University of Maryland Wins Computerworld Horizon Award :: University Communications Newsdesk, University of Maryland

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For Immediate Release
August 21, 2006
Contacts: Lee Tune, 301 405 4679 or ltune@umd.edu

University of Maryland Wins Computerworld Horizon Award

COLLEGE PARK, Md. -- Computerworld magazine today named the University of Maryland one of the winners of its second annual Computerworld Horizon Awards for cutting-edge technologies. OASYS, a unique system for online opinion analysis developed by researchers in the university's Institute for Advanced Computer Studies, was selected for the award by an independent panel of senior IT executives. In addition, digital fingerprinting technology developed by faculty in the A. James Clark School of Engineering received an honorable mention.

OASYS can quickly search millions of web documents (RSS feeds) in different languages to measure the amount of positive or negative opinion about a product, politician, or other desired topic and chart how that opinion varies over time.

"We are thrilled to win this award and are particularly proud to be one of only two universities selected among a list of winners that features so many leading technology companies," said University of Maryland computer science professor V.S. Subrahmanian, who led the development of OASYS, a quantitative system for analysis of opinions expressed in online news media. OASYS was developed through a combination of computer science, linguistic, statistical, database management and human cognition research.

"Computerworld established the Computerworld Horizon Awards to elevate industry recognition of organizations leading the way with technical advances that will affect enterprise customers," said Don Tennant, editor-in-chief of Computerworld."The University of Maryland joins a select group of innovators focused on bringing new thinking and solutions out of the lab and into the market to the benefit of all."

A Web-Based Opinion Analysis System

"OASYS provides a new Web-based tool for opinion analysis. It is the only tool I know that can search millions of RSS feeds in multiple languages and almost instantly give a quantified, time sensitive measure of opinion on a topic selected by a user," said Subrahmanian, who is director of the University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies. "There are numerous applications where individuals, companies or institutions might wish to know the intensity of opinion on a given topic expressed in a collection of documents. For instance, a company might wish to know what bloggers have to say about a given product. Alternatively, the US military might wish to know the intensity of opinion in the Pakistani press about the Abu Ghraib scandal."

OASYS, he explained, can quickly look through millions of Web documents (in the form of RSS feeds) in multiple languages to measure the amount of positive or negative opinion on a given person or topic, such as President Bush. For each relevant document, it assigns an "intensity" of opinion about the given topic one a -1 (very negative) to +1 (very positive) scale. OASYS combines the intensity of opinion measures for the dozens, hundreds or even thousands of relevant documents into an overall score.

"The intensity of opinion of document d with regard to topic t depends not only on the terms used in the document, but also on the perceptions of the reader," he said. "As a consequence, we have developed statistical algorithms conditioned by human responses and input to create a unique intensity scoring model."

OASYS was created by Subrahmanian, his post-doctoral fellow Diego Reforgiato Recupero, colleague Bonnie Dorr, a professor in the department of computer science and the University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies and Italian colleagues Antonio Picariello and Carmine Cesarano (University of Naples) with assistance from some other students.

About the Horizon Awards

The Computerworld Horizon awards were established in 2005 "to inform readers of the most cutting-edge technologies that are 'on the horizon' from research labs and private companies." The program is accompanied by an eight-page special report in the August 21 issue of Computerworld magazine. The feature looks at this year's winning technologies, which include Altiris' Altiris Software Virtualization Solution; BioPassword Inc.'s BioPassword Internet Edition; SAP AG and Microsoft Corp.'s joint effort, Duet; HyperOffice's HyperOffice; IBM Almaden Research Center's Business Insights Workbench; Hewlett-Packard Co.'s Tycoon Electronic Auctioneer; Splunk's Splunk; Stanford University's Password Hash; University of Maryland's Oasys Opinion Analysis System, and VMware's VMware DRS.

The University of Maryland a Leader in AI and Other Computer Research

The University of Maryland is one of the nation's leading institutions in computer science and computer engineering research and education, with particular strength in artificial intelligence (AI). In 2006 the university ranked 13 in computer science among all schools and 6th among public universities according to U.S News and World Report. In computer engineering program the university is ranked 16th in the nation, 9th among public universities

In artificial intelligence, Maryland ranked 9th among all universities and 5th among public universities. Maryland scientists have received many awards in the field of AI including the field's highest honor, the Allen Newell Award, given this spring to Professor Jack Minker. This year also saw the selection of computer science researcher and Maryland graduate Jennifer Golbeck as one of "Top 10 People to Watch in AI" by IEEE Intelligent Systems and the awarding to Professor Jim Hendler of the Robert S. Engelmore Memorial Lecture Award from the American Association for Artificial Intelligence and AI Magazine.

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