Yas Silva

Paper Accepted in Psychology Research and Behavior Management! (August, 2024)

Our paper "Social identity, social media use, and mental health in adults: Investigating the mediating role of cyberbullying experiences and the moderating effects of gender and age", N. Barragan, A. Batista, D. Hall, Y. Silva, has been accepted for publication in Psychology Research and Behavior Management. Our paper will be part of the journal's collection on "Social Media and Mental Health: Exploring Their Complex Relationships".

Two Papers Accepted in ASONAM 2024! (July, 2024)

Our papers "Identifying Cyberbullying Roles in Social Media", M. Sandoval, M. Abuhamad, P. Furman, M. Nazari, D. Hall, Y. S. Silva, and "Evaluating LLMs Capabilities Towards Understanding Social Dynamics", A. Tahir, L. Cheng, M. Sandoval, Y. N. Silva, D. Hall, H. Liu, have been accepted in the 2024 International Conference on Advances in Social Networks Analysis and Mining (ASONAM) (Multidisciplinary Track). We look forward to sharing the results of this work in Italy later this year!

Paper Accepted in SBP-BRiMS 2024! (July, 2024)

Our paper "Detecting LGBTQ+ Instances of Cyberbullying", M. Arslan, M. Sandoval, M. Abuhamad, D. Hall, Y. S. Silva, has been accepted in the 2024 International Conference on Social Computing, Behavioral-Cultural Modeling & Prediction and Behavior Representation in Modeling and Simulation (SBP-BRiMS) (Online Proceedings). We look forward to sharing the initial results of this sub-project in Pittsburgh later this year!

BullyBlocker @ RISE Conference and LUC Symposia (Apr., 2024)

Manny Sandoval, Maddy Juarez, and Amanda Batista successfully represented our team in recent research events. Manny presented the poster "Cyberbullying Role Detection Using LLMs" at the Graduate School's 17th Annual Interdisciplinary Symposium, Maddie presented the poster "ActionPoint: An App to Combat Cyberbullying by Strengthening Parent-Teen Relationships" at the 2024 Undergraduate Research and Engagement Symposium, and Amanda gave a symposium talk on our ongoing subproject, "A Mixed Methods Investigation of Social Media Use and Perceptions of Online Toxicity Among LGBTQ+ Young Adults" at the 2024 Resilience in Social Environments Conference at ASU. We are proud of our amazing research assistants!

U.S. Patent Granted (Feb., 2024)

We just received notification that the U.S Patent and Trademark Office has agreed to grant a new patent directed to our team’s work on Systems and Methods for Unsupervised Cyberbullying Detection via Time-Informed Gaussian Mixture Model (U.S. patent number: 11,916,866). Congrats to everyone involved in this effort, particularly to Lu Cheng for leading this submission!

Paper accepted in IEEE World Forum on Public Safety Technology! (Feb., 2024)

Our research paper "'ActionPoint: An App to Combat Cyberbullying by Strengthening Parent-Teen Relationships" co-authored by M. Juarez, N. Barragan, D. Hall, G. Thiruvathukal, and Y. Silva was accepted at the 2024 IEEE World Forum on Public Safety Technology (WF-PST). We look forward to sharing the results of this work in Washington DC later this year!

BullyBlocker team @ SpeakStandSave 2024 (Jan., 2024)

Several members of our research team participated in the latest edition of Speak Stand Save 2024 (Phoenix AZ) where hundreds of middle school students gathered to learn about various tools to combat cyberbullying. Our team’s presentation (Cyberbullying, social media, and mental health: Improving outcomes for parents and teens) focused on highlighting how our ActionPoint app can be an effective resource for parents and teens to develop better communication skills. Our participation in this event was highlighted in a recent LUC CAS News article.

$3.8 Million NSF Grant to Launch the CyberRamblers Program! (Jan., 2024)

Our proposal CyberCorps Scholarship for Service: CyberRamblers Bolster National Security (Chan-Tin, Silva, Abuhamad, Stalans) has received funding from the National Science Foundation under the CyberCorps Scholarship for Service (SFS) program.
This project aims to enhance the national security of the United States by providing well-trained cybersecurity professionals who will serve in the government workforce. By offering comprehensive cybersecurity education and training, the program will contribute to meeting the needs of the nation's increasing cybersecurity workforce.
I am very excited about the many opportunities this program will enable, particuarly, for under-represented minorities. You can learn more about the project and award following these links:  NSF Award website   NSF News  Loyola CS News

ActionPoint 1.0 in Apple App Store! (December, 2023)

We are happy to announce the launch of the ActionPoint App, a cutting-edge application designed to combat bullying through the strengthening of parent-teen relationships. ActionPoint is a no-cost and user-friendly app that empowers parents and teens to foster appropriate online behaviors, learn more about cyberbullying scenarios, and communicate effectively regarding social media and technology use in their everyday lives. The various app activities are supported by empirical research in the social sciences. Download the app. See the press release.

Paper accepted in Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking! (April, 2023)

Our research paper "An Analysis of Temporal Trends in Anti-Asian Hate and Counter-Hate on Twitter During the COVID-19 Pandemic" co-authored by B. Wheeler, S. Jung, D. Hall, M. Purohit, and Y. Silva was accepted for publication in the Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking journal.

BullyBlocker team @ LUC's Research Symposia (April, 2023)

Several members of my research team presented recent results of our projects at the graduate and undergraduate symposia at LUC. Monika Purohit presented the poster "Global Prevalence Patterns of Anti-Asian Prejudice on Twitter During the COVID-19 Pandemic" at the Graduate School's Annual Interdisciplinary Symposium. Maddie Juarez and Patrick Furman presented the posters "ActionPoint App: Implementing an App to Combat Cyberbullying Through the Strengthening of Parent-Teen Relationships" and "Identifying Participant Roles in Cyberbullying Through Hierarchical Attention Networks" at the Undergraduate Research and Engagement Symposium.

Talking About Kids Podcast (March, 2023)

My collaborator in the BullyBlocker project, Dr. Deborah Hall and I participated recently in the Talking About Kids podcast hosted by R. Bradley Snyder. Talking About Kids is a weekly podcast for parents, educators, and direct service providers that explores the latest information on issues impacting children and adolescents. In this podcast episode, we shared our perspectives on cyberbullying risks and anti-cyberbullying resources. You can listen to this episode on your favorite postcast platform!

Best Paper Award in IEEE/ACM ASONAM 2022 (November, 2022)

Our paper "#WashTheHate: Understanding the Prevalence of Anti-Asian Prejudice on Twitter During the COVID-19 Pandemic" co-authored by B. Wheeler, S. Jung, M. Barioni, M. Purohit, D. Hall, and Y. Silva received the Best Paper Award (Multidisciplinary Track) at the 2022 IEEE/ACM International Conference on Advances in Social Networks Analysis and Mining. Contrats team!

Google Research Grant to Support the BullyBlocker Project! (October, 2022)

Our proposal "Toward Safer Online Experiences for LGBTQ+ Communities" (PI: Y. Silva, Co-PI: D. Hall), was selected to receive a Google research grant under the Award for Inclusion Research (AIR) Program ($60,000.00, Oct. 22 - Oct. 2023). You can learn more about the project here.

NCAE-C Grant! (September, 2022)

Our proposal "Taming Container Privileges using Userland OS Guests" (PI: N. Klingensmith, Co-PIs: Y. Silva, G. Thiruvathukal, E. Chan-Tin), was recently funded by the National Centers for Academic Excellence in Cybersecurity (NCAE-C) Grant Program ($499,397.00, Sept. 22 -Sept. 2024). This project focuses on the development of a more secure containerization framework based on a new execution environment to isolate untrusted containers from their hosts.

Paper accepted in IEEE/ACM ASONAM 2022 (April, 2022)

Our research paper "#WashTheHate: Understanding the Prevalence of Anti-Asian Prejudice on Twitter During the COVID-19 Pandemic" co-authored by B. Wheeler, S. Jung, M. Barioni, M. Purohit, D. Hall, and Y. Silva was accepted at the 2022 IEEE/ACM International Conference on Advances in Social Networks Analysis and Mining (ASONAM). We look forward to presenting the results of this work!

Paper accepted in ACM SIGIR 2022! (April, 2022)

Our research paper "Bias Mitigation for Toxicity Detection via Sequential Decisions" co-authored with students Lu Cheng and David Mosallanezhad, and collaborators Deborah Hall and Huan Liu was accepted at the The 45th International ACM SIGIR Conference on Research and Development in Information Retrieval (SIGIR). SIGIR'22 had an acceptance rate of 20% and will take place in Madrid, Spain. We look forward to sharing the latest results of the BullyBlocker project.

Paper accepted in AAAI ICWSM 2022! (March, 2022)

Our research paper "A Labeled Dataset for Investigating Cyberbullying Content Patterns in Instagram" co-authored with students Mara Hamlett and Grace Powell, and ASU collaborator Deborah Hall was accepted at the 16th International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media (ICWSM'22). We look forward to sharing the recent resources and results of the BullyBlocker project in Atlanta, GA.

Two papers accepted in ACM ITiCSE 2022! (March, 2022)

Our papers "DBSnap-Eval: Identifying Database Query Construction Patterns" and "DBSnap 2: New Features to Construct Database Queries by Snapping Blocks", co-authored with my student Alexis Loza and collaborator Humberto Razente from the Federal University of Uberlândia (Brazil), were accepted at the The 27rd Annual Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education (ITiCSE'22). ITiCSE'22 had an acceptance rate of 29% (full paper) and will take place in Dublin, Ireland. We look forward to sharing the latest results of the DBSnap project.

Paper accepted in Information Systems! (Sept., 2021)

Our paper "Storing Data Once in M-trees and PM-trees: Revisiting the Building Principles of Metric Access Methods" was accepted for publication in the Information Systems journal (Elsevier). This paper was co-authored with two amazing collaborators from Brazil who visited ASU in 2020: Humberto Razente and Maria Camila Nardini Barioni.

Paper Accepted in IJBP (July, 2021)

Our paper 'Harnessing the Power of Interdisciplinary Research with Psychology-Informed Cyberbullying Detection Models', co-authored with Deborah Hall, Brittany Wheeler, Lu Cheng, and Kathleen Baumel, was accepted for publication in the International Journal of Bullying Prevention, an official publication of the International Bullying Prevention Association.

Paper Accepted in Frontiers in Psychiatry (June, 2021)

Our paper 'Cyberbullying and Mental Health in Adults: The Moderating Role of Social Media Use and Gender', co-authored with Kaitlyn Schodt, Selena Quiroz, Brittany Wheeler and Deborah Hall, was accepted for publication in Frontiers in Psychiatry (Public Mental Health section). Congratulations #BullyBlocker team!

Paper Accepted in ACL '21 (May, 2021)

Our paper 'Mitigating Bias in Session-based Cyberbullying Detection: A Non-Compromising Approach', co-authored with Lu Cheng, Ahmadreza Mosallanezhad, Deborah Hall and Huan Liu, was accepted as a main conference research paper in the 59th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL 2021). We look forward to presenting the results of our work! You can learn more about the project here.

Team Members Win Awards for ISSR and NCUIRE Posters (April, 2021)

Our team won awards in the ISSR and NCUIRE Poster Contests this year! Johnny Hudson received second place in the Proposed Research Category for the Institute of Social Science Research Poster Contest. The team also won second place in the NCUIRE Student Choice Awards for their latest poster on the ActionPoint app. Congratulations team!

Paper Accepted in ACM/IMS Transactions on Data Science (Dec., 2020)

Our paper 'Modeling Temporal Patterns of Cyberbullying Detection with Hierarchical Attention Networks', co-authored with Lu Cheng, Ruocheng Guo, Deborah Hall and Huan Liu, has been accepted for publication in an upcoming issue of ACM/IMS Transactions on Data Science. This paper presents a hierarchical structure to better capture (Instagram) social media sessions and their temporal properties.

Paper Accepted in IEEE Internet Computing (Oct., 2020)

Our paper 'Session-based Cyberbullying Detection: Problems and Challenges', co-authored with Lu Cheng, Deborah Hall and Huan Liu, has been accepted for publication in an upcoming issue of IEEE Internet Computing. This paper explores the challenges and current solutions in the area of Cyberbullying detection. Congrats to the team!

New NSF Grant to Support the BullyBlocker Project! (Sep., 2020)

Our proposal Interdisciplinary Models to Identify and Understand Cyberbullying (PI: Silva, Co-PIs: Hall and Liu) has received funding from the National Science Foundation under the Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace (SaTC) program.
This project integrates computer science and psychology frameworks to advance our understanding of how cyberbullying can be identified and prevented. The core objective of this interdisciplinary project is to design and develop models and apps to prevent and identify instances of cyberbullying in social networks. It uses psychological theory to guide investigations of the nature of cyberbullying and the adoption of automated anti-bullying tools, as well as carefully-designed data collection processes and evaluation frameworks.
You can learn more about the project and award following these links:
 NSF award website
 BullyBlocker project website

Team members receive NCUIRE Award (Aug., 2020)

Hailyn Valle and Victor Garcia, two of my undergraduate research assistants, received a Team NCUIRE Racial Justice Program award. This award will support their research work investigating patterns of anti-Asian racism on Twitter during Covid-19. Congratulations Hailyn and Victor!

Paper Accepted in ACM CIKM '20 (July, 2020)

Our paper 'Unsupervised Cyberbullying Detection via Time-Informed Deep Clustering', co-authored with Lu Cheng, Kai Shu, Siqi Wu, Deborah Hall and Huan Liu, was accepted as a full research paper in the 29th ACM International Conference on Information and Knowledge Management (CIKM 2020). We look forward to presenting the results of our work! You can learn more about the project here.

DBSnap @ Snap!Con 2020 (July, 2020)

Members of our DBSnap research team will present the latest features of DBSnap at the Snap!Con 2020 conference. DBSnap is a web-based app that enables intuitive and dynamic database query creation by connecting visual blocks. Please join our online session here. You can also try DBSnap yourself, watch an introductory video, and access previous publications in the project website.

Best Paper Award in CyberSafety '20 (April, 2020)

Our paper on the temporal properties of cyberbullying on Instagram just received the CyberSafety'20 best paper award! I am super proud of my students and collaborators. This work was supported by an NSF grant and the paper was co-authored with students Aabhaas Gupta, Wenxi Yang, and Divya Sivakumar, and collaborators Deborah Hall (Psychology) and Maria Camila Nardini Barioni (Computer Science). Go #BullyBlocker team!

ASU Day at the Capitol 2020 (Feb., 2020)

Members of the DBSnap and BullyBlocker teams attended the ASU Day at the Capitol this month. Equipped with posters, videos, and the latest versions of the DBSnap and BullyBlocker apps, the teams shared their research outcomes and current developments with legislators and visitors. We are particularly proud of the great work done by our graduate and undergraduate research assistants at this event! You can learn more about these projects here (DBSnap) and here (BullyBlocker).

Paper Accepted in CyberSafety '20 (Feb., 2020)

Our paper 'Temporal Properties of Cyberbullying on Instagram', co-authored with students Aabhaas Gupta, Wenxi Yang, and Divya Sivakumar, and collaborators Deborah Hall (Psychology) and Maria Camila Nardini Barioni (Computer Science), was accepted in the 5th Workshop on Computational Methods in Online Misbehavior (CyberSafety '20, Taipei, Taiwan). CyberSafety '20 will be co-located with The Web Conference '20. This paper introduces a thoroughly-coded dataset that includes human labels at the comment and post level and presents key temporal characteristics of cyberbullying and trends obtained from descriptive and burst analysis tasks.

NSF SaTC PI Meeting 2019 (Oct., 2019)

Three members of the BullyBlocker team participated in the 2019 Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace Principal Investigators' Meeting (SaTC PI Meeting) in D.C.
My colleague Deborah Hall and I presented the key results of our project and participated in an interesting discussion about data sharing and privacy requirements as part of the Social and Behavioral Aspects of Cyber Security breakout session.
Our research assistant John Spokes was selected by the event organizers to receive travel support and attend the first undergraduate track of this meeting. John did a great job presenting his poster about the ActionPoint app design. Thanks NSF for supporting our student’s participation!

BullyBlocker project featured on 3TV/CBS5 and 12News! (Aug., 2019)

Recent stories on 3TV/CBS5 and 12News highlighted recent efforts of the BullyBlocker team to build models and apps to identify cyberbullying instances in social media sessions. The stories include interviews with several members of our team. You can watch the stories here and here. Thank you Trisha Hendricks and Jason Barry for your reporting!

Work on anti-bullying models and apps featured on KTAR and Cronkite News! (July, 2019)

A recent article (and accompanying video) on KTAR News and Cronkite News highlighted the risks of cyberbullying in social networks and described the efforts of the BullyBlocker team to implement anti-bullying apps for parents and teens. The story specifically mentioned our efforts to implement models and tools for Instagram. The story can be found here and here. Thank you Abbagail Leon and Bayne Froney for preparing this story!

Paper accepted in the International Conference on Similarity Search and Applications (SISAP '19)! (July, 2019)

The paper "Similarity Grouping in Big Data Systems" co-authored with three undergraduate students (M. Sandoval, D. Prado, X. Wallace) and a former visiting scholar (C. Rong) has been accepted in the 12th International Conference on Similarity Search and Applications (SISAP 2019). The paper focuses on the design and implementation of similarity grouping algorithms for Big Data. We look forward to presenting our work in Newark, NJ.

Paper accepted in Information Systems! (July, 2019)

Our paper "Pivot-based Approximate k-NN Similarity Joins for Big High-dimensional Data" was accepted for publication in the Information Systems journal (Elsevier). This paper is co-authored with a previous visiting scholar (P. Cech) and J. Lokoc. This paper focuses on the implementation and evaluation of k-NN Similarity Join algorithms for high-dimensional data using the Spark and Hadoop frameworks.

BullyBlocker Team Visited by International Delegation on Cyberbullying (June, 2019)

Members of the our BullyBlocker team engaged on a lively discussion with members of the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) delegation on Cyberbullying (scholars and leaders from Eastern Europe and Central Asia). The group is part of the International Visitor Leadership Program run by the U.S. Department of State. Thank you for visiting us at ASU!

BullyBlocker Project Featured by SIAM and Education Dive! (May 2019)

Our work on developing machine-learning-based cyberbullying detection models and our recent SIAM SDM'2019 paper 'Hierarchical Attention Networks for Cyberbullying Detection on the Instagram Social Network' were highlighted in a recent press release prepared by SIAM and made available on Education Dive’s website.

BullyBlocker Project Featured on AZFamily and Cronkite News/Arizona PBS! (May 2019)

The BullyBlocker project was highlighted in a recent news article about cyberbullying on AZFamily.com and the Arizona PBS website. Featuring interviews with Dr. Yasin Silva and Dr. Deborah Hall, the article emphasizes the importance of combatting cyberbullying. The article can be found here and here.

Paper Accepted to IJCAI 2019 (May. 2019)

Our paper 'PI-Bully: Personalized Cyberbullying Detection with Peer Influence', co-authored with Lu Cheng, Jundong Li, Deborah Hall and Huan Liu, was accepted to the 28th International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI) 2019 (acceptance rate: 17.9%)! IJCAI 2019 will take place in Macao, China in August 2019. We look forward to sharing the latest results of the BullyBlocker project at IJCAI'19.

Paper Accepted to SIAM SDM 2019 (Dec. 2018)

Our paper 'Hierarchical Attention Networks for Cyberbullying Detection on the Instagram Social Network', co-authored with Lu Cheng, Ruocheng Guo, Deborah Hall and Huan Liu, was accepted to the SIAM International Conference on Data Mining (SDM) 2019 (acceptance rate: 22.7%)! SDM 2019 will take place in Calgary, Alberta, Canada in May 2019. We look forward to sharing the results of our work with the SDM community.

Paper Accepted to WSDM 2019 (Oct. 2018)

Our paper 'XBully: Cyberbullying Detection within a Multi-Modal Context', co-authored with Lu Cheng, Jundong Li, Deborah Hall and Huan Liu, was accepted to the ACM International Conference on Web Search and Data Mining (WSDM) 2019 (acceptance rate: 16%)! I am very proud of our interdisciplinary BullyBlocker team! WSDM 2019 will take place in Melbourne, Australia in February 2019. We look forward to sharing the results of our work with the WSDM community.

Finalist for AZ Innovator of the Year award - Academia Category (Oct. 2018)

Honored to be a finalist, together with my collaborator Deborah Hall, for the Innovator of the Year award (Academia Category) at the 2018 Governor’s Celebration of Innovation Awards (GCOI). GCOI is the Arizona Technology Council’s (AZTC) annual awards gala in partnership with the Arizona Commerce Authority (ACA) that honors technology leaders and innovators from across the state. 2018 marks the 15th year of this event.

ASU New College Outstanding Innovation Award (May, 2018)

My collaborator, Prof. Deborah Hall, and I received the ASU New College Outstanding Innovation Award 2017-2018 for our interdisciplinary work in the BullyBlocker project. In the picture, we appear with Prof. Todd Sandrin, dean of our college.
Working in the BullyBlocker project has been a great experience in many dimensions. I look forward to the next steps of our collaborative work.
Learn more about the BullyBlocker project here.
Download the latest version of the BullyBlocker app here.

Undergraduate Research Scholarships (May, 2018)

The work with six of my undergraduate students during the summer of 2018 and the 2018-2019 academic year will be supported by one AWESO (Western Alliance to Expand Student Opportunities) and three NCUIRE (New College Undergraduate Inquiry & Research Experiences) awards. The supported students will participate in the BullyBlocker, SimCloud and DBSnap projects. Thank you WAESO and NCUIRE!

Paper accepted in the SNAM Journal! (March, 2018)

Our paper "BullyBlocker: Toward an Interdisciplinary Approach to Identify Cyberbullying" coauthored with my colleague Prof. Deborah Hall (Psychology) and my Applied Computing student Christopher Rich has been accepted in the Social Network Analysis and Mining journal (SNAM). SNAM is one of the premier journals in the area of social network analysis. Congratulations to my coauthors!

Paper accepted in ACM ITiCSE 2018! (March, 2018)

Our research paper "DBSnap++: Creating Data-driven Programs by Snapping Blocks" co-authored with my students Anthony Nieuwenhuyse, Thomas Schenk and Alaura Symons was accepted at the The 23rd Annual Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education (ITiCSE'18). ITiCSE is one of the top international conferences in computer science education research and is sponsored by the ACM Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE). ITiCSE'18 had an acceptance rate of 29% and will take place in Larnaca, Cyprus. We look forward to sharing the results of the DBSnap++ project.

3TV/CBS 5 story highlights BullyBlocker project! (Sep., 2017)

A news story highlighting the BullyBlocker project recently aired on 3TV and CBS 5. The story, which includes interviews with some of our team members, describes some of the key features of the BullyBlocker app and the way these components were implemented. Watch the story here.

ASU Now story! (Sept., 2017)

Our collaborative work under the BullyBlocker project was featured in a 2017 article of ASU Now. The article delves into the merging of our work in computer science and psychology and highlights how bridging these two fields can vastly improve not only the app, but also the research that drives it. Read the story here.

BullyBlocker 1.0 in Apple App Store! (Sep., 2017)

My BullyBlocker research team is happy to announce the public availability of the first version of the BullyBlocker app in the Apple App store. BullyBlocker 1.0 is a no-cost app designed and implemented by the BullyBlocker research group at Arizona State University. The goal of the app is to identify cyberbullying instances in social media networks by estimating the probability of a user experiencing cyberbullying. Currently, the app supports Facebook and implements an identification model based on previous psychology research findings about the nature and prevalence of cyberbullying in adolescents. BullyBlocker aims at informing parents when cyberbullying occurs and enables them to help their children in time to make a difference.
 Download the app
 See the press release

We received an NSF grant for the BullyBlocker project! (Sep., 2017)

Our proposal EAGER: BullyBlocker – Identifying Cyberbullying in Social Networking Sites (PI: Silva, Co-PI: Hall) has received funding from the National Science Foundation under the Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace (SaTC) program.
The goal of the BullyBlocker project is to advance the understanding of how cyberbullying, in particular, and behavioral issues, more broadly, can be effectively identified on social networking sites. The project integrates advances in computer sciences and key findings from psychological research on cyberbullying to (i) design and implement automated models for identifying cyberbullying on social networking platforms, and (ii) study usage patterns of automated tools based on these models and their utility for devising and testing new hypotheses about cyberbullying risk factors.
You can learn more about the project and award following these links:
 NSF award website
 BullyBlocker project website

Two of my students received NCUIRE scholarship awards (Jul., 2017)

Tom Schenk and Rusty Conway, two of my undergraduate research assistants, have recently received NCUIRE (New College Undergraduate Inquiry & Research Experiences) scholarship awards. These awards will support their research work during the 2017-2018 academic year. Congratulations!

Paper accepted in IEEE ICDE 2017! (Jan., 2017)

Our research paper "Fast and Scalable Distributed Set Similarity Joins for Big Data Analytics" co-authored with C. Rong, C. Lin and J. Wang was accepted at the 33rd IEEE International Conference on Data Engineering (ICDE'17). The ICDE'17 conference will take place in San Diego, CA, USA. We look forward to sharing the results of our work with the data engineering community.

Paper accepted in the International Conference on Similarity Search and Applications (SISAP '16)! (Aug., 2016)

The paper "An Experimental Survey of MapReduce-based Similarity Joins" co-authored with three previous undergraduate students (J.M. Reed, A. Wadsworth, and K. Brown) and a visiting scholar (C. Rong.) has been accepted in the 9th International Conference on Similarity Search and Applications (SISAP 2016). The paper focuses on the study, classification and experimental comparison of previously proposed Similarity Join algorithms for Big Data. We look forward to presenting our work in Tokyo, Japan.

Two Papers accepted in the International Conference on Advances in Social Networks Analysis and Mining (ASONAM '16)! (Aug., 2016)

The system demonstration paper "BullyBlocker: An App to Identify Cyberbullying in Facebook", Y.N. Silva, C. Rich, J. Chon and L.M. Tsosie, and the poster paper "BullyBlocker: Towards the Identification of Cyberbullying in Social Networking Sites", Y.N. Silva, C. Rich, and D. Hall have been accepted in the 2016 IEEE/ACM International Conference on Advances in Social Networks Analysis and Mining (ASONAM 2016). We look forward to presenting the initial results of the BullyBlocker project in San Francisco later this year. Congratulations to all my coauthors!

Paper accepted in Frontiers of Computer Science (FCS) (Feb., 2016)

The paper "String Similarity Join with Different Similarity Thresholds Based on Novel Indexing Techniques" coauthored with my visiting scholar (C. Rong) and C. Li has been accepted in the Frontiers of Computer Science journal (FCS). In this paper, we focus on the study of similarity operators that support multiple similarity thresholds. Congratulations to my coauthors!

ASU Senate Video Highlights work with my Student! (Feb., 2016)

The work with Christopher Rich, one of my undergraduate students, was highlighted in a video made by the ASU Senate for the Arizona Board of Regents (ABOR). Zoom to 2:45 if you want to skip straight to this section. Watch the video here. You can learn more about the project here.

Paper accepted in ACM SIGCSE 2016! (Oct., 2015)

Our paper "SQL: From Traditional Databases to Big Data" co-authored with my students Isadora Almeida and Michell Queiroz was accepted at the ACM SIGCSE'16 conference. This paper studies the role of SQL as a language that can be used in a broad range of database systems from traditional RDBMSs to Big Data systems. SIGCSE is regarded as the premier international conference in computer science education. We look forward to presenting the paper in Memphis!

Paper accepted in the TKDE Journal! (September, 2015)

Our paper "Similarity Group-by Operators for Multi-dimensional Relational Data" was just accepted in the Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering Journal (TKDE)! This paper is co-authored with researchers at Purdue University and the Qatar Computing Research Institute. Congratulations to my collaborators!

We received Amazon Research and SRCA Grants! (April, 2015)

Our proposal "Similarity Grouping for Big Data" recently received an Amazon Web Services (AWS) Research grant. In addition, my proposal "Study, Classification and Benchmarking of Similarity Join Algorithms for Big Data" was awarded a grant from the Scholarship, Research and Creative Activities Grant Program (SRCA) at ASU - New College. We look forward to keep working on developing new techniques to identify similarities in large datasets.

ASU Magazine Article (March, 2015)

I am very excited to be part of the "Living our Lives Online" article in the March-2015 issue of the ASU Magazine. The article explores the perspectives of several ASU researchers about what balance means in a digital world. The PDF version of the magazine issue can be found here. The online version of the article is available here.

SIGCSE'15 Presentation with Undergraduate Student (March, 2015)

On March 5th, my undergraduate research assistant Jaime Chon and I presented our paper "DBSnap: Learning Database Queries by Snapping Blocks" at the ACM SIGCSE'15 conference in Kansas City, USA. We were very happy to see a lot of interest on DBSnap and had very interesting conversations about collaborative projects after the presentation. We look forward to continuing our work on DBSnap and invite all database instructors and learners to try this open and highly dynamic tool to build database queries by connecting blocks. A story about our presentation appeared recently in the ASU New College Blog.

In the left picture, Jaime and I are standing in front of the conference area entrance. In the right picture, Jaime is demonstrating the use of DBSnap during our presentation.

Paper accepted in Information Systems! (Feb., 2015)

Our paper "Similarity Joins: Their Implementation and Interactions with Other Database Operators" was accepted for publication in the Information Systems journal (Elsevier). This paper is co-authored with my undergraduate students Spencer Pearson, Jaime Chon and Ryan Roberts.

Grant from the Dion Initiative! (Feb., 2015)

We recently received a research grant from the Dion Initiative for Child Well-Being and Bullying Prevention (www.dioninitiative.org), a program that promotes environments that foster the health, well-being, and academic success of children. This grant will support our research work in the BullyBlocker project and will accelerate the implementation of our mobile app to identify instances of cyberbullying in Facebook. Thank you Dion Initiative!

Media Coverage of my Research with Undergraduates (Nov., 2014)

Several recent media stories highlighted my research work with undergraduate students at Arizona State University. The work with these students has produce multiple publications in top-tier international conferences and journals. Stories appeared at New College Blog (story 1, story 2, story 3) and ASU News (story 1, story 2).

Media Coverage of BullyBlocker and the Dion Initiative (Nov., 2014)

Several media stories described our work on the BullyBlocker project and the support provided by the Dion Initiative. We are very excited to be one of the supported projects of the Dion Initiative and look forward to the collaborative opportunities it will enable. Stories appeared at AZ Central, AZ Tech Beat, KTAR Radio, Cronkite News, and others.

Paper accepted in IEEE ICDE 2015! (Oct., 2014)

Our system demonstration paper "Querying Databases by Snapping Blocks" co-authored with my undergraduate student Jaime Chon was accepted at the 31st IEEE International Conference on Data Engineering (ICDE'15). The ICDE'15 conference will take place in Seoul, Korea. We look forward to sharing the results of our work with the data engineering community.

Paper accepted in ACM SIGCSE 2015! (Oct., 2014)

Our paper "DBSnap: Learning Database Queries by Snapping Blocks" co-authored with my student Jaime Chon was accepted at the ACM SIGCSE '15 conference. SIGCSE is regarded as the premier international conference in computer science education. We look forward to presenting the paper in Kansas City!

BullyBlocker to be a supported project of the Dion Initiative (Oct., 2014)

On October 6th, Phoenix's first lady, Nicole Stanton, and ASU president, Michael Crow, united forces to kick-off a state-wide child well-being and bullying prevention effort (The Dion Initiative). BullyBlocker, one of my research projects, is one of three projects supported by this initiative. The initiative will offer interdisciplinary support and funding to advance the development of the BullyBlocker app and extend its capabilities.

In the pictures, the BullyBlocker team appears with President Crow, Mayor Stanton, and the first lady, Nicole Stanton.

Undergraduate research proposal funded (Aug., 2014)

Our undergraduate research proposal entitled "DBSnap: Building Database Queries by Snapping Blocks” has been awarded funding from the Western Alliance to Expand Student Opportunities (WAESO). I look forward to working in this project with Jaime Chon, an outstanding Applied Computing student, who started working in this project in Summer'14 under an NCUIRE Scholarship award.

Paper accepted in the International Conference on Similarity Search and Applications (SISAP '14)! (July 2014)

The paper "Index-Based R-S Similarity Joins" co-authored with one of my undergraduate students (S. Pearson) has been accepted in the 7th International Conference on Similarity Search and Applications (SISAP 2014). In this paper, we present a general index-based approach to solve the Similarity Join problem between two relations. We look forward to presenting our work in SISAP 2014.

SimDB Results Highlighted in ASU Research Bulletin (May 2014)

The results of our work in the SimDB project were highlighted in the May 2014 edition of the ASU Knowledge Enterprise Bulletin. The referenced work (Database Similarity Join for Metric Spaces) was developed with two undergraduate students: Spencer Pearson and Jason Cheney.

Great Media Coverage of BullyBlocker on TV, Radio and the Web! (Jan., 2014)

Our BullyBlocker project and crowdfunding campaign received outstanding media coverage on TV, radio, and many web-based news outlets and social communities. Our research work was featured in ABC 15, CBS 5, Telemundo, Fox 10, KTAR Radio, Campus Technology, ASU News (article 1, article 2), The State Press, AZLatinos, etc. All this coverage brought attention to the important issue of cyberbullying, our solution and research that takes place at the ASU-West campus.

BullyBlocker Participated in a Crowdfunding Campaign (Dec., 2013 - Jan., 2014)

Best Paper Award - SISAP'13! (Nov., 2013)

Our paper "Database Similarity Join for Metric Spaces" recently presented at the 6th International Conference on Similarity Search and Applications (SISAP 2013) has received a Best Paper award. Congratulations to my undergraduate student co-authors Spencer Pearson and Jason Cheney!

Paper accepted in ACM SIGCSE 2014! (Oct., 2013)

Our paper "Integrating Big Data into the Computing Curricula" co-authored with my colleague Suzanne Dietrich and two of my students (Jason Reed and Lisa Tsosie) was accepted at the ACM SIGCSE '14 conference. SIGCSE is regarded as the premier international conference in computer science education. We look forward to presenting the paper in Atlanta!

Wide media coverage about the work on Facebully with one of my students (Oct., 2013)

The research work with Lisa Tsosie, one of my undergraduate student collaborators, and her participation in the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing Conference (GHC), 2013 received important media coverage. Lisa is a bright young researcher and is an active member of my Facebully and SimCloud projects. Stories appeared at AZ Central, The State Press, Your West Valley, The Navajo-Hopi Observer, ASU News, and the printed edition of the Arizona Republic newspaper (Sept. 29, 2013).

How an Algorithm Helps Improve Swiss Decision Making (September, 2013)

An article about how one of my similarity join algorithms is used in the Swiss Feed Database appeared in the ASU New College blog. The use of this algorithm enables the system to efficiently identify replacements for missing values in queries over large datasets. Finding good replacements, in turn, improves the quality of the results obtained by various data analysis tools. Link to the story.

Keynote speech at University of Zurich (July 8, 2013)

I had the honor to give the keynote speech at the Swiss Feed Database Workshop organized by the Database group led by Prof. Michael Böhlen (University of Zürich, Switzerland). The workshop included several interesting presentations focused on similarity and nearest neighbor search. I was particularly interested on learning how researchers at the University of Zurich have applied one of my Similarity Join algorithms as one of the core techniques to handle missing values in the context of agricultural data (Swiss Feed Database)! It was also great to talk to Prof. Böhlen and his team about their current research projects and directions. Thank you for the invitation Michael!

Visit to University of Salzburg (July 10-11, 2013)

I had the pleasure to visit and present at the University of Salzburg, Austria following an invitation from Prof. Nikolaus Augsten, head of the Database Group at the U. of Salzburg. During this visit, I presented my work on Similarity Queries, focusing primarily on the results presented in a recent VLDB Journal paper. Particularly, I described how similarity queries with multiple similarity operators can be efficiently evaluated and optimized. I also had very interesting conversations with Prof. Augsten and his team members about their research on similarity operators on graphs and string data. Thank you for the invitation Nikolaus!

Refereed Book Chapter Accepted!

Our manuscript "Similarity Join for Big Geographic Data" has been accepted for publication in the book: Geographical Information Systems: Trends and Technologies, CRC Press. This chapter presents the results of my work with three outstanding students: Jason Reed, Lisa Tsosie and Timothy Matti, and focuses on the study of highly scalable similarity joins with geographic data and distance functions. The book is expected to be published in 2014.

Paper published in the VLDB Journal!

Our paper "Similarity Queries: Their Conceptual Evaluation, Transformations, and Processing", Y.N. Silva, W.G. Aref, P.-A. Larson, S. Pearson and M.H. Ali, has been published in the VLDB Journal (2013). In this paper we focus on the study of similarity queries that contain one or multiple first-class similarity database operators (Similarity Selection, Similarity Join, and Similarity Group-by). We introduce a comprehensive conceptual evaluation model for similarity queries, and present a rich set of transformation rules to extend cost-based query optimization to the case of similarity queries.

Paper accepted in the International Conference on Similarity Search and Applications (SISAP '13)!

The paper "Database Similarity Join for Metric Spaces" co-authored with two of my undergraduate students (S. Pearson and J. A. Cheney) has been accepted in the 6th International Conference on Similarity Search and Applications (SISAP 2013). In this paper, we focus on the study, design and implementation of DBSimJoin, a Similarity Join database operator for any dataset that lies in a metric space. We look forward to presenting our work in SISAP 2013.

Research poster accepted at Grace Hopper Celebration

Our research poster proposal “Facebully: Towards the Identification of Cyberbullying in Facebook”, Lisa M. Tsosie, Yasin .N. Silva, has been accepted at the upcoming Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing (GHC), 2013. Lisa has also been awarded a Google Women of Color scholarship to attend GHC (largest conference for technical women in the world!). She was selected from a highly competitive pool of over 900 applicants. Congratulations Lisa!

Student obtained 2nd place in New College's Reseach Expo!

Two of my students, Lisa Tsosie and Spencer Pearson, participated in the New College’s Undergraduate Student Research and Creative Projects Expo 2013 (ASU). They both did a great job presenting their research posters. Lisa presented her work on Facebully (identification of cyberbullying in Facebook) and Spencer presented his work on index-based similarity joins. Lisa obtained the second prize in the Mathematical and Natural Sciences category. Congratulations!

We received an Amazon Educational Grant!

We have been recently selected to receive an AWS in Education Coursework grant! This Amazon grant will play a key role in our efforts to integrate highly distributed technologies, particularly the MapReduce framework and Big Data analysis using Hadoop, into the Applied Computing curricula at ASU-West. The award will provide our students with AWS credits and will be used in our advanced databases and distributed systems courses (Spring and Fall 2013).

ASU News video highlights research with one of my undergraduate students

An ASU News video highlights the research work performed by undergraduate students and ASU faculty under the NCUIRE (New College Undergraduate Inquiry and Research Experiences) program. NCUIRE enables a close interaction between students and faculty members at ASU-West to perform high-quality research. The video highlights, among others, the work with one of my undergraduate students (Spencer Pearson). You can watch the video here.

Faculty Doctoral Mentoring Institute

On March 4th, 2013, I participated in the 6th Arizona MGE@MSA Faculty Doctoral Mentoring Institute held at the Arizona State University Tempe Campus. This institute was a great opportunity to discuss and learn more about how we can increase the participation and retention of underrepresented groups in higher education. I particularly enjoyed meeting and talking with Richard Tapia, a distinguished professor who has inspired many African-American, Native American and Latino/Latina students to pursue careers in computing and mathematics.

Collaborative Research Project: ASU - HP Labs

I recently started a collaborative project with Rares Vernica from HP Labs. In this project (“MapReduce-based Parallel Face Clustering”), we are studying techniques to efficiently support distributed similarity-aware operators that use face-similarity functions on complex face-feature vectors.

Undergraduate research proposal funded

Our undergraduate research proposal entitled "FaceBully: Identifying Cyberbullying Behavior in Facebook” has been awarded funding from the Western Alliance to Expand Student Opportunities (WAESO). I look forward to keep collaborating in this project with my student Lisa Tsosie during Spring 2013.

We received an Amazon Research Grant!

Our proposal "Similarity Join Operators for Cloud Systems" recently received an Amazon Web Services (AWS) Research grant. We look forward to keep using Amazon’s great cloud services in our research work!

ASU News story features the participation of my students in VLDB and Cloud-I

A story in ASU News featured the participation of two of my undergraduate students (Spencer Pearson and Jason Reed) in the VLDB conference and VLDB/Cloud-I workshop in Istanbul, Turkey. Congrats Spencer and Jason! Link to the story.

Undergraduate research proposal funded

Our undergraduate research proposal entitled "Study, Evaluation and Comparison of Similarity-aware Algorithms for Clouds Systems” has been awarded funding from the Western Alliance to Expand Student Opportunities (WAESO). I look forward to working in this project with Lisa Tsosie, an outstanding undergraduate student in the Applied Computing program.

VLDB 2012 Travel Fellowship Awards

Two of my undergraduate students, Jason Reed and Spencer Pearson, received the VLDB 2012 Travel Fellowship awards. The awards will allow them to attend VLDB’12 and Cloud-I in Istanbul, Turkey. I look forward to presenting with them the results of our research work. Congratulations Jason and Spencer!

Paper accepted in VLDB/Cloud-I 2012

Our paper "MapReduce-based Similarity Join for Metric Spaces", Y. N. Silva, J. M. Reed and L. M. Tsosie, has been accepted in the The VLDB International Workshop on Cloud Intelligence (VLDB/Cloud-I 2012). This paper is co-authored with two of my undergraduate students (Jason Reed and Lisa Tsosie). We look forward to presenting our paper in Istanbul!.

Paper accepted in VLDB 2012!

Our demonstration paper "Exploiting Database Similarity Joins for Metric Spaces", Y. N. Silva and S. Pearson, has been accepted in the 38th International Conference on Very Large Databases (VLDB 2012). This paper is co-authored with my undergraduate student Spencer Pearson, who did a great job implementing our Similarity Join operator in PostgreSQL. At VLDB, we will present the operator and demonstrate how it can be efficiently used in real-world applications.

News story features my work with two undergraduate students

A story in the ASU New College Newsletter featured the research work with two of my students. The featured work has been developed under two NCUIRE (New College Undergraduate Inquiry and Research Experiences Program) funded projects. NCUIRE is a great ASU program that supports research partnerships between faculty and undergraduate scholars. Link to the story.

Demo Paper accepted in SIGMOD 2012!

Our demo paper "Exploiting MapReduce-based Similarity Joins", Y. N. Silva and J. M. Reed, has been accepted in the 2012 ACM SIGMOD International Conference on Management of Data. This paper is co-authored with my undergraduate student Jason Reed. We look forward to presenting our MapReduce-based Similarity Join operator at SIGMOD '12.

Paper accepted in ICDE 2012!

Our paper "Exploiting Common Subexpressions for Cloud Query Processing", Y. N. Silva, P. -A. Larson, J. Zhou has been accepted as a full paper for publication in the proceedings of the 28th IEEE International Conference on Data Engineering (ICDE) 2012 and for full-length oral presentation at the conference. ICDE '12 will take place in Washington, DC, USA. Congratulations to my co-authors. See you in Washington DC!

Demo paper accepted in ACM SIGMOD 2010!

Our Demo paper "SimDB: A Similarity-aware Database System", Y. N. Silva, A. M. Aly, W. G. Aref, P. -A. Larson was accepted in the 2010 ACM SIGMOD International Conference on Management of Data. The SIGMOD ’10 conference will take place in the city of Indianapolis, Indiana, on June 6-11, 2010. See you there!

Two papers accepted in ICDE 2010!

Our research paper "The Similarity Join Database Operator", Y. N. Silva, W. G. Aref, and M. Ali was accepted as a Full Paper in the 26th IEEE International Conference on Data Engineering (ICDE) 2010. Our paper "Supporting Real-world Activities in Database Management Systems", M.Y. Eltabakh, W.G. Aref, A.K. Elmagarmid, Y.N. Silva, and M. Ouzzani was also accepted in the same conference as a short paper. The ICDE ’10 conference will take place in Los Angeles, USA. Congratulations to all my co-authors!

Paper accepted in the VLDB PhD Workshop 2009!

Our research paper "Similarity-aware Query Processing and Optimization", Y. N. Silva and W. G. Aref (Advisor) was accepted in the PhD workshop of the 35th International Conference on Very Large Data Bases. The VLDB PhD workshop is one of the premier forums for PhD students working in the area of data management systems. The VLDB ’09 conference will take place in Lyon, France.

Finished Summer '09 Internship at Microsoft Research

I spent the summer '09 at the Microsoft Research (MSR) lab in Redmond, WA where I had the honor and pleasure to work with Paul Larson and Jingren Zhou. My research task during this summer involved enhancing the optimizer of a massive data distributed management system to make efficient use of common query sub-expressions.

Being at Microsoft Research was also a great opportunity to interact with its great researchers; I especially enjoyed the discussions with different researchers of the Database and Data Management, Exploration and Mining groups. It was also a great experience to present the research work I have done at Purdue to MSR researchers and the results of my summer work to both the MSR researchers and the SQL Server team.
Together with my wife and two sons, I explored the beautiful parks and beaches during the weekends. We especially enjoyed exploring the rainforests at the Olympic Peninsula.

Paper and Demo accepted in ICDE 2009!

Our research paper "Similarity Group-by", Y. N. Silva, W. G. Aref, and M. Ali was accepted as a full paper in The 25th IEEE International Conference on Data Engineering (ICDE) 2009. Our demo "Hippocratic PostgreSQL", J. Padma, Y. N. Silva, M. Arshad, W. G. Aref was also accepted in the same conference! Congratulations to all my co-authors!

Demo and Paper accepted in EDBT 2009!

Our demo paper "Exploiting Similarity-aware Grouping in Decision Support Systems", Y. N. Silva, M. U. Arshad, W. G. Aref. and our research paper "Supporting Annotations on Relations", M. Y. Eltabakh, W. G. Aref, A. K. Elmagarmid, M. Ouzzani, Y. N. Silva were recently accepted in the 12th International Conference on Extending Database Technology (EDBT), 2009 . The conference will be held in the beautiful city of Saint-Petersburg, Russia.

Finished Summer '08 Internship at IBM Research Almaden Center

My summer '08 was full of great challenges and a lot of fun working with the Information Management Group at the IBM Almaden Research Center (IBM ARC), San Jose, CA where I had the pleasure and honor to work with Guy Lohman and Sandeep Tata. My work at IBM ARC involved designing and prototyping a data management system that can inherently support unstructured and structured data.

This was a great opportunity to meet several other researchers at IBM Research and learn about other exciting projects currently in development at IBM. Lee Ann, Gabriel and I took advantage of the weekends to visit the surrounding national parks and beautiful coastal cities, and to spend time with new great friends.

Completed 'Mini-MBA' Program at The Krannert School of Management, May 2008

The beginning of my summer was packed with interesting business related classes and hands-on activities having been selected by the Computer Science Department to participate in the Applied Management Principles Program at the Krannert School of Management.

This executive education program is designed for select doctoral students in science and engineering and industry participants. We received instruction in interesting topics like accounting, human resource management, financial management, marketing, strategic management and entrepreneurship.