Several years ago, I heard of UA Little Rock for the first time.  My husband was working closely with Dr. Agarwal on social network analysis research.  The work caught my interest and the possibility of earning my doctoral degree through UA Little Rock’s online program got me hooked.  Yes, it took some time to get all my ducks in a row by preparing for the GRE, getting all required documents and then actually applying for my PhD, but when the acceptance email arrived, I was thrilled.   Fast forward a few months: I am ready to start my second semester. A few more are downRead More →

  This week cosmographer Zachary Stine presented his paper “Agent-based models for assessing social influence strategies” at the 9th International Conference on Complex Systems hosted by the New England Complex Systems Institute in Cambridge, MA. It is a unique interdisciplinary forum that unifies and bridges the traditional domains of science and a multitude of real-world systems. The conference was held from July 22 – 27 in Cambridge, MA. The paper has been published in the conference’s proceedings available here: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-96661-8_14 Stine, the lead author of the paper, is a Ph.D. student in Computer & Information science at UA Little Rock. Dr. Nitin Agarwal, Jerry L. Maulden-Entergy Endowed Chair and Distinguished Professor ofRead More →

The 11th International Conference on Social Computing, Behavioral-Cultural Modeling & Prediction and Behavior Representation in Modeling and Simulation (SBP-BRiMS 2018) took place in Washington DC this past week.   The four-day multidisciplinary conference with a selective single paper track and poster session attracted participants from across the globe. A full list of the papers, posters, demos, and other publications is available from the conference website. Conference co-chairs Dr. Kathleen M. Carley, Carnegie Mellon University, and Dr. Nitin Agarwal, director of Collaboratorium for Social Media and Online Behavioral Studies (COSMOS) at University of Arkansas at Little Rock, welcomed students, research scientists, and members from funding agencies. COSMOSRead More →

Researchers at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock are studying how social bots influence the delivery of news via social media during major disasters.  The study examines the role of social bots – automated Twitter accounts that attempt to affect or influence the behaviors of others – and their coordination and communication patterns with complex organizational structures to disseminate information during four natural disasters that occurred in 2017. The paper, “Analyzing Social Bots and their Coordination during Natural Disasters,” will be discussed at the SBP BRiMS 2018 International Conference on Social Computing, Behavioral-Cultural Modeling, & Prediction and Behavior Representation in Modeling and Simulation to be heldRead More →

The winners of the 2018 Student Research and Creative Works Showcase at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock were announced during an awards ceremony May 1 in the Student Services Center. Students presented more than 150 research and creative works April 12 in the Jack Stephens Center. Student projects were judged on the novelty and clarity of their research, the soundness of their methodology, the potential application of their findings, and the student’s ability to explain their project to an expert and lay audience. COSMOS team members won the following: Technology (Graduate) First Place: Tuja Khaund and Samer Al-Khateeb. “Analyzing Social Bots and their Coordination duringRead More →

The George W. Donaghey College of Engineering and Information Technology hosted its third annual Open House on Friday, April 27. Guests viewed student displays of capstone projects, theses, dissertations, and other research. COSMOS was well-presented by Tuja Khaund, Karen Watts and Adewale Obadimu who showcased their work and were presented with numerous awards: 1st Place Complete Solution: Tuja Khaund 2nd Professional Presentation: Karen Watts 2nd Place EIT Grad Award: Adewale Obadimu 3rd Place Arkansas Research Alliance: Adewale Obadimu      Read More →

Two University of Arkansas at Little Rock students are looking to make a name for themselves in the world of hackathons.  Michael DiCicco, sophomore information science major from Benton, and Karen Watts, senior information science major from Bryant, took home a big win as first place winners of CrimsonHacks, a Major League Hacking event held April 14-15 at the University of Alabama. DiCicco and Watts, working in conjunction with two students from the University of Alabama and Florida Institute of Technology, beat out 28 other teams for the top prize, a 3D printer, for their project, Tweety Wallet. They also won the Best Use of AmazonRead More →

In February, more than 409 million people read the over 20.8 billion pages posted on WordPress.com, a popular blogging platform. Blogging remains a popular form of online communication that is growing at an exponential rate, yet few researchers have grasped the potential of data mining the blogosphere for research purposes.  The University of Arkansas at Little Rock is among the very few universities in the country with a team and projects dedicated to researching blogs. One of the researchers heading this project is Muhammad Nihal Hussain, a fifth-year doctoral student in information science and a core researcher at COSMOS (Collaboratorium for Social Media and BehavioralRead More →

A group of researchers from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock are studying how the mass migration of refugees from Middle Eastern and North African countries into Europe has created a shift in the migrant narrative in online communication.  The paper, “Analyzing Shift in Narratives Regarding Migrants in Europe via Blogosphere,” has been accepted in the Text2Story18 workshop at the 40th annual European Conference on Information Retrieval, a premier conference in information retrieval, to be held March 26-29 in Grenoble, France. The lead author of the paper, Muhammad Nihal Hussain, a fifth-year doctoral student in information science and a researcher at COSMOS (Collaboratorium forRead More →