Transforming big data into smart data:
deriving value via harnessing volume, variety
and velocity using semantics and semantic web

Professor Amit Sheth
Wright State University

11:00am Tuesday, 26 May 2015, ITE 325, UMBC

Big Data has captured a lot of interest in industry, with the emphasis on the challenges of the four Vs of Big Data: Volume, Variety, Velocity, and Veracity, and their applications to drive value for businesses. In this talk, I will describe Smart Data that is realized by extracting value from Big Data, to benefit not just large companies but each individual. If my child is an asthma patient, for all the data relevant to my child with the four V-challenges, what I care about is simply, "How is her current health, and what are the risk of having an asthma attack in her current situation (now and today), especially if that risk has changed?" As I will show, Smart Data that gives such personalized and actionable information will need to utilize multimodal data and their metadata, use domain specific knowledge, employ semantics and intelligent processing, and go beyond traditional reliance on Machine Learning and NLP. I will motivate the need for a synergistic combination of techniques similar to the close interworking of the top brain and the bottom brain in the cognitive models. I will present a couple of Smart Data applications in development at Kno.e.sis from the domains of personalized health, health informatics, social data for social good, energy, disaster response, and smart city.

Amit Sheth is an Educator, Researcher and Entrepreneur. He is the LexisNexis Ohio Eminent Scholar, an IEEE Fellow, and the executive director of Kno.e.sis – the Ohio Center of Excellence in Knowledge-enabled Computing a Wright State University. In World Wide Web (WWW), it is placed among the top ten universities in the world based on 10-year impact. Prof. Sheth is a well cited computer scientists (h-index = 87, >30,000 citations), and appears among top 1-3 authors in World Wide Web (Microsoft Academic Search). He has founded two companies, and several commercial products and deployed systems have resulted from his research. His students are exceptionally successful; ten out of 18 past PhD students have 1,000+ citations each.

Host: Yelena Yesha, yeyesha2umbc.edu

UMBC's College of Engineering and Information Technology will hold an Alumni Happy Hour on Wednesday, June 17 from 6:00pm to 8:00pm at Union Jack's (10400 Little Patuxent Pkwy, Columbia, MD 21044). Join fellow COEIT graduates, COEIT faculty and those who now work in those fields for a networking happy hour. Enjoy fabulous food and drinks while connecting with other Retrievers. Please RSVP online.

The event is sponsored by the UMBC Alumni Association and the UMBC Training Centers.

If you have any questions, contact Amy Dalrymple at Sorry, you need javascript to view this email address. or 410-455-2276.

Name: Amanda Quinn

Internship, Co-op or Research Site: U.S. Department of State | Title of Your Position: Public Affairs Intern

Major(s)/Minor(s): Global Studies and English Literature

Expected Graduation Year: May 2016

Briefly describe your internship, co-op, research, or service-learning opportunity, including your day-to-day tasks, responsibilities, and assignments.

Currently, I am a Public Affairs intern at the U.S. Consulate General in St. Petersburg, Russia. Most of the work I do goes into supporting the Consulate's work to plan events and programming that encourage cultural exchange between Americans and Russians. I also support the U.S. Consulate's various social media accounts.

Describe the process of obtaining your internship, research, or co-op opportunity.

I have always had an interest in diplomacy and the Foreign Service. Throughout my sophomore year, my goals became clearer and I knew I wanted to pursue a career involving international relations. I did some research and learned about the application process for an internship with the State Department and decided to apply for a Spring 2015 internship. On the application I expressed my interest and experience in Russia, but it was actually a total surprise that I was placed in St. Petersburg.

Which of the following resources did you use to find your current experience?

Career Center, USA Jobs

What have you enjoyed the most about your position or organization/company?

I am so glad to be back in St. Petersburg. I studied abroad here in the fall, but it’s interesting to be here to work rather than study. Just being able to return to this city is a definite highlight of this position. Besides that, I've enjoyed the getting involved in the social media presence of the U.S. Consulate. In today's world, social media has begun to play a key role in diplomacy, and it is interesting to see that starting to evolve.

What have you gained from your experience that you could not have gained from another opportunity ?

Participating in an internship abroad, especially in Russia, has provided me with the unique chance to get firsthand experience observing how U.S. diplomacy is conducted abroad. I'm also here during an interesting time for U.S.-Russia relations, so its been interesting watching that evolve from the perspective of American diplomats.

What advice would you give to another student who is seeking an internship or similar experience?

Do your research and explore all the ways you can get involved in your field of interest and then apply for everything that intriques you. Look into opportunities that can give you a unique perspective and experience in your field.

Please provide a short reflection or quote about what you liked most about your position / earning internship credit / the internship placement process.

Take a risk and do something that scares you. I took a semester off and went abroad to participate in this internship. Don't be afraid to explore opportunities that are unique and take you outside of the normal college experience.

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UMBC's Imaging Research Center worked more than two years recreating how Baltimore would have looked in the early 1800s. The goal is to create an accurate 3D model of the city, its terrain, land use, and buildings. In September of 2014, the first and major phase of this effort opened to the public at the Maryland Historical Society as part of their bicentennial celebration of the War of 1812 and Baltimore’s pivotal role in it.

BEARINGS of Baltimore, Circa 1815 is an interactive 2.5 billion pixel image that visualizes Baltimore City in 1815 – right after the attack by the British. UMBC's Imaging Research Center, in collaboration with the Maryland Historical Society and its network of historical scholars, has created an interactive touch-screen display at the Historical Society that allows viewers to tour the early city and understand its history.

This project was funded with generous support from the Robert W. Deutsch Foundation and from the Maryland Division of Tourism 1812 Bicentennial Commission.

On behalf of the The Reach Initiative, the Women's Center is excited to share this opportunity!! Read on!

The Reach Initiative is a mentorship research program for high school women  who are interested in entering into the STEM fields. Our team is currently looking for a diverse range of majors and people to serve on our planning committees and mentors to work directly with our young women.

 The Reach Initiative is currently looking for women who are pursuing degrees in the STEM field or Environmental Science and who exhibit a passion and commitment to gender empowerment, the maths and sciences, and diversity. Mentors will volunteer Saturdays for 3 hours a week on campus with the possibility of receiving credit through the Honors College and/or Shriver Center.

Beginning on Tuesday, May 26th, the Women's Center will operate with the following hours:

CSEE faculty member Tulay Adali has been appointed as a Distinguished University Professor for UMBC. Professor Adali is being recognized for:

"…outstanding theoretical contributions to the field of signal processing that have enabled significant advances in medical imaging, and excellence in teaching and mentoring the next generation of engineers and scholars who continue to advance the field of signal processing."

Professor Adali started teaching at UMBC in 1992, the same year that she received her Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from North Carolina State University in Raleigh. Shortly after joining UMBC, she began forging lasting collaborations, first locally, and then nationwide and internationally. This resulted in the steady buildup of a research program, with continuous and growing funding from major federal agencies, including the prestigious NSF CAREER grant, the U.S. Army, and industry. She took full advantage of UMBC’s advantageous position, with respect to proximity to major medical institutions. She moved her application domain to biomedical data analysis early in her career, where she helped define the field of data-driven image analysis and fusion, an area that continues to grow in importance. She is a very popular teacher and is mentor to an impressive number of Ph.D students, several of whom have assumed faculty positions at institutions such as Virginia Tech, the University of New Mexico, and Yale.

Professor Adali has been also active within her professional community, having chaired the Machine Learning for Signal Processing (MLSP) Technical Committee of the IEEE Signal Processing Society, and having served on a number of boards of the IEEE Signal Processing Society. She has also assisted in the organization of numerous international conferences and workshops, including the IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing (ICASSP), the IEEE International Workshop on Neural Networks for Signal Processing (NNSP), and the IEEE International Workshop on MLSP. She has been on the editorial boards of a number of transactions and journals and is currently serving on the Editorial Board of the Proceedings of the IEEE, among others.

In addition, Professor Adali is a Fellow of the IEEE and the AIMBE, and has received the following awards: the 2010 IEEE Signal Processing Society Best Paper Award, the 2013 University System of Maryland Regents' Award for Research, and an NSF CAREER Award. She was also an IEEE Signal Processing Society Distinguished Lecturer for 2012 and 2013.