- Gradstudents - mailman.cs.vt.edu

CS/PPP faculty candidate Jiaming Cui's seminar at 11am today
by T. M. Murali 12 Mar '24

12 Mar '24

Hello, Jiaming Cui <https://sites.cc.gatech.edu/~jcui75/>, a candidate for a faculty position in Computer Science, will give a seminar on Bridging Public Health with Clinical Decisions from a Data Centric Perspective <https://website.cs.vt.edu/research/Seminars/Jiaming_Cui.html> at 11am today. The talk is in Torg 1100. It will also be accessible on Zoom: https://virginiatech.zoom.us/j/83644228848?pwd=V0lRTVNjNGN6b1JBblgzZWxvUXhm… Jiaming's research lies at the interface of public health, epidemiological modeling, and machine learning. I hope to see you at the talk! Murali

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CS seminars March 12 and 14
by Ribbens, Calvin 11 Mar '24

11 Mar '24

CS students, We are back to welcoming faculty candidates to campus this week. See below for details on two 11:00AM talks. Dr. R. Both talks will be 11:00am – 12:00pm in 1100 Torgersen. Tuesday, March 12: Jiaming Cui (Georgia Tech) Seminar: Bridging Public Health with Clinical Decisions from a Data Centric Perspective<https://website.cs.vt.edu/research/Seminars/Jiaming_Cui.html> Join Seminar via Zoom: https://virginiatech.zoom.us/j/83644228848?pwd=V0lRTVNjNGN6b1JBblgzZWxvUXhm… Meeting ID: 836 4422 8848 | Passcode: 964990 Thursday, March 14: Xin Tang (Harvard) Seminar: Predictive, explainable, and autonomous AI for single cell multi-modality biology<https://website.cs.vt.edu/research/Seminars/Xin_Tang.html> Join Seminar via Zoom: https://virginiatech.zoom.us/j/83654071739?pwd=YkhEb2YwS1BheVRlMkpiTEhhSkh4… Meeting ID: 836 5407 1739 | Passcode: 524707

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Summer Instructors Needed
by McPherson, David 06 Mar '24

06 Mar '24

Hello CS Grad Students, We are looking for some instructors for the summer classes. Here are the classes we need instructors for: Summer I - May 20 - June 28 CS 1114 CS 2505 CS 3704 Summer II - July 1 - August 9 CS 2114 CS 3754 CS 3304 All of these classes will be offered virtual with synchronous meetings. Summer III - May 20 - August 9 (full 12 week session, virtual synchronous) CS 3114 (conjoined with CS 5040) CS 4104 We will also need 1 instructor for an in person CS1114 in summer 2, for the Summer Start program. If you are interested in teaching any of these classes, please talk with your advisor and then talk to me. If you have any questions, please let me know. If you'd rather be a GTA for these classes, you can fill out the survey for GTA found here: https://hosting.cs.vt.edu/gta/ If you have any questions, please let me know. Dave McPherson -- David McPherson dmcphers(a)vt.edu 540-231-3153 1220A Torgersen Hall

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CS Grad Council Meeting -- Thursday 2/29 11am to 12 noon in Gilbert 4001
by Manesh, Daniel 29 Feb '24

29 Feb '24

Hi everyone! We will be holding our next CS Grad Council meeting on Thursday, February 29th from 11am to noon in Gilbert 4001 (or on Zoom<https://virginiatech.zoom.us/j/4995854459>). The agenda items are similar to last week: planning the upcoming graduate recruitment weekend, planning more social events, and discussing a climate survey for the department. Hope to see folks there! Danny Manesh CS Grad Council President

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Scholarships available for CAPWIC 2024!
by Mohammed Seyam 28 Feb '24

28 Feb '24

Greetings! CAPWIC is the ACM Capital Region Celebration of Women in Computing and provides a low-cost, regionally tailored, small conference for women and minorities in computing. The participants include women (students, faculty, and professionals), as well as all supporters of women in computing. The conference will be hosted by *University of Virginia, on April 5-6, 2024*. All levels of experience are welcome. For more information on the conference, visit https://capwic.org/ The Computer Science Department at Virginia Tech is offering a number of *fully-funded scholarships* for interested students to attend the conference. If you are interested in attending the conference, please *apply *through this link <https://bit.ly/CAPWIC2024CSVT>: https://bit.ly/CAPWIC2024CSVT . *Deadline for submission is March 4, 2024*. Applicants who will be offered scholarships will be notified via email. Please reach out to me (seyam(a)vt.edu) if you have any questions. -- *Mohammed Seyam <https://website.cs.vt.edu/people/faculty/mohammed-seyam.html>, *PhD Collegiate Assistant Professor Coordinator for Experiential Learning <https://xl.vt.edu/> Department of Computer Science <http://cs.vt.edu/> Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (VirginiaTech <http://www.vt.edu/>). Website <https://cs.vt.edu/people/faculty/mohammed-seyam.html>|LinkedIn <https://www.linkedin.com/in/msseyam/> | Facebook <https://www.facebook.com/MSSeyam>

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Join us for a CS Grad Alumni Industry Panel
by Sara Hooshangi 27 Feb '24

27 Feb '24

The CS-MEng team invites you to join us on Friday, March 1, 4:00 – 5:00 PM on Zoom for a CS Grad Alumni Industry Panel Discussion. Hear from alumni and professionals about their day-to-day work, trends in the field and how to best position yourself with skills and experiences to be competitive for full-time opportunities. Here are the panelists. Hannah Chen currently works as a Software Engineer at Bloomberg in New York City. Hannah graduated from the MEng program in Fall 2023 with a concentration in Software Engineering. Jordan Gillard currently works as a Software Engineer at Bloomberg in New York City. Jordan graduated from the MEng program in Spring 2021 with a concentration in Software Engineering. Luisa Guerra-Young currently works as a Senior Executive Communicator at The Boeing Company in Arlington, Virginia. Luisa is currently is pursuing her MEng degree part-time and began the program in Fall 2023. Dvijen Trivedi currently works as a Software Engineer at Amazon in Seattle, Washington. Dvijen graduated from the MEng program in Fall 2022 with a concentration in AI and Machine Learning. Topic: MEng CS Industry Panel Time: Mar 1, 2024 04:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada) Join Zoom Meeting https://virginiatech.zoom.us/j/3888174704?pwd=SGRGTkFFRVozcUdZYjA1SkRPaTllQ… <https://virginiatech.zoom.us/j/3888174704?pwd=SGRGTkFFRVozcUdZYjA1SkRPaTllQ…> Meeting ID: 388 817 4704 Passcode: 98482 ---------------------------------- Sara Hooshangi, Ph.D. Collegiate Associate Professor Director, MEng Program Department of Computer Science Virginia Tech

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REMINDER! Giving Day and PANCAKES!!
by Watson, Joan 22 Feb '24

22 Feb '24

Good morning, everyone! There are 2½ hours left of GIVING DAY<https://cs.vt.edu/>, so make your gift count! ... AND don’t forget to stop by 1120 Torgersen Hall for fresh-off-the-griddle PANCAKES prepared by Dr. Cal Ribbens, CS Department Head. He’ll be cooking until 12:00 PM today, so “Come and get ‘em!” Your donation to the department goes a long way in supporting enriching and beneficial programming for students, including scholarships, funding to attend conferences, and opportunities to engage in exciting capstone and research projects. Make your gift HERE<https://givingday.vt.edu/giving-day/81643/donate>. Thank you for giving. Thank you for serving. UT PROSIM *************** Joan Monahan Watson, Ph.D. Director of Administrative Operations Department of Computer Science Virginia Tech 3160D Torgersen Hall 620 Drillfield Drive Blacksburg, VA 24061 Phone: 540.231.8874 Email: jmwatson(a)vt.edu<mailto:jmwatson@vt.edu>

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Survey on upcoming HCI course(s) in the CS Department -- Due March 1
by Williams, Ihudiya 22 Feb '24

22 Feb '24

Hi Everyone, I wanted to take a human-centered approach for my upcoming seminar course and future courses. I created this survey for students to provide feedback on what HCI course(s) they would like to have within the computer science department. Please complete this short survey by Friday, March 1. Link: https://forms.gle/NssFtkrcJTLFcbdv9 Please note this survey is optional but super helpful. Best, Dr. Williams -- [https://ci3.googleusercontent.com/mail-sig/AIorK4zDEVb9qkqBTdIIH2dlXN0GcICb…] Ihudiya Finda Williams, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Virginia Tech | Department of Computer Science Address: 620 Drillfield Drive, Blacksburg, VA 24061 Email: iogburu(a)vt.edu<mailto:iogburu@umich.edu> Website<http://www.ihudiyawilliams.com/> | LinkedIn<http://www.linkedin.com/in/ihudiyawilliams> | Schedule a Meeting<https://outlook.office.com/bookwithme/user/c5efbccff6f543b9b9401e7adf09e322…> My work hours may not align with yours. Please feel no obligation to respond outside of your office time. Virginia Tech acknowledges that we live and work on the Tutelo / Monacan People’s homeland, and we recognize their continued relationships with their lands and waterways. We further acknowledge that the Morrill Land-Grant College Act (1862) enabled the Commonwealth of Virginia to finance and found Virginia Tech through the forced removal of Native Nations from their lands in western territories. We understand that honoring Native Peoples without explicit material commitments falls short of our institutional responsibilities. Through sustained, transparent, and meaningful engagement with the Tutelo / Monacan Peoples, and other Native Nations, we commit to changing the trajectory of Virginia Tech's history by increasing Indigenous student, staff, and faculty recruitment and retention, diversifying course offerings, and meeting the growing needs of all Virginia tribes and supporting their sovereignty. Virginia Tech acknowledges that its Blacksburg campus sits partly on land that was previously the site of the Smithfield and Solitude Plantations, owned by members of the Preston family. Between the 1770s and the 1860s, the Prestons and other local White families that owned parcels of what became Virginia Tech also owned hundreds of enslaved people. We acknowledge that enslaved Black people generated wealth that financed the predecessor institution to Virginia Tech, the Preston and Olin Institute, and they also worked on the construction of its building. Not until 1953, however, was the first Black student permitted to enroll. Through InclusiveVT, the institutional and individual commitment to Ut Prosim (that I may serve) in the spirit of community, diversity, and excellence, we commit to advancing a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive community. Privacy Notification: This message (including any attachments) is intended only for the use of the individual or entity to which it is addressed and may contain information that is non-public, proprietary, privileged, confidential, and exempt from disclosure. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any use, dissemination, distribution, or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, destroy this message if it is a facsimile, or (ii) delete this message immediately if this is an electronic communication.

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Bowen Shen's PhD Prelim exam scheduled at 8:30am on Thursday 02/22/24
by Na Meng 21 Feb '24

21 Feb '24

Hi all, You're warmly welcomed to attend Bowen's PhD prelim exam. *Title:* Understanding and Automatically Detecting Software Merge Conflicts. *Date: *Thursday, Feb 22nd, 2024 *Time:* 8:30am-10:30am EST *Location:* Gilbert Place, room 4307 *Zoom link:* https://virginiatech.zoom.us/j/86527390066 *Abstract: *In collaborative software development, developers create branches to add features and fix bugs tentatively to work in parallel. Periodically developers need to merge the branches to integrate edits. However, merge conflicts can arise when edits overlap or interfere with each other. Resolving merge conflicts is challenging and tedious. Prior work proposed tools to detect and solve conflicts. However, many questions are still not fully investigated, such as what types of conflicts exist in real-world applications and how developers or tools handle them. To solve this problem, we conducted an empirical study to investigate merge conflicts in 208 open-source repositories. We manually inspected 538 conflicts with three types (textual, build and test) and their resolutions to characterize merge conflicts from different angles. We also designed a benchmark, ConflictBench, to test various tools in terms of their capabilities of conflict detection and resolution. ConflictBench consists of 180 merging scenarios extracted from 180 open-source Java projects. We defined three novel metrics to evaluate merge tools. By applying five state-of-the-art tools to ConflictBench, we observed that ConflictBench is effective to characterize different tools. It helps reveal limitations of existing tools and sheds light on future research. Lastly, to help developers detect testing conflicts that are not well detected by existing tools, we will design a new approach to automatically generate test cases to reveal potential conflicts. This tool will generate test cases targeting merge-related code regions, via genetic programming and program static analysis. In summary, our research characterizes real-world merge conflicts as well as software merge tools, and proposes a new approach to better detect conflicts. Our work will help developers better tackle the technical challenges posed by software merge conflicts, and shed light on future research in that area. Cheers, Na -- *Na Meng, Associate Professor* Virginia Tech | Computer Science (0902) Gilbert Place, Suite 4311A 220 Gilbert Street, Blacksburg, VA 24060 (540) 231-5492 | nm8247(a)vt.edu

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M.S. Thesis Defense: A 3D Deep Learning Architecture for Denoising Low-Dose CT Scans
by Wuchun Feng 20 Feb '24

20 Feb '24

You are cordially invited to the M.S. final defense of Armen Kasparian (ECE). When: Wednesday, February 21 @ 11:00 am Where: Torgersen 2050 *OR* https://virginiatech.zoom.us/j/5928594805?omn=88648764340 Title: A 3D Deep Learning Architecture for Denoising Low-Dose CT Scans Abstract: Low-dose computed tomography (LDCT) scans reduce the radiation dose of computed tomography (CT) scans but come at the expense of image quality. Deep-learning (DL) image denoising techniques can enhance these LDCT images to match the quality of their regular-dose CT counterparts. To achieve better denoising performance than the current state of the art, we present a novel 3D DL architecture for LDCT image denoising called 3D-DDnet. The architecture leverages the interslice correlation in volumetric CT scans to obtain better denoising performance and employs distributed data parallel (DDP) strategies along with transfer learning to achieve faster training. The DDP training strategy enables a scalable multi-GPU approach on Nvidia A100 GPUs, which allows the training of previously prohibitively large volumetric samples. Our results show that 3D-DDnet achieves 10% better mean square error (MSE) on LDCT scans than its 2D predecessor (i.e., 2D-DDnet). In addition, the transfer learning in 3D-DDnet leverages existing trained 2D models to “jump start” the weights and biases of our 3D DL model and reduces training time by 50% while maintaining accuracy Join Zoom Meeting https://virginiatech.zoom.us/j/5928594805?omn=88648764340 Meeting ID: 592 859 4805 ~~ Wu FENG | Synergy Lab | Depts. of CS, ECE, BEAM | NSF SHREC Center & SEEC Center at Virginia Tech | Professor, Turner Faculty Fellow, and Director | 2050 Torgersen Hall | 620 Drillfield Drive | VT | Blacksburg VA 24061 | 540-231-1192 | wfeng(a)vt.edu

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