The Social Macroscope: A Tool for Computational Ethnography, Tarek F. Abdelzaher (Department of Computer Science, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign) Show More
Abstract: The proliferation of smart mobile devices with ubiquitous connectively, coupled with social media platforms that allow global information dissemination, offer unprecedented opportunities for unobtrusively observing social behaviors at scale. The talk describes a tool, called Apollo, used for conducting such observations. Apollo analyzes public social media data emanating from mobile devices in real-time to help researchers map local communities, values, beliefs, and social influence relations, as well as changes in these parameters over time. Apollo also chronicles the context in which these social dynamics occur by documenting world events reported on social media after eliminating misinformation and bias. A key technical innovation behind Apollo lies in its language-agnostic nature. Apollo functionality is delivered with no need for data labeling, machine training, natural language processing, or remove supervision. Instead, Apollo relies on (information) signal processing techniques borrowed from analysis of physical signals. The talk describes the technical and algorithmic enablers of Apollo. Examples will be given of its use over the last several years to follow key events, map local conflicts, identify misinformation, and understand human attitudes towards polarizing issues. The talk will also touch on ethical considerations surrounding the use (or misuse) of Apollo-like tools for purposes ranging from magnifying echo-chamber effects to interfering with mature democracies.
Bio: Tarek Abdelzaher received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Michigan in 1999. He is currently a Professor and Willett Faculty Scholar at the Department of Computer Science, the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. He has authored/coauthored more than 250 refereed publications in real-time computing, distributed systems, sensor networks, and control. He is an Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Real-Time Systems, and has served as Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing, IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems, IEEE Embedded Systems Letters, the ACM Transaction on Sensor Networks, and the Ad Hoc Networks Journal. He chaired (as Program or General Chair) several conferences in his area including RTAS, RTSS, IPSN, Sensys, DCoSS, ICDCS, and ICAC. Abdelzaher’s research interests lie broadly in understanding and influencing performance and temporal properties of networked embedded, social and software systems in the face of increasing complexity, distribution, and degree of interaction with an external physical environment. Tarek Abdelzaher is a recipient of the IEEE Outstanding Technical Achievement and Leadership Award in Real-time Systems (2012), the Xerox Award for Faculty Research (2011), as well as several best paper awards. He is a member of IEEE and ACM.
10:30-11:00 Coffee Break
11:00-12:30 Paper Session I
“Mom, I see you angry at me! Designing a mobile service for parent-child conflicts by in-situ emotional empathy” Chungkuk Yoo (IBM), Seungwoo Kang (KOREATECH), Inseok Hwang (IBM), Chulhong Min (Nokia Bell Labs), Seonghoon Kim (KAIST), Wonjung Kim (KAIST), Junehwa Song (KAIST)
“Evaluating Machine Learning Algorithms for the Prediction of the Adverse Valence Index Based on the Photographic Affect Meter” Gatis Mikelsons (University of Oxford), Abhinav Mehrotra (UCL), Mirco Musolesi (UCL); Nigel Shadbolt (University of Oxford)
“On Hyper-local Conversational Agents in Urban Settings” Utku Gunay Acer (Nokia Bell Labs), Marc van den Broeck (Nokia Bell Labs), Fahim Kawsar (Nokia Bell Labs)
“Exploratory Analysis of Individuals’ Mobility Patterns and Experienced Conflicts in Workgroups” Camellia Zakaria (SMU), Youngki Lee (SNU), Rajesh Balan (SMU), Kenneth Goh (SMU)
12:30-13:45 Lunch Break
13:45-15:00 Keynote:
Social Media and Community Engagement in Urban Places,Yong-Chan Kim (Department of Communication, Yonsei University)
“A Semantic and Social Structure of Platform Business” Hyunbo Shim (Sungkyunkwan University), Minjoo Yoo (Sungkyunkwan University), Jang Hyun Kim (Sungkyunkwan University)
