Gastvortrag von Marcelo Sztainberg: Information Systems meet Cultural Competencies: Designing Information Systems that are Sensitive to User Demographics

Abstract:

In an increasingly multi-cultural interconnected world, the design and implementation of Information System is still dominated by the traditional practices of standard users.  When looking at use cases, or when selecting user interfaces and communication languages a generic set of users is taken into consideration. This talk will introduce research done in the context of the Information Systems meets Cultural Competencies (IS-CUCO) project.  This project focuses on the integration (or lack thereof) of cultural factors into the development of Information systems that provide access to food-security services such as food pantries to increase their use by Hispanic and other underserved populations.

This presentation will provide an overview of the whole IS CUCO project and its implications in the design of information systems.  In particular, we will address the analysis and use of language in social media posts that intend to promote services that are supplied by food security organizations (food pantries, soup kitchens and others).  Our team applied different Sentiment Analysis techniques to determine common characteristics and word choices that would heighten the sentiment/impact of a particular social media post.  Other factors, like emoticons and emojis were incorporated to increase accuracy of sentiment prediction.  While analyzing results we will introduce current work, including the development of a corpus and methods that will incorporate user demographics in the data collection.  The goal is to produce more accurate predictors that adapt to each targeted population cultural characteristics.

CV

Dr. Marcelo Sztainberg is a Professor of Computer Science and currently serves as the Interim Dean of Graduate Studies, Analytics, and Research at Northeastern Illinois University (NEIU). 

Dr. Sztainberg is the Principal Investigator (PI) in two current NSF funded awards, for a total of $2.7M.  One of the awards is a collaborative project with University of Texas at El Paso, California State University Dominguez Hills , and New York CityTech focused on incorporating Cultural Competencies in the development of Information Systems that support food security organizations in the Chicago, New York and Los Angeles areas.  In the past decade Dr. Sztainberg has also contributed to the development of multiple grant proposals and supported funded programs in his capacity as Director of the SCSE and as Associate Dean for the College of Arts and Sciences.

Dr. Sztainberg research interests include Machine Learning and Natural Language Processing, in particular applications that support lowering barriers to access to health and food services for low income and minority populations.  Dr. Sztainberg has a PhD in Applied Mathematics and Statistics from Stony Brook University and a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science and Mathematics (double major) from Wayne State University.  He joined NEIU in 2003.