Lounge from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Rising sophomore, junior, and senior undergraduate students interested in cognitive radios and wireless networking might want to take a look at Virginia Tech’s Cognitive Communications Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU).

This summer, the program will enlist ten undergraduate students for a nine-week research program that explores problems related to software defined radios, cognitive radios, wireless networks, wireless communication circuits, and human factors engineering in communications. Students will be mentored by Virginia Tech faculty members, and will participate in weekly research meetings and informal brown-bag lunches to discuss research progress.

Each student will be awarded a $4,500 stipend, a housing and food allowance up to $2,000, and travel assistance up to $600. Eligible undergraduates must be majoring in electrical engineering, computer engineering, or computer science, and hold an overall G.P.A. of 3.0. All applicants must be U.S. citizens, and minorities, women, handicapped students, and students from schools without undergraduate research opportunities are especially encouraged to apply.

Application Deadline: Friday, April 13, 2012

To apply for the program, click here.

For more information, click here.

Still looking for a summer internship? The 2012 Google Summer of Code (GSoC) starts accepting application from students on Monday March 26.

GSoC is a global program funded by Google that pays undergraduate or graduate students a $5000 stipend to write code for open source projects. GSoC has worked with the open source community to identify and fund exciting projects for the upcoming summer. Last year over 1,100 students were funded by the program. The FAQ is a good place to find out more.

A set of open source projects (aka mentoring organizations) has been selected. Students apply to work on one of more of these and each mentoring organization ranks the students interested in working with them. Google facilitates the final selection and pairing. The mentoring organization works closely with the student to define tasks, check progress, help solve problems, etc. Typically the student works remotely, interacting with his or her mentor via email, chat, skype, etc.

Students can submit applications via the Google Summer of Code 2012 site from March 26 to April 6. Google says that that the best applications they receive are from students who took the time to interact with one of the participating mentoring organizations and discuss their ideas before submitting an application. So your first step should be to look at the list of 2012 GSoC Mentoring Organizations and contact some that have projects that interest you and for which you have the right skills and background.

See the GSoC 2012 Program Timeline for a complete schedule. You might also check out the information on the Advice for GSoC Students Page and the GSoC forum.

UMBC's Cyber Defense Team is looking for new members. This semester the team competed in the Collegiate Cyber Defense Championship. In this competition, each team defended a mock corporate network against a horde of professional hackers in a fast-paced, real-time event over the course of two days. These competitions are a great way to network with government agencies and key companies in the security industry.

The UMBC Cyber Defense Team provides a great opportunity to gain practical, hands-on experience in information security, intrusion detection, cybersecurity, and network security. The team practices both penetration and defense of isolated networks similar to real business environments. The group meets at 7:00pm on Mondays in ITE 367 and will have special events that will be announced also. No experience is required, but you should be motivated to learn about computer networks and systems security.

You can find additional information and how to join our mailing list at the UMBC Cyberdawgs website. Contact Marc Warfield (marc9 at umbc.edu) for more information.

The Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing (GHC) is the world’s largest gathering of women in computing. The 2012 Grace Hopper Celebration will take place 3-6 October 2012 at the Baltimore Convention Center. This year’s theme “Are We There Yet?” recognizes that technology and the culture of technology are continuously evolving but there are also concrete goals we are striving to achieve. Since UMBC is a Gold Academic Sponsor, UMBC students will receive a 20% registration discount.

At the conference, leading researchers will present their current work, while special sessions focus on the role of women in today’s technology fields, including computer science, information technology, research and engineering. The technical conference features well known keynote speakers and invited technical speakers, panels, workshops, new investigator technical papers, PhD forums, technical posters, birds of a feather sessions, the ACM Student Research Competition and an Awards Celebration.

If you would like to submit a paper or poster abstract on your work, the deadline is this coming Friday, March 16th. See the 2012 GHC call for participation for details.

Meet Max, a Teaching Assistant who loves climbing mountains, swing dancing, and Artificial Intelligence.

“I’ve never been bored in my life,” says Maksym Morawski (call him Max), a Computer Science graduate student who spends most of his free time scaling mountains.

Originally from Silver Spring, Max moved to Baltimore in 2006 to study Computer Science as an undergraduate. In the 4th grade, while others kids were busy building volcanoes for their science projects, Max and his computer scientist dad were putting together a computer that compared different algorithms for computing prime numbers. So choosing his major in college, explains Max, was a no-brainer.

Now a second year graduate student pursuing a Master’s in Computer Science, Max is working on a thesis that looks at predicting connections in social networks, like Facebook. A computer scientist with a sociological streak, Max’s project uses computers to understand how people interact with one another based on e-mail data sets taken from corporations.

Max’s foray into teaching began in 2010 when he became a Teaching Assistant for CMSC 202. He says his favorite part about being a TA are the discussions—where he actually gets to get up and teach and get his students excited about Computer Science. His dose of teacherly advice is as follows: “Program for fun.” If you don’t practice and enjoy programming, he explains, you will never be as good as someone who lives and breathes it.

Throughout his years at UMBC, Max’s on-campus involvement has extended past teaching. An avid dancer (he frequents Mobtown Ballroom in Baltimore City), he founded UMBC’s Swing Dancing club. He also helped conceive Project X, the club that sponsored a campus-wide scavenger hunt in 2008 and 2009 that included tasks like jumping into the Inner Harbor and high-fiving Freeman Hrabowski (which prompted a not-so-enthusiastic e-mail from the UMBC president). The prize for the hunt was an amalgamation of candy that was procured from the “Spot” using late-night meals over a series of weeks, explains Max.

But, Max’s favorite thing to do is the hobby he took up in high school: exploring mountains. A frequenter of Earth Treks—a climbing center in Columbia–Max had plans to climb frozen waterfalls in New York State this winter. His dream job, he says half-jokingly, is to be a mountaineering guide. Though, he may also consider a job in academia: “I would love to be a teacher,” he says.

Google is running an Android Camp this summer where 30 selected students will attend an all-expense-paid program at Google’s headquarters in Mountain View, California, July 22-28.

The camp will include an interactive and collaborative curriculum focusing on a practical introduction to developing applications for Android and will explore the concepts behind Android, the framework for constructing an application, and the tools for developing, testing, and publishing software for the platform. Students will also get the opportunity to enjoy technical talks by Googlers, and social activities around the Bay Area.

To be eligible, you must be a current freshman or sophomore majoring in Computer Science, Computer Engineering or related area and have at least a year of proven Java development experience.  The application deadline is March 11.

For more information and to apply, see the 2012 Google Android Camp site.

Stripe, a San Francisco startup with an online-payment system, is hosting a simple online cybersecurity capture the flag (CTF) challenge. See their blog post for the details.

“The hardest part of writing secure code is learning to think like an attacker. For example, every programmer is told to watch out for SQL injections, but it’s hard to appreciate just how exploitable they are until you’ve written a SQL injection of your own.

We built Stripe Capture the Flag, a security wargame inspired by SmashTheStack’s IO, to help the community (as well our team!) practice identifying and exploiting common security problems.

After completing our CTF, you should have a greatly improved understanding of how attackers will try to break your code (and hopefully will have fun in the process!).”

If you can crack their system, they’ll send you a t-shirt. Since security is important to their business, maybe they will also talk to you about a job.