An article in the April 1 edition of New York Times, Computer Science for the Rest of Us, mentions UMBC and Marie desJardins. It describes the idea that our notion of literacy should be exapanded to include an understanding of computational processes and that all college graduates should know the basics of computational thinking.

The article discusses a number of colleges and universities that have introduced new courses to address this challenge, offering non-computing majors a chance to understand how computation can be used to analyze and organizing data, model ideas and systems, evaluate theories and simulate processes in the real world. Often this can be done without trying to train students to use conventional general purpose programming languages like Python or Java.

Professor desJardins was mentioned for her work at UMBC on revamping CMSC 100 to be just such a course.

"Marie desJardins, a computer science professor at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, says her department uses Scratch in its 'Introduction to Computers and Programming' course, in which students can try a few basic concepts. About 25 percent of the semester is spent on programming.

Explaining why Scratch is used at the college level, she says that all students arrive on campus having taken high school classes in English, math, biology and so on, but that many have not taken a computer science class."

EE Graduate Seminar

Unsupervised Multispectral Image Classification

Shih-Yu Chen
PhD (EE) Student, CSEE Dept/UMBC

11:30am-12:45pm, Friday, 6 April 2012, ITE 237

This seminar presents a new approach to unsupervised classification for multispectral imagery. It first uses a Gaussian pyramid multi- resolution technique to reduce image size from which the pixel purity index (PPI) is implemented to find regions of interest (ROIs) with PPI counts greater than zero. These PPI-found samples are further used as support vectors for a support vector machine (SVM) to classify data. The resulting SVM-classified data samples are further processed by a newly designed iterative Fishers linear discriminant analysis (IFLDA), which implements FLDA in an iterative manner to refine classification results. The experimental results show the proposed approach has great promise in unsupervised classification.

Shih-Yu Chen received the BSEE degree from Da-Yeh University in 2005, and the MSEE degree from National Chung Hsing University in 2010. He is currently a PhD (EE) student at UMBC. Mr. Chen's research interest includes medical image, remote sensing image, and vital-sign signal processing.

Host: Prof. Joel M. Morris

Photo Courtesy CSC.com

Graduating in May? Just started Graduate School? Interested in Cybersecurity? CSC is looking for interns and that means you.

Headquartered in Falls Church, Virginia, CSC provides IT services for a broad range of clients. According to CSC’s company profile, the company specializes in areas including Cloud Computing, Mobility Solutions, Network Management, Value Chain Optimization, and, of course, Cybersecurity. In 2010, CSC was named “One of the World’s Most Admired IT Services Companies” by FORTUNE magazine.

CSC is looking for recent graduates and graduate students with technical backgrounds in Computer Security and Computer Networking who have a passion for cybersecurity. The internship will give students the opportunity to help develop online training content and perform quality assurance on training materials. In addition, students will acquire technical training in cybersecurity and will have the chance to gain certifications like CISSP, CCNA, and Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH).

Full time summer internships and part-time internships running from September to March 2012 are available. For a complete outline of requirements and qualifications, go here.

To apply, send your resume to Sorry, you need javascript to view this email address. . Make sure to put “Cybersecurity Internship” in the subject line of your e-mail.

Next Monday, April 2^nd is the deadline to register for the Center for Women in Technology’s (CWIT) 2^nd annual Spring Into Leadership event.

This year’s theme is “What’s Your Story?” CWIT invites undergraduate and graduate students, faculty, and staff to this interactive night where students can meet industry experts like featured speaker Wendy Martin, a Project Management expert from the Harris Corporation, a Florida-based company that makes wireless equipment, electronic systems and antennas.

All students—especially those pursuing majors in IT or engineering fields—are invited to attend the event which features a light dinner.

CWIT’s 2^nd Annual Spring Into Leadership takes place next Wednesday, April 4^th from 6:30 to 8:00 p.m. in the University Center Ballroom.

To register for the event, click here.

To see photos from last year's Spring Into Leadership event, click here.

Rising sophomore, junior, and senior undergraduate students interested in cognitive radios and wireless networking might want to take a look at Virginia Tech’s Cognitive Communications Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU).

This summer, the program will enlist ten undergraduate students for a nine-week research program that explores problems related to software defined radios, cognitive radios, wireless networks, wireless communication circuits, and human factors engineering in communications. Students will be mentored by Virginia Tech faculty members, and will participate in weekly research meetings and informal brown-bag lunches to discuss research progress.

Each student will be awarded a $4,500 stipend, a housing and food allowance up to $2,000, and travel assistance up to $600. Eligible undergraduates must be majoring in electrical engineering, computer engineering, or computer science, and hold an overall G.P.A. of 3.0. All applicants must be U.S. citizens, and minorities, women, handicapped students, and students from schools without undergraduate research opportunities are especially encouraged to apply.

Application Deadline: Friday, April 13, 2012

To apply for the program, click here.

For more information, click here.

               Photo Courtesy robotonomous.com

It’s time to start thinking about summer research opportunities. And, If Robotics is what you love, then you’re in luck. In June, the University of Pennsylvania’s General Robotics, Automation, Sensing & Perception (GRASP) Laboratory is offering a Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) Site called “Perception, Planning, Mobility, and Interaction for Next Generation Robotics.”

Funded by the National Science Foundation, the program will support eight undergraduate students studying engineering or computer science who are interested in pursuing research in the field of robotics. The paid ten-week program will immerse students in ongoing research projects in the GRASP Lab by pairing them with a GRASP faculty member and student mentor to work on a research project that matches their interests.

In addition to offering students a $5,000 stipend, the research program provides travel reimbursement, free housing on the University of Pennsylvania campus in Philadelphia, and partial support for meals. Students will also be eligible for a $250 prize awarded to the best REU research project of the summer.

All undergraduate students who are U.S. citizens are encouraged to apply. The program is especially interested in applicants who are generally underrepresented in the fields of science, technology, and engineering, including: women, racial minorities, low-income, and first generation college students.

Priority Deadline: Wednesday, April 4, 2012

To apply for the program, click here.

For more information, click here.

Be sure not to miss CSEE alumnus Delali Dzirasa speak during the Raymond V. Haysbert, Sr. Entrepreneurship Lecture tomorrow, March 28, at noon in Commons 329.

After graduating from UMBC with a B.S. in Computer Engineering in 2004, Dzirasa went on to found Fearless Solutions, LLC, a team of software engineers and web developers that help clients solve problems through Data Visualization, Web Application Development, Software Engineering, and Rapid Prototyping.

Located in UMBC’s cybersecurity incubator at Bwtech, Fearless Solutions functions according to the values of “The “Fearless 5”: Passion, Excellence, Integrity, Improvement, and Innovation. The company currently employs UMBC alumni and students. In 2011, Dzirasa’s success earned him the Alumni Association’s Young Alumni Rising Star award.

Another speaker of note is Ryan Bricklemyer, co-founder of BeerGivr.com. Bricklemyer graduated from UMBC in 2006 after receiving a B.S. and M.S. in Information Systems. Last October, he and business partner Sean Kennedy launched the website BeerGivr.com, which allows you to virtually buy your friends a drink.

If you owe your pal a drink but can't join him at the bar, BeerGivr sends him a text message with a gift code that can be redeemed for a frothy brew. BeerGivr currency is already accepted at sixteen local haunts, including Alewife and Bond Street Social in Baltimore and Frisco Taphouse & Brewery in Columbia.

Sponsored by UMBC’s Alex. Brown Center for Entrepreneurship, the Raymond V. Haysbert, Sr. Entrepreneurship lecture also features Dr. Sheldon Broedel (Ph.D. and M.S., Microbial and Molecular Genetics, ’90), Chief Executive and Science Officer of Athena Environmental Sciences, Inc. and Nancy Krebs (B.A. Theatre, ’72), founder of The Voiceworks Studio.

For more information, see the event flyer.

Photo Courtesy www.bwtechumbc.com

Potential good news for internship and job seekers. The Baltimore Sun reported that four tech-focused companies have just taken up shop at bwtech@UMBC. The companies are:

Communications Scientific International, a communications systems and technologies company. Communications Scientific International “provides communications and information systems for satelliete, airbone and ground applications to the Department of Defense,” says the Sun.

Tech Edge USA, an IT solutions company.

Assured Information Security (AIS), a small business that specializes in Information Operations, including Network Operations, Electronic Warfare, and Computer Network Operations. AIS works closely with the Department of Defense.

Clovis Group, a technology staffing and consulting services firm.

EE Graduate Seminar

High Power Mid-Infrared Quantum Cascade Laser
Arrays for Standoff Photoacoustic Chemical Detection

Xing Chen, PhD (EE) Student
Computer Science and Electrical Engineering, UMBC

11:30am-12:45pm, Friday, 30 March 2012, ITE 237

Quantum cascade lasers (QCLs) are compact, powerful, mid-infrared, Semiconductor laser sources. High power QCLs are very important to infrared counter measures (IRCM) and standoff chemical detection applications, as well as others. The performance of such systems critically depend on the amount of power that QCLs can produce. One way to achieve high power operation is to use multi-emitter phase-locked laser arrays.

The first part of the seminar presents the issues and challenges to design, fabricate, and characterize multi-emitter phase-locked QCL arrays for achieving high power operation. The second part of the seminar discusses using high power mid-infrared QCLs to perform standoff photoacoustic (PA) chemical detection. The PA effect is a photo-matter effect involving generation and detection of an acoustic signal when a gas sample absorbs electromagnetic energy (particularly of light).

In recent years, with the help of the development of mid-infrared QCLs, significant progress has been made in their use for PA chemical detection, and sensitivity has been improved significantly. Our theoretical and experimental studies of standoff photoacoustic chemical detection, using QCLs as the laser source, will be presented.

Xing Chen received the BS degree in Opto-Electronics Engineering from Huazhong University of Science and Technology in 2007, and the MSEE degree from UMBC in 2009. He is currently a PhD (EE) candidate at UMBC. Mr. Chen's research interest includes design and fabrication of high power mid-infrared phase-locked QCL arrays and application to standoff photoacoustic chemical detection.

Host: Prof. Joel M. Morris

Ph.D. Defense

Multivariate Time Series Analysis
of Physiological and Clinical Data

Patti Ordóñez Rozo

1:00pm Thursday, 29 March 29 2012, ITE 325b UMBC

The complexity and volume of collected medical data is greater now than at any point in the history of medicine. Medical providers are expected to examine large volumes of data and identify correlations among parameters based on their own clinical experience to detect significant medical events or conditions. The information overload that providers may face may hinder the diagnostic process. Most existing visualizations of the data to assist the provider in analyzing the information consist of a table or plot of values for a particular parameter as a function of time. Automated techniques for discovering these correlations not only may assist the provider in making a diagnosis but may help to identify hidden patterns within the data associated with specific medical conditions or events. Current visualization and machine learning techniques show promise for extracting this information.

This dissertation presents three novel representations and two visualizations to assist in the analysis of multivariate time series data. It focuses on physiological and clinical data, in particular, because this type of data captures the complexity of a human being, and thus, the multivariate time series in this type of data are more interdependent and synchronized than most. The three representations are the Multivariate Time Series Amalgam (MTSA), the Stacked Bags-of-Patterns (Stacked BoP), and the Multivariate Bag-of-Patterns (Multivariate BoP). Each provides an integrated, multivariate approach for representing multivariate time series data. An evaluation of the latter two techniques against two techniques that use univariate techniques of multiple variables, Ensemble Voting with Bag-of-Patterns and Multivariate Piecewise Dynamic Time Warping in five diverse datasets yields interesting insights into the classification of multivariate time series.

The MTSA representation is the foundation for two visualizations – the MTSA Visualization and the Fixed Dual MTSA Visualization. These animated visualizations capture the rate of change of provider-selected parameters and the relationships among them. While both visualizations were created for the medical domain, they generalize to domains where multiple variables measure the state of an entity as a function of time. An evaluation of the Fixed Dual MTSA Visualization was carried out with 23 pediatric residents at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. The results indicate that the visualization merits further investigation for use as a diagnostic tool.

Committee

• Dr. Tim Oates (co-chair)
• Dr. Marie desJardins (co-chair)
• Dr. Anupam Joshi
• Dr. Jim Fackler, JHMI
• Dr. Christoph U. Lehmann, JHMI