MH

Machine Learning, Image Classification, Natural Language Processing
Intelligent Transportation
Spatial-Temporal Data Mining and Prediction
Online Social Media Data Mining


Intelligent Transportation 2020	Spatial-Temporal Data Prediction 2020

Graduate Courses
- AIT 664: Information Visualization and Processing
- AIT 636: Machine Learning
Undergraduate Courses
- IT 416: Machine Learning
- IT 415: Information Visualization and Analytics
- IT 304: IT in the Global Economy
- IT 109: Introduction to Computer Programming
- IT 104: Introduction to Computing


How to Build a Normal Distribution Based on a Sample	Normal Distribution and the 68-95-99.7 Rule

Z-Scores, Standardization, and the Standard Normal Distribution	P Values

Hypothesis Testing Using P Values

Determinant	Eigenvectors and Eigenvalues

Principal Component Analysis (PCA)	Scale and Center the Data Before Principal Component Analysis (PCA)

Principal Component Analysis (PCA) in Python

Gradient Descent

Support Vector Machines (SVM)	Support Vector Machines (SVM) in Python

Decision Trees	Cost Complexity Pruning of Decision Trees

AdaBoost versus Gradient Boost	AdaBoost

Decision Trees in Python	XGBoost in Python

Introduction to Neural Networks	Cross Entropy Cost Function versus Sum of Squared Residuals Cost Function for Neural Netwroks

	Convolutional Neural Networks

Least Squares Regression	Ridge vs Lasso Regression

Elastic-Net Regression (GLMNet) combines the Ridge Regression penalty with the Lasso Regression penalty

Bias and Variance	Cross Validation

Confusion Matrix	ROC and AUC

K-Means Clustering	Hierarchical Clustering

K-Means Clustering versus Hierarchical Clustering

Smart Cities	Smart Cities

Smart Cities	Smart Cities Analytics

Video Analytics for Event Detection	Intelligent Transportation Systems

Deep Reinforcement Learning for Traffic Light Control

One-Page Research Proposal Summary

At the beginning of every research, you need to write a one-page proposal and email it to me. This is a mandatory first step. It must include the following sections (font: Times New Roman, font size: 11, line spacing: Single, Paragraph spacing: 0):

Title
Title of your research.
Overview
Summary of what you want to do, why is it significant, what is the motivation for doing this research?
Contribution
What has been done in this field and how your work contributes in this field. Contribution means how your research would add to the state-of-the-art science or knowledge. Contribution does not mean describing what you like or want to do.
Impact
What pressing problem might it help us solve? What would the knowledge obtained from your research do for us? How does it advance science?
Challenges
What challenges you have to overcome to fulfill this research. Please note that by challnges I do not mean the steps that you have to take to address the research but difficulties that you have to overcome. For instance, coming up with a model that considers the temporal sequence of data because currently no such model exists.
Data
If your research requires data, from where and how you plan to obtain the data?

This is all assuming that you are not repeating someone else’s work. If someone else has already done something similar and answered these questions, you cannot duplicate it and claim it as your own.

Lab Unfinished Projects Excel Sheet

The following excel sheet helps me to keep track of who is working on how many and what projects: . This excel sheet is for you to put the title of your papers that are under development, under review, or rejected. You can see your name in this excel sheet. If you do not, just add your name. Write the title of each individual paper under your name. Before the title, determine the status of your paper. A paper’s status could be three things: (1) Under Development, (2) Under Review, and (3) Rejected n Times. For instance, if I am still working on a paper and it has never been submitted, I should write under my name:
Under Development: A new model for traffic prediction
Tentative Submission Date: Nov 30

If I have a paper that has been rejected two times and I am still working on it to fix it, I should write:
Rejected 2 Times: A new model for traffic prediction
Tentative Submission Date: Nov 30
If for any reason your tentative submission date changes, you should not wipe off the previous tentative submission date, but add the new date in front of the previous date, separated by a comma

If I have a paper that is under review in ICML2021, I should write:
Under Review in ICML2021: A new model for traffic prediction
Result Notification Date (for Conferences)/Submission Date (for Journals): Nov 30

If for any reason, the title of your project changes, you need to update the title in this excel sheet as well. When a paper is accepted, you must remove it from this excel sheet, because then it will go in your personal excel sheet under the published papers.
Whenever you submit a paper, you need to email me its original file: word or latex, along with PDF. Never email me only a PDF file of a paper.

Funding Policy for PhD

Following are the guidelines regarding how the PhD funding decisions are made:

Summer Funding:
To qualify for summer GTA, you have to have published or accepted a minimum of 3 papers during the past 12 months up to April 01.
Academic Year Funding:
To keep your academic year GTA funding for the next academic year, you have to have published or accepted a minimum of 1 paper during the past 12 months up to August 01. If the number of published papers is 0, you will not receive GTA funding for the next year.
To defend PhD proposal:
At least 5 papers (published or accepted), at least one of which should be a journal paper.
To defend PhD dissertation:
At least 10 papers (published or accepted), at least two of which should be journal papers.
Acceptable Publications:
Conferences with an acceptance rate of 24% or less. You can check their acceptance rate for previous years to get an estimate.
Journals must have an impact factor, be related to our field, and belong to a reputable publisher, such as ACM, IEEE, Elsevier, Springer, Wiley, and Talor&Francis.
Publication fees:
You are responsible for registration and travel costs associated with conferences and publication fees for journals. However, as a student, you qualify to apply for student travel awards from conferences and from our university.
The university might cover publication fees for some journals.

GMU Writing Center

The GMU writing Center (https://writingcenter.gmu.edu/) teaches writing skills for PhD students, e.g. dissertation writing. They offer one-to-one meetings. You are required to contact them and go through their training. I will check with you at some point to see your certificate of training through Mason Writing Center.

Graduate Student Research and Travel Grants

The office of Graduate Fellowships (gradfellows.gmu.edu) helps Graduate students find and win fellowships, scholarships, and grants. Contact Dr. Kay Agoston kagoston@gmu.edu to make an appointment.

List of Internal Awards: https://provost.gmu.edu/academics-and-research/graduate-education/awards-and-grants

Dissertation Completion Fellowship – Apply in October and get it in Spring (for PhD students)
Summer research fellowship – apply January (for PhD and master students)
Graduate student travel fund (conference travel) – has six deadlines each year: gstf.gmu.edu

List of external grants:

https://gradfellows.gmu.edu/fellowship-opportunities/
Every conference has a travel fellowship award for students. I encourage you to always apply.

The Structure of Proposal for PhD Dissertation

Abstract
- In the Abstract, you should answer the question: how your research contributes "to promote the progress of science; to advance the national health, prosperity, and welfare; to secure the national defense; and for other purposes." The abstract should clearly highlight the contribution of your work.
Chapter 1: Problem statement and motivation
- Clearly state what problem is the focus of the work. State the research questions and/or hypotheses.
- Why is it important to address the problem?
Chapter 2: Introduction
- Highlight the reasons why the problem needs to be addressed
- Briefly describe the proposed approach
- Explain the objectives
- Explain the challenges
- Explain the contributions
Chapter 3: Background and related work
Chapter 4: Proposed approach
Chapter 5: Preliminary research
Chapter 6: Proposed tasks/timelines

One PhD position is available, for applicants interested in the research conducted in our lab. Please submit your application for the IST PhD program here. The minimum requirements are:

you have both a Bachelor and a Master
all your GPAs are above 3.3
these three courses in your transcripts: data structure, algorithms, and machine learning or a similar course
GRE Verbal above 147, Quantitative above 160, and writing above 3.5

Priority would be given to students who have conducted research under my supervision and have published with me.

He received the Ph.D. degree in Computing and Information from the University of Pittsburgh, PA, USA. He is currently an Assistant Professor with the Department of Information Sciences and Technology, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA. His research focuses on Machine Learning and Urban Computing, where he also specializes in intelligent transportation, spatial-temporal data mining and prediction, and online social media data mining. He has published 34 journal articles and 15 conference papers. He served on the program committee of WI-IAT international conference and SEKE international conference and is a Reviewer Board Member of Information and a Topics Board Member of Remote Sensing, since 2020. He was nominated for the 2021, 2022, and 2023 George Mason University Teaching Excellence Award. He has developed and teaches machine learning, deep learning, information visualization, data analytics, and programming related courses, at both undergraduate and graduate levels.

Journal Papers