Topic Modeling with Structured Priors for Text-Driven Science

Michael Paul, JHU

12:00pm – 1:00pm, Monday, 2 March 2015, ITE 325

Many scientific disciplines are being revolutionized by the explosion of public data on the web and social media, particularly in health and social sciences. For instance, by analyzing social media messages, we can instantly measure public opinion, understand population behaviors, and monitor events such as disease outbreaks and natural disasters. Taking advantage of these data sources requires tools that can make sense of massive amounts of unstructured and unlabeled text. Topic models, statistical models that describe low-dimensional representations of data, can uncover interesting latent structure in large text datasets and are popular tools for automatically identifying prominent themes in text. However, to be useful in scientific analyses, topic models must learn interpretable patterns that accurately correspond to real-world concepts of interest.

In this talk, I will introduce Sprite, a family of topic models that can encode additional structures such as hierarchies, factorizations, and correlations, and can incorporate supervision and domain knowledge. Sprite extends standard topic models by formulating the Bayesian priors over parameters as functions of underlying components, which can be constrained in various ways to induce different structures. This creates a unifying representation that generalizes several existing topic models, while creating a powerful framework for building new models. I will describe a few specific instantiations of Sprite and show how these models can be used in various scientific applications, including extracting self-reported information about drugs from web forums, analyzing healthcare quality in online reviews, and summarizing public opinion in social media on issues such as gun control.

Michael Paul is a PhD candidate in Computer Science at Johns Hopkins University. He earned an M.S.E. in CS from Johns Hopkins University in 2012 and a B.S. in CS from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2009. He has received PhD fellowships from Microsoft Research, the National Science Foundation, and the Johns Hopkins University Whiting School of Engineering. His research focuses on exploratory machine learning and natural language processing for the web and social media, with applications to computational epidemiology and public health informatics.

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Professional Recommendations

Hi everyone! Please spread the word: our Critical Social Justice Keynote lecture is RESCHEDULED to WEDNESDAY, February 18th @ 7:30 p.m. Doors open at 7 p.m

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Come to Lecture Hall 1 this Wednesday, February 18th from 12:00 p.m. - 12:50 p.m.

A post written by Women’s Center staff member, Yoo-Jin 

This past weekend was the national holiday called “Valentine’s Day.” At its best, I think it can be a time for people to spend time together in an intentional and meaningful way. It seems that in our society, we are constantly on the run and the first thing that goes to the bottom of our lists is making time to hang out with the people we love. However, when I started to really think about Valentine’s Day, I realized that it’s often focused on the narratives of heterosexual romantic couples.

Like many other holidays celebrated in our country, Valentine’s Day seems to also fall into the trap of Hallmark commercialism, and in this case, heteronormativity. You see this everywhere– in advertisements, media, and storefronts. The narrative is often focused on romantic relationships focused on men, who are often expected to get their significant other (usually a woman) gifts like flowers, chocolates, teddy bears — you know the deal.

The heteronormative nature of Valentine’s Day can be incredibly limiting and isolating for other couples who may not identify similarly. Of course, in terms of gifts buying things for your partner as a token of appreciation (or because you freakin’ love them!) is not a negative thing, and it doesn’t have to be labeled as being sucked into commercialism. If you like the flowers, chocolates, etc- go for it! While romantic relationships of all kinds are great- it would be awesome to have an alternative, for example, for the people who are not in romantic relationships!

This is where Galentine’s Day (a concept from the T.V show “Parks & Rec”) comes in. In the show, Galentine’s Day is celebrated February 13th and centers on female friendships. It’s a day where we get to spend time with our “gal”s and appreciate them for being in our lives! In the show, Leslie throws an annual Galentine’s Day party for her friends. In the episode, they all meet at a restaurant and Leslie “gives them all a gift bag with a bouquet of hand-crocheted flower pens, a mosaic portrait of each of them made from the crushed bottles of their favorite diet soda, and a personalized 5,000 word essay of why they’re all so awesome” (http://parksandrecreation.wikia.com/wiki/Galentine%27s_Day_%28event%29). That sounds awesome to me! I wouldn’t mind a 5,000 word essay from one of my best friends!

This BuzzFeed Article also covers the reasons why we must absolutely celebrate this year! (http://www.buzzfeed.com/kaylayandoli/you-absolutely-need-to-celebrate-galentineas-da-cqn5#.eo8Q8lYwZ)

Of course, while Galentine’s Day is a wonderful event to get away from some of the heteonormative, pressured-to-be-with-someone, and commercialist system- it has some limits too! We have friends and loved ones of all genders in our lives! Even pets who we love a lot! Maybe we could make February a month of appreciation and gratitude for all of the people in our lives who have supported us. Yes, there are days for certain people in our lives (mothers, fathers, even teachers) but it’d be awesome to take time to recognize the people who have often supported us from the very beginning.

Society of Women Engineer's E-board and active members went to the BEYA STEM Conference in Washington, DC this weekend!

Hosted by Lockheed Martin Corporation, The Council of HBCU Engineering Deans, US Black Engineer & Information Technology magazine. Sponsored by Aerotek.

A post written by Women’s Center staff member, Daniel

This year’s Critical Social Justice Week’s theme is Brave Spaces and as the week quickly approaches, I’ve been thinking more and more about not only what a Brave Space is but what it means to be a Brave Space. The center has been implementing what we call Brave Space Guidelines as a way of creating a space that fosters learning, connecting, and understanding. There are some components of the Guidelines that are particularly salient to me as I start to consider my body and the relationship that I, and others, have to it– with the added challenge of navigating mental illness.

I have, and have always had, a complicated relationship with my body. Growing up as a fat girl and eventually coming out as trans has a way of messing with the way you see yourself and the way you regard your body. Add experiences with depersonalization and derealization to that and the simple task of being a body at all becomes nearly impossible. Becoming a safe place for myself has been a life-long challenge that I continue to struggle with. Feeling safe and secure in my own skin is a rare and wonderful feeling that I think a lot of us– mentally ill or not– have a hard time with. With all the images we see and all the expectations we have for how we’re supposed to look and move and be, being comfortable with one’s body is not easy. As I meet people with similar experiences to mine and I begin to exist in spaces that are purposeful in their missions, I find myself being encouraged to become not only a safe place but a Brave Space.

Recognize that your experiences, values, and perspectives are unique to you. Strive to learn about experiences other than your own, and seek permission to ask questions about other people’s experiences

Intent is important, but it does not trump impact. Recognize and own the impact of your words and actions. Also, practice forgiveness and generosity: remember that this is a space where we are all learning and growing.

Recognize and respect the range of emotions that you and others may experience...be thoughtful about how your emotions and behavior may impact others based on their experiences.

Recognizing the uniqueness and value of individual experiences has helped me see others as complex individuals who have stories and experiences that I can learn from. It helps me remember that trauma and mental illness looks different for everyone and allows me to be more open to these differences.

Intent over impact is incredibly important. While mental illness can be an explanation for behavior, it is never an excuse. The effects my actions have on others or the effects the actions of others have on me are valid and important and shouldn’t be dismissed because of mental illness.

Practicing forgiveness and generosity– for others and especially for myself– is the most difficult and most important lesson I am still struggling with. I am still learning and I will make mistakes. This does not make me a bad person nor does it decrease my value. Others will make mistakes and I need to acknowledge when they have made personal growth and change. People are inherently good and all people are capable of positive change.

Emotions can be difficult to deal with, especially when you’re constantly told that you’re overreacting or “just crazy.” The way I feel about something is true to me and important even if it is different from how someone else or even most people feel about it.

I can’t even begin to express how much these three guidelines have shaped the person I am now and the person I am still trying to be. Being a Brave Space for myself and for the people around me requires conscious effort and it’s not always easy, but it’s helped me be kinder to myself and others feel safer in my presence. I can trust my body to sustain and support me and it can trust me to be gentle and work towards positive change in return.

Name: Benard Onyango

Internship, Co-op or Research Site: Pennsylvania General Energy | Title of Your Position: Software Developer

Major(s)/Minor(s): Information Systems

Expected Graduation Year: Master Student, May 2015

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

I interned at Pennsylvania general Energy as Software Developer. It is such a nice place to work. I particularly enjoyed the friendliness of my fellow programmers. They were very helping in answering any questions that I needed answered. My daily routine began with programming in ASP.NET(C#) using MVC framework.My first assignment was to create of an app for the PGE legal department. In addition, I was also I asked to help with the completion of a web based application which was about 80 % done. Despite some challenges, I really enjoyed my internship. I gained a wealth of knowledge from it.

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

A friend of mine told me that there was a position open for software developer intern. I immediately went online to learn something about the company. While I was waiting to hear from them, I spent some time reading about some of the requirements(technologies) for the job that were not very familiar to me. This was very helpful on the day of the interview. Something I would like to mention is that they were asking for 1.5 years of experience to be hired. Even though I did not have that much experience, I did not shy away from applying.

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

Network

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

The Employees at PGE were very friendly especially the programming team and my supervisor. They made sure I did the work. However, they were very kind in answering any questions that I may have had.

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

By working on real, hands-on project, I was able to gain in the following technologies. - ASP.NET MVC 4 and 5 Framework - Visual Studio 2012 IDE, Entity Framework 5 with Migrations - HTML5, CSS, JavaScript (JQuery and Ajax), GIT Repository Secondly, I build good professional networks that may become relevant especially in my job hunt after graduation.

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

My advice would be to make sure you distribute copies of your resume to people. You never know when an opportunity may become available.

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

This internship brought the best out me! It taught me that all I needed was an opportunity and a challenge, to fully comprehend my capabilities.

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