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--- sdmia_invited_speakers [2015/09/28 15:43]
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+++ sdmia_invited_speakers [2015/10/18 09:32]
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 [[http://teamcore.usc.edu/tambe/|USC]]
-Title: TBD\\
+Joint work with Eric Rice, Amulya Yadav, and Robin Petering.
+Title: **PSINET: Assisting HIV Prevention Amongst Homeless Youth using POMDPs**\\
 Abstract:\\
-TBD
+Homeless youth are prone to Human Immunodeficiency
+Virus (HIV) due to their engagement in high risk behavior
+such as unprotected sex, sex under influence of
+drugs, etc. Many non-profit agencies conduct interventions
+to educate and train a select group of homeless
+youth about HIV prevention and treatment practices and
+rely on word-of-mouth spread of information through
+their social network. Previous work in strategic selection
+of intervention participants does not handle uncertainties
+in the social network’s structure and evolving
+network state, potentially causing significant shortcomings
+in spread of information. Thus, we developed
+PSINET, a decision support system to aid the agencies
+in this task. PSINET includes the following key novelties:
+(i) it handles uncertainties in network structure
+and evolving network state; (ii) it addresses these uncertainties
+by using POMDPs in influence maximization;
+and (iii) it provides algorithmic advances to allow high
+quality approximate solutions for such POMDPs. We are about
+to conduct a pilot test study with homeless youth in Los Angeles;
+we will present a progress report.
 === Jason Williams ===