Tuja Khaund successfully defended her doctoral dissertation “Leveraging Social Network Analysis and Supervised Machine Learning to Study Coordination in Online Information Campaigns” Thursday, April 15, 2021. We wish her all the best for her future career at Walmart Inc. in Bentonville as a senior Data Scientist in the graph theory group.Read More →

Tuja Khaund will be speaking at today’s UALR’s EIT Colloquium. Her talk “Information Actors on Social Media: Who are they and how do they coordinate?” will start at 3:00 PM CST today, Friday, April 10. To view her presentation live online, visit: https://us.bbcollab.com/guest/1c555535701140c8a156f8451c9baa20 Abstract of Talk: Online social networks (OSNs) are a major component of societal digitalization. OSNs alter how people communicate, make decisions, form or change their beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors. Thus, they can now impact financial systems and political communication at scale. As one type of OSN, social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc. serve as outlets for users to convey information toRead More →

On Thursday, April 18, students showcased their work at the Student Research and Creative Works Expo and EIT Open House. Guests viewed displays of capstone projects, theses, dissertations, and other research. COSMOS was well-presented by Kiran Kumar Bandeli, Nihal Hussain, Thomas Marcoux, Billy Spann, Richard Young, Michael DiCicco, Tuja Khaund, Karen Watts, Zachary Stine, and Adewale Obadimu who showcased their work. Our team members were presented with numerous awards at the 2019 Student Research and Creative Works Expo Awards Ceremony and the EIT Open House Awards Ceremony: Student Research and Creative Works Expo – First Place: Zachary Stine Student Research and Creative Works Expo – SecondRead More →

When I began my studies at UA Little Rock, pursuing a PhD degree was not even on my radar. During the last year of my master’s studies, I joined Dr. Agarwal‘s team and started learning about malicious social bots and the dangers they pose to society. Believe it or not, I truly enjoyed exploring this area of research. Dr. Agarwal advised me to explore the PhD program. I spoke to my family about my decision to pursue a higher degree and they couldn’t be more proud. My mother said, “You will be the first PhD in our family and you have my full support. ItRead 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 →