Due to planned protest downtown Baltimore and police activity at Pratt St. And Howard St. The Downtown B route is delayed; effective immediately until 9pm.  Please check here for further updates!

Ph.D. Dissertation Defense

A Semantic Resolution Framework for Integrating
Manufacturing Service Capability Data

Yan Kang

10:00am Monday 27 April 2015, ITE 217b

Building flexible manufacturing supply chains requires availability of interoperable and accurate manufacturing service capability (MSC) information of all supply chain participants. Today, MSC information, which is typically published either on the supplier’s web site or registered at an e-marketplace portal, has been shown to fall short of interoperability and accuracy requirements. The issue of interoperability can be addressed by annotating the MSC information using shared ontologies. However, this ontology-based approach faces three main challenges: (1) lack of an effective way to automatically extract a large volume of MSC instance data hidden in the web sites of manufacturers that need to be annotated; (2) difficulties in accurately identifying semantics of these extracted data and resolving semantic heterogeneities among individual sources of these data while integrating them under shared formal ontologies; (3) difficulties in the adoption of ontology-based approaches by the supply chain managers and users because of their unfamiliarity with the syntax and semantics of formal ontology languages such as the web ontology language (OWL).

The objective of our research is to address the main challenges of ontology-based approaches by developing an innovative approach that is able to extract MSC instances from a broad range of manufacturing web sites that may present MSC instances in various ways, accurately annotate MSC instances with formal defined semantics on a large scale, and integrate these annotated MSC instances into formal manufacturing domain ontologies to facilitate the formation of supply chains of manufacturers. To achieve this objective, we propose a semantic resolution framework (SRF) that consists of three main components: a MSC instance extractor, a MSC Instance annotator and a semantic resolution knowledge base. The instance extractor builds a local semantic model that we call instance description model (IDM) for each target manufacturer web site. The innovative aspect of the IDM is that it captures the intended structure of the target web site and associates each extracted MSC instance with a context that describes possible semantics of that instance. The instance annotator starts the semantic resolution by identifying the most appropriate class from a (or a set of) manufacturing domain ontology (or ontologies) (MDO) to annotate each instance based on the mappings established between the context of that instance and the vocabularies (i.e., classes and properties) defined in the MDO. The primary goal of the semantic resolution knowledge base (SR-KB) is to resolve semantic heterogeneity that may occur in the instance annotation process and thus improve the accuracy of the annotated MSC instances. The experimental results demonstrate that the instance extractor and the instance annotator can effectively discover and annotate MSC instances while the SR-KB is able to improve both precision and recall of annotated instances and reducing human involvement along with the evolution of the knowledge base.

Committee: Drs. Yun Peng (Chair), Tim Finin, Yaacov Yesha, Matthew Schmill and Boonserm Kulvatunyou

Ph.D. Dissertation Defense

A Semantic Resolution Framework for Integrating
Manufacturing Service Capability Data

Yan Kang

10:00am Monday 27 April 2015, ITE 217b

Building flexible manufacturing supply chains requires availability of interoperable and accurate manufacturing service capability (MSC) information of all supply chain participants. Today, MSC information, which is typically published either on the supplier’s web site or registered at an e-marketplace portal, has been shown to fall short of interoperability and accuracy requirements. The issue of interoperability can be addressed by annotating the MSC information using shared ontologies. However, this ontology-based approach faces three main challenges: (1) lack of an effective way to automatically extract a large volume of MSC instance data hidden in the web sites of manufacturers that need to be annotated; (2) difficulties in accurately identifying semantics of these extracted data and resolving semantic heterogeneities among individual sources of these data while integrating them under shared formal ontologies; (3) difficulties in the adoption of ontology-based approaches by the supply chain managers and users because of their unfamiliarity with the syntax and semantics of formal ontology languages such as the web ontology language (OWL).

The objective of our research is to address the main challenges of ontology-based approaches by developing an innovative approach that is able to extract MSC instances from a broad range of manufacturing web sites that may present MSC instances in various ways, accurately annotate MSC instances with formal defined semantics on a large scale, and integrate these annotated MSC instances into formal manufacturing domain ontologies to facilitate the formation of supply chains of manufacturers. To achieve this objective, we propose a semantic resolution framework (SRF) that consists of three main components: a MSC instance extractor, a MSC Instance annotator and a semantic resolution knowledge base. The instance extractor builds a local semantic model that we call instance description model (IDM) for each target manufacturer web site. The innovative aspect of the IDM is that it captures the intended structure of the target web site and associates each extracted MSC instance with a context that describes possible semantics of that instance. The instance annotator starts the semantic resolution by identifying the most appropriate class from a (or a set of) manufacturing domain ontology (or ontologies) (MDO) to annotate each instance based on the mappings established between the context of that instance and the vocabularies (i.e., classes and properties) defined in the MDO. The primary goal of the semantic resolution knowledge base (SR-KB) is to resolve semantic heterogeneity that may occur in the instance annotation process and thus improve the accuracy of the annotated MSC instances. The experimental results demonstrate that the instance extractor and the instance annotator can effectively discover and annotate MSC instances while the SR-KB is able to improve both precision and recall of annotated instances and reducing human involvement along with the evolution of the knowledge base.

Committee: Drs. Yun Peng (Chair), Tim Finin, Yaacov Yesha, Matthew Schmill and Boonserm Kulvatunyou

Innovations in Cybersecurity Education Workshop

9:30 – 4:30 Friday, 12 June 2015, UMBC BWtech South Campus

Innovations in Cybersecurity Education is a free regional workshop on cybersecurity education from high school through post-graduate. It is intended primarily for educators who are teaching cybersecurity at high schools, colleges, and community colleges. Anyone is welcome to attend, including teachers, students, administrators, researchers, and government officials.

The workshop will highlight master teachers and ongoing educational projects, including an effort at the US Naval Academy to teach cybersecurity to all midshipmen. It will include discussions about cyber competitions, hands-on exercises, educational games, and integrating cybersecurity throughout the curriculum. There will be an opportunity to experience hands-on cyber defense exercises and to play new computer security education games, including SecurityEmpire developed at UMBC.

The workshop is free and open to the public — all are welcome to attend. This workshop will to be of interest to educators, school administrators, undergraduate and graduate students, and government officials. Lunch will be provided. Parking is free.

Please see the links above for the schedule and location and register to help us plan for the number of participants.

The workshop is organized by Dr. Alan T. Sherman with support provided in part by the National Science Foundation under SFS grant 1241576.

With the voting period completed and the votes counted, the Student Government Association’s Election Board released the results for the Senate, Finance Board, Vice President for Student Organizations and Treasurer races, but not the results of the presidential race. The board will release the results of that race at a later date.

In its official statement announcing the other race results, the Election Board stated that it was working to resolve “outstanding issues relating to the conduct of the election.”

Over the course of the campaign season, the Election Board imposed sanctions for repeated election rules violations. All three presidential/executive vice-presidential campaigns committed infractions to some degree.

On April 8, the Board gave official warning to Michelle Seu and Elizabeth Chen for posting their platform on a myUMBC group owned by the SGA Department of Academic Affairs. The Board determined that this violated election rules prohibiting candidates from using SGA resources for campaigning.

On April 20, the Board officially warned both the Corbett-Robier and Jankoski-Amsini campaigns for breaking Election Rule 9, which “requires candidates to file all organization and student endorsements with the Election Board prior to using them to promote their campaign.”

Kelly Robier and Anthony Jankoski had each posted pictures on Facebook promoting UMBC students’ endorsements of their respective campaigns without receiving the Board’s official consent.

On April 22, the Election Board determined that the Jankoski-Amsini campaign had violated Election Rule 10, banning the use of electronic devices to solicit votes. The Board also determined that Jankoski himself had violated Election Rule 15, banning campaigns from violating campus policies, by playing loud music in Academic Row on April 16.

Yesterday, the Board ruled that the Jankoski-Amsini campaign had again violated Rule 10 by continuing to use electronic devices to solicit votes.

The top 11 Senate candidates, in terms of votes received, were as follows: Will Rice, Andres Garcia, Augustus Williams, Oladipupo Eke, Joshua Massey, Brooke Perrin, Sarah Lilly, Seth Benefield, Markya Reed, Andrew Lopez, and Vanessa Barksdale. Rice led all Senate candidates with 924 total votes received.

Michelle Yan, Kevin Nguyen, Nathalie Karam, Trent Bae, and Meghna Bhatt were voted onto the SGA Finance Board. Yan led the Finance Board candidates with 893 total votes received.

Bryan England won the race for SGA Vice President for Student Organizations with 1092 total votes, while Tristan Oetker won SGA Treasurer with 877 total votes.

Voters also approved SGA Proposition One, which would amend the SGA Constitution to require SGA Senate approval of any Election Board member’s termination by the Chair. 74.5 percent of voters cast their support for the proposed amendment.

The Election Board has worked to impose new regulations on campaign conduct this year. In addition to banning the use of electronic devices for vote-solicitation, it also restricted polling hours during the voting period.

These changes stemmed from student dissatisfaction expressed over the conduct of previous electoral campaigns. Students had reported candidates and campaign volunteers pressuring them into voting last year.

The Election Board did not state when exactly it expected to release the presidential and vice-presidential results. New officers will be inaugurated on May 11 during free hour in The Commons.

Read more stories from: The Retriever Weekly

Driven by Curiosity

URCAD 2015 celebrates undergraduate student experiences in research and creative achievement.

“My journey to becoming a college professor really sparked here,” shared Trevor Blank, in a humorous and inspiring talk at UMBC’s 19th annual Undergraduate Research and Creative Achievement Day (URCAD) on April 22, 2015.

As a transfer student from Montgomery College, Blank ’05, American studies, was fascinated by the history and folklore of a structure that once stood on UMBC’s campus: the Hillcrest Building, constructed in 1921 as the Spring Grove State Hospital. A different person might read a book about their new interest and move on, but Blank chose to write the book instead.

Today, Blank is an assistant professor of communication at SUNY Potsdam and the author or editor of seven books, including The Last Laugh: Folk Humor, Celebrity Culture, and Mass-Mediated Disasters in the Digital Age (University of Wisconsin Press 2013). He insists, “Research isn’t some laborious task.” For him, it’s about passion—“It’s personal and enjoyable.”

“Dr. Blank’s story is a wonderful reminder about the value of the distinctive undergraduate experience UMBC provides,” explains Diane M. Lee, vice provost and dean of undergraduate education. The university began organizing URCAD in the late 1990s to highlight UMBC’s particularly robust research opportunities for undergraduate students.

For Janet McGlynn, director of communications and outreach for the Office of Undergraduate Education, URCAD itself provides students with an essential aspect of research training: a foundation in research communications. She shares, “Undergraduate researchers and URCAD presenters who go on to graduate school find that they are well prepared to present their work in department meetings or larger symposia. They know how to make a poster and how to talk about their work to either a general or an expert audience.”

URCAD 2015 featured over 200 presentations, including artistic performances, film screenings, and oral and poster presentations, across all disciplines. Each of these projects represented months or years of independent and collaborative research and creative production.

A diverse team of artists, designers, engineers, and environmental advocates offered an URCAD sneak peek demonstration of “The Kraken,” their entry into Baltimore’s Kinetic Sculpture Race. “The Kraken” is a massive moving sculpture of a sea monster constructed out of recycled plastic to draw attention to the effect of plastic waste on aquatic ecosystems.

Rob Ford ’16, environmental science, reflected that the project has given him a new perspective on how to approach multifaceted problems. President Hrabowski, watching a demo of the project, commented that the team exemplifies the curiosity necessary for research. “Even as they were explaining to me how they went about the process,” he said, “they were asking more questions.”

Paul Tschirgi ’15, visual arts, worked with a team of researchers across several disciplines to develop Bandit, a video game that teaches students about the viewpoints of diverse actors in Civil War Baltimore through the Pratt Street Riots. Tschirgi hopes to eventually create and market his own games, and feels he benefited significantly from working with a history graduate class. “This isn’t just a game about trying to achieve some objective” or “what would be fun,” he explains. “It’s also about learning actual history.”

Another team member, Savannah Myers ’16, visual arts, shared, “I’m excited to show what can be accomplished [through collaboration]. Often times people don’t realize how much work and research goes into creating interactive experiences.”

Courtney Tyler ’15, dance, developed original choreography for the movement of characters in another virtual gaming environment designed by Paul Tschirgi. During URCAD, they presented a video of four human dancers superimposed over non-human game characters. “I pictured winged characters and tried to incorporate movement…with arm gestures [to symbolize flight],” Tyler explained.

Chana Honick ’17, interdisciplinary studies and chemistry, exhibited an art installation depicting the Haber process, where hydrogen and nitrogen gas combine to form ammonia. The interactive installation used wood and springs to represent the gases and was surrounded by QR codes that enabled participants to learn more about the Haber process and take a survey on the ethics of Haber’s work. Honick aimed to start conversations about science through art. “I’m not a person who learns through textbooks,” she said, “and I wanted to create an interactive way to explore this chemical process.”

Julie Norton ’15, biological sciences, helped isolate and describe a virus called a bacteriophage from a central Russian soil sample. Bacteriophages have the potential to kill harmful bacteria, making food safer or treating infections in humans. Norton notes that research into therapeutic bacteriophages is underdeveloped, and this project revealed a possible path for her life’s work, “traveling around the world…to do research.”

Kevin Sears ’15, computer engineering, worked with Michael Warren ’15, mechanical engineering, to create a “smart” air vent that automatically regulates a room’s temperature using sensors controlled by a mobile web application. Sears demonstrated the vent live during URCAD.

Benjamin Straube ’18, political science, studied the 2014 Maryland gubernatorial election to analyze why former Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown lost despite leading in the polls for much of the race in a state where the Democratic Party has a 2:1 registration advantage. With an interest in pursuing a career in politics, Straube says the research experience was helpful for learning what can go wrong in a campaign. He particularly valued having a research mentor, calling his experience working with Tyson King-Meadows, political science and Africana studies, “an amazing asset.”

Shannon Mitchell ’15, American studies and psychology, analyzed more than 200 news articles on the Trayvon Martin case to explore whether media coverage was skewed geographically. She hopes to continue similar research relating to the social media aspects of news and “how those inputs are being vetted” by journalists.

Andres Camacho ’15, interdisciplinary studies, presented “True Greens,” an entrepreneurial project designed to test how students could shape food systems on campus, growing microgreens to sell to UMBC Dining Services for on-campus consumption. The project has opened his eyes to what entrepreneurship means. “I used to think being an entrepreneur was about building apps,” Camacho said, “but you can use entrepreneurship to solve much bigger problems.”

See the URCAD website for a full list of presenters and abstracts, and the URCAD photo gallery for images from the event.

(04/24/2015)

Name: Jennifer Montooth

Internship, Co-op or Research Site: Maryland Psychiatric Research Institute Peer Review Program | Title of Your Position: Research Intern

Major(s)/Minor(s): History, Political Science

Expected Graduation Year: December 2015

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

The Peer Review Program helps low-income families in inner city Baltimore receive medication for their children with Schizophrenia. The researchers help make sure the children are efficiently getting the proper amount of medication. When I assist the researchers, I help them organize and file all of the patients' information in alphabetical order and send out their charts to the proper offices and hospitals to ensure that every patient gets the proper care.

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

I found my internship through UMBCWorks and was enthralled in the idea. Once I submitted my resume, I had a phone interview with the supervisor. She was curious as to why a history and political science major would want to help a psychiatric program. I explained to her, however, that I was very interested in pursuing a Public Policy degree once I graduate, and am very interested in learning about successful programs such as the Peer Review Program. I also told her about my research paper from a previous semester regarding the lack of mental health funding and assistance in Baltimore City prisons, and how it would help the city in several ways if inmates got proper treatments for their disorders. My excitement about the program and learning about mental health helped me get the internship almost on the spot.

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

UMBCworks

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

I love the people in the program, they're all very passionate about what they do, and it feels motivating to be around them. I learn more each day about all of the processes and steps it takes to keep the program running and proving their efficiency in order to continue receiving funding. Once a week I also get to meet with a doctor and a group of Schizophrenia patients at one of their education sessions, where the patients learn more about their disorder. I had never encountered anyone with Schizophrenia before, so it's been amazing to interact with the patients and learn more from the doctors.

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

I would advise them to think outside of the box, and think towards the future. This internship is a little far off from my major, but it keeps me constantly learning, which makes every day a new experience. I did a research paper that got me motivated to help mental health programs a year ago, and wanted to get more involved, but had no idea how. I feel like I have more understanding of what I want to do once I graduate thanks to this internship.

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

Everyone involved in helping me receive credit for this internship, including Jeremiah Sawyer and my professor Michele Wolff, have been nothing but encouraging and helpful the whole time, which makes this experience all the better.

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Language, Literacy, and Culture (LLC) Professor and Director Craig Saper, with contributions to the manuscript preparation and index from LLC doctoral students Felix Burgos and Kevin Wisniewski, has co-edited and introduced a new book Electracy: Gregory L. Ulmer’s Textshop Experiments (2015).

According to a description on the book’s website, “‘Textshop’ in the title refers to a pedagogy for teaching rhetorical invention, with application to any form of production of texts or works in Arts and Letters fields, or for teaching creative thinking in general. More specifically this book provides background and context for the published work of Ulmer, filling in gaps between his books, and showing the genealogy of Ulmer’s innovative approach to media education.”

Growing out of the book, Burgos and Wisniewski have started a peer-review scholarly journal on Textshop Experiments. To learn more about the project, click here.