Computer Science and Electrical Engineering
University Of Maryland, Baltimore County

M.S. Thesis Defense

Assessing Confidence in Relation Extraction Systems

Lianjie Sun

2:00ppm Thursday, 27 July 2015, ITE 325b, UMBC

In information extraction, a central and challenging task is extraction of relations. Systems that extract relations from text tend to be very productive, so it is important to quantify confidence or certainty in what is extracted. In this thesis we introduce a framework to assess confidence in relation extraction systems. We trained our system using a logistic regression model based on manually tagged sentences from the New York Times Annotated Corpora. Empirical results based on ROC curves show that our system performs better at computing confidence than previous systems such as Reverb. We conclude with a detailed analysis of the features used in our system and explain how these features might be tailored for use in other relation extraction systems.

Committee: Drs. Tim Oates (chair), Charles Nicholas and Matt Schmill

Here in the Office of Institutional Advancement, we are always working hard to support the university and connect our donors with causes they care most about. We would like to introduce our donors — to whom we are so grateful — to the people who help make those things happen. Today, we’ll be hearing from Marie Lilly, the Associate Director of Foundation Relations.

Name: Marie Lilly

Job Title: Associate Director of Foundation Relations

Focus Area: My job is to help build relationships with foundations, with goal of raising money to benefit UMBC students and programs. I work with faculty and staff to identify projects and potential funding sources as well as preparing and submitting proposals.  I work with deans, VPs, and other members of the OIA team to cultivate new foundations with missions that align with UMBC’s work and I help manage relationships with foundations that currently support the university.

Years at UMBC: 1 year

Q: Where are you from originally?

A: I am originally from a farm about 20 minutes outside of Frederick, MD

Q: What do you love most about UMBC?

A: I love how much everyone here embraces diversity. I love that the students embrace their geekiness; the staff make it a mission to do things in innovative ways; and the administration prioritizes attracting and retaining diverse students. This is what originally attracted me to UMBC, having done social justice work for almost 10 years.

Q: What’s your favorite thing about your job?

A: I really appreciate how many different projects I get to work on and the bird’s-eye view I get of the incredible work happening across campus. I get to work with faculty to find funding for their research, ask foundations to support students scholarships, and work with corporations to build partnerships with the university – in fact, I often work on all of these things and more in one day!

Q: Why do you think it’s important to support UMBC?

A: I am first and foremost a huge proponent of public universities. A college education is one of the most important paths out of poverty for disadvantaged families and public universities make that education affordable and accessible. In addition to accessibility, UMBC is helping students from all background succeed in careers with tremendous potential for growth and innovation, like cybersecurity and other STEM fields.  I think this is a winning combination that can truly change the lives of our students and their families. Philanthropic support helps make UMBC more accessible and allows us to help even more students!

Q: What is your favorite food?

A: OMG – Pho. I love Pho. AND there are at least three amazing Pho places in Catonsville!

Q: When you were a child, what/who did you aspire to be?

A: I wanted to be a rock star. Or a movie star. And a spy.

CSEE professor Jian Chen recently received an award from Department of Defense to to develop new techniques to visualize health informatics data. The award will support two UMBC research students for two years and be done in collaboration with Jesus Caban, Gerard Reidy and Joseph Bleiberg from the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center's National Intrepid Center of Excellence.

The research will the support temporal exploration and analysis of traumatic brain injury and post traumatic stress disorder from patient cohorts. The group will design interactive visualization to move beyond using a small subset of data from the wealth and breadth of clinical information to improve diagnostic accuracy.

The project will help clinicians obtain new insights about the underlying conditions of patients, analyze complex hidden clinical patterns, and visually explore the correlations between many assessment techniques and imaging modalities including neuroimaging, neuropsychiatric measures, patient history, demographic information, and clinical tests).

The Hilltop Institute’s Hospital Community Benefit Program has just released the eleventh issue brief in its series, Hospital Community Benefits after the ACA. The brief discusses the fact that payment reform focusing on value and quality is driving change that is redefining the hospital’s role in the continuum of care and the health of the broader population.

This brief also identifies opportunities for state policymakers to encourage the evolution of hospital community benefit policy in ways that complement and support the realignment of the hospital business model, proactively address the social determinants of health, and ultimately improve the health of the entire community.

For more information, contact Gayle Nelson, hospital community benefit program director, at gnelson@hilltop.umbc.edu.