News

Researchers Develop Technique to Identify Spam Twitter Accounts

August 14, 2013
ICSI researchers and their collaborators at UC Berkeley, Twitter, and George Mason University have developed a technique to identify fraudulent Twitter accounts that are mass-created and then sold through an underground marketplace. Such accounts are used primarily to send spam but have also been employed to silence political protests. The approach could seriously undermine spam sent by social media; in the researchers’ study, it correctly identified millions of fraudulent accounts and helped Twitter disable 95 percent of those registered by 27 merchants tracked for the study. The researchers estimate these merchants are responsible for between 10 and 20 percent of all accounts flagged as spamming by Twitter. They are now working with Twitter to integrate the findings and other recommendations into the account creation process and Twitter's spam detection techniques.

FrameNet to Hold Workshop for NLP Developers and Researchers

August 8, 2013
The FrameNet Project, which is building a machine-readable lexicon based on the frame semantics work of Charles Fillmore, will host a five-day workshop September 9-13 at ICSI to help developers of natural language processing (NLP) applications and researchers in lexical semantics use FrameNet more effectively in real-world applications and research. Space at the workshop is limited, and organizers will maintain a balance between industry and academic participants.

Jerome Feldman Appointed to UOC Scientific Commission

July 15, 2013
Professor Jerome Feldman, a senior artificial intelligence researcher and the former director of ICSI, has been appointed to be a member of the Scientific Commission of the Open University of Catalonia (UOC) in Barcelona, Spain. The UOC is one of the leading virtual universities in the world, with about 60,000 students.

ICSI Researchers Win Best Paper Prizes at ICML and ICRA

July 3, 2013
Stefanie Jegelka, an ICSI affiliate, and Jeff Bilmes, an ICSI alum, were co-authors of a paper that won a best paper award at the International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML). Jegelka is a postdoctoral fellow at UC Berkeley and is affiliated with Vision. She helped organize a workshop, "Submodularity in Machine Learning - New Direction," at ICML.

Audio and Multimedia Researchers Win Competition with Crowdsourcing Proposal

July 2, 2013
Audio and Multimedia researchers Luke Gottlieb and Benjamin Martinez Elizalde have been selected as winners of the Ideas Competition sponsored by the Workshop on Crowdsourcing for Multimedia, which will be held in conjunction with ACM International Conference on Multimedia in October. The competition asked for short crowdsourcing proposals related to multimedia problems.

ICSI Launches Broala, a Services Company For Its Popular Open-Source Network Security System Bro

June 26, 2013
ICSI-funded Broala spinoff will provide enhanced services for large-scale deployments at top businesses, universities and supercomputing centers.

The International Computer Science Institute (ICSI), a leading center for research in computer science affiliated with UC Berkeley, today announced that it is spinning out a services company for Bro, a widely used open-source platform for network security analysis developed by a team of researchers and engineers at ICSI and the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA).

Researchers Gather to Discuss Non-English Framenets

April 30, 2013
More than 30 people from around the world traveled to Berkeley on April 19 to take part in the International FrameNet Workshop, sponsored by Swedish FrameNet++. Attendees from Brazil, Germany, Japan, and Sweden discussed their experiences developing non-English framenets, machine-readable lexicons based on the original English FrameNet, which is housed at ICSI. Representatives from Carnegie Mellon University, Columbia University, and Google also attended.

AI Director Srini Narayanan and Alum Joseph Makin Win Best Paper Award at BICoB

April 17, 2013
ICSI Alum Joseph Makin and Artificial Intelligence Director Srini Narayanan won the best paper award at the International Conference on Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, held in March. Their conference paper presents a model of the complete human blood clotting cascade along with a sensitivity analysis covering both discrete and continuous dynamics of the blood-clotting process.

Networking and Security Director Vern Paxson Receives EECS Teaching Award

April 1, 2013
Networking and Security Director Vern Paxson has received the Diane S. McEntyre Award for Excellence in Teaching from UC Berkeley's Computer Science Division. The award, which is given annually to a member of the computer science faculty, recognizes commitment to and respect for students.

Board Member Receives IJCAI Donald E. Walker Distinguished Service Award

February 20, 2013
Professor Wolfgang Wahlster, a member of the ICSI Board of Trustees, is the recipient of the 2013 IJCAI Donald E. Walker Distinguished Service Award for his substantial contributions and his extensive service to the field of artificial intelligence throughout his career. The award will be presented during the opening ceremony of the 23rd International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Beijing, China in August.

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