UMBC Staff Collection
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Item Creating Geospatial Trajectories from Human Trafficking Text Corpora(2024-05-09) Karabatis, Saydeh N.; Janeja, VandanaHuman trafficking is a crime that affects the lives of millions of people across the globe. Traffickers exploit the victims through forced labor, involuntary sex, or organ harvesting. Migrant smuggling could also be seen as a form of human trafficking when the migrant fails to pay the smuggler and is forced into coerced activities. Several news agencies and anti-trafficking organizations have reported trafficking survivor stories that include the names of locations visited along the trafficking route. Identifying such routes can provide knowledge that is essential to preventing such heinous crimes. In this paper we propose a Narrative to Trajectory (N2T) information extraction system that analyzes reported narratives, extracts relevant information through the use of Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques, and applies geospatial augmentation in order to automatically plot trajectories of human trafficking routes. We evaluate N2T on human trafficking text corpora and demonstrate that our approach of utilizing data preprocessing and augmenting database techniques with NLP libraries outperforms existing geolocation detection methods.Item PANTHYR Instrument Installed In Chesapeake Bay To Monitor Water Quality, Validate Satellite Data(UMBC News, 2024-11-01) Hansen, SarahClimbing 30-meter ladders and avoiding osprey nests might not sound like typical activities for scientists who usually work with equations and models—but it’s all in a day’s work for Kevin Turpie’s team, which includes an international group of scientists and engineers from UMBC, NASA, the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences (RBINS) and the Vlaams Instituut voor de Zee (VLIZ), also known as the Flanders Marine Institute, also in Belgium. Over the last 15 months, they have collaborated with Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) staff, with the blessing of the U.S. Coast Guard, to install, monitor, and repair a new instrument on top of a Coast Guard navigation tower in Chesapeake Bay near Tolchester, Maryland.Item Mother-Child Closeness and Adolescent Structural Neural Networks: A Prospective Longitudinal Study of Low-Income Families(Oxford University Press, 2024-11-08) Hong, Sunghyun H.; Hardi, Felicia A.; Tillem, Scott; Goetschius, Leigh Gayle; Brooks-Gunn, Jeanne; McLoyd, Vonnie; Lopez-Duran, Nestor L.; Mitchell, Colter; Hyde, Luke W.; Monk, Christopher S.Mother-child closeness, a mutually trusting and affectionate bond, is an important factor in shaping positive youth development. However, little is known about the neural pathways through which mother-child closeness are related to brain organization. Utilizing a longitudinal sample primarily from low-income families (N=181; 76% African American youth and 54% female), this study investigated the associations between mother-child closeness at ages 9 and 15 and structural connectivity organization (network integration, robustness, and segregation) at age 15. The assessment of mother-child closeness included perspectives from both mother and child. The results revealed that greater mother-child closeness is linked with increased global efficiency and transitivity, but not modularity. Specifically, both the mother’s and child’s report of closeness at age 15 predicted network metrics but report at age 9 did not. Our findings suggest that mother-child closeness is associated with neural white matter organization, as adolescents who experienced greater mother-child closeness displayed topological properties indicative of more integrated and robust structural networks.Item Study Shows Natural Regrowth Of Tropical Forests Has Immense Potential To Address Environmental Concerns(UMBC News, 2024-10-30) Hansen, Sarah; Marlayna, Demond; Fagan, Matthew; Chazdon, RobinA new study in Nature finds that up to 215 million hectares of land (an area larger than Mexico) in humid tropical regions around the world has the potential to naturally regrow. That much forest could store 23.4 gigatons of carbon over 30 years and also significantly help enhance biodiversity and water quality. The study showed that more than half of the area with strong potential for regrowth was in five countries: Brazil, Mexico, Indonesia, China, and Colombia. “Tree planting in degraded landscapes can be costly. By leveraging natural regeneration techniques, nations can meet their restoration goals cost effectively,” says the study’s co-lead author, Brooke Williams, a researcher at the Queensland University of Technology, Australia, and the Institute for Capacity Exchange in Environmental Decisions. “Our model can guide where these savings can best be taken advantage of,” she says.Item NASA Awards AXIS X-ray Telescope Co-developed By UMBC Faculty $5M For Further Study(UMBC News, 2024-11-12) Hansen, SarahItem Striving For More Efficient And Equitable Healthcare: Ian Stockwell Wins Major NIH Grant(UMBC News, 2024-11-12) Meyers, CatherineItem 7 ChatGPT Strategies to Enhance Course Designs This Summer(UMBC Division of Information Technology, 2023-06-15) Instructional TechnologyLeverage AI to create new experiences for your studentsDuring the summer break, educators might use this time to refine their course designs and explore innovative technologies. One such technology is ChatGPT, a powerful language model developed by OpenAI that can assist in creating engaging and effective learning experiences. As early as the 1960s, researchers have recognized the potential of AI to transform education (Carbonell, 1960; Suppes, 1966), and with the advancements in machine learning and natural language processing, AI's impact on the educational landscape has only grown more profound.Item GESTAR II Center Awarded $47 Million Extension On Cooperative Agree With NASA Goddard Space Flight Center(UMBC News, 2024-09-26) Fraser, Adriana; Demond, MarlaynaThe UMBC-led Goddard Earth Science Technology and Research (GESTAR II) center has been awarded a two-year, $47 million extension to continue its cooperative agreement with the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.Item Lee Blaney Assumes Presidency Of The Association Of Environmental Engineering And Science Professors(UMBC News, 2024-09-16) Meyers, Catherine; Demond, MarlaynaProfessor Lee Blaney, in the Department of Chemical, Biochemical, and Environmental Engineering, formally assumed the role of president of the Association of Environmental Engineering and Science Professors (AEESP) at a board of directors meeting in early September. AEESP is a nonprofit organization founded in 1963 to foster inclusive connections between environmental engineering and science researchers and educators. It provides programs for members to develop the academic networks and career skills needed for professional success, increase equitable societal impact of environmental engineering and science scholarship and creative expression, and reimagine the skills necessary for environmental engineers and scientists to provide solutions… Continue Reading Lee Blaney assumes presidency of the Association of Environmental Engineering and Science ProfessorsItem Investigating Causal Cues: Strengthening Spoofed Audio Detection with Human-Discernible Linguistic Features(2024-09-09) Khanjani, Zahra; Ale, Tolulope; Wang, Jianwu; Davis, Lavon; Mallinson, Christine; Janeja, VandanaSeveral types of spoofed audio, such as mimicry, replay attacks, and deepfakes, have created societal challenges to information integrity. Recently, researchers have worked with sociolinguistics experts to label spoofed audio samples with Expert Defined Linguistic Features (EDLFs) that can be discerned by the human ear: pitch, pause, word-initial and word-final release bursts of consonant stops, audible intake or outtake of breath, and overall audio quality. It is established that there is an improvement in several deepfake detection algorithms when they augmented the traditional and common features of audio data with these EDLFs. In this paper, using a hybrid dataset comprised of multiple types of spoofed audio augmented with sociolinguistic annotations, we investigate causal discovery and inferences between the discernible linguistic features and the label in the audio clips, comparing the findings of the causal models with the expert ground truth validation labeling process. Our findings suggest that the causal models indicate the utility of incorporating linguistic features to help discern spoofed audio, as well as the overall need and opportunity to incorporate human knowledge into models and techniques for strengthening AI models. The causal discovery and inference can be used as a foundation of training humans to discern spoofed audio as well as automating EDLFs labeling for the purpose of performance improvement of the common AI-based spoofed audio detectors.Item Freeman Hrabowski Looks Back—and Forward(Inside Higher Ed, 2022-06-16) Moody, Josh; Mozie-Ross, YvetteThe legendary president of the University of Maryland Baltimore County will retire at the end of June after 30 years. He made the institution a leader in STEM education, particularly for Black students.Item University of Maryland Baltimore County A Cross-Institutional Collaborative Effort to Increase Financial Literacy and Resilience in First-Year Students(National Resource Center, 2023-11-21) Lindbeck, Colleen; Mozie-Ross, Yvette; Shishineh, Laila M.Item Peer Mentoring for Student Success(The Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU), 2024-08) Mozie-Ross, Yvette; Thornton, Gregory; Orr, Rachael; Michaels, Julia; Spain, JimThis document shares valuable insights from peer mentorship programs at institutions that participated in APLU's Powered by Publics initiative and serves as a comprehensive resource for other institutions aiming to develop or enhance similar initiatives. By showcasing best practices, case examples, and practical recommendations, this report aims to empower universities to implement effective, evidence-based peer mentoring programs that significantly contribute to student success and equitable outcomes.Item Humans of UMBC: First Gen-Edition April 2021(UMBC, 2021-04) Mozie-Ross, YvetteThe “Human of UMBC” for the month of April is Yvette Mozie-Ross. Dr. Mozie-Ross is the Vice Provost for Enrollment Management and Planning. She is responsible for the processes involved from undergraduate admissions and orientation to graduation.Item Meet Dr. Yvette Mozie-Ross! Conversation with Vice Provost for Enrollment Management and Planning(UMBC_LSAMP, 2021-06-14) Mozie-Ross, Yvette; Navarathna, NithyaEnjoy our second interview as LSAMP Champion, Nithya Navarathna, interviews Dr. Yvette Mozie-Ross, Vice Provost for Enrollment Management and Planning at UMBC!Item Satisfactory Academic Progress(2024) Cipolla, AndreaItem Overawards and Overpayments(2024) Cipolla, AndreaItem Study protocol: a mixed-methods study of the implementation of doula care to address racial health equity in six state Medicaid programs(Springer Nature, 2024-08-08) Jarlenski, Marian; Kennedy, Susan; Johnson, Annaliese; Hale, Caroline; D’Angelo, Zoe; Nedhari, Aza; Coffee, Gerria; Chappell-McPhail, Molly; Green, Kiddada; Méndez, Dara D.; Goetschius, Leigh G.; Gareau, Sarah; Ashford, Kristin; Barnes, Andrew J.; Ahrens, Katherine A.; Zivin, Kara; Mosley, Elizabeth; Tang, Lu; Writing Committee for Medicaid Outcomes Distributed Research NetworkRacial inequities in severe maternal morbidity (SMM) and mortality constitute a public health crisis in the United States. Doula care, defined as care from birth workers who provide culturally appropriate, non-clinical support during pregnancy and postpartum, has been proposed as an intervention to help disrupt obstetric racism as a driver of adverse pregnancy outcomes in Black and other birthing persons of colour. Many state Medicaid programs are implementing doula programs to address the continued increase in SMM and mortality. Medicaid programs are poised to play a major role in addressing the needs of these populations with the goal of closing the racial gaps in SMM and mortality. This study will investigate the most effective ways that Medicaid programs can implement doula care to improve racial health equity.Item Predicting Hospitalization with the Hilltop Institute Analytics Research Team(UMBC Center for Social Science Research, 2024-02-12) Anson, Ian; Goetschius, Leigh; Han, Fei; Henderson, Morgan; Kim, Jean; Anson,Ian; Mallinson,Christine; Filomeno,Felipe; Kim,Jean; Moreland,D’Juan; Barnes,Amy; Ralston,MyriamOn today’s episode we hear from Dr. Leigh Goetschius, Data Scientist Advanced, Dr. Fei Han, Principal Data Scientist and Affiliate Assistant Professor in the UMBC Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering, and Dr. Morgan Henderson, Principal Data Scientist and Affiliate Assistant Professor in the UMBC Department of Economics. Together, these researchers form the UMBC Hilltop Institute Analytics Research team. Our conversation focuses on their work in creating predictive models in the field of healthcare.Item Karen Chen Wins NSF CAREER Award To Build Tools To Empower Students With Data(UMBC News, 2024-07-17) Meyers, Catherine; Demond, MarlaynaUMBC's Karen Chen has won an NSF CAREER award to advance data science and student-centered learning analytics.