University of Maryland, Baltimore County

About: University of Maryland, Baltimore County is a education organization based out in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Galaxy. The organization has 8749 authors who have published 20843 publications receiving 795706 citations. The organization is also known as: UMBC.

Learning and Scientific Reasoning

Abstract: Comparisons of Chinese and U.S. students show that content knowledge and reasoning skills diverge.

Random-data perturbation techniques and privacy-preserving data mining

Abstract: Privacy is becoming an increasingly important issue in many data-mining applications. This has triggered the development of many privacy-preserving data-mining techniques. A large fraction of them use randomized data-distortion techniques to mask the data for preserving the privacy of sensitive data. This methodology attempts to hide the sensitive data by randomly modifying the data values often using additive noise. This paper questions the utility of the random-value distortion technique in privacy preservation. The paper first notes that random matrices have predictable structures in the spectral domain and then it develops a random matrix-based spectral-filtering technique to retrieve original data from the dataset distorted by adding random values. The proposed method works by comparing the spectrum generated from the observed data with that of random matrices. This paper presents the theoretical foundation and extensive experimental results to demonstrate that, in many cases, random-data distortion preserves very little data privacy. The analytical framework presented in this paper also points out several possible avenues for the development of new privacy-preserving data-mining techniques. Examples include algorithms that explicitly guard against privacy breaches through linear transformations, exploiting multiplicative and colored noise for preserving privacy in data mining applications.

Partner violence before and after couples-based alcoholism treatment for male alcoholic patients: the role of treatment involvement and abstinence.

Abstract: This study examined partner violence before and after behavioral couples therapy (BCT) for 303 married or cohabiting male alcoholic patients and used a demographically matched nonalcoholic comparison sample. In the year before BCT, 60% of alcoholic patients had been violent toward their female partner, 5 times the comparison sample rate of 12%. In the 1st and 2nd year after BCT, violence decreased significantly from the year before BCT, and clinically significant violence reductions occurred for patients whose alcoholism was remitted after BCT. Structural equation modeling indicated that greater treatment involvement (attending BCT sessions and using BCT-targeted behaviors) was related to lower violence after BCT and that this association was mediated by reduced problem drinking and enhanced relationship functioning. Language: en

Snowmelt detection over the Greenland ice sheet from SSM/I brightness temperature daily variations

Abstract: [1] We propose a technique for monitoring snowmelt over the Greenland ice sheet between 1992 and 2005 based on the difference between ascending and descending brightness temperatures (DAV) measured either at 19.35- or 37- GHz by the Special Sensor Microwave Imager (SSM/I). Wet snow is detected when both brightness temperatures and DAV values exceed fixed thresholds. Differently from existing techniques, a multi-frequency approach allows detection of wet snow at different depths and intensities, providing a tool for improving climatological and hydrological applications. Air temperature values either recorded by ground based stations or derived from model are used for calibrating and validating the technique. Results are compared with those obtained using backscattering coefficients recorded by the NASA’s Quick Scatterometer (QuikSCAT) during an extreme melting event occurring on June 2002. Long-term results show that snowmelt extent has been increasing at a rate of 40,000 Km 2 per year for the past 14 years. Citation: Tedesco, M. (2007), Snowmelt detection over the Greenland ice sheet from SSM/I brightness temperature daily variations, Geophys. Res. Lett., 34, L02504,

Schizophrenia and social networks: ex-patients in the inner city.

Abstract: Beginning with Freud's (1958) formulation of the Schreber case, impairment in object relationships has been conceptually linked to serious psychopathology. Subsequent work by Federn (1952), Bak (1965), Fairbairn (1954), Jacobson (1954), Mahler (1968), and Bellak (1969), in particular, detailed the role of disturbance of object relations in schizophrenia . Social scientists using census tract data uncovered evidence of atomistic life styles within geographic areas producing the highest incidence of hospitalized schizophrenics. It was postulated that isolation was a key to etiologic factors in the disease (Faris and Dunham 1939; Jaco 1954; Ware 1956). Subsequent refutations of isolation as the primary causal element in schizophrenia (Kohn and Clausen 1955) resulted in a temporary waning of interest in the relationship between sociability and psychopathology. More recently, Budson (1977), after reviewing a variety of community maintenance studies, concluded that the presence of a strong "psychosocial kinship system" (comprised of friends, neighbors, and close associates as well as family) was the "crucial factor" in determining program success. Similarly, Strauss and Carpenter (1977) found a high correlation between 5-year outcome scores and previous levels of social contact. They considered prehospital levels of social contact to be one of the three main predictors of outcome in schizophrenia.