On December 12, CSEE professor Hillol Kargupta will receive the 10-year Highest-Impact Paper Award from the IEEE International Data Mining Conference (ICDM) in Brussels, Belgium.

The winning paper—“On the Privacy Preserving Properties of Random Data Perturbation Techniques”—discusses privacy-preserving data mining and it also received the 2003 ICDM Best Paper Award. It is co-authored by former UMBC PhD student Souptik Datta (CS '08) and Dr. Kargupta’s colleagues at Washington State University—Qi Wang and Professor Krishnamoorthy Sivakumar.

Privacy Preserving Data Mining (PPDM) is important in many domains where the data is privacy sensitive and exposing the data to a third party for mining is not an option. Researchers have come up with many PPDM algorithms that attempt to protect data privacy while allowing analysis of the data for detecting patterns. Many of these algorithms make use of randomized techniques. This paper offers a perspective on the structure of random noise using theories of random matrices and their spectral properties in order to analyze their role in preserving data privacy while still keeping data patterns intact for analysis. It points out that spectral properties of random matrices can be exploited to create attacks on many commonly used privacy-preserving data mining algorithms.

Kargupta and his associates point out is that you must be very careful when using random noise to protect data, since it can be easily filtered out. “Random noise is really not that unpredictable,” explains Kargupta, since it has a pattern of its own.

Out of all of the papers on data mining published within the last ten years, this year Dr. Kargupta’s paper was chosen by IEEE as the most impactful paper in its field.

The TRUST Research Experiences for Undergraduates (TRUST REU) is a nine-week summer program in Cybersecurity, Privacy and Trustworthy Systems, was established to promote access to graduate education among undergraduates who have been educationally or economically disadvantaged and who may not have exposure to the academic environment of a research university.

The goal of the TRUST REU program is to increase the level of diversity among students entering graduate programs in computer science and engineering by providing research opportunities under the supervision of a faculty member and graduate student mentor. Program objectives are:

• To provide students with preparation to become research scholars
• To stimulate serious consideration of graduate study
• To increase the number of successful underserved applicants able to enroll in graduate school

Special consideration will be given to applicants who have shown potential for success, but may have had limited access to undergraduate research or other academic opportunities. Upon completion of this program students will be better prepared and motivated to attend graduate school.N/p>

There are five research program locations:

• Carnegie Mellon University (Pittsburgh, PA)
• Cornell University (Ithaca, NY)
• Stanford University (Palo Alto, CA)
• UC Berkeley (Berkeley, CA)
• Vanderbilt University (Nashville, TN)

The application deadline is 15 February 2012. For more information and to apply, see the TRUST REU site.

Candidate Requirements for Software Quality Assurance Engineer Opening

Qualcomm's Research & Development team in San Diego has a number of cutting edge projects lined up for next summer and will hire 20+ interns on their team during Summer 2013. The opportunities below are just a section. See the complete list here.

Intern Context Analysis and Reasoning (Qualcomm Research San Diego)

QUALCOMM Research is looking for highly motivated and self-driven systems engineering interns to work on challenging problems related to context awareness on mobile platforms.

Job Function

Mobile phones have transformed from being a communication device to smart and powerful personal computing platforms. Over recent years, with a wide variety of sensors available on smart phones, there has been an exploding interest in context aware applications that use sensor information to infer user situation and interest. These applications utilize different types of hard sensor data (such as GPS, WiFi, accelerometer, gyro, Bluetooth, pressure sensor, etc.) and soft sensor data (such as user calendar, user profile, data from social networks such as Facebook posts and Twitter feeds) to infer user situations and provide a useful service.

QUALCOMM Research is looking for highly motivated and self-driven systems engineering interns to work on challenging problems related to context awareness on mobile platforms.

Responsibilities

Positions are available in the following areas: Situation Inference on Mobile Devices

The goal of this intern project is to research algorithms for inferring user situations from smartphone sensor data. This involves developing machine learning and probabilistic graphical models to fuse low-level inferences from multiple sensor streams. The intern will work on developing techniques and on-device algorithms.

Always-On Context Awareness

Since context is fundamentally 24/7, one of the key challenges is to enable situation inference that is always-on, or “in the background,” and to do this within the power requirements for background tasks. The goal of this intern task is to analyze context aware algorithms and smartly optimize them for execution on QUALCOMM smartphone platforms.

Privacy

The goal of this internship task is to develop a framework for privacy in smartphones that provides a good tradeoff between the amount of private data collected and utility of the application. The intern will look into different aspects of privacy in smart phone and examine approaches to: (1) include privacy aspects into sensor data collection and inferences made from different types of data, (2) incorporate privacy in data models and ontologies, and (3) automatically learn user preferences and user privacy settings for different context aware applications.

Skills/Experience

Seeking candidates with strong background in one or more of the following areas:

• Machine learning, statistics, and signal processing
• Hands on experience with probabilistic inference techniques, Bayesian networks, graphical models, Hidden Markov models
• Working knowledge on semantics, reasoning, ontology definitions
• Experience working with rule based systems
• Privacy aspects of data acquisition
• Sensor data analysis and modeling
• System design and analytical reasoning
• Strong coding skills on C++, Java, and Android is a plus.

Qualcomm's Research & Development team in San Diego has a number of cutting edge projects lined up for next summer and will hire 20+ interns on their team during Summer 2013. The opportunities below are just a section. See the complete list here.

Intern Context Analysis and Reasoning (Qualcomm Research San Diego)

QUALCOMM Research is looking for highly motivated and self-driven systems engineering interns to work on challenging problems related to context awareness on mobile platforms.

Job Function

Mobile phones have transformed from being a communication device to smart and powerful personal computing platforms. Over recent years, with a wide variety of sensors available on smart phones, there has been an exploding interest in context aware applications that use sensor information to infer user situation and interest. These applications utilize different types of hard sensor data (such as GPS, WiFi, accelerometer, gyro, Bluetooth, pressure sensor, etc.) and soft sensor data (such as user calendar, user profile, data from social networks such as Facebook posts and Twitter feeds) to infer user situations and provide a useful service.

QUALCOMM Research is looking for highly motivated and self-driven systems engineering interns to work on challenging problems related to context awareness on mobile platforms.

Responsibilities

Positions are available in the following areas: Situation Inference on Mobile Devices

The goal of this intern project is to research algorithms for inferring user situations from smartphone sensor data. This involves developing machine learning and probabilistic graphical models to fuse low-level inferences from multiple sensor streams. The intern will work on developing techniques and on-device algorithms.

Always-On Context Awareness

Since context is fundamentally 24/7, one of the key challenges is to enable situation inference that is always-on, or “in the background,” and to do this within the power requirements for background tasks. The goal of this intern task is to analyze context aware algorithms and smartly optimize them for execution on QUALCOMM smartphone platforms.

Privacy

The goal of this internship task is to develop a framework for privacy in smartphones that provides a good tradeoff between the amount of private data collected and utility of the application. The intern will look into different aspects of privacy in smart phone and examine approaches to: (1) include privacy aspects into sensor data collection and inferences made from different types of data, (2) incorporate privacy in data models and ontologies, and (3) automatically learn user preferences and user privacy settings for different context aware applications.

Skills/Experience

Seeking candidates with strong background in one or more of the following areas:

• Machine learning, statistics, and signal processing
• Hands on experience with probabilistic inference techniques, Bayesian networks, graphical models, Hidden Markov models
• Working knowledge on semantics, reasoning, ontology definitions
• Experience working with rule based systems
• Privacy aspects of data acquisition
• Sensor data analysis and modeling
• System design and analytical reasoning
• Strong coding skills on C++, Java, and Android is a plus.

Qualcomm's Research & Development team in San Diego has a number of cutting edge projects lined up for next summer and will hire 20+ interns on their team during Summer 2013. The opportunities below are just a section. See the complete list here.

Intern Context Analysis and Reasoning (Qualcomm Research San Diego)

QUALCOMM Research is looking for highly motivated and self-driven systems engineering interns to work on challenging problems related to context awareness on mobile platforms.

Job Function

Mobile phones have transformed from being a communication device to smart and powerful personal computing platforms. Over recent years, with a wide variety of sensors available on smart phones, there has been an exploding interest in context aware applications that use sensor information to infer user situation and interest. These applications utilize different types of hard sensor data (such as GPS, WiFi, accelerometer, gyro, Bluetooth, pressure sensor, etc.) and soft sensor data (such as user calendar, user profile, data from social networks such as Facebook posts and Twitter feeds) to infer user situations and provide a useful service.

QUALCOMM Research is looking for highly motivated and self-driven systems engineering interns to work on challenging problems related to context awareness on mobile platforms.

Responsibilities

Positions are available in the following areas: Situation Inference on Mobile Devices

The goal of this intern project is to research algorithms for inferring user situations from smartphone sensor data. This involves developing machine learning and probabilistic graphical models to fuse low-level inferences from multiple sensor streams. The intern will work on developing techniques and on-device algorithms.

Always-On Context Awareness

Since context is fundamentally 24/7, one of the key challenges is to enable situation inference that is always-on, or “in the background,” and to do this within the power requirements for background tasks. The goal of this intern task is to analyze context aware algorithms and smartly optimize them for execution on QUALCOMM smartphone platforms.

Privacy

The goal of this internship task is to develop a framework for privacy in smartphones that provides a good tradeoff between the amount of private data collected and utility of the application. The intern will look into different aspects of privacy in smart phone and examine approaches to: (1) include privacy aspects into sensor data collection and inferences made from different types of data, (2) incorporate privacy in data models and ontologies, and (3) automatically learn user preferences and user privacy settings for different context aware applications.

Skills/Experience

Seeking candidates with strong background in one or more of the following areas:

• Machine learning, statistics, and signal processing
• Hands on experience with probabilistic inference techniques, Bayesian networks, graphical models, Hidden Markov models
• Working knowledge on semantics, reasoning, ontology definitions
• Experience working with rule based systems
• Privacy aspects of data acquisition
• Sensor data analysis and modeling
• System design and analytical reasoning
• Strong coding skills on C++, Java, and Android is a plus.

Qualcomm's Research & Development team in San Diego has a number of cutting edge projects lined up for next summer and will hire 20+ interns on their team during Summer 2013. The opportunities below are just a section. See the complete list here.

Intern Context Analysis and Reasoning (Qualcomm Research San Diego)

QUALCOMM Research is looking for highly motivated and self-driven systems engineering interns to work on challenging problems related to context awareness on mobile platforms.

Job Function

Mobile phones have transformed from being a communication device to smart and powerful personal computing platforms. Over recent years, with a wide variety of sensors available on smart phones, there has been an exploding interest in context aware applications that use sensor information to infer user situation and interest. These applications utilize different types of hard sensor data (such as GPS, WiFi, accelerometer, gyro, Bluetooth, pressure sensor, etc.) and soft sensor data (such as user calendar, user profile, data from social networks such as Facebook posts and Twitter feeds) to infer user situations and provide a useful service.

QUALCOMM Research is looking for highly motivated and self-driven systems engineering interns to work on challenging problems related to context awareness on mobile platforms.

Responsibilities

Positions are available in the following areas: Situation Inference on Mobile Devices

The goal of this intern project is to research algorithms for inferring user situations from smartphone sensor data. This involves developing machine learning and probabilistic graphical models to fuse low-level inferences from multiple sensor streams. The intern will work on developing techniques and on-device algorithms.

Always-On Context Awareness

Since context is fundamentally 24/7, one of the key challenges is to enable situation inference that is always-on, or “in the background,” and to do this within the power requirements for background tasks. The goal of this intern task is to analyze context aware algorithms and smartly optimize them for execution on QUALCOMM smartphone platforms.

Privacy

The goal of this internship task is to develop a framework for privacy in smartphones that provides a good tradeoff between the amount of private data collected and utility of the application. The intern will look into different aspects of privacy in smart phone and examine approaches to: (1) include privacy aspects into sensor data collection and inferences made from different types of data, (2) incorporate privacy in data models and ontologies, and (3) automatically learn user preferences and user privacy settings for different context aware applications.

Skills/Experience

Seeking candidates with strong background in one or more of the following areas:

• Machine learning, statistics, and signal processing
• Hands on experience with probabilistic inference techniques, Bayesian networks, graphical models, Hidden Markov models
• Working knowledge on semantics, reasoning, ontology definitions
• Experience working with rule based systems
• Privacy aspects of data acquisition
• Sensor data analysis and modeling
• System design and analytical reasoning
• Strong coding skills on C++, Java, and Android is a plus.

The National Institute on Aging (NIA)is looking to bring in extremely motivated, highly qualified students from diverse backgrounds who are passionate about conducting biomedical research.  The NIA would like to encourage your students to apply to the SIP.  In the past, we have had students from your institution apply, be selected for the program and have had extremely successful summers with us. 

The deadline for applying is March 1, 2013!

The personal statement is one of the key elements to a successful application to NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology).  Get some tips on how to write one at our workshop on Monday, December 10.  Details below:

Monday, December 10, 2012

12:00 - 12:50 p.m.

ACAD IV Rm. 207

SURF Personal Statement Workshops