Photo Courtesy University of Michigan, EECS Department

Johnson's company, MEMStim, is dedicated to developing customizable micro-fabricated stimulators. According to an article from Xconomy Detroit, this technology, which Johnson has been working on for several years, is “a platform for creating electrode leads…that can be easily integrated into devices that shoot electric pulses into a patient’s nervous system.” The platform would allow for the creation of multiple leads at a time, contrary to the current process that is expensive and slow, the article adds. This means more effective and more affordable care for those who could benefit from the technology—like patients with Parkinson’s disease.

A Meyerhoff scholar, Ms. Johnson graduated from UMBC in 2005 with a B.S. in Computer Engineering and a B.A. in Mathematics. After receiving her undergraduate degrees, Ms. Johnson attended the University of Michigan to pursue her Masters and subsequently a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering. Ms. Johnson speaks fondly about her experience at UMBC and with the Meyerhoff Scholars program here.

Google is sponsoring another AI Challenge Competition run by an independent group of volunteers that grew out of the Computer Science Club of the University of Waterloo. The competition opens today and invites submissions of programs designed to control ants a simulated colony in competition with other colonies.

Ants is a multi-player strategy game set on a plot of dirt with water for obstacles and food that randomly drops. Each player has one or more hills where ants will spawn. The objective is for players to seek and destroy the most enemy ant hills while defending their own hills. Players must also gather food to spawn more ants, however, if all of a player's hills are destroyed they can't spawn any more ants.

The objective is to create a computer program (a bot) that plays the game of Ants as intelligently as possible. It is recommended that you use one of the starter packages as a starting point. If you are looking to get up and running as quickly as possible, check out the Five Minute Quickstart Guide. For more details about Ants beyond this introductory document, see the Game Specification.

The site has documentation, a tutorial and starter packages for windows and Linux in a variety of programming languages. Each package contains a simple working entry to use as a starting point, tools that allow you to run your bot and watch it play graphically, sample opponents that you can test your bot against, and maps you can use for testing. Once you've developed your bot, you can enter it at the website and watch your ant colony fight for domination against colonies created by other people from around the world.

The behavior of ants is a classic example of how the local interactions among individuals in a collection can give rise to interesting emergent behavior. This concept is important in the study of complex systems and was the subject of a recent special topics course taught by Professor Marie desJardins, Computation, Complexity, and Emergence.

Google is sponsoring another AI Challenge Competition run by an independent group of volunteers that grew out of the Computer Science Club of the University of Waterloo. The competition opens today and invites submissions of programs designed to control ants a simulated colony in competition with other colonies.

Ants is a multi-player strategy game set on a plot of dirt with water for obstacles and food that randomly drops. Each player has one or more hills where ants will spawn. The objective is for players to seek and destroy the most enemy ant hills while defending their own hills. Players must also gather food to spawn more ants, however, if all of a player's hills are destroyed they can't spawn any more ants.

The objective is to create a computer program (a bot) that plays the game of Ants as intelligently as possible. It is recommended that you use one of the starter packages as a starting point. If you are looking to get up and running as quickly as possible, check out the Five Minute Quickstart Guide. For more details about Ants beyond this introductory document, see the Game Specification.

The site has documentation, a tutorial and starter packages for windows and Linux in a variety of programming languages. Each package contains a simple working entry to use as a starting point, tools that allow you to run your bot and watch it play graphically, sample opponents that you can test your bot against, and maps you can use for testing. Once you've developed your bot, you can enter it at the website and watch your ant colony fight for domination against colonies created by other people from around the world.

The behavior of ants is a classic example of how the local interactions among individuals in a collection can give rise to interesting emergent behavior. This concept is important in the study of complex systems and was the subject of a recent special topics course taught by Professor Marie desJardins, Computation, Complexity, and Emergence.

Adapt3D: A Framework for Supporting CFD and MHD Modeling

Professor John E. Dorband
Research Associate Professor and MCC Chief Scientist
Computer Science and Electrical Engineering
University of Maryland, Baltimore County

1:00pm Friday 21 October 2011, ITE227

Adapt3D is a software framework that supports 3-D computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) modeling on an unstructured mesh. It facilitates adaptive refinement and execution in a parallel computing environment, either on shared memory or distributed memory computer architectures. The framework was designed primarily to support parallel computing of simulations on a continuum expressed by an adaptively refined unstructured mesh. It was designed to cleanly differentiate the code that manages an unstructured mesh on a parallel computer and the code that performs the numerics on the components of the mesh. The intent is to ease the burden of the engineer or scientist when it come to understanding parallel computing or adaptive refinement, allowing him to spend his time understanding the computational science rather than the computer science.

Dr. John Dorband received a BA in Math and Physics from Northwest Nazarene University in 1972 and a PhD in Computer Science from The Pennsylvania State University in 1985. He work for NASA for 21 years doing research in parallel and high performance hardware architectures and software. He has developed parallel compilers, algorithms and applications. He was a member of the group that developed the concept of developing high performance computing architectures from commodity components (the Beowulf project).

Host: Yelena Yesha

Sheriff Jolaoso is a Senior majoring in Computer Engineering. His research involves analyzing electroencephalographical (EEG) data in order to find and establish trends between humans under specific testing conditions. To learn more about Sheriff's resarch pursuits, read his research profile.

EE Graduate Seminar

Detection and Classification of Chemical, Biological, and Explosive
Materials: A Brief Overview of Several Cutting-Edge Problem Areas

Darren Emge
PI and Deputy Branch Chief
Laser Standoff Detection Branch
US Army Edgewood Chemical Biological Center

11:30am-12:45pm Friday, 21 October 11, ITE 231

The detection and classification of chemical, biological, and explosive (CBE) materials is an area of extremely active research. With the advent of new sensor technologies and sensing methods there is the rapidly growing need for timely robust detection and classification algorithms. Several factors associated with emerging sensors offer novel challenges for the signal processing community. As sensor platforms become more mobile the added complexities of "on the move" standoff detection requires the use of non-stationary and adaptive methods. Ever increasing overall sensitivity introduces variations in signal response and many methods currently lack adequate performance models or ground truth. Reduction in size, weight, and power, along with real time performance, further limit approaches that can be used in addressing these issues. This presentation will provide a brief overview of several of these cutting edge problem areas and offer a glimpse into this challenging problem space.

Mr. Darren Emge earned a BS in Physics from UMBC in 1992. He then went to work for the University of Maryland Medical System, Department of Neurology. During his time at University Medical System, he developed analysis algorithms for evoked response potentials (ERP), functional magnetic resonance (fMRI), or neuronal mapping. He also supported the cognitive psychology group in the development of a pupil motion tracking system in the study of dyslexia. Mr. Emge earned the MSEE from UMBC/CSEE Dept in 2000. In 2001 He joined the US Army ECBC passive detection team investigating advanced mathematical techniques for the detection of chemical vapors based on Fourier transform infrared (FTRI) imaging. In 2003 Mr. Emge was promoted to a Principal Investigator (PI) in the laser standoff detection branch, where he currently serves as PI and Deputy Branch Chief. His current work is in the areas of the detection of small signals, detection of non-stationary signals, and the application of non-linear signal processing methods for the detection of biological and trace chemical/explosive materials.

Seminar Host: Prof. Joel M. Morris

CSEE processor Samuel J. Lomonaco is giving a talk on his research on quantum computing as part of the Joint Quantum Institute seminar series sponsored by UMCP and NIST. The talk will be given at 12:30pm Monday 17 October, in room 1201 in the Physics building at College Park.

Quantum knots and quantum braids: Their possible application to superfluid vortices and to topological quantum computing in optical lattices.

In this talk, we show how to reconstruct knot theory in such a way that it is intimately related to quantum physics. In particular, we give a blueprint for creating a quantum system that has the dynamic behavior of a closed knotted piece of rope moving in 3-space. Within this framework, knot invariants become physically measurable quantum observables, knot moves become unitary transformations, with knot dynamics determined by the Schroedinger equation. The same approach can also be applied to the theory of braids. Toward the end of the talk, we look at possible applications to superfluid vortices and to topological quantum computing in optical lattices.

For more information, see the entry on the Joint Quantum Institute calendar.

This October is the the eighth annual National Cyber Security Awareness Month sponsored by the Department of Homeland Security in cooperation with the National Cyber Security Alliance and the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center.

According to the DHS, cyber threats present some of the most serious economic and national security challenges we face, not just in the United States, but throughout the world. Everyone who uses the Internet has a role to play in helping to secure it and thus enhance the safety for themselves and their families online.

See the DHS National Cyber Security Awareness Month site for more information, including suggestions for what you can do.

Warner Brothers is said to have purchased the rights to a script The Imitation Game by screenwriter Graham Moore about British mathematician Alan Turing who made many important contributions to computer science. Leonardo DiCaprio is supposedly interested in playing Turing and is "chasing the project" and Ron Howard is rumored to be interested in in directing. The script is based on the Andrew Hodges' 2000 biography Alan Turing: The Enigma.

Turing is the famous English mathematician who made significant contributions to computer science in the 30s and 40s, including formalizations of computing and algorithms with the Turing machine and early work on Artificial Intelligence. During World War II he was was also a senior member of the British codebreaking and cryptanalysis group at Bletchley Park that broke the codes for the German Enigma machine.

Turing was prosecuted by the British government in 1952 for being a homosexual which is thought to be the cause of his apparent suicide by cyanide poisoning in 1954. In 2009, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown apologized on behalf of the British government for the way in which Turing was treated after the war.

Warner Brothers is said to have purchased the rights to a script The Imitation Game by screenwriter Graham Moore about British mathematician Alan Turing who made many important contributions to computer science. Leonardo DiCaprio is supposedly interested in playing Turing and is "chasing the project" and Ron Howard is rumored to be interested in in directing. The script is based on the Andrew Hodges' 2000 biography Alan Turing: The Enigma.

Turing is the famous English mathematician who made significant contributions to computer science in the 30s and 40s, including formalizations of computing and algorithms with the Turing machine and early work on Artificial Intelligence. During World War II he was was also a senior member of the British codebreaking and cryptanalysis group at Bletchley Park that broke the codes for the German Enigma machine.

Turing was prosecuted by the British government in 1952 for being a homosexual which is thought to be the cause of his apparent suicide by cyanide poisoning in 1954. In 2009, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown apologized on behalf of the British government for the way in which Turing was treated after the war.