If you need help, please contact National Domestic Violence Hotline at http://www.ndvh.org/ or phone 1-800-799-SAFE (7233). October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month.

©2008 Cathy Malchiodi

www.cathymalchiodi.com

Source: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-healing-arts/200809/telling-without-talking-breaking-the-silence-domestic-violence

The Social Life of Personal Information

Dr. Manuel A. Perez-Quinones

Associate Professor of Computer Science
Virginia Tech

1:00pm Thursday 14 April 2011, ITE 325b

Personal Information Management (PIM) practices are the set of behaviors that we follow to organize our information. This often includes the management of email messages, documents, bookmarks, digital pictures, music, etc. Research in PIM has identified a core set of set of behaviors: encountering information, deciding to keep the information, filing/archiving, and reusing the information. The plethora of digital information and online transactions has us struggling to manage information effectively. In my research group, we are exploring how we can help address this problem.

In this talk, I briefly present previous work on PIM and highlight some new projects that my research group is exploring at the intersection of PIM and Social Networks. The rise of social networks presents an opportunity for the management of personal information. Emails in a person's inbox, for example, are "shared" between the sender and the receiver. What if we could share the PIM practices within our inner personal circle? Could we leverage the power of our social network to be more organized?

Dr. Manuel A. Pérez-Quiñones is Associate Professor of Computer Science, and a member of the Center for Human-Computer Interaction at Virginia Tech. Pérez-Quiñones holds a DSc in CS from The George Washington University, Washington, DC. His research interests include human-computer interaction, personal information management, user interface software, digital government, and educational/cultural issues in computing. He is the author of over 80 peer-reviewed journal and conference proceeding publications, as well as co-author of 10 book chapters. He is Chair of the Coalition to Diversify Computing (2010-2011), a committee of the CRA, ACM, and IEEE-CS. Dr. Pérez-Quiñones is Director of the Personal Information Management Research lab. The PIM lab studies how individuals use technology to organize and use their information to satisfy their day to day needs. Lately the group has been studying how we make sense of the multiple devices used to manage our personal information. Outside of HCI, he has collaborated with researchers in the areas of Digital Government, Software Engineering, Computing Education, Digital Libraries, and Data Mining. Dr. Pérez-Quiñones was born and raised in Puerto Rico.

Host: Dr. Marie desJardins, Sorry, you need javascript to view this email address.

Professor Samuel Lomonaco will present a lecture on Distributed Quantum Algorithms from 2:30 to 3:45 on Wednesday March 30 in room ITE 325b. In the talk, Professor Lomonaco will show how quantum entanglement can be used as a mechanism for controlling a network of quantum computers. The talk is open to all.

Dissertation Defense

Enabling Reproducibility of Scientific Data Flows
through Tracking and Representation of Provenance

Curt Tilmes

10:00am Thursday, 31 March 2011
ITE 325b, UMBC

Reproducibility of results is a key tenet of science. Some modern scientific domains, such as Earth Science, have become computationally complicated and, particularly with the advent of higher resolution space based remote sensing platforms, tremendously data intensive. Over the last few decades, these complexities along with the the rapid advancement of the state of the art confound the goal of scientific transparency.

This thesis explores concepts of data identification, organization, equivalence and reproducibility for such data intensive scientific processing. It presents a conceptual model useful for describing and representing data provenance suitable for very precise data and processing identification. It presents algorithms for creating and maintaining precise dataset membership and provenance equivalence at various degrees of granularity and data aggregation.

Application of this model will allow more specific data citations in scientific literature based on large datasets and data provenance equivalence. Our provenance representations will enable independent reproducibility required by scientific transparency. Increasing transparency will contribute to understanding, and ultimately, credibility of scientific results.

Committee:

• Yelena Yesha (co-chair)
• Milton Halem (co-chair)
• Tim Finin
• Anupam Joshi
• Jim Smith (NASA)

CSEE Professor Samuel Lomonaco is the co-organizer of a two-day workshop on Topological Quantum Information to be held on May 16-17, 2011 at the Mathematical Research Center Ennio De Giorgi in Pisa as part of an intensive research period focused on Knots and Applications. The workshop will foster inter-disciplinary communication among researchers working on topological information science.   A goal is to identify key issues involved in ultimately building a quantum computer based on a quantum system with inherently built-in topological obstructions to decoherence. For more information, contact Dr. Lomonaco at Sorry, you need javascript to view this email address.

Still looking for a summer internship? Check out the Google Summer of Code (GSoC).

This is a is a global program funded by Google that pays undergraduate or graduate students a $5000 stipend to write code for open source projects. GSoC has worked with the open source community to identify and fund exciting projects for the upcoming summer. The FAQ is a good place to find out more.

A set of open source projects (aka mentoring organizations) has been selected. Students apply to work on one of more of these and each mentoring organization ranks the students interested in working with them. Google facilitates the final selection and pairing. The mentoring organization works closely with the student to define tasks, check progress, help solve problems, etc. Typically the thudent works remotely, interacting with his or her mentor via email, chat, skype, etc.

Students can submit applications via the Google Summer of Code 2011 site from March 28 to April 8. Google says that that the best applications they receive are from students who took the time to interact with one of the participating mentoring organizations and discuss their ideas before submitting an application. Check out the information on the Advice for GSoC Students Page which links to a list of the 2011 mentoring organizations.

I have a plug for a particular project: Elgg. "Elgg is an award-winning social networking engine, delivering the building blocks that enable businesses, schools, universities and associations to create their own fully-featured social networks and applications." One of the people involved with Elgg's GSoC effort works at JHU/APL and may do mentoring locally. They are looking for people who know (or are willing to learn) PHP, JavaScript, and basic web development. Send email to Sorry, you need javascript to view this email address. to find out more about the ideas the Elgg project has proposed for GSCO 2011.

Next weekend UMBC will defend its title of best college chess team in the United States at the Final Four of College Chess. The match will be held on 1-3 April at Booz Allen Hamilton's corporate site in Herndon, VA.

Each year, the top four USA schools from the Pan American Intercollegiate Team Chess Championship are invited to compete for the President's Cup in a match that has come to be known as the "Final Four of College Chess". The winner is considered to be the top US college chess team.

This year, the UMBC team will face three teams from Texas universities: Texas Tech University, the University of Texas at Dallas, and the University of Texas at Brownsville.

Director of the UMBC Chess Program, Professor Alan Sherman, believes that UMBC has the strongest team but says "We are fielding the same team that won the Final Four last year and that placed second in the 2010 Pan-Am in Milwaukee. It will be a close fight in which any of the four teams could possibly win."

UMBC's team consists of International Grandmasters Leonid “Chief” Kritz, Sergey “The Stealth” Erenburg, Giorgi Margvelashvili, International Master Sasha “Plaplan” Kaplan and International Woman Grandmaster Sabina "Sunshine" Foisor (alternate). Supporting the team are UMBC Chess Coach Igor Epshteyn and Associate Chess Director Sam Palatnik.

Update 4/1:  The Final Four program is now available. See the UMBC news item.