CSEE professor Anupam Joshi–director of the new UMBC Center for Cybersecurity–has been invited to give a keynote talk at the Security & Privacy Symposium. The symposium will take place at the Indian Institute of Technology in Kanpur India from February 28 to March 1. His talk is entitled “A Semantically Rich approach to Cybersecurity”.

The objective of the symposium is to bring together students, faculty, and researchers from across India to discuss the growing field of security and privacy. Dr. Joshi joins a dozen fellow scholars who will discuss topics including emerging security and privacy challenges and privacy and security in online social media.

Dr. Joshi is an Oros Family Professor of Technology. He has been a Professor of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering (CSEE) at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) for more than a decade, teaching courses in Mobile Computing, Security, Social Media, and Operating Systems at the graduate and undergraduate levels.

His own research interests deal with Intelligent Networked Systems, with a focus on Mobile Computing. He has recently received a grant from NSF’s Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace (SaTC) program, a three year project to investigate how to better manage security and privacy constraints while querying semantically annotated linked data sources. The project, Policy Compliant Integration of Linked Data, is a collaboration with researchers at M.I.T. and the University of Texas at Dallas.

UMBC Computer Science and Electrical Engineering
Ph.D. Dissertation Proposal

Paper form digitization for information systems strengthening and socio-economic development in developing countries

Huguens Jean

3:00pm Tuesday, 5 March 2013, ITE346, UMBC

In developing countries, people are now more likely to have access to a mobile phone than clean water, making cellular based technology the only viable medium for collecting, aggregating, and communicating local data so that it can be turned into useful information. While mobile phones have found broad application in reporting health, financial, and environmental data, many data collection methods still suffer from delays, inefficiency and difficulties maintaining quality. In environments with insufficient IT support and infrastructure, and among populations with limited education and experience with technology, paper forms rather than electronic methods remain the predominant means for data collection. To meet the digitization needs of paper driven data collection practices, this thesis proposes the development and study of a software platform that automatically converts unknown paper forms into digital structured data and uses human intelligence when necessary to improve its performance.

We begin by identifying a high-level system architecture for dealing with infrastructure constraints and human resources limitations. We then break the architecture into its integral pieces and organize them into three distinct functional and interacting stages: data collection, data conversion, and crowdsourcing. In the collection phase, we focus on visually detecting structurally identical form instances and transmitting the images of their raw input data to a remote server. During this phase, we present a novel framework for identifying specific form types by generating a multipart template for unknown forms and decomposing the form identification problem into three distinct tasks: similar image retrieval, learning, and duplicate matching. The conversion phase uses a mixture of Optical Character Recognition (OCR) and human annotations techniques to convert images into digital information and group structurally identical forms in their respective database table. In crowdsourcing, we investigates how to use low-end smartphones for collecting training information to improve OCR related tasks and verify the accuracy of converted input values. We pay special emphasis on identifying natural interaction forms that lower the technical and knowledge threshold for local residents. Furthermore, because crowdsourcing can also provide money to the mobile workers of its micro-tasking platform, we concurrently explore how systems that facilitate collaboration between humans and machines for improving the quality of intelligent information systems can be used a vehicle for delivering socioeconomic opportunities to developing countries.

Committee: Dr. Timothy Oates (Chair), Dr. Janet Rutledge, Dr. Fow-Sen Choa, Dr. Jesus Caban

The World Bank’s Development Prospects Group (DECPG) is looking for a top-tier undergraduate student with a passion for software development to work on a part-time basis during the school year. The selected individual will play a significant role in designing, developing, testing, and launching various innovative software tools for World Bank economists. These projects are critical to DECPG’s operations and have the potential to be highly visible within The World Bank.

The selected candidate will be expected to work part-time during the school year, with the potential to continue on a full-time basis as a short-term consultant over the summer.  The location is 1818 H Street N.W., Washington, D.C.

Background

DECPG provides information, analysis and advice on the impact of trends in the world economy on developing countries, develops and documents the Bank's views on the state of the world economy, and produces some of the Bank's leading publications, including the Global Economic Prospects, the Global Development Horizons, and the Global Monitoring Report.

Selection Criteria

• Pursuing a Bachelor’s Degree in computer science, information systems, or computer engineering
• Demonstrated self-starter (Have you started your own business? Do you contribute to open source projects in your spare time?)
• Have a working knowledge of the .NET framework (preferably VB.NET). However, we are more interested in strong programming fundamentals than in knowledge of any particular programming language
• Basic understanding of database design and operation; familiarity with SQL (ideally either MySQL or MSSQL)
• Strong understanding of programming design patterns and data structures
• The ideal candidate will have some exposure to the fundamentals of macroeconomics, statistics, or econometrics. However, this is not required.
• Good interpersonal skills and ability to work in a team environment
• Must be self-motivated and inspired to learn
• Ability to deal sensitively in multi-cultural environments and build effective working relations with colleagues
• Effective verbal and written communication skills

Due to the high volume of resumes that we normally receive, we will only be able to contact short listed candidates. Please send all resumes to David Horowitz (Sorry, you need javascript to view this email address. ) with the subject "Application for STC 2013"

Code.org is a non-profit foundation dedicated to growing computer programming education. They believe computer science and computer programming are liberal arts that are important for everyone to know and that should be part of the core curriculum in education, alongside other science, technology, engineering, and mathematics courses, such as biology, physics, chemistry and algebra. Their goal is that every student in every school has the opportunity to learn how to code.

They have released a video that features celebrities from the worlds of technology and entertainment to encourage students to learn computing skills. An article on Mashable describes the video’s content.

Entrepreneurs like Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Square founder Jack Dorsey and Microsoft founder Bill Gates open up about how they got started coding. Zuckerberg says he started coding when he was in sixth grade because he wanted to make “something that was fun for myself and my sisters.” Bill Gates started coding in his teens and wrote a program to play tic-tac-toe.

As the video shows, it’s not just techies who code. Chris Bosh from the Miami Heat says he took programming classes in college and singer Will.I.Am says he’s taking coding classes right now.

“When I was in school, I was in this after school group called the Whiz Kids,” Bosh says in the video. “When people found out, they laughed at me, you know all these things. I’m like, ‘I don’t care, I think it’s cool, I’m learning a lot and some of my friends have jobs.’”

Will.I.Am adds: “Here we are, 2013. We all depend on technology to communicate, to bank, information, and none of us know how to read and write code.”

Reps from Facebook, Dropbox, Valve and other companies tout the perks of working in their offices and what they look for when hiring. “Our policy is literally to hire as many talented engineers as we can find,” Zuckerberg says. “The whole limit in the system is there just aren’t enough people who are trained in these skills today.”

The code.org site links to many resources, including short videos in different lengths (1, and 9 minutes) that can be shown in classes to encourage children to learn how to program.

Each semester UMBC sets aside several days for partnering organizations to be showcased on campus. Through our Corporate Visibility Days program, organizations are given the opportunity to highlight themselves to the UMBC student body.  Traditional schedules include information sessions, career-related workshops,networking opportunities and lunch.

Held from 11:00 am - 2:00 pm, you do not need to attend the entire event, please stop by when you are able and stay for as long as you can!

** Exelon/Constellation Energy Group
March 6 ~ 11:00 am - 2:00 pm
University Center 312

** National Security Agency (NSA)
March 13 ~ 11:00 am - 2:00 pm
University Center 312

** Next Century Corporation
March 27 ~ 11:00 am - 2:00 pm
University Center 312

** Kennedy Krieger Institute
April 4 ~ 11:00 am - 2:00 pm
Commons 331

** Mitre Corporation
April 10 ~ 11:00 am - 2:00 pm
University Center 312

On-Campus Interviews offer students a chance to conveniently interview for professional positions on campus.  Employers travel to our campus for the specific purpose of interviewing preselected students for currently open positions.  This is a great opportunity to interview with employers specifically interested in UMBC students and offers the advantage of a smaller applicant pool.  Interviews take place during the fall and spring. The logistics (viewing positions, applying, signing up for interview time slots, etc.) are all handled via UMBCworks.

Don't miss out on employers coming to UMBC to recruit YOU this fall! The following is a list of employers coming to conduct on-campus interviews with application deadlines in the next month.

** Stanley Black & Decker
Position:  SLP Operations Associate (9256265)
Resume Submission End:  March 13

** CGI Federal Consultant
Position:  Entry Level IT Consultant (9255641)
Resume Submission End:  April 7

** Enterprise Holdings
Position:  Management Trainee (9255896)
Resume Submission End:  April 5

** Target
Position:  Executive Team Leader (9255878)
Resume Submission End:  April 4

A full list of On-Campus Interviews scheduled is available on our website calendar and on UMBCworks, please check regularly for any updates or changes that may occur.

The following full-time positions have been posted within the past week to UMBCworks. Login to your account (via the link in the Jobs & Internships topic in myUMBC) and find details and application instructions as well as hundreds of other job postings! 

9256696 - Statistical Analyst - Baltimore County Police Department
9256666 - Technical Consultant - BoxTone
9256685 - Veteran & Family Peer Navigator - Mental Health Association of Montgomery County
9256610 - Administrative Assistant II - CareFirst Blue Cross BlueShield
9253625 - Internal Technology Residency Program, New Graduates - GOOGLE
9256604 - Software Engineer, New Graduates - GOOGLE