Varish Mulwad, Tim Finin and Anupam Joshi, Interpreting Medical Tables as Linked Data to Generate Meta-Analysis Reports, 15th IEEE Int. Conf. on Information Reuse and Integration, Aug 2014.

Evidence-based medicine is the application of current medical evidence to patient care and typically uses quantitative data from research studies. It is increasingly driven by data on the efficacy of drug dosages and the correlations between various medical factors that are assembled and integrated through meta–analyses (i.e., systematic reviews) of data in tables from publications and clinical trial studies. We describe a important component of a system to automatically produce evidence reports that performs two key functions: (i) understanding the meaning of data in medical tables and (ii) identifying and retrieving relevant tables given a input query. We present modifications to our existing framework for inferring the semantics of tables and an ontology developed to model and represent medical tables in RDF. Representing medical tables as RDF makes it easier for the automatic extraction, integration and reuse of data from multiple studies, which is essential for generating meta–analyses reports. We show how relevant tables can be identified by querying over their RDF representations and describe two evaluation experiments: one on mapping medical tables to linked data and another on identifying tables relevant to a retrieval query.

The Center for World University Rankings (CWUR) 2014 global list recognizes UMBC as one of the top higher education institutions in the world. CWUR places UMBC in the top 2.3% of 22,000 colleges and universities worldwide, at #505.

The CWUR global ranking assesses quality of education (alumni who have won major international awards); alumni employment (as CEOs in companies worldwide); quality of faculty (faculty who have won major international awards); research publications, influence and citations; broad impact; and international patent filings.

In addition to excelling in these areas, UMBC is home to a diverse global community of scholars — both students and faculty — and recently launched a unique Global Studies program. This major gives students the robust cross-cultural foundation they need to act on issues of global significance. UMBC also offers compelling interdisciplinary programs in Asian Studies and Africana Studies.

A remarkable number of UMBC students study and research abroad each year, including several with prestigious Fulbright awards. Numerous courses, research programs, and co-curricular programs also focus on international collaboration, including UMBC’s Engineers Without Borders initiative to help residents of Insongo, Kenya reliably access clean drinking water.

UMBC is one of three University System of Maryland institutions on the list, which also includes the University of Maryland, College Park, and the University of Maryland, Baltimore. U.S. institutions with a CWUR ranking similar to UMBC include George Mason University and Syracuse University. Clemson University, whose president is UMBC alumnus James P. Clements ’85, MS ’91, Ph.D. ’93, is also included in the list.

Click here to see the full rankings for the top 1000 institutions on the global list. The institutions include 229 U.S. universities, along with universities from dozens of other nations, such as China, Japan, the United Kingdom, France and Canada.

July 24, 2014 from 2:00 to 3:00 pm - Eastern Time

During the past school year, several UMBC students traveled to Nashville, Tennessee to partake in the first-ever Women in Cybersecurity Conference.

Thanks to our wonderful donors, Emily Scheerer ’14, computer science; Christina Malliakos ’14, computer science; Emily McMurray ’14, computer science; and Ruth Coradin ’16, computer science and applied linguistics, were able to receive supplementary funding for their trip out west. The money was raised through a crowd-funded project undertaken by the Center for Women in Technology (CWIT). When the need for additional funding arose, CWIT reached out to its alumni and friends and rallied community support to ensure that the students would be able to attend the conference.

At workshops on subjects such as cryptography and technical industry, the Retrievers were able to network both themselves and their skills to others in the computer science industry. “I think it is great to be in a place where everyone has the same types of goals as you. The focus of the conference was so specific, it was great to know that other students are going through the same experiences as me, and the professionals have made it through the journey that I am on my professional career,” said Malliakos about her experience at the Women in Cybersecurity Conference. Guests included Emily Shen of the MIT Lincoln Lab and the director of NSA’s training division.

Although the conference was only two days, the experience has had a lasting impact on Scheerer, Malliakos, and Coradin. “I am truly thankful for the opportunity to be a part of such a rewarding experience. I have stayed in touch with both mentors and peers that I met at the conference,” says Coradin.

Thanks again to all of our donors involved in this endeavor!

Learn more about our other student projects here!