Adversarial Machine Learning in Relational Domains

Prof. Daniel Lowd, University of Oregon

12:00-1:00 Tuesday, 22 March 2016, ITE 325b, UMBC

Many real-world domains, such as web spam, auction fraud, and counter-terrorism, are both adversarial and relational. In adversarial domains, a model that performs well on training data may do poorly in practice as adversaries modify their behavior to avoid detection. Previous work in adversarial machine learning has assumed that instances are independent from each other, both when manipulated by an adversary and labeled by a classifier. Relational domains violate this assumption, since object labels depend on the labels of related objects as well as their own attributes.

In this talk, I will present two different methods for learning relational classifiers that are robust to adversarial noise. Our first approach assumes that related objects have correlated labels and that the adversary can modify a certain fraction of the attributes. In this case, we can incorporate the adversary’s worst-case manipulation directly into the learning problem and find optimal weights in polynomial time. Our second method generalizes to any relational learning problem where the perturbations in feature space are bounded by an ellipse or polyhedron. In this case, we show that adversarial robustness can be achieved by a simple regularization term or linear transformation of the feature space. These results form a promising foundation for building robust relational models for adversarial domains.

Daniel Lowd is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer and Information Science at the University of Oregon. His research interests include learning and inference with probabilistic graphical models, adversarial machine learning, and statistical relational machine learning. He received his Ph.D. in 2010 from the University of Washington. He has received a Google Faculty Award, an ARO Young Investigator Award, and the best paper award at DEXA 2015.

Host: Cynthia Matuszek, Sorry, you need javascript to view this email address.

Rethinking the Cloud for Next-generation Applications

Tian Guo, University of Massachusetts
11:00am Monday, 21 March 2016, ITE325b

Today’s cloud platforms serve an increasing number of requests from millions of mobile users. This mobile workload introduces new challenges and workload dynamics that differ from traditional workloads. In the future, billions of Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices will connect to cloud platforms and compete for cloud resources. Current cloud platforms are agnostic to the type of end-devices and are not well suited to emerging application needs. My work argues that these trends require a rethinking of current cloud platforms and focuses on the challenges of handling the dynamics introduced by these next-generation applications.

In this talk, I will describe two aspects of cloud design: handling demand-side dynamics from emerging cloud workloads and handling supply-side dynamics from varying cloud platform resources. Specifically, I will describe model-driven mechanisms to optimize user-perceived performance for global workloads that exhibit spatial variations, and mechanisms to effectively support running applications on transient servers—servers with unpredictable availability. Finally, I will conclude my talk with future work in cloud research to handle emerging mobile and IoT applications.

Tian Guo is a Ph.D. student in the College of Information and Computer Sciences at University of Massachusetts Amherst. Her research interests include distributed systems, cloud computing, mobile computing and cloud-enabled IoTs. Her current focus is on handling dynamics introduced by new cloud workloads and emerging cloud platforms. She received her B.E. in Software Engineering from Nanjing University, China in 2010 and her M.S. in Computer Science from University of Massachusetts Amherst in 2013.

March is Women’s History Month!

Three  years ago Women’s History Month’s national theme was “Women Inspiring Innovation Through Imagination: Celebrating Women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.” The theme honored generations of women who throughout American history have used their intelligence, imagination, sense of wonder, and tenacity to make extraordinary contributions to the STEM fields. At UMBC we honored this theme by partnering with the Center for Women in Technology (CWIT) to feature some of their amazing students participating in technology in the engineering and information technology fields. While the theme for Women’s History Month changes every year, we have come to love the tradition in spotlighting the stories of UMBC’s CWIT women. So with that, we are honored to bring you the 3rd Annual CWIT Showcase in honor of Women’s History Month.

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Rachel Cohen
Computer Science
CWIT  Scholar

Meet Rachel Cohen! A CWIT Scholar and computer science major.

Describe what sparked your interest STEM and the journey to choosing your major.

When I first decided to attend UMBC as a freshman, I originally declared my major as biochemistry. In high school, I had always excelled in my science and math classes and knew that I wanted to major in something that would allow me to hone in on those skills. After taking the gateway biology and chemistry courses, I came to the realization that I wasn’t exceedingly passionate about what I was studying, so I decided to switch my major to computer science. Having no prior experience in the subject, I was a bit hesitant to make such a drastic switch. I knew that computer science was a prevalent field with a great number of job opportunities, so I knew that if I were able to develop the skills needed to get the computer science degree, I would have a successful future ahead of me. Since switching to computer science after freshman year, I haven’t looked back!

Tell us about an internship, research experience or project that you are proud of.

This past summer, I was accepted into the Cyber Summer Program, the DoD’s outreach effort to recruit computer science students from around the country. I was able to work on mission critical problems with senior cybersecurity professionals, which was a pretty awesome experience.

Who are your role models in the engineering or IT field? How have their stories influenced your educational or career goals.

Megan Smith is definitely someone whose career path I admire. For those who haven’t heard of Smith, she is the current (and first female) Chief Technology Officer of the United States. She holds a bachelor’s and master’s degree from MIT in mechanical engineering. She was the vice president of business development at Google and vice president of Google[x], a semi-secret research and development facility created by the Internet giant. One of the things I admire most about Smith is her involvement in Google’s $50 million dollar investment in their Made with Code initiative. Smith explained that Made with Code was formed to encourage young girls to get involved with basic coding projects and find information about strong female role models. Smith said, “We found out that one of the things that happens with high school girls is they sometimes get discouraged from doing code because no one is encouraging them…nobody’s telling them why it’s so impactful on the world. You couldn’t see a lot of heroes.” Someone like Smith, who has had ample experience in private industry and is now serving our country as the first female CTO, is someone who I aspire to be like. Her strong technical background has allowed her to advance into important leadership roles, which is something that I hope to do one day.

Rachel and Dr. Hrabowski

Women often face subtle comments (microaggressions) or people who tell them they can’t/shouldn’t be in these majors which are often dominated by men. What would you say to those women or what advice do you have?

The issue of gender disparity in tech is something that is very evident and it’s an issue that needs to be addressed. I’ve experienced moments, both at work and at school, where I’ve heard comments made about me that may (or may not) be attributed to my gender. I tend to not let those kinds of things affect me as I try and remember that I, just like everyone else, am where I am due of my qualifications and accomplishments. I am no less of a computer scientist because of my gender. I would say the most common thing that I experience is the feeling of being underrepresented as a woman in my field. For me, it’s important to bond with other women who have had these experiences too, so I would recommend finding a support group of peers as a way to gain connections and advice. That way, you’ll be able to say “yes, I’m the only woman in the room most of the time, but I’m a part of this group of awesome people who has experienced it too, so I know I’m not alone in this.”

With viral hashtags like #DistractinglySexy or #AddWomen and #Ilooklikeanengineer, women in STEM are using social media as a tool for activism and creating awareness about women’s representation in STEM. What’s your favorite example of women in STEM supporting and empowering themselves and other women to change the narrative about women in STEM?

Rachel at the awesome Grace Hopper Conference which is the world’s largest gathering of women technologists.

One of my favorite examples of women empowering themselves and other women to change the narrative about women in STEM is model Karlie Kloss’ experience with coding. Kloss, who is most well known for being a high fashion model, left her role as a Victoria’s Secret Angel to pursue computer science at New York University. While she doesn’t have a typical tech background, she had become a public advocate for girls in computer science, and together with Code.org has donated money to fund a scholarship for young girls interested in coding. She’s started the hashtag #KodeWithKarlie to encourage young girls to post photos of themselves coding on social media. With over 4 million followers on Instagram, she has such a large platform to inform her audience that computer science is an important field not just comprising of the stereotypical geeky, male computer scientist. The fact that Karlie, a young woman who many might not have thought would be interested in or good at programming, is becoming such a strong proponent of the field makes me really excited about the future. Check out this video Karlie made with code.org to see her discuss her newfound passion for coding.

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The Center for Women In Technology (CWIT) is dedicated to increasing the representation of women in the creation of technology in the engineering and information technology fields. CWIT efforts begin with nurturing a strong group of Scholars, grow to building community resources for other women in these majors, extend to fostering a healthy gender climate and ITE pedagogy in College of Engineering and Information Technology (COEIT) departments, and finally expand into outreach efforts to increase interest in technical careers. A successful program for female-friendly engineering and information technology education at UMBC will help make UMBC a destination for women (and men) interested in technical careers and serve as a national model for other universities. To read previous Women’s History Month CWIT spotlights, click here. 

To learn more about the experience of women in STEM, check out the American Association of University Women’s report, Why So Few? Women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) which presents in-depth yet accessible profiles of eight key research findings that point to environmental and social barriers — including stereotypes, gender bias, and the climate of science and engineering departments in colleges and universities — that continue to block women’s progress in STEM.

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For more information about Women’s History events and happenings, visit the Women’s Center myUMBC group page.

Integrated Circuit Security and Trustworthiness

Dr. Hassan Salmani, Howard University

11:00am Wednesday, 23 March 2016, ITE 325b, UMBC

Integrated Circuits are at the core of any modern computing system such as military systems and smart electric power grids, and their security and trustworthiness ground the security of entire system. Notwithstanding the central impact of ICs security and trustworthiness, the horizontal IC supply chain has become prevalent due to confluence of increasingly complex supply chains and cost pressures.

In this presentation, Professor Salmani will present an overview on some of his contribution into hardware security and trust including vulnerability of digital circuits to malicious modification called hardware Trojans at different levels, design methodologies and techniques to facilitate hardware Trojan detection, and design methodologies to prevent design counterfeiting. In a detailed discussion, Professor Salmani will focus on the vulnerability of ICs to hardware Trojan insertion at the layout level.

Professor Hassan Salmani received the Ph.D. degree from the University of Connecticut, in 2011. He is currently an Assistant Professor with Howard University. While his current research sponsored by Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and Howard University, he has published tens of journal articles and refereed conference papers and has given several invited talks. He has published one book and one book chapter. His current research projects include hardware security and trust and supply chain security. He is a member of the SAE International’s G-19A Tampered Subgroup, ACM, and ACM SIGDA. He serves as a Program Committee and Session Chair of the Design Automation Conference, Hardware-Oriented Security and Trust, the International Conference on Computer Design, and VLSI Design and Test.

A resource round-up provided by Women’s Center staff members

In case you missed yesterday’s roundtable on Trans Identities + Mental Health (or if you were there and want to keep the conversation going), we thought it might be useful to summarize some of the discussion in addition to linking to some useful reading materials and resources. 

As with all of our roundtables, we reached out to our panel members and asked them to keep some of guiding questions in mind as they shared their stories and examples. Some of these questions included:

• Where do the intersections of trans identities and mental health show up for you personally? In the classroom? In your activism? In your peer networks?
• How does stigma against mental illness impact trans people’s experiences seeking support or other mental health services?
• How are the needs of trans people different and/or similar to those of LGB+ people with regard to mental health?
• Why is the intersection of trans identities and mental health a social justice and/or feminist issue?

One student panelist, Dan, described his experience with gender identity and mental health using an extended metaphor of a car sitting on top of a messy desk in order to illustrate the difficulty of adequately addressing various ongoing mental health issues that are distinct from — yet often complicated by — issues related to gender identity.

With only an hour to spend together, there’s still so much more we could have delved into and learned together as a community. Let the work continue! Below are a few articles and resources to help continue doing self-reflection and growth. As a reminder, this is not an exhaustive list so let us know if you recommend other great resources!

Follow on Twitter!

• @janetmock
• @juliaSerana
• @reinagossett 
• @deanspade
• The Sylvia Rivera Law Project @SRLP

Articles, Blogs and Books on the subject:

• DSM-5: Gender Dysmorphia
• Janet Mock’s Revealing Caitlyn Jenner: My Thoughts on Media, Privilege, Healthcare Access & Glamour
• Transgender People More Likely to Develop Depression and Anxiety
• Dysphoria and Dysmorphia: Understanding Identity and Mental Illness
• Transgender Emergence: Therapeutic Guidelines for Working With Gender-Variant People and Their Families
• Trans Bodies, Trans Selves: A Resource for the Transgender Community

On-campus resources:

Spectrum – this Women’s Center and Mosaic Center program is for UMBC community members who identify as trans, genderqueer, gender fluid, outside of the gender binary, and/or those who are questioning their gender identity. The program meets weekly in the Women’s Center on Thursdays at 3pm.

UMBC Counseling Center

•  Trans Support Group run through the Counseling Center
• Online Kognito Training for students AND faculty on staff on how to create a supportive campus for LGBTQ students

Critical Social Justice (October 2016)

Read More from Other Roundtable Roundups:

Black Trauma + Mental Health Resources Round-Up (February 2016)
White Womanhood + Critical Whiteness Resources Round-Up (September 2015)