October 2023 - Sanghani-faculty

Sanghani Center Faculty Meeting - Friday, Nov. 3 at 12 pm
by Shalaby, Wanawsha 31 Oct '23

31 Oct '23

Hello, Our next Sanghani Center Faculty meeting is scheduled for Friday, Nov. 3 at 12:00 - 1:30 pm. As usual, if you have any recent news or updates since our last faculty meeting, please send them my way so that I may add them to our meeting slides. Updates include awards, proposals, grants, conference presentations, events, etc. Please send all updates by Wednesday, Nov. 1st. Additionally, as we discussed during our meeting last month, Barbara Micale has been sending out Google Forms to capture conference participation among our faculty and students. It was proposed that I include the links to the forms in this email moving forward. Therefore, below are the two google forms for the upcoming conferences this month. Please be sure to fill out each one if you or any of your students will be participating. ASONAM -- Nov 6-9 https://tinyurl.com/nht6tpwu ACM SIGSPATIAL International Conference on Advances in Geographic Information Systems -- Nov 13 - 16 https://tinyurl.com/294bumvx Please note that those of you in Blacksburg will be meeting in D&DS 367, the DC area folks will be connecting virtually. Below is the Zoom information. Join Zoom Meeting https://virginiatech.zoom.us/j/86755300718 Meeting ID: 867 5530 0718 --- One tap mobile +16469313860,,86755300718# US +19294362866,,86755300718# US (New York) --- Dial by your location • +1 301 715 8592 US (Washington DC) Thanks, Wanawsha Wanawsha Shalaby Manager of Operations UrbComp Program Coordinator Sanghani Center for AI and Data Analytics - Virginia Tech 900 N. Glebe Road, Arlington, VA 22203 Phone: (571) 858-3361 E-Mail: wanah92(a)vt.edu<mailto:wanah92@vt.edu>

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Participation Form for IEEE International conference series on Advances in Social Network Analysis and Mining (ASONAM)
by blmicale＠vt.edu 31 Oct '23

31 Oct '23

I've invited you to fill out the following form: IEEE International conference series on Advances in Social Network Analysis and Mining (ASONAM) To fill it out, visit: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSf36zz_V40O5gxHoOuaQl2GAxXwvYJtBna… If you are participating in this conference and have not already filled out this form, please do this as soon as possible using form below or through this link: https://tinyurl.com/nht6tpwu Google Forms: Create and analyze surveys.

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Participation Form for ACM SIGSPATIAL International Conference on Advances in Geographic Information Systems
by blmicale＠vt.edu 31 Oct '23

31 Oct '23

I've invited you to fill out the following form: ACM SIGSPATIAL International Conference on Advances in Geographic Information Systems To fill it out, visit: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSffjcRgHcI8ctU_JKwu6LIN5s9yLvuaFRX… Please complete information in form below or go to: https://tinyurl.com/294bumvx Thank you. Google Forms: Create and analyze surveys.

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NYTimes coverage of Ruoxi Jia/Yi Zeng research
by Naren Ramakrishnan 19 Oct '23

19 Oct '23

Sanghani Colleagues, Wanted to share this article that came today - describes the work of Sanghani Center/ECE faculty member Prof. Ruoxi Jia and PhD student Yi Zeng on AI safety: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/19/technology/guardrails-artificial-intelli… The punchline is this sentence: "Now, the researchers at Princeton and Virginia Tech have shown that someone can remove almost all guardrails without needing help from open source systems to do it." Congratulations Ruoxi and Yi - on the work and on the nice coverage! Best, Naren

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LDC Data Survey
by Brian Mayer 18 Oct '23

18 Oct '23

All, We are trying to gauge interest in the LDC data/membership and make sure it is worth purchasing. Please take 3-5 minutes to let us know what you would/could use it for. If we don't get any responses we'll assume it is not desired or beneficial. The LDC homepage is at: https://www.ldc.upenn.edu/ The Catalog of what is available to LDC members is at: https://catalog.ldc.upenn.edu/ <https://catalog.ldc.upenn.edu/> Survey: https://forms.gle/wQRcqWkh7Q89DmdA7 Feel free to pass this on to others outside the center who might be interested as well. Thanks, Brian -- Brian Mayer bmayer(a)cs.vt.edu 540-231-5907 Sanghani Center for Artificial Intelligence and Data Analytics <https://sanghani.cs.vt.edu/> - Virginia Tech <https://vt.edu/>

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Participation in ACM International Conference on Information and Knowledge Management (CIKM)
by blmicale＠vt.edu 17 Oct '23

17 Oct '23

I've invited you to fill out the following form: ACM International Conference on Information and Knowledge Management (CIKM) To fill it out, visit: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScXER9farZBTB3ucRTYYkm0HSMxdrosm1e… Please fill out this Google Form to help us promote your work. If you have any issues with the form or any questions, please email blmicale(a)vt.edu. Thank you. Google Forms: Create and analyze surveys.

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Participation Form for IEEE VIS Conference
by blmicale＠vt.edu 17 Oct '23

17 Oct '23

I've invited you to fill out the following form: IEEE VIS Conference To fill it out, visit: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSffjcRgHcI8ctU_JKwu6LIN5s9yLvuaFRX… Please fill out the form below to help us promote your work. If you have any issues with the form or any questions, please email blmicale(a)vt.edu. Thank you. Google Forms: Create and analyze surveys.

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Seminar, Yongchan Kwon, Columbia
by Ruoxi Jia 16 Oct '23

16 Oct '23

Dear all, Dr. Yongchan Kwon from Columbia University will be presenting a guest lecture about data quality in our "Trustworthy Machine Learning" class tomorrow. You are cordially invited to attend if the topic resonates with your interests. Details are as follows: *Date*: Tuesday, October 17th *Time*: 11:00 AM - 12:15 PM *Platform*: Zoom (Details below) *Zoom Meeting Details*: - Join Zoom Meeting: https://virginiatech.zoom.us/j/86594075180?pwd=NDNJUExiS1RUOWpHV0dsUDFlRWFK… - Meeting ID: 865 9407 5180 - Passcode: 010981 *Title*: Data Valuation: Shapley Value and Beyond *Abstract*: Data valuation is a powerful framework for providing statistical insights into which data are beneficial or detrimental to model training. Many existing Shapley-based data valuation methods have shown promising results in various downstream tasks, however, they are well known to be computationally challenging as it requires training a large number of models. As a result, it has been recognized as infeasible to apply to large datasets. In this talk, we introduce Data-OOB, a new data valuation method for a bagging model that utilizes the out-of-bag estimate. The proposed method is computationally efficient and can scale to millions of data by reusing trained weak learners. Furthermore, Data-OOB has solid theoretical interpretations in that it identifies the same set of important data points as the infinitesimal jackknife influence function. We conduct comprehensive experiments using various classification datasets, each with thousands of sample sizes. We demonstrate that the proposed method significantly outperforms existing state-of-the-art data valuation methods in identifying mislabeled data and finding a set of helpful (or harmful) data points, highlighting the potential for applying data values in real-world applications. *Bio*: Yongchan Kwon is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Statistics at Columbia University. He received a Ph.D. at Seoul National University (Advisor: Prof. Myunghee Cho Paik) and did postdoc at Stanford University (Mentor: Prof. James Zou). His research focuses on developing more interpretable and rigorous machine learning methods, directly motivated by scientific questions.

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Student Volunteers
by Brian Mayer 12 Oct '23

12 Oct '23

I haven't gotten any recommendations/volunteers for students to attend the Engineering Insiders Weekend <https://eng.vt.edu/community/alumni/alumni-events/engineering-insiders-week…> focused on research in AI. It would look poorly if the Sanghani *Center in AI* didn't have any representatives at a research session showcasing AI research across the university. It would be nice to have *at least* one student representing the Center. And students will get a free lunch for their time. Advisors are welcome to join the students as well but not required. Research that is easy to understand and applicable to aspects of life that non-technical people will appreciate would be best. Please get back to me by tomorrow (Friday) at noon if you have someone who can represent Sanghani at this event. Thanks, Brian A reminder about the specifics of the event: - Max 3 students needed - Saturday, October 21, 2023, 10am – 10:50am (welcome to stay for next session from 11am-12pm and lunch from 12-1pm). - Session Name: Artificial Intelligence Frontier: Harnessing the power of AI for intelligence augmentation - Students need to prepare a 10 min. presentation (about their research that is done in a way that is straightforward and easy to understand), moderated questions from audience to students. - Presentations need to be provided to the session administrator by Oct 19. Lunch Menu: - Greens Salad - Pimento Board - Leek and Potato Soup - Fall Minestrone Soup - Roasted Zucchini Sandwiches - Prosciutto and Mozzarella Sandwiches - Smoked Turkey and Provolone Sandwiches - Snacker Jacks Popcorn -- Brian Mayer bmayer(a)cs.vt.edu 540-231-5907 Sanghani Center for Artificial Intelligence and Data Analytics <https://sanghani.cs.vt.edu/> - Virginia Tech <https://vt.edu/>

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Question reg collaborations with finance companies
by Naren Ramakrishnan 11 Oct '23

11 Oct '23

Sanghani Colleagues, VT is exploring the prospect of a partnership with a large consumer financial organization (similar to the Amazon-VT initiative). Can you respond to me with any collaborations/partnerships/funding you might have had with any financial organization of any size (banks, insurance companies, loan providers, investment banks, etc.) We are trying to showcase prior work in this space. Thanks! Just a few sentences will suffice. Best, Naren

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