The faculty search for the position of Assistant Professor of Computer Science has concluded. The search was completed successfully and the position is now filled.
News
The second candidate for the position of Assistant Professor of Computer Science, Mohammad Irfan, will be on campus on Monday, April 1. All are invited to attend a research presentation in Alden Hall, Room 101 at 4:00 PM.
Monday, April 1, 2013
Alden Hall, Room 101
4:00 PM
Presenter:
Mohammad T. Irfan <http://www.cs.stonybrook.edu/~mtirfan/>
Title:
Computational Problems in Social Sciences: Using Game Theory to Connect the Dots
Abstract:
Who are the most influential senators in Congress? Is there a small coalition of senators who are influential enough to prevent filibusters? Moving from Congress to a different setting, can we model microfinance markets to help policy-makers take critical decisions, such as setting a cap on interest rates or subsidizing microfinance banks?
The above questions may seem to be unrelated at first, but as I will show, these can indeed be knit together by the same needle of game theory. A common element in these questions is that many agents strategically interact with each other within a network-structured complex system in order to make their decisions. I will exploit this game-theoretic element to connect the dot of artificial intelligence with the dots of sociology and microfinance economies. I will end my talk by outlining an array of exciting interdisciplinary research avenues, many of which can be explored in senior projects or theses.
Mohammad T. Irfan is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Computer Science at Stony Brook University. He is advised by Professor Luis E. Ortiz. His interests lie in the interdisciplinary areas that combine artificial intelligence with sociology (e.g., influence in social networks), economics (e.g., microfinance markets), and arts (e.g., computer-aided authentication of Jackson Pollock’s drip paintings). His research has been published at the AAAI Conference on AI, ACM Symposium on Computational Geometry, Discrete & Computational Geometry Journal, and SPIE Electronic Imaging. His research on influence among the senators has also been reported in Science News. One of Mohammad’s career goals is to integrate his interdisciplinary interests into teaching, curriculum development, and collaborative research.
On Tuesday, April 2, the Department of Computer Science will hold its spring Gator Day event from 11:00 AM to 2:45 PM in Alden Hall. In the morning Kimberly Madia, ’01 and “Mud” Douglas, ’02 will be giving presentations. After lunch, several Allegheny Computer Science alumni will host a panel to field questions and offer career advice. An additional presentation, “Breaking into the Video Game Industry” by Christopher Arnold, ’00 of Schell Games is scheduled at 3:00 PM in Carnegie Hall, Room 110.
See the poster at the Department’s Gator Day page for further details and a full schedule of events.
Janyl Jumadinova, a candidate for the position of Assistant Professor of Computer Science will be on campus on Thursday, March 28. All are invited to attend a research presentation in Alden Hall, Room 101 at 4:00 PM.
Thursday, March 28, 2013
Alden Hall, Room 101
4:00 PM
Presenter:
Janyl Jumadinova <http://myweb.unomaha.edu/~jjumadinova/index.html>
Title:
FORETELL: Aggregating Distributed, Heterogeneous Information from Diverse Sources Using Market-based Techniques
Abstract:
Predicting the outcome of uncertain events that will happen in the future is a frequently indulged task by humans while making critical decisions. The process underlying this prediction and decision making is called information aggregation, which deals with collating the opinions of different people, over time, about the future event’s possible outcome. The information aggregation problem is non-trivial as the information related to future events is distributed spatially and temporally, the information gets changed dynamically as related events happen, and, finally, people’s opinions about events’ outcomes depends on the information they have access to and the mechanism they use to form opinions from that information. This talk will discuss how we address the problem of distributed information aggregation by building computational models and algorithms for different aspects of information aggregation so that the most likely outcome of future events can be predicted with utmost accuracy. We have employed a commonly-used market-based framework called a prediction market to formally analyze the process of information aggregation. The behavior of humans performing information aggregation within a prediction market is implemented using software agents which employ sophisticated algorithms to perform complex calculations on behalf of the humans, to aggregate information efficiently. We have considered different yet crucial problems related to information aggregation and have verified our proposed techniques through analytical results and experiments while using commercially available data from real prediction markets within a simulated, multi-agent based prediction market.
All are cordially invited to join the Computer Science Department for friendly conversation over afternoon tea and coffee every Friday at 2:30 PM in Alden Hall Room 102. Treats such as homemade cookies and candy are typically provided as well.
