The UMBC WebBase corpus is a dataset of high quality English paragraphs containing over three billion words derived from the Stanford WebBase project’s February 2007 Web crawl. Compressed, its size is about 13GB. We have found it useful for building statistical language models that characterize English text found on the Web.

The February 2007 Stanford WebBase crawl is one of their largest collections and contains 100 million web pages from more than 50,000 websites. The Stanford WebBase project did an excellent job in extracting textual content from HTML tags but there are still many instances of text duplications, truncated texts, non-English texts and strange characters.

We processed the collection to remove undesired sections and produce high quality English paragraphs. We detected paragraphs using heuristic rules and only retrained those whose length was at least two hundred characters. We eliminated non-English text by checking the first twenty words of a paragraph to see if they were valid English words. We used the percentage of punctuation characters in a paragraph as a simple check for typical text. We removed duplicate paragraphs using a hash table. The result is a corpus with approximately three billion words of good quality English.

The corpus is available as a 13G compressed tar file which is about 48G when uncompressed. It contains 408 files with paragraphs extracted from web pages, one to a line with blank lines between them. A second set of 408 files have the same paragraphs, but with the words tagged with their part of speech (e.g., The_DT Option_NN draws_VBZ on_IN modules_NNS from_IN all_PDT the_DT).

The dataset has been used in several projects. If you use the dataset, please refer to it by citing the following paper, which describes it and its use in a system that measures the semantic similarity of short text sequences.

Lushan Han, Abhay L. Kashyap, Tim Finin, James Mayfield and Johnathan Weese, UMBC EBIQUITY-CORE: Semantic Textual Similarity Systems, Proc. 2nd Joint Conference on Lexical and Computational Semantics, Association for Computational Linguistics, June 2013. (bibtex)

Download the corpus from here.

Last week, AASHE launched several new features on the STARS website to make STARS data more accessible, promote benchmarking among institutions, and improve functionality within the STARS Reporting Tool. Many new features are available to AASHE members and STARS Participants, while a number of them will enhance usability for the general public as well. We hope these new enhancements will lead to an improved user experience!

Data Display Excel Exports
In response to member and participant feedback, AASHE members and STARS Participants can now access an Excel Export function within the STARS Score Display and Content Display for easier data manipulation. Previously, website users that were interested in obtaining and analyzing STARS score or content data would have to copy and paste to create datasets. However, this work-around required significant formatting and was not optimal in some web browsers. The export function now creates the desired dataset with no extra formatting required.

Unique URLs
All STARS data displays now include unique URLs reflecting the filters used and the type of score and content data requested. This new function allows for greater capability of sharing filtered lists of data with much less work involved. For example, an individual from an AASHE member institution can use the STARS Content Display to create a list of GHG emissions inventories for ACUPCC signatory institutions. The URL for this list can be bookmarked for later reference or shared with colleagues, researchers, and anyone else interested in accessing the data.

Institution Type Filter
In the STARS data displays and the Institutional Boundary section of the Reporting Tool, the Organization Type filter has been updated to reflect Carnegie Basic Type designations. Instead of identifying institutions as either 2-year or 4-year schools, the changes will provide greater detail, designating institutions as Associate, Baccalaureate, Master, Doctorate, Special Focus, or Tribal. This greater level of detail will allow for better benchmarking among higher education institutions and opportunities for learning about how institution type impacts sustainability performance.

Rated Institutions List and Public Reports
The interface for publicly available STARS Rated Institutions has been upgraded to better highlight those institutions that have submitted more than one report. For institutions with multiple reports, clicking on that institution name will direct website users to a STARS profile page that displays all reports for that institution (see below). In addition, geographic location is now listed under every STARS report.

Other Website Enhancements
In addition to the enhancements described below, the following have also been included in this feature release:

• The STARS Reporting Tool now accepts international characters and phone number formats, allowing for enhanced usability among international constituents.
• Improved documentation in the Campus Sustainability Data Collector will make the process of sharing sustainability data with other organizations more efficient and easier to understand.
• General performance improvements on the STARS website will allow for quicker response times.

A Look Ahead
AASHE is constantly working to identify new IT improvements to continuously improve STARS. Along with regular scheduled releases, several exciting new features will be introduced with the launch of STARS 2.0 expected later this year. One upcoming feature includes an online version of the STARS Technical Manual that will allow for comparability between STARS versions and will provide additional resources for STARS reporting not currently included in the PDF technical manual. Another feature to expect in the coming months is the introduction of a new NCAA conference filter in STARS data displays.

We are always looking for input and ideas on improving STARS through technological enhancements. To submit feedback on website usability, ideas for future releases, or any other STARS-related questions or issues, please email stars@aashe.org.

A Note about Accessibility:
Current AASHE Members and STARS Participants enjoy enhanced access to certain STARS data displays. (Learn about levels of access here.) To gain enhanced access or to learn about other benefits, please inquire about AASHE membership or STARS participation.

The Treehouse Dean’s List is back! The Dean’s List feature is our way of highlighting some of the extraordinary students in our community and sharing with the world people who are passionate about learning, bettering themselves and making a difference.

This edition of the Dean’s List features, Martha Chumo, a 19 year old Treehouse scholar living in Nairobi, Kenya. Martha has been a web developer (Primarily Rails/Sinatra) for a few months, and has recently acquired the title of ‘founder and CEO’ for a startup she’s in the process of launching. You can also check out Martha’s work on her GitHub profile.

The Interview:

How were you first introduced to the tech industry?

I bumped (literally!) into tech after completing my high school studies in Dec 2011. I had excelled and was planning to do medicine. One day in June 2012, while having fun showing my many A+s to my peers and informing them how I have a government scholarship to med school, I went to pick something from the ihub [ihub.co.ke]. There I found people sitting, staring at their laptops. I didn’t own a computer then and didn’t have much interest. I met the person I was looking for and in the process my life was changed again, literally! The guy, was a web developer. He started telling me “oh computers are so cool and all,” but I didn’t believe him until he did some complex Math in irb. That got me interested!

I went back home, took my savings and bought a laptop, and Googled “How to make a computer do stuff.” That’s when I learned the word programming, and then my journey started.

I have since, turned into a linux pro learnt web design and development, concluded medical school is not for me, and after enough fights, I’m now allowed to ‘play with my machine’ for the rest of my life *Happy Dance!* I am currently contributing to the Deltacloud project in a three months program designed to introduce women to open source and working on my startup, which has helped me find my entrepreneurial side.

My greatest inspiration is me. *Please* read on before writing me off! I get amazed whenever I think about what I have learned and am still learning. It’s amazing! I constantly evaluate myself, noting growth. This evaluation inspires me, and makes me happy. I think everyone should give it a try. My newest motivation is coincidentally from Treehouse: Exercise your creative. If this sounds familiar, you know what I mean!

What drew you to the web industry and what has your experience been like so far?

I didn’t have much experience prior to my ‘bumping’ into tech. After the bumping, I was drawn to it because: One, I think it’s really cool that I can do stuff, and understand stuff (I get shivers when I think there was once a time a few months ago, that I used Twitter without knowing what was going on). Two, I realized it is a very young and ready market, and I want to tap into it. Three, it allows me to express myself. Call it my music or painting.

How has Treehouse helped you get to where you are now?

I’m starting a business based on the web, and that’s huge to me. I am attributing this business to Treehouse because it gave me the skills (via the Build a Responsive Website project, CSS3 course, the Javascript course, and Build an Interactive Website project) under my belt, the confidence to start my own business, and the community is huge for me as it keeps me going (Elizabeth is always urging me on and giving me ideas, and is among the many Treehouse team members I constantly interact with on Twitter).

Tell us a little about a project you’re working on at the moment.

I am working on three projects. The first: for some time now, I have been trading in commodities (offline and small time). I’ve decided to build an awesome site for the business, make it online and expand it. It will only by in Kenya for the first months. The second: is a musician/fan app (Rails). I’m into music so I want to play around with that idea.The third: my website, which for some reason seems to be the most challenging!

When you feel stuck while programming, what do you like to do to motivate yourself to get coding again?

I do other things around web development and web design that do not involve any code. These include: Drooling over awesome websites, killing time at underthesite.com, making sketches in my scratch pads, reading the Treehouse blog and other web design and development blogs, spending time at color lovers (and all the awesome sites Nick mentions in the CSS3 course), tweeting the Treehouse community to hear about what they are working on, watching screencasts of all things web and internets. And, when I need to share a little motivation, I also blog a little, but unfortunately the motivation ends after the first paragraph because by then my fingers are dying to write some code!

What are your plans for the future?

Take the web by it’s horns! I want a successful web-based company, I want to master Ruby and learn more languages, and my ultimate goal is to write my own language! I have grown to really love programming languages and digging into them, so look out for njerichelimo’s language in the future. I also know that in trying to achieve this, I will be the code master I so badly desire to be. (I’ve been making noise about this to people around me, so I’m so glad I now have a larger audience.)

From your learning experience,what advice would you give other Treehouse members?

Do not just watch Treehouse courses, do the courses. I find it invaluable to code along with the teachers and follow all the way though. Of course, this means spending thrice as much time, but it is definitely worth it. Writing all the code with the teacher, enables me to write my own code confidently. And as a bonus, after writing the code, the code challenges are easier.

Maximize Treehouse for you – have fun with the community – you have a free audience to review your work. Also watch the Treehouse Show, read the blog, participate in the Forum, and expand your network as it’ll spice up your learning!

Is there anything else you would like to share with the community?

The other day I was trying to explain to my mum responsive web design, how I had learnt it on this pretty new site, Treehouse, in a few days and how it’s a new trend in the web. She then asked me, if it’s a pretty new idea, where did the Treehouse teachers learn about it? That got me thinking. If Allison and Nick are sooo good with design, and they did not have Treehouse to teach them, can you imagine how much better we will be now that Treehouse is there to throw the latest technology at us?! The thought of how good we are becoming blows me away.

We’d like to say a huge thank you to Martha for sharing her experience with us, and for her inspirational words and motivational attitude. You’re a fantastic student and a valuable member of the Treehouse community. We’re looking forward to seeing you create your mark on the Web industry. Keep up all the great work!

The post Treehouse Dean’s List: Martha Chumo appeared first on Treehouse Blog.

Hilltop Senior Research Analyst Michael Abrams was co-author on a presentation made recently at an international meeting focused on schizophrenia research (see citation below). The work demonstrates that among women with serious mental illness who are engaged in Maryland Medicaid, those with substance use disorders are at elevated risk for missing breast cancer screening. By somewhat surprising contrast, women with other mental disorders (e.g., schizophrenia and depression), were not at elevated risk for missing such screening. For more information contact: mabrams@hilltop.umbc.edu.

Reference: Sullivan K,  Abrams M, Feldman S,  Myers S, McMahon R, Kelly D: “Analysis of Maryland Medicaid Data to Estimate Effects of Psychiatric and Substance Use Disorders on Breast Cancer Screening Utilization and Breast Cancer Prevalence,” 14th International Congress on Schizophrenia Research, April 14, 2013, Orlando, Florida (Poster Presentation).

Thomas F. Schaller’s latest Baltimore Sun column responds head-on to arguments that the Department of Defense (DoD) should be exempt from sequestration.

Schaller describes several concerns regarding financial waste, fraud and abuse in the DoD, but notes, “The good news is that the sequester, coupled with America’s downsized presence in Iraq and Afghanistan, has actually reduced military spending significantly.”

He writes, “We can have a strong defense, support our troops and veterans, and do so without holding the Pentagon to different standards just because it has the unique and essential duty of defending the nation.”

As the initial shock following last week’s indictment of inmates and correctional officers at the Baltimore City Detention Center gives way to more detailed analysis, the Baltimore Sun is asking what ramifications this case could have on Gov. Martin O’Malley’s future political career.

“It’s a major problem that has to be fixed,” Donald F. Norris, professor and chair of public policy at UMBC, told the Sun, suggesting the debacle’s ultimate political impact will depend on how O’Malley handles it going forward. He noted, “It could tarnish O’Malley. It could also rebound in his favor.”