Ph.D. Dissertation Defense

Clustering and Visualization Techniques
for Aggregate Trajectory Analysis

David Trimm

1:00pm Thursday 15 March 15th 2012, ITE 365

Analyzing large trajectory sets enables deeper insights into multiple real-world problems. For example, animal migration data, multi-agent analysis, and virtual entertainment can all benefit from deriving conclusions from large sets of trajectory data. However, the analysis is complicated by several factors when using traditional analytic techniques. For example, directly visualizing the trajectory set results in a multitude of lines that cannot be easily understood. Statistical analysis methods and non-direct visualization techniques (e.g., parallel coordinates) produce conclusions that are non-intuitive and difficult to understand. By using two complementary processes—clustering and visualization—a new approach is developed to analyzing large trajectory sets. First, clustering techniques are developed and refined to group related trajectories together. From these similar sets, a trajectory composition visualization is created and implemented that clearly depicts the cluster characteristics including application-specific attributes. The effectiveness of the approach is demonstrated on two separate and unique data sets resulting in actionable conclusions. The first application, multi-agent analysis, represents a rich, spatial data that, when analyzed using this approach, shows ways to improve the underlying artificial intelligence algorithms. Student course-grade history analysis, the second application, requires tailoring the approach for a non-spatial data set. However, the results enable a clear understanding of which courses are most critical in a student's career and which student groups require assistance to succeed. In summary, this research contributes to methods for trajectory clustering, techniques for large-scale visualization of trajectory data, and processes for analyzing student data.

Committee

• Dr. Penny Rheingans (chair)
• Dr. Marie desJardins
• Dr. Anupam Joshi
• Dr. Marc Olano
• Dr. Sreedevi Sampath

The Center for Women in Technology has been awarded a National Science Foundation S-STEM Grant that will fund the Scholars in IT and Engineering (T-SITE) program. Beginning this fall, need-based, multi-year scholarships of up to $6,700 per year, will be awarded to 10 new transfer students. These Scholars will participate in  academic and professional development support activities as part of the larger CWIT Scholar community. Applications are currently being accepted: www.cwit.umbc.edu/tsite.

The T-SITE Scholars Program is focused on attracting, retaining, and graduating more women and under-represented minorities from Maryland community colleges in engineering and computing majors at UMBC.

Applicants must be new full-time transfer students majoring in chemical or mechanical engineering, information systems, computer science, or computer engineering. While the program focus is on diversifying these fields, all eligible transfer students with financial need are encouraged to apply.  Applicants must also have a 3.0 transfer gpa , be a US citizens or permanent resident, and have financial need based on the FAFSA. Applications are being accepted until April 20, 2012 and interviews will be held in early May.

Read more about the T-SITE Scholars program on the CSEE website:  http://www.csee.umbc.edu/2012/03/new-t-site-scholarship-program-targets-tech-transfer-students/

For more information contact Dr. Susan Martin, CWIT Associate Director at (410) 455-3109 or by email at susan@umbc.edu.

Attention CWIT Affiliates:

Join us at noon on Wed. 3/14 at noon in ITE 456 for Pizza and a leadership activity that will be fun and make you think!

Dr. Hillol Kargupta will be one of over 80 speakers at GreenBiz's VERGE conference in Washinton D.C., which takes place this Wednesay, March 14–16.

The conference foucses on sustainability by exploring technological advances that deal with energy, information, buildings, and transportation.

Speakers include the likes of AOL Co-founder, Steve Case, Robin Chase, founder of carsharing revolution, Zipcar,  textbook publishing mogul Tim O'Reilly, and other executives working at the intersection of technology and enivronmental awareness.

The VERGE website credits Dr. Kargupta as a "Guru" for Data Mining for M2M Applications. He is the president of Agnik, a data analytics company for distributed, mobile, and embedded environments that has been developing vehicle performance monitoring software.

On Thursday, March 15 at 1:30 p.m., Dr. Kargupta will discuss "Connected Cars and Beyond" with Shelby Clark Founder & Chief Community Officer of RelayRides, Tim Johnson Strategic Opportunity Manager of Sprint, Nick Pudar Vice President of Planning and Business Development at OnStar, and Marc Gunther Senior Writer at the GreenBiz Group. Register at the VERGE website to watch a live stream of Dr. Kargupta's and other presentations for free.

Photo courtesy www.midatlanticccdc.org

This weekend, UMBC’s Cyber Defense club, the Cyberdawgs, will be one of eight schools vying for the win at the CyberWatch Mid-Atlantic Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition (CCDC) Regional Finals. The competition, the first of its kind to focus on the operational aspects of protecting and managing an existing “commercial” network infrastructure, will take place at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab from March 14–18, according to the CCDC website.

“I always get excited for these types of competitions,” says Marc Warfield, president of the Cyberdawgs. A Junior Information Systems major, Warfield hopes to eventually pursue a career in software development with a focus in network and computer security. “I enjoy the field because it’s so dynamic and keeps everyone on their toes.”

In late February, Warfield and his teammates competed against twenty-five schools during a three-hour virtual qualifying round. “We had to secure five different virtual machines and complete tasks that they assigned us during the three hours of scoring,” he explains.

Now only eight schools from the region are left; among them Towson University, Capitol College, and Howard County Community College. Warfield and seven of his teammates will represent UMBC. “We sadly didn’t make it to regionals last year, so it feels good to make it there this year,” he says. “I’m excited to meet people that are already working in the field and considered to be “rockstars” in the computer security discipline.”

Conceived in 2006, the CCDC is funded by CyberWatch, an Advanced Technological Education (ATE) Center. Since then, the center’s mission has been to “improve the quantity and quality of the nation’s information assurance (IA) workforce,” says the website.This year, the competition’s theme is “Healthcare IT.” During the competition, the teams must “ensure the systems supply the specified services while under attack from a volunteer Red Team" and  “satisfy periodic “injects” that simulate business activities IT staff must deal with in the real world.”

Warfield explains that his preparation strategy includes “Redbull and long weekend nights.” “We practice securing machines and setting up web applications along with learning to configure them,” he says.  

This year’s CCDC is the first to include a Speaker Symposium that’s free and open to the public. Kicking off Wednesday morning, the symposium features founder and CEO of Oculis Labs, Bill Anderson with a speech entitled “Causes of Data Breaches in Healthcare? Just Look Around,” and Larry Pesce and Darren Wigley, members of the PaulDotCom Security Weekly podcast, whose presentation is called “MEDIC! Building and Rules of the 2012 Badges.”

If Warfield and his teammates place in the competition this weekend, they will make it to the National competition which will take place in San Antonio, Texas in mid-April. Schools currently slated to compete in the Nationals include the University of Alaska Fairbanks, the Air Force Academy, UNC Charlotte, Rochester Institute of Technology, and Texas A&M University.

Next fall, a new scholarship program geared toward transfer students majoring in technology fields will offer ten students the support—both financial and otherwise—that they need. It’s called T-SITE (Transfer-Scholarships in Information Technology and Engineering), and similar to the previous SITE (Scholars in Information Technology and Engineering) program, is supported by an NSF S-STEM grant.

The program is the brainchild of a team of seven women sprinkled throughout IT and Engineering departments in the College of Engineering and Information Technology at UMBC. Dr. Penny Rheingans, Director of the Center for Women in Technology (CWIT) and a professor of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering, is the Principal Investigator for the project. Five professors will serve as faculty mentors for the future scholars: Dr. Marie desJardins (Computer Science), Dr. Gymama Slaughter (Computer Engineering), Dr. Anne Spence (Mechanical Engineering), Dr. Taryn Bayles (Chemical, Biochemical, and Environmental Engineering), and Dr. Carolyn Seaman (Information Systems). Dr. Susan Martin, the Associate Director of CWIT, has been reaching out to Maryland community colleges and will teach a transfer student seminar for the selected scholars. “I don’t think any of us could do it without the others,” says Dr. Rheingans of her team of dedicated collaborators.

“It’s particularly hard for transfer students to really become an integrated part of the community,” says Dr. Penny Rheingans. Transfer students often are at a disadvantage because they miss out on all the orientating activities showered on freshman, she explains. As a result, they’re less aware of campus resources and tend to feel disconnected from the campus community. T-SITE aims to change all that.

Starting in the fall of 2012, the grant will award ten financially needy transfer students with partial scholarships: $6,700 each, capped by an individual student's financial need. Eligible students must intend to major in one of the five IT or Engineering majors: Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Chemical and Biochemical Engineering, and Information Systems. In addition to financial support, future T-SITE scholars will be warmly integrated into the CWIT Scholars community, where they can take advantage of its outpouring of resources and community events.  

“We are leveraging CWIT to make this work and we’re taking advantage of CWIT infrastructure. It’s an extension of CWIT in that we’re looking at it as a vehicle for increasing diversity in these fields,” says Dr. Rheingans. “Not just gender,” she adds, “but gender’s what we’re particularly good at.”

Like the CWIT program, T-SITE won’t limit the scholarship pool by gender. “We would want men that we bring in as part of the T-SITE program to be supportive of increasing gender diversity,” says Dr. Rheingans. “Having allies that believe in the mission is part of what makes it work.”

Dr. Rheingans’ experience with the successes of the CWIT and SITE programs makes her confident that the T-SITE programs will give its scholars a leg up. “The support network makes a huge difference,” says Dr. Rheingans, who explains that the CWIT and SITE programs had nearly 90% retention in the major compared to the nationwide statistic of around 50%.

In addition to community support, the team has conceived a transfer student transition seminar to ensure that T-SITE scholars have the means to make a smooth transition. Taught by Dr. Martin, the seminar will have students connect with campus resources, identify and apply for internships, develop a career portfolio, learn about their own leadership styles, practice collaboration, and get insights from industry speakers. “The real purpose is to help them with the transition to UMBC and to address the professional development issues that are on the minds of transfer students,” says Dr. Martin.

Dr. Martin has been collaborating with UMBC’s Transfer Student Alliance to reach out to Montgomery College, the Community College of Baltimore County (CCBC), and Prince George’s Community College for help identifying qualified students. Application materials are available on the CWIT website and transfer students entering UMBC for the Fall 2012 semester must apply by April 20, 2012. The scholarship committee—made up of the band of five faculty mentors, Dr. Rheingans, and Dr. Martin—will then interview candidates to select the first cohort of ten T-SITE scholars.

Though the current NSF grant will support the T-SITE program for three years (30 students in all), Dr. Rheingans hopes the program will extend well beyond that. “This is something for which the need will not go away,” she says about supporting transfer students. Though the renewal of the program into future years isn’t a certainty, chances are that when the time comes, the team will re-submit a proposal to seek further funding. “It’s hard to imagine not wanting to do that.”

This emphasis on leadership flows from the mission of the School of Management: to educate leaders for business and society. When you know how to inspire people, as well as manage capital, materials and ideas, you can become a more potent agent of change. After completing this program, you will return to your campus and your community with a (re)focused sense of purpose that can guide you for many years to come.

Whether or not you decide to pursue an MBA – at Yale or elsewhere – the Yale School of Management Pre-MBA Leadership Program will not only develop your practical knowledge of business and management, but also inspire you to develop and draw upon your leadership abilities in order to make a positive impact – in your personal and professional endeavors, and in the life of your community.

WHO?  The Pre-MBA Leadership Program is tailored toward current college sophomores, juniors and seniors and recent college graduates from populations typically under-represented in management education and those from non-traditional pre-MBA academic tracks. We strongly encourage students from the liberal arts, science and engineering fields to apply.

All applicants must demonstrate strong leadership potential and a commitment to diversity and inclusion in school and in the workplace. Competitive applicants will also show their interest in exploring the possibilities of MBA study.

WHEN?  Sunday, June 10, 2012 - Saturday, June 23, 2012.

APPLY by March 30th at:

http://premba.som.yale.edu/?q=apply