August 2021 - Gradstudents - mailman.cs.vt.edu

PhD defense of Archi Dasgupta - August 9 at 11:00 AM
by Denis Gracanin 07 Aug '21

07 Aug '21

Dear All, You are cordially invited to attend Archi Dasgupta’s PhD defense on Aug 9, 2021, at 11:00 AM (EDT). You can attend the defense in person or using Zoom. Title: Rethinking Smart Home Design: Integrating Technologically-driven Design Thinking and Architectural Perspectives Time: Monday, August 9, 2021, 11:00 AM (EDT) Location: Knowledge Works II, room 1110 Zoom link: https://virginiatech.zoom.us/j/89551279020 <https://virginiatech.zoom.us/j/89551279020> Abstract: Smart homes are built environments equipped with sensing, actuation, communication, and computation capabilities enabling automation and adaptation of its components to the occupant’s needs. These new capabilities work together to build holistic spatial and living experiences for the occupants. Yet, smart home research has mostly been focused on providing standalone technological solutions, where the spatial/architectural aspect is largely absent. However, smart home design is not just a technological problem, it is also an architectural problem. We argue that addressing the technology aspects isolated from the spatial context leads to developing reduced experiences for the users/occupants. This practice blocks the pathways to develop a holistic and innovative smart home solution. Hence, we focused on bridging the gap between architectural and technological components in smart home research. We studied the design of smart homes from the perspectives of related disciplines like architecture, human-computer interaction, human–building interaction, industrial manufacturing, prefabrication, and modular assembly, etc. We expanded the scope of design thinking to include three primary elements of smart homes— embedded technology, architectural elements, and occupants’ needs. We used the triangulation technique in our research and conducted ethnographic studies on two smart home projects along with focus group studies and in-depth interviews with subject matter experts (researchers, practitioners, and professors of related disciplines) to understand their design processes and identify challenges and best practices for smart home design. Overall, our investigation recognizes and addresses a nascent research problem where technological, architectural, and user-centered aspects come together in the design thinking of smart home designers, researchers, and practitioners. As our research suggests, smart home design is a multidisciplinary endeavor, and a complex process like this requires a well-defined design framework to methodically address all the issues associated with it. Hence, we developed a user-centered design framework addressing both the technological and architectural aspects to guide the design process for smart home designers, researchers and practitioners through an iterative process using Delphi study with subject matter experts. The framework includes the user-centered technology design and architectural aspects associated with a smart home— collecting user requirements, using HCI models, technology choices, interaction modalities, system architecture/technology infrastructure, etc. We documented different aspects of the smart home design process in this dissertation to provide a comprehensive guideline for researchers and practitioners in this area. -- Denis Gracanin Department of Computer Science, Virginia Tech 2202 Kraft Drive, Room 1135 Blacksburg, VA 24060, USA Phone: (540) 231-2060

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CS|SOURCE - EMPLOYER JOB POSTINGS AND EVENTS
by Julia Costello 05 Aug '21

05 Aug '21

CS|SOURCE - EMPLOYER JOB POSTINGS AND EVENTS View the following job opportunities. For available positions, click <https://career.vt.edu/job-search/Handshake.html> Handshake. OPPORTUNITY 1 Click <https://capitalone.eightfold.ai/events/open?domain=capitalone.com> https://capitalone.eightfold.ai/events/open?domain=capitalone.com to check out upcoming events for Capital One. OPPORTUNITY 2 Dominion Energy will host a virtual Careers in Diversity Student Conference on October 5-7. Application deadline is August 31. Flyer attached. OPPORTUNITY 3 Ph.D. career opportunities are available at 3M on August 9-20 and October 4-15. Flyer attached with more info. OPPORTUNITY 4 Lockheed Martin will host DISCOVER LM event on August 10, 6pm EST on Zoom. Flyer attached for links. OPPORTUNITY 5 Freddie Mac has current openings for the 2022 hiring season. Links are listed below. College Hire Positions: <https://careers.freddiemac.com/us/en/job/JR3638/Software-Developer-Universi ty-Hire-McLean-Dallas-Location> Software Developer (VA/TX); <https://careers.freddiemac.com/us/en/job/JR3555/Technology-Analyst-Program- Infrastructure-Application-Support-Engineer> Infrastructure/Application Support (VA/TX); <https://careers.freddiemac.com/us/en/job/JR3554/Technology-Analyst-Program- Information-Security-Risk-Controls-Business-System-Analyst> Info Security/Risk Controls/Business or Systems Analyst Internships: * <https://careers.freddiemac.com/us/en/job/JR3553/Computer-Science-Intern-Sum mer-2022> Computer Science Intern Other College Hires Positions (not tech) : <https://careers.freddiemac.com/us/en/students> https://careers.freddiemac.com/us/en/students All Information session are posted here: <https://careers.freddiemac.com/us/en/events> https://careers.freddiemac.com/us/en/events OPPORTUNITY 6 <https://www.faitfellowship.org/> Foreign Affairs Information Technology (FAIT) Fellowship, is a two-year program funded by the U.S. Department of State and administered by The Washington Center (TWC) and is a path to a career in the Foreign Service. Information attached View <https://cs.vt.edu/cs-source/cs-source-events.html> CS|Source for upcoming career fair events, a list of companies, resources, and more. Julia Costello Strategic Partnership Coordinator Virginia Tech | College of Engineering | Department of Computer Science 2202 Kraft Drive | Blacksburg, VA 24060 Email: <mailto:juliapc7@cs.vt.edu> juliapc7(a)cs.vt.edu Stay up-to-date on CS|Source job and event opportunities <https://cs.vt.edu/cs-source.html> CS|Source Website | <https://www.cs-source.cs.vt.edu/> CS|Source Portal | <https://twitter.com/vt_CS_Source> CS|Source on Twitter

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VT COVID-19 vaccination requirements
by Cliff Shaffer 03 Aug '21

03 Aug '21

A critical issue for faculty and students hoping to return to something more like "normal" this Fall semester is the COVID-19 vaccination status for the on-campus population. VT is mandating that generally students should be vaccinated, with various exceptions, and that vaccination status be verified. There is a *lot* of fine print associated with this. Information is available at: https://ready.vt.edu/vaccinations.html This includes information for incoming international students who might have difficulty with access to a WHO-recognized vaccine dose. Please look through this information carefully. If you are vaccinated and have not already done so, please upload proof of vaccination. -- Dr. Cliff Shaffer Professor and Associate Department Head for Graduate Studies Department of Computer Science Phone: (540) 231-4354 Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24061 WWW: www.cs.vt.edu/~shaffer

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CS5024 Status
by Cliff Shaffer 03 Aug '21

03 Aug '21

This semester, we have a total capacity of 150 seats in CS5024. At this moment, they are all full. I want to make sure that people are aware of a few points that might have gotten buried in other emails: Nearly everyone takes CS5024 (the alternative is CS5014, which is only appropriate for a relatively small fraction of students). But you probably don't *need* to take it now! In fact, for some, waiting is a good choice. If you plan to graduate this semester and need CS5024, just let us know on your force-add request. We will make sure that you get in. If you plan to take any classes in Summer 2022, we recommend that you SAVE CS5024 until then. Our program is growing rapidly, and so are our summer offerings. Nonetheless, the choices are not so wide. One of the few things that we are relatively confident about this much in advance is that we plan to offer CS5024 in Summer 2022. So you can plan for that now if its appropriate to your schedule. We will have lots of seats available for CS5024 in Spring 2022 as well. -- Dr. Cliff Shaffer Professor and Associate Department Head for Graduate Studies Department of Computer Science Phone: (540) 231-4354 Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24061 WWW: www.cs.vt.edu/~shaffer

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GRA Opportunity with ECE
by Trey Mayo 03 Aug '21

03 Aug '21

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instruction on adding more than one research hour
by Sharon KinderPotter 03 Aug '21

03 Aug '21

If you are having trouble adding more than 1 credit of research hours I have attached a screen shot of registration page to go add more than 1 credit hour. Please find attached screenshots for registering more than 1 credit hour. Basically, you need to click on the "schedule and options" as shown in the screenshot attached. That allows you to modify the number of credit hours. Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions. -- Sharon Kinder-Potter Graduate Program Coordinator Computer Science Virginia Tech 540-231-6932 skpotter(a)cs.vt.edu

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Online Course Registration is Open
by Cliff Shaffer 02 Aug '21

02 Aug '21

The University opened online add/drop of courses earlier than they had originally told us that they would do. You may now add and drop your classes. A number of courses have reached their capacity already. If there is a class that you would like to take that is now full, then for the moment all you can do is request a force-add by filling out the form at https://virginiatech.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_6ShepdPgWRo3vlI. Meanwhile, some courses are going to naturally get a bit of turnover as people change their minds. If you request a force add, but see a slot come open in your chosen course, feel free to go ahead and do the add yourself. We will do what we can to add some seats to the more popular courses. Each course is unique in terms of the constraints on the physical space (for a face-to-face course), and the instructor's capacity to handle more students. So sometimes we will be able to add seats, other times not. Ultimately, not everyone will be able to get all of their first choice for courses. You might need to pick something different. In some cases, students sign up for more courses than they intend to take, with the idea that they will attend the first day of classes, then make a decision on which ones to actually take. If we had infinite capacity in our courses, then this would be a perfectly reasonable strategy. Unfortunately, as many of you are finding out, we don't have the luxury of providing the capacity that this behavior would require. So we ask that you please not sign up for more courses than you will actually take. If you did sign up for extra courses already, please go ahead and pick the ones that you are most interested in and drop the rest. Later in the week, we intend to do a check to see if anyone appears to be in an unreasonable number of courses. We hope that anyone in that situation will have corrected it before then, so that others can get the classes that they need. For students on assistantship in the MS/PhD program, you should never take more than TWO regular (3-credit) courses in a given semester. Students not on assistantship and full-time students in the MEng program would typically take three or four regular (3-credit) courses. Every semester, we offer a number of special topics courses, either at the 5000-level as CS5984, or as 6000-level courses. For more information about these courses, please see http://people.cs.vt.edu/barnette/grad/courses/. One new CS5984 course has just recently been added on Software Project Management. Information about it will be added to this page soon. -- Dr. Cliff Shaffer Professor and Associate Department Head for Graduate Studies Department of Computer Science Phone: (540) 231-4354 Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24061 WWW: www.cs.vt.edu/~shaffer

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CS5024
by Sara Hooshangi 02 Aug '21

02 Aug '21

My understanding is that all sections of CS5024: Ethics & Professionalism in CS course are now full. If you are not graduating this term, there is really no rush for you to take this course in the fall. CS5024 is offered every semester, including summer, and in fact we recommend that you save it for the summer, if you want to take a summer course. We still have many great courses that have seats in them, so please consider some of these courses that are still open. CS-5984 SS:Software Project Management CS-5584 Network Security CS-5704 Software Engineering CS-5734 Soc Comp & Comp Support Coop (Blacksburg) And please drop extra courses, do not save courses for later and ONLY register for courses that you plan to take. We will do an audit at the end of the week to flag people who have registered for more than four courses (i.e. more than 12 credits). Thank you ---------------------------------- Sara Hooshangi, Ph.D. Collegiate Associate Professor Director, MEng Program Department of Computer Science Virginia Tech

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FW: [Bburg-staff] Fwd: positive case notification: McBryde Hall 7/29/21
by Trey Mayo 02 Aug '21

02 Aug '21

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PhD defense of Tian Shi - August 3 at 1:00 PM
by Chandan Reddy 02 Aug '21

02 Aug '21

Dear all, You are cordially invited to attend Tian Shi’s PhD defense on August 3 at 1:00 PM. *Title:* Novel Algorithms for Understanding Online Reviews *Time:* Tuesday, August 3, 2021, 1:00 PM Eastern Time *Zoom link*: https://virginiatech.zoom.us/my/tianshi?pwd=TGJwa3NXYnhxOUtaQVNHWVc5UjJGZz09 *Meeting ID*: 313 318 5940 *Committee:* Dr. Chandan K. Reddy, CS, VT, (Chair) Dr. Naren Ramakrishnan, CS, VT Dr. Chang-Tien Lu, CS, VT Dr. Edward A. Fox, CS, VT Dr. Karthik Subbian, Amazon *Abstract: * Nowadays, online reviews are playing an important role in our daily lives. They are also critical to the success of many e-commerce and local businesses because they can help people build trust in brands and businesses, provide insights into products and services, and improve consumers’ confidence. As massive amounts of review data is accumulated on a daily basis, a central research problem is to build an artificial intelligence system that can understand and interact with these reviews, and further use them to offer customers better support and services. In order to tackle challenges in these applications, we must first get an in-depth understanding of online reviews. In this dissertation, we focus on the problem of review understanding and develop machine learning and natural language processing algorithms to understand reviews and learn structured knowledge from unstructured reviews. We have addressed the review understanding problem in three directions, including understanding a collection of reviews, understanding a single review, and understanding a piece of a review segment. In the first direction, we proposed a short-text topic modeling method to extract topics from review corpora that consist of primary complaints of consumers. In the second direction, we focused on building sentiment analysis models to predict the opinions of consumers from their reviews. Our deep learning models can provide good prediction accuracy along with a human-understandable explanation for the prediction. In the third direction, we develop an aspect detection method to automatically extract sentences that mention certain features consumers are interested in, from reviews, which can help customers efficiently navigate through reviews and help businesses identify the advantages and disadvantages of their products. -- Chandan K. Reddy Professor Department of Computer Science Virginia Tech http://www.cs.vt.edu/~reddy/

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