Ph.D. thesis defense

Paper Form Classification for Information
Systems Strengthening in Developing Countries

Huguens Jean

1:00pm Friday, 19 December 2015, ITE 325b

In developing countries, people are now more likely to have access to a mobile phone than clean water, making cellular based technology the only viable medium for collecting, aggregating, and communicating local data so that it can be turned into useful information. While mobile phones have found broad application in reporting health, financial and environmental data, many data collection methods still suffer from delays, inefficiency and difficulties maintaining quality. In environments with insufficient IT support and infrastructure, and among populations with limited education and experience with technology, paper forms rather than electronic methods remain the predominant means for data collection.

To meet the digitization needs of paper driven data collection practices in developing countries, SHREDDR proposes an end-to-end architecture that transforms paper form images into structured digital information on-demand. To facilitate the automatic extraction of input regions in form images, this thesis extends the SHREDDR architecture with the necessary capabilities to efficiently classify form images according to their template document. Specifically, it introduces a novel framework for visually identifying form templates by decomposing the template identification problem into three distinct tasks: retrieval, learning and matching (RLM).

Given a query form instance, the retrieval component finds and ranks the topmost h similar templates. If h>1, the matching component uses full image registration to conduct a more rigorous assessment of the visual similarity between the query form instance and the candidate templates. After matching, the retrieval’s preliminary ranking is adjusted, if necessary. The topmost candidate template with the highest registration score satisfying a global alignment threshold denotes the input form’s template. Based on the answer obtained from matching, the learning component updates the retrieval so that it can provide a better ranking in future searches. If h=1, the RLM bypasses matching and uses the retrieved template as the final classification.

Based on the proposed framework, the present thesis investigates form classification under the conditions of known and unknown template classes. A pilot study integrating the RLM into the SHREDDR system demonstrates its classification accuracy and its impact on digitization efficiency.

Committee: Drs. Timothy Oates (Chair), Fow-Sen Choa, Janet Rutledge, Jesus Caban, Nilanjan Banerjee

CSEE Professor Anupam Joshi has been named an IEEE Fellow, recognized for his for contributions to security, privacy and data management in mobile and pervasive systems. This designation is conferred by the IEEE Board of Directors on individuals with an outstanding record of accomplishments in any of the IEEE fields of interest and is recognized by the technical community as a prestigious honor and an important career achievement. No more than 0.1% of the total IEEE voting membership can be selected in a year.

Dr. Joshi joined UMBC’s faculty in 1998 and currently is the Oros Family Professor of Technology and Director of the UMBC Center for Cybersecurity. He previously held faculty appointments at the University of Missouri, Columbia and Purdue University. He received a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Purdue University and a B. Tech in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. While at UMBC he has taught both undergraduate and graduate courses in operating systems, mobile computing and security. He developed and teaches an Honors College seminar on “Privacy and Security in a Mobile Social World”. He has mentored nine Ph.D. graduates and a large number of M.S. students.

Joshi has made many contributions to the design, analysis and development of intelligent systems for mobile, social and secure computing. Twenty years ago he was one of a handful of researchers who recognized that mobility introduced new challenges for data management, security and privacy over and above those brought about by wireless connectivity. His key insight was to model mobile and pervasive systems as distributed systems that are both open, in that they do not pre-identify a set of known participants, and dynamic, in that the participants change regularly.

He observe that applications on mobile devices require greater degrees of decision making and autonomy as they become increasingly sophisticated and intelligent and can’t always assume connectivity to central servers. Entities in these pervasive computing systems must exchange information about the data and services offered and sought and their associated security and privacy policies, negotiate for information and resource sharing, be aware of their context, and monitor for and report on suspicious or anomalous behavior. Dr. Joshi has addressed these challenges across the stack, from network protocols to data management to policy controlled interactions between autonomous entities.

Much of his research has been done in collaboration with colleagues in industry such as IBM, Microsoft, Northrop Grumman and Qualcomm. It has been funded by not just them, but also NSF, DARPA, AFOSR, ARL, NIST and other federal agencies. Joshi has published prolifically with more than 200 publications in refereed journals and conferences, many of which are highly cited. He has served as the General or Program Chair of many key conferences including the IEEE International Conference on Intelligence and Security Informatics which will be held in Baltimore in May 2015.

The IEEE is the world’s leading professional association for advancing technology for humanity. Through its 400,000 members in 160 countries, it is a leading authority on a wide variety of areas ranging from aerospace systems, computers and telecommunications to biomedical engineering, electric power and consumer electronics. Dedicated to the advancement of technology, the IEEE publishes 30 percent of the world’s literature in the electrical and electronics engineering and computer science fields, and has developed more than 900 active industry standards.

Name: Jessica Moreno

Internship, Co-op or Research Site: Art With a Heart | Title of Your Position: Social Media and Documentation Intern

Major(s)/Minor(s): Media and Communication Studies (MCS) / American Studies

Expected Graduation Year: May 2015

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

For this internship, I was assigned to travel to various sites and document the art classes that Art with a Heart offers during the summer through photography. Art with a Heart is a non-profit organization that works to enhance the lives of people in need through visual art. They bring their 7,500 visual art classes to abused, neglected and abandoned children; homeless people; battered women and their children; pregnant adolescents; mentally and physically disabled adults; low-income senior citizens; elementary, middle, and high school students; youth in after-school programs; and children receiving long-term health care. Not only did I have to travel to the art classes, I had to build relationships with the participants in order to gain their trust in order for me to photograph them and their artwork. I created numerous content such as photos and videos and managed their Instagram account.

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

I knew that I wanted to do an internship over the summer and since I am an intern at the Career Center, I knew that UMBCworks was the place to start my internship search. I searched for positions that I knew I was interested in and I applied online. Through UMBCworks, I landed my internship at Art with a Heart.

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

Career Center and UMBCworks.

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

I enjoyed documenting the artwork that all the students worked on during the summer. I was able to communicate and talk to the participants and with the art teachers from Art with a Heart. I also enjoyed the editing process such as doing work on Photoshop and Sony Vegas to edit photos and create videos.

What have you gained from your experience that you could not have gained from another opportunity?

I would say the relationships I made with the staff and the participants. The staff from Art with a Heart is doing life changing work for those in need and it was nice for me to spend time with them and learn more about the organization and its history.

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

I strongly encourage students to meet with a career advisor at the Career Center if they are unsure on how to start the internship/job search process. I was worried that I would not be able to get an internship so for me, it was important to ask questions. After all, the Career Center is there to help us students succeed!

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

Do not be discouraged if you do not land an internship the first time. Be persistent and apply for multiple positions because in the end, you will obtain one. It just takes time and perseverance!

MS Thesis Defense

SAX-BOP: Epileptic Seizure Detection using
Symbolic Aggregate Approximation and Bag of Patterns

Sidharth Allani

1:00pm Friday, 12 December 2014, ITE 325b

Epilepsy is a chronic neurological disorder that makes patients susceptible to experiencing recurrent seizures. A seizure occurs when abnormal activity in the brain leads to involuntary body moment, lack of awareness or behavior, short-term loss of memory or attention, short-term unconsciousness, or body convulsions. Epilepsy affects three million people in the United States and accounts for $15.5 billion in direct and indirect costs.

Epilepsy has many different causes, and often no definite cause can be found. Patients who suffer from intractable seizures experience unpredictable and frequent seizures that cannot be controlled using anti-seizure drugs. Such seizures leave the patient traumatized and, due to their uncertainty, the patient’s mobility and independence are restricted, resulting in social isolation and economic hardship.

The research in this thesis aims to detect epileptic seizures and to analyze the performance of Symbolic Aggregate approXimation and the Bag of Patterns representation for seizure event detection. We use Electroencephalogram (EEG) recordings as the data source for seizure detection, which is the recording of electrical activity along the scalp that measures ionic current flows within the neurons of the brain. These signals are a good source of information about abnormal activity in the brain and are helpful in the process of epileptic seizure detection. This problem becomes challenging because of the enormous size of the EEG data, making it difficult to effectively and efficiently analyze these signals and detect a seizure. We use Symbolic Aggregate approXimation (SAX) and the Bag of Patterns Representation (BOP) and analyze their performance with EEG time series data to detect seizures.

Committee: Drs. Tim Oates (chair), Tim Finin and Tinoosh Mohsenin

Please read-while not paid...this could be a tremendous opportunity --especially for freshmen and sophomores.

DHS has launchedthe 2015 Secretary’s Honors Program Cyber Student Volunteer Initiative through which approximately 75 undergraduate students will complete cybersecurity-focused assignments at more than 50 locations across the country. Selected student volunteers will learn about the DHS cybersecurity mission and engage in hands-on cybersecurity work related to digital forensics, network diagnostics, incident response and a variety of other specialties.

The department has extended the application deadline to January 9, 2015, and interested students may apply via USAJobs.gov. If you have not done so already, please share this opportunity with possible applicants at your institution. You can find more information about the Initiative in the attached description, and feel free to direct any questions to CMSI@hq.dhs.gov.

 http://www.dhs.gov/news/2014/11/24/dhs-announces-2015-cyber-student-volunteer-initiative

In the December 2014 issue of AFCEA’s SIGNAL Magazine, CSEE’s Dr. Rick Forno comments on the likelihood of a destructive cyberattack on critical American infrastructure. He was one of several experts discussing US Cyber Command’s worry about such potential incidents and how it might respond.

He believes a major cyber attack against critical infrastructure is more likely from a rogue terrorist or criminal group than a nation-state. However, he says that although the possibility for a nation-state to launch attacks remains a valid concern, the probability of such an event remains fairly low. Moreover, Forno points out that a destructive attack could hinder an adversary’s own operations. “You can’t collect intelligence on an enemy or communicate if the Internet is down,” he says. “That may play into a nation-state’s calculus about what type of attack they might employ in a given situation.”

Dr. Soobum Lee’s research group (Energy Harvesting and Design Optimization Lab.­­­­, EDLab) recently launched collaboration with Potomac Photonics for high precision prototyping of vibration energy harvester based on laser micromachining technology. The project laminates a piezoelectric energy-harvesting material onto a vibrating substrate and then stores the converted energy in a small battery. Vibrations in the real world are not fixed but rather occur randomly. In order to respond to this fluctuation, Lee’s group is prototyping substrates with sophisticated designs that require high precision structures to capture the random vibrations.

Please find the full story on the following link: http://www.potomac-laser.com/blog/potomacs-high-precision-laser-micromachining-advances-new-energy-harvesting-technique-umbc/

By Lisa Gray, Assistant Director of Student Life, Cultural and Spiritual Diversity. 

Earlier this year, Joakina Stone, then a Res Life colleague and collateral work staff with Student Life’s Mosaic Center, along with an amazing group of students, staff and faculty, helped us to co-create our new Mosaic Social Justice discussion series. We exchanged a bunch of ideas for a title – some basic and others long and academic. After ruminating far too long, I finally settled on “What’s the Tea?” Thankfully, Zach Kosinski and Jasmine Malhotra, our Graduate Coordinators, agreed and our series launched this year on October 1st.

Everything seemed to be going well with what we are calling our “pilot semester/year” for the series. It even had what we hope was an effective, context-setting description: “We all talk about how diverse UMBC is. But what does that mean in reality? How does it show up in how we communicate and interact with each other? When does celebrating diversity shift into inclusivity that creates positive social change in and outside our campus community? This new series hopes to help us grapple with these questions. Join us for a facilitated discussion of these topics. Voice your opinions and hear those of your fellow community members.”

This description, along with a co-facilitation model, guided questions, and a brief evaluation has helped us to move forward. Things were going really well, until our November 5th Cultural Appropriation discussion. During that discussion, our well-intentioned start had an unintentional stop. In my desire to get the discussion underway, I unintentionally culturally appropriated the name of the series—“What’s the Tea?”—while talking about cultural appropriation as it relates to native, indigenous peoples.

My blindness as the lead discussion facilitator set into motion what those in the social justice education and activism world would call a concrete example of “intent versus impact.” Thanks to some generous feedback and calling out by a couple of the discussion attendees, next came my PAN, “Pay Attention Now,” moment. PAN and PAN-ing is both an acronym and a practice I learned a couple of years ago during my time at the December 2012 Social Justice Training Institute.

This post is my apology to all the attendees of our November 5th Cultural Appropriation discussion and a thank you to those brave participants for their helpful feedback and “call out.” Through that experience, and all the hours I’ve spent since replaying and processing that discussion with supportive colleagues and students, I’ve learned that there are hills, valleys, starts, and stops in the often times messy yet rewarding work towards social justice. 

Now, for those of you who’ve been patiently waiting and wondering, here’s what’s up with “What’s the Tea?”: This phrase is an extended version of “What’s the T?” a phrase originating from Black Gay Ball culture. Urban Dictionary, Answers.com, and Wikipedia all offer solid definitions and/or historical information on the term and it’s origins.

“What’s the T? – It means like “Whats up?”, “Whats going on?” It’s commonly used in the LGBT Community and is commonly used for gossiping.”

“A term originated in Black Gay culture circa 1970-1989 that indicated some one was the “T”alk of the “T”own, hence the “T”. The term was often used by female impersonators to describe a fellow impersonator that did an exceptionally good job on stage in a live lip syncipated performance which was talked about in the gay circles for long periods of time. The term grew to define any memorable person whose actions were or would soon be largely talked about in the gay circles. Also a person who was popular in the gay community would be talked about may have been referred to as The “T”

It has lasted throughout the decades and can really refer to any person, place or thing.

Mary, did you see Miss thing’s Patty Labelle performance last night? She P’d on stage! She was the “T” last night!

Girlfriend, that party you threw was fabulous, the way you have your new apartment decorated is the deal and that new husband of yours is to die for! You are the T!

It mean what’s the deal! it basically mean what’s up!

It can also refer to one’s own personal business and daily dealings.

Ex: Q: Hey girl what’s T (what’s the T)?

A: No T, girl. I’m just at home answering a question on Wikianswers.”

By replacing “T” with “Tea,” we hope to reframe the definition to one that can apply to the social justice-based topics in the series. So, “Tea” represents the social justice awareness, knowledge, and cross-cultural communication skills that we’re “spilling” like tea into the community – one small group at a time. To help illuminate this more intentionally through imagery, we’re considering re-branding the series next semester.

Hopefully, this post has been helpful and informative. For more information on “What’s the Tea?” and other Mosaic Center programs, please visit our myUMBC page.