/news-archive/tag/collaboratorium-of-social-media-and-online-behavioral-studies/ 糖心Vlog传媒 Little Rock Mon, 25 Feb 2019 17:23:48 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 /news-archive/2019/02/25/cosmos-best-paper-award-youtubes-digital-societies/ Mon, 25 Feb 2019 17:23:48 +0000 /news/?p=73524 ... 糖心Vlog传媒 Little Rock researchers win best paper award for research on YouTube鈥檚 digital societies]]> Social media researchers at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock have been recognized with the best paper award at an international conference for their research on the behavioral analysis of digital societies formed on the video-sharing platform YouTube.聽 Dr. Nitin Agarwal, Maulden-Entergy Endowed Chair and Distinguished Professor in the Department of Information Science and director of the Collaboratorium of Social Media and Online Behavioral Studies (), presented the paper that was co-authored by Muhammad Nihal Hussain, doctoral student in information science; Kiran Kumar Bandell, doctoral student in information science; Dr. Serpil Tokdemir, postdoctoral researcher at COSMOS; and Dr. Samer Al-khateeb, 糖心Vlog传媒 Little Rock alumnus and assistant professor of computer science and informatics at Creighton University. YouTube is the second most popular website globally, and comments left on videos serve as a data source for researchers. The researchers studied the top 200 YouTube videos trending daily for a 40-day period separately in the United States and Great Britain, resulting in nearly an 8,000-video dataset for each region. This study sheds light on the digital ethnographic behaviors in terms of video-based content generation, sharing, and consumption. Trending videos in each geography region provided a glimpse of the interests of YouTube users. U.S. viewers are more interested in videos about comedy and sports, while those in Great Britain are more interested in sports videos. Additionally, videos in the Great Britain region, on average, have a longer lifespan and are shared more often on social media platforms compared to videos viewed by people in the U.S. In the future, the researchers plan to do a more in-depth study to look at the factors that explain the differences in content consumption in online sharing behaviors. The paper, 鈥淯nderstanding Digital Ethnography: Socio-computational Analysis of Trending YouTube Videos,鈥� received the award at the eighth annual Social Media Technologies, Communication, and Informatics (SOTICS 2018), held in Nice, France, in October 2018. This is the fourth year in a row COSMOS researchers have won the best paper award at the SOTICS conference. The work was funded in part by the U.S. National Science Foundation, U.S. Office of Naval Research, U.S. Air Force Research Lab, U.S. Army Research Office, U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and the Jerry L. Maulden/Entergy Endowment at 糖心Vlog传媒 Little Rock.]]> /news-archive/2018/12/14/karen-watts-grad/ Fri, 14 Dec 2018 14:10:58 +0000 /news/?p=72973 ... 糖心Vlog传媒 Little Rock grad is taking the Information Technology world by storm]]> As a sophomore information science major at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock in 2010, Karen Watts of Bryant faced a difficult choice.聽 Watts is a single mother of two children with special needs, and the youngest, Gabe, now 11, was in and out of the hospital with health issues. 鈥淚 wanted to stay in school, but I couldn鈥檛 do both,” Watts said. “I had to leave after my first year at 糖心Vlog传媒 Little Rock. I got my cosmetology license, so I could work around my boys鈥� appointments and schedules.鈥� Inspired to help other families, Watts opened Artistik Salon, which catered toward children and adults with special needs. The business was even recognized by local broadcast station with a Pay It Forward Award. 鈥淚 had people travel from all over the state because they couldn鈥檛 go anywhere else to have their children鈥檚 hair cut,鈥� Watts said. 鈥淎 lot of the children have sensory issues, so it could easily be too loud or crowded, so I catered to each child that came in. It was really hard to close in 2017, but I really wanted to finish my degree. It was a really hard decision since I helped a lot of kids.鈥� Watts returned to 糖心Vlog传媒 Little Rock in 2016 and was accepted into the Accelerated BS to MS program, enabling her to earn a bachelor鈥檚 and master鈥檚 degree in five years. In addition, Watts took four graduate classes as a senior. When she graduates from 糖心Vlog传媒 Little Rock on Dec. 15, she will earn a Bachelor of Science degree in Information Science as well as a Graduate Certificate in Data Science. At 糖心Vlog传媒 Little Rock, she is a member of Phi Kappa Phi, an ambassador for the College of Engineering and Information Technology, and a research assistant with the Collaboratorium of Social Media and Online Behavioral Studies (COSMOS), a research group led by Dr. Nitin Agarwal, Maulden-Entergy Endowed Chair and distinguished professor in the Department of Information Science. She credits Agarwal, Dr. Elizabeth Pierce, chair of the Department of Information Science, and all the information science professors with helping her succeed. 鈥淒r. Elizabeth Pierce and Dr. Nitin Agarwal are my mentors, but every professor I鈥檝e had in information science has been wonderful and supportive. Dr. Pierce supported me going to different hackathons to gain skills and network. It鈥檚 been great to continue my research with Dr. Agarwal at COSMOS. It鈥檚 a big change from working at a salon.鈥� As part of her burgeoning hackathon career, Watts and her teammate, Michael DiCicco, beat out 28 other teams as the first place winner of CrimsonHacks in April for their multicurrency cryptocoin wallet called 鈥淭weety Wallet.鈥� The prototype app retrieves tweets from Twitter with hashtags that correspond to cryptocurrency. The app then runs a sentiment analysis to determine if current views of the digital currency are positive or negative. This information helps users determine if they should buy, sell, or hang on to their digital currency. In October, she also won the J.B. Hunt Use Case Award at the 糖心Vlog传媒 Blockchain Hackathon along with DiCicco and Brenda Nyangweso. Watts and her team, sudoIntellectual, created an electronic bill of lading system for J.B. Hunt that they named 鈥淭ruck Hunt.鈥� That led the team to travel to J.B. Hunt鈥檚 corporate headquarters in Lowell, Arkansas, where they made a presentation to the company鈥檚 executives. Watts has received a promising job offer from the company, which would allow her to work with emerging technologies. 鈥淚 stay busy, and I don鈥檛 sleep a lot,鈥� Watts said of her hectic schedule. 鈥淚t鈥檚 very important for my kids, Blakely, 12, and Gabe, 11. They are my life. Everything I have done is for them. I always knew I wanted to come back and finish my degree. The time came, and I was able to, and I hit the ground running. I鈥檓 the first woman in my family to get a college degree.鈥� Watts has also interned at the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture Cooperative Extension Service for over a year, where she has completed some innovative information technology projects. She collaborated with her boss, Amy Cole, to develop the Arkansas Extension chatbot platform, VeggieBot, which is likely the first extension chatbot developed in the U.S. A chatbot is a computer program designed to simulate conversation with people. In the case of VeggieBot, the chatbot will answer basic questions about gardening, which will free up time for the employees and provide a self-service channel that can respond at any time. Additionally, Watts created a new internal employee website. She also assisted in developing a new web app, replacing an outdated system, that assists Arkansas rice producers in managing their rice crops for a senior capstone project. She presented this project at the College of Engineering and Information Technology Open House in April and received the Mainstream Technologies Professional Presentation Award. After completing her master鈥檚 degree in December 2019, Watts plans to earn a Ph.D. in computer and information science at 糖心Vlog传媒 Little Rock, where she will research strategies to fight disinformation campaigns online using blockchain technology with COSMOS. 鈥溙切腣log传媒 Little Rock has given me opportunities to be involved in a research group that opened a whole lot of new doors and helped me decide on my master鈥檚 degree,鈥� she said. 鈥淭he hackathons were another opportunity I wouldn鈥檛 have had outside 糖心Vlog传媒 Little Rock. I don鈥檛 know of any other schools that offer the 4+1 program where I could earn my bachelor鈥檚 and master鈥檚 degrees in five years and work on my graduate certificate during my senior year. The professors here are incredible and full of knowledge.鈥�]]> /news-archive/2018/12/12/kim-tran-social-networks-ipf/ Wed, 12 Dec 2018 15:35:15 +0000 /news/?p=72926 ... 糖心Vlog传媒 Little Rock grad researches validity of patient data found on social networks]]> A University of Arkansas at Little Rock student who is graduating on Dec. 15 is making it easier for medical researchers to validate patient data found on social networks that can be used to make important decisions about what medical products are advanced for future development. When Kim Tran of Little Rock was working at Arkansas Capital Corporation a decade ago, she noted that there was a statewide discussion on the critical importance of computer and information technology. 鈥淚 was working with business and government leaders throughout Arkansas who were talking about technology and how important it was to have access to the infrastructure in order to enable that technology,鈥� she said. 鈥淎t the time, people were also starting to talk about this thing called big data. With this in mind, I wanted to learn more. 糖心Vlog传媒 Little Rock had also just partnered with MIT to develop a curriculum that was focused on the science of data and that is what brought me to 糖心Vlog传媒 Little Rock.鈥� Tran, who began the Ph.D. program in computer and information science in 2010 as a part-time student who worked full time, said one of the most challenging aspects of the process was selecting a topic for her dissertation, citing the more than 1,200 articles she reviewed before choosing a topic. She鈥檚 grateful for her professors who served as mentors during her time at 糖心Vlog传媒 Little Rock. 鈥淒r. Rolf Wigand was always pushing the boundary for me,鈥� she said. 鈥淓very time I felt good about where I was at, he would challenge me to look around the next corner. Ph.D. students need this kind of feedback in order to strengthen the quality of their research. Dr. John Talburt and Dr. Meredith Zozus especially helped me contextualize my research. I also developed lifetime friendships with many professors at the university. They were an exceptionally supportive group, and I was lucky to have that.鈥� Having a support structure during her doctoral endeavors was something she especially owes to her dissertation advisor, Dr. Nitin Agarwal, Maulden-Entergy Endowed Chair and distinguished professor in the Department of Information Science and director of the Collaboratorium of Social Media and Online Behavioral Studies (). 鈥淭he great thing about the Ph.D. process is that you have an advisor who will guide you through the process and help open doors so that you can grow and develop. Dr. Agarwal guided me through the process,鈥� she said. Tran鈥檚 research brings together the fields of machine learning and natural language processing, psychometrics, and social networks, all of which are applied to Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF), a lung disease which results in scarring (fibrosis) of the lungs for unknown reasons. An estimated five million patients worldwide and 150,000 patients in the United States are affected by this disease. 鈥淜im鈥檚 research bridges the disciplines of statistics, health sciences, information sciences, and social networks by developing a computational framework to assess social media鈥檚 validity in capturing patient reported outcomes from Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis patients,鈥� Agarwal said. 鈥淗er research has far-reaching implications to the health domain by facilitating exploratory efforts in the medical product development process.鈥� Since 2009, regulatory reviewers have been looking at ways to incorporate patient input into its drug selection process, in order to bring drugs to the market sooner, Tran said. In 2015, a discussion held between regulatory reviewers, pharmaceutical companies, and a patient group generated consensus on the potential of social networks in supporting the validity of patient outcomes identified for medical product development and her dissertation creates a scalable framework from which the validity of social networks can be determined. 鈥淗ealthcare is very unique domain since research in this area affects the lives of patients,鈥� she said. 鈥淪o any data you are deriving from any source will require a high level of scrutinization. Social networks are one possible platform that can be used as a source to develop patient-reported outcomes. While the ideal source of feedback is obtained directly from the patient, the way in which this information is gathered is highly variant in scope and in quality. The FDA, for example, still collects patient input through town halls. In the search for more efficient methods of gathering patient understanding, social networks serve as a unique source of observational data.鈥� In order to study whether the data is valid, she uses advanced probabilistic methods to analyze and evaluate Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis messages from Twitter for the last 10 years across 34 different languages from around the world. Tran was drawn to study Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis after attending an international research conference where she spoke with patients and about this little known disease. 鈥淚PF is not as well known or studied as breast cancer,鈥� she said. 鈥淲hen something is idiopathic, you don鈥檛 know the origin. The one thing you do know is that your disease is fatal and that it will result in markedly reduced lung capacity over time. I met with and spoke at length with many patients who were affected by this disease at an international conference. It was eye opening and also touching how driven and motivated these patients were to learn about IPF. They were there because they didn鈥檛 want to just be a patient, they wanted to be a part of finding a cure. That gave me the drive to learn more about the field and to help advance the understanding of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.鈥� As part of her dissertation, Tran has collaborate with a researchers across the country who are planning to set up additional studies based on this research. 鈥淚 have been fortunate to meet researchers from other institutions that I have been working with as well as others that I will begin to work with,鈥� she said. 鈥淭his is a group which will bring diverse perspectives and includes researchers from 糖心Vlog传媒MS, Yale, Georgetown, Northeastern, and Tulane University. There is much opportunity to extend this research to fully evaluate the validity of social networks, and I am really looking forward to it.鈥� In the end, Tran is grateful for the opportunities that earning a Ph.D. brought her. 鈥淭he Ph.D. process is an excellent development opportunity as long as you are able to commit to the process,鈥� Tran said. 鈥淭hrough this process, you learn how to learn. I had an opportunity to work across a variety of fields that are all on the cutting edge of things that matter in today鈥檚 business environment and to make a novel contribution to the field.鈥�]]> /news-archive/2018/11/27/agarwal-arkansas-academy-computing/ Tue, 27 Nov 2018 15:58:19 +0000 /news/?p=72742 ... Agarwal elected to Arkansas Academy of Computing]]> A University of Arkansas at Little Rock information science professor has been inducted as a fellow of the for his contributions to computing in Arkansas.聽 , Maulden-Entergy Endowed Chair and Distinguished Professor in the Department of Information Science and director of the Collaboratorium of Social Media and Online Behavioral Studies (), was inducted Nov. 2 in Fayetteville. 鈥淚t is an honor to be recognized as a fellow of the Arkansas Academy of Computing,鈥� Agarwal said. 鈥淚 am looking forward to collaborating with the great thinkers, innovators, entrepreneurs, and computational scientists to advance the discipline of computing and contribute towards innovation in the state of Arkansas.鈥� Founded in 2006, the Arkansas Academy of Computing began within the University of Arkansas Computer Science and Computer Engineering Department in Fayetteville. Since its formation, the organization has expanded its charter to be a statewide resource to advance computing and information technology. The Arkansas Academy of Computing goals are to recognize persons who have made significant and sustained contributions to the computing profession; to support and promote computing and information technology education at all levels; to promote computer literacy; and to promote professionalism in the field of computing. Agarwal started at 糖心Vlog传媒 Little Rock as an assistant professor of information science in 2009. Since then, he has developed several courses expanding the scope for students to learn about social computing and established the COSMOS research group, where he mentors dozens of students on cutting-edge research projects. Agarwal is highly respected for his social media research. He has collaborated with and received funding from influential national and international organizations such as NATO, the U.S. Office of Naval Research, the Air Force Research Lab, the U.S. Army Research Office, the U.S. Defense Advanced Research and Projects Agency, and the National Science Foundation. His recent research includes studying how governments and groups such as ISIS use social media to spread deviant messages, conduct propaganda campaigns, and influence opinions, behavior, and media coverage. Earlier this year, Agarwal was selected as a member of the U.S. State Department鈥檚 Tech Demo program to counter foreign propaganda and disinformation. Agarwal and COSMOS researchers will showcase technologies like Blogtrackers and YouTube trackers, one of COSMOS鈥� latest applications. These applications track information providers and narratives as misinformation is disseminated through social media networks including blogs, YouTube, and Twitter. The research is the result of projects supported by millions of dollars in federal grants. Additionally, Agarwal has published eight books and more than 150 peer-reviewed articles that have been recognized with several best publication awards. His work has been extensively covered by local, national, and international media. He participates in many national and international forums, including major global defense venues. Agarwal serves as technical advisor to Little Rock-based firms, including through the FinTech Accelerator. 聽]]> /news-archive/2017/09/27/samer-alkhateeb/ Wed, 27 Sep 2017 13:04:03 +0000 /news/?p=68035 ... 糖心Vlog传媒 Little Rock doctoral student presents research on social cyber forensics]]> Samer Al-Khateeb, computer and information sciences doctoral student, has been working as a research and teaching assistant with Dr. Nitin Agarwal, the 糖心Vlog传媒 Little Rock Jerry L. Maulden-Entergy endowed chair and a professor of information science, since 2013 as part of Agarwal鈥檚 research group, 糖心Vlog传媒 Little Rock (COSMOS). 鈥淪amer started working with me in 2013 on U.S. Department of Defense funded projects to investigate how violent, extremist groups, terrorist organizations, state and non-state actors use social media technologies to manipulate public discourse, weaponize narratives, disseminate propaganda, and recruit and radicalize,鈥� Agarwal said. 鈥淗is work on these projects is extremely critical and timely. His research cuts across the disciplinary silos and pushes the fringes of our understanding of emergent behaviors, decentralized and unorganized organizations.鈥� On Sept. 1, Al-Khateeb presented a paper, 鈥淲hen Citizen Journalism Goes Rogue,鈥� about bad citizen journalism cases at the Centre for Media and Celebrity Studies 5th International Conference in New York City. 鈥淭his presentation is about the rise of citizen journalism in the social media era,鈥� Al-Khateeb said. 鈥淭here are many cases where people report events before the traditional media. In many cases, this is a good thing. However, people can also report fake news and spread misinformation. If that news is fake, it can be bad for society. We presented case studies were citizen journalism went rogue.鈥� In July, Al-Khateeb presented his research entitled, “A Social-Cyber Forensics Approach to Understand Twitter & Blogs’ Influence on Anti-NATO Propaganda Campaigns,” during the Social Computing, Behavioral-Cultural Modeling and Prediction Conference held July 5-8 in Washington, D.C. The presentation explored how an online deviant group used different social media channels and techniques to spread propaganda and misinformation against the Trident Juncture Exercise conducted by NATO forces in Europe in 2015. Al-Khateeb used social network measures and social cyber forensics to identify influential information actors and uncover hidden relations between anti-NATO operatives. 鈥淭hese groups use Twitter to build an audience (followers), then they steer their followers to blogs where they frame their narratives,鈥� Al-Khateeb said. 鈥淚n this work, we tried to find the relationships between the online deviant groups on Twitter and their blogs and websites. We did this by running social network analysis and social cyber forensics techniques, which also helped us finding other people who are working with these groups to disseminate propaganda.鈥� The information can help authorities and decision makers see how online groups are coordinating the spread of information and come up with countermeasures and counter narratives to combat these groups. Al-Khateeb and fellow doctoral student Muhammad Nihal Hussain also led a three-hour tutorial for conference presenters on social cyber forensics. At another conference in Washington, D.C., Al-Khateeb presented his paper, “Leveraging Social Network Analysis & Social Cyber Forensics Approaches to Study Cyber Propaganda Campaigns” at the first North American Social Networks Conference of the International Network For Social Network Analysis held July 26-30. Agarwal and Hussain co-authored the paper. Al-Khateeb, who also holds a bachelor鈥檚 degree in computer science and a master鈥檚 degree in applied science from 糖心Vlog传媒 Little Rock, is expected to graduate with his Ph.D. at the end of the semester and has plans to work at a university as a professor and researcher. He has signed a contract with Springer to write a book on social cyber forensics. His research areas include social network analysis, deviant behavioral modeling, deviant cyber flash mobs, cyber propaganda campaigns, social cyber forensics, social computing, data mining in social media, and the detection of bots. He most recently won awards at the 2017 糖心Vlog传媒 Little Rock Engineering and Information Technology Open House, including the Excellence in Research Award, second place in the Most Innovative Award, and second place in the Societal Impact Award.]]>