Ph.D. Dissertation Proposal

Finding Story Chains in Newswire Articles

Xianshu Zhu

1:30pm Thursday 2 June 2011, ITE 325B

Huge amounts of information are shared on the Internet every day, such as online newspapers, digital libraries, blogs, and social network messages. While there are some excellent search engines, such as Google, to assist in retrieving information by simply providing keywords, large volumes of unstructured search results returned by search engines make it hard to keep a clear picture of the evolution of an event. Moreover, in addition to events themselves, people may be more interested in finding out the hidden relationships among different events or causes and effects of an event. However, traditional search engines provide limited support for dealing with these sophisticated search tasks. In this dissertation, we try to enrich search options of existing search engines and organize search results in a more structured and meaningful way.

More specifically, we propose to develop a News Story Reader, with functionality similar to Google maps, that contains the following characteristics: (1) Search results are organized into groups of causes and impacts of events, thus helping web users navigate through the search results in a more directional and efficient way; (2) Enriched search options will allow users to search for correlations between two stories by selecting two articles as start and end points respectively producing a coherent story chain as output; (3) An interactive user interface will provide the functionality to zoom in and zoom out, and add via points to the search result.

In our preliminary work, we start with a relatively simple problem: given a start and an end article we want to find a chain of articles that coherently connect them together. We developed a random walk based algorithm that can find story chains that are coherent and relevant, and with low redundancy. We applied two intelligent pruning methods to reduce the size of the graph so that the algorithm is efficient. Moreover, our next goal is to find hierarchical story chains that can show evolution of stories at different levels of granularity. Thus, we further extended our current algorithm by using random walks on the word-document co-clustering graph with weights biased on name entities to find hierarchical story chains.

The contributions of this dissertation include (1) a News Story Reader system that can help alleviate the information overload problem; (2) design and development of two story chain finding algorithms; (3) exploration of methods that can find story chains on which news articles are connected via causes and impacts; (4) exploration of methods on story chain visualization.

Committee:

• Dr. Tim Oates (chair)
• Dr. Charles Nicholas
• Dr. Tim Finin
• Dr. Sergei Nirenburg

I recently ventured out to Corolla, North Carolina for a relaxing break at the beach. If you know anything about the Outer Banks, you know that this time is still technically pre-season. Many stores are closed and very few people are around. This is perfect for relaxing purposes, but when it’s time to eat…It’s time to eat! So my first night there, I made my own make shift version of an Indian meal.

To make this meal, you need:

• Chicken (leg quarters, thighs, drumsticks, breasts…whatever you prefer)
• Patak’s Indian Cooking Sauce (http://pataksusa.elsstore.com/view/category/1428-sauce—in—glass/) There are a large variety of flavors. I chose Jalfrezi Sauce and Butter Chicken Sauce.
• Black pepper
• One red onion (sliced)
• Onion powder
• Adobo
• Salt
• Garlic powder
• Garlic and herb seasonings
• Potatoes (sliced like potato chips) If you don’t want potatoes, you can also use basmati rice or naan. Either way, it will be delicious.
• Vegetable of choice (I chose cabbage)

1. First preheat your oven to 375 degrees
2. Place potatoes in a deep oven-safe dish. Add some of your sliced onions, adobo, salt, black pepper, onion powder, and garlic and herb seasonings. With your hands (because it’s fun), mix all the ingredients so that the potatoes have an even coating of seasonings. Cover dish with foil and place in the oven. When the potatoes are almost ready, remove the foil so they can get a little bit crisp.
3. Use a fork to punch little holes in your chicken pieces. These holes should not be large noticeable holes because then your chicken will lose its tenderness.
4. Place all the chicken in a large mixing bowl. Add onions, salt, adobo, onion powder, garlic powder, black pepper, and garlic and herb seasonings. Pour a little bit of olive oil or canola oil on top. Once again, use your hands to rub in the seasonings and evenly coat each chicken piece. *Though seen as unhealthy, leaving the skin on chicken whilst it’s cooking helps it retain its moisture and tenderness. If you can, leave some on there and take it off when consuming.*
5. Evenly place all chicken pieces in large oven safe tray. Make sure there is space between all pieces so that none of the parts will be left uncooked. The pan may need to be sprayed if it is an aluminum pan but glass trays (preferred) do not need to be.
6. Your preferred vegetable can be placed in the oven to steam. Just place them in an oven safe dish and sprinkle some salt and black pepper. Add a little bit of water and cover tightly with foil. Place in the oven when chicken is halfway finished and they will be steamy delicious by the time the chicken is done.
7. Lastly, for the Patak sauces, follow the instructions on the jar on how to heat them. I heated my sauces in a skillet with a little bit of the “juice” from the chicken. The drippings from the chicken adds a little bit more flavor to your sauces and connects the two flavors. Generally, you heat them up for about 15 minutes on medium heat in the skillet.

Now you can set up your table and enjoy this delicious meal with family and friends!

*Note-

Notice I didn’t put exact measurements for seasonings. That is because the seasonings listed are really fail proof seasonings. The only ones that you could put too much of are salt, adobo, and black pepper.

Also it is important to use your own judgment when determining the doneness of the chicken. Because the chicken parts used can vary, times may also vary. Boneless chicken breasts take a lot less time to cook than whole leg quarters.

Gamescape is a visual arts exhibition showcasing video games and video game inspired artwork that will be held in Baltimore July 14-17 in conjunction with at Artscape. Developers and artists will demo and display games and game inspired art that they have created.

The UMBC Game Developer's Club will present four of its projects from the 2010-2011 academic year: Light, a 2-D puzzle platformer involving the manipulation of light; City of Gears, a 2-D steam punk hack and slash; Titan, a 3-D shooter where you use physics based weaponry to defeat your foes, and Slug 3D, a 3-D platformer where you must evade enemies using your unique abilities.

The Gamescape exhibition will include classic arcade machines, video game demos from local companies, panels on game development, and art related to video games. It will open on July 14, 2011 and run through the duration of Artscape: Friday, July 15 through 17, 2011. Gamescape will be located in the Pinkard Gallery located in the Bunting Center at the Maryland Institute College of Art.

Gamescape and Artscape are programs of the Baltimore Office of Promotion and the Arts on behalf of the Baltimore Festival of the Arts, Inc. Artscape is America’s largest free public arts festival featuring more than 150 artists, fashion designers, and craftspeople.

Picture courtesy of Scientific American

After the terrifying earthquake took out one of Japan’s nuclear power plants we we’re all thinking twice about nuclear power….but is this cause for drastic measures?

Apparently Germany thinks so.

The country has recently developed a plan to shutdown all their nuclear power plants in the next 11 years. They’re hoping to replace them with safer and more environment-friendly renewable energy sources.

The only other European country who has taken similar actions is Italy. Is Germany onto something?

Chancellor Angela Merkel hopes their nuclear reduction plan will set an example for other countries. She stated

We believe that we can show those countries who decide to abandon nuclear power – or not to start using it – how it is possible to achieve growth, creating jobs and economic prosperity while shifting the energy supply toward renewable energies

The United States is the leading producer of nuclear power with 104 reactors spread across the country. Should we heed the warning of Japan and follow in Germany’s lead? Or is nuclear power still crucial for our energy problems? Would you want to live near a Nuclear reactor?

Ephesians 2

¹⁴For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, ¹⁵ by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, ¹⁶ and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. ¹⁷ He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. ¹⁸ For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.

Reflection:

“That sister is so different from me, I don’t think we could ever really get along.’”

“Deep inside, I don’t really trust that brother.”

Even as believers we can get into a mode where we don’t believe in good relationships anymore. Perhaps we don’t say these kinds of phrases out loud, but in our hearts we have not completely put away the relational barriers that were once so much a part of our lives as non-believers. The barriers can be as superficial as personality/cultural preferences, or as deep and real as unforgiveness toward another brother or sister. In Ephesians 2, Paul is addressing two very different groups of people who were at odds with one another. Through Christ, however, the Gentile and Jewish believer are now reconciled, the “barrier” and “dividing wall of hostility” is destroyed. But what is the basis of this reconciliation between the two groups? Paul reminds the Ephesian church that through Christ we are reconciled to God and through the cross we are now reconciled to one another as his people.

Response:

Today the peace that we have received from God is also made real in our relationships with another. As recipients of God’s peace and forgiveness, we can truly live out good relationships. The barriers in our hearts have been destroyed in Christ. In response we can ask and receive forgiveness from others, we can relate genuinely, and with an open heart we can care for others in the church. Let’s pray for this in our own lives and for our communities.