UMBC Computer Science Alumni Donald Miner ’06, Ph.D. ’10, and Adam Shook ’09 (M.S. expected ’13) have written a book on the popular MapReduce paradigm that has revolutionized the way collections of computers are used to process large amounts of data in parallel. Their book, MapReduce Design Patterns Building Effective Algorithms and Analytics for Hadoop and Other Systems, was published by O’Reilly Media in December.

“Adam and I were teaching Hadoop classes and we saw a gap: students would pick up on how hadoop worked mechanically, but struggled to understand how to solve problems with it,” explains Donald, who now works as a Solutions Architect at EMC Greenplum. “This book is intended for people who have a basic understanding of Hadoop, but want to start solving their problems effectively.”

Adam and Donald met in fall 2008 during an Artificial Intelligence class at UMBC. Donald, a Ph.D. student working with Dr. Marie desJardins on machine learning and multiagent systems research, was teaching the class. Adam, an undergraduate Computer Science student, was taking the class. Later, the pair ended up working together at ClearEdge IT Solutions.

“We worked well together and our skills and interests complemented each other well, so when I had the opportunity to write this book I knew it would be a much better book doing it with him than doing it alone,” says Donald.

Now Adam works with big data technologies like Hadoop, Accumulo, Pig, and ZooKeeper as a Software Engineer at ClearEdge IT Solutions. He is working towards his Master’s in Computer Science at UMBC under Dr. Tim Finin. His research deals with developing an efficient in-memory distributed database for Semantic Web applications.

“I don’t know how I do it,” says Adam about working full time, being in graduate school, and writing a book. “Caffeine helps.” He plans on finishing up his degree in 2013.

In the meantime, Adam and Donald have started working on Mapreducepatterns.com. Still in its infancy, the website is meant to be a Wikipedia style site where the Hadoop community can rally around a well-defined set of standard MapReduce design patters.

– by Anissa Elmerraji ’11

This story originally appeared on the CSEE website.

Thomas Schaller’s latest column in the Baltimore Sun explores the origins of the impending U.S. “fiscal cliff.” Professor Schaller, political science, cites a recent Washington Post/Pew Research Center poll that “shows that Americans blame Republicans over Mr. Obama for the fiscal cliff by almost a 2 to 1 margin.” He goes on to say, “Americans have realized that Republicans can’t be trusted on fiscal matters.” Read Schaller’s full commentary at the Baltimore Sun.

A new Sports On Earth commentary by Patrick Hruby quotes UMBC professor Dennis Coates, economics, in arguing that eliminating “sports welfare” among college and professional sports teams and owners would provide an “easy, overdue fix to the nation’s fiscal woes.”

Coates believes more money would be available to indebted cities with professional  teams and stadiums if athletes kept their money in the communities where they play, instead of the southern California or south Florida areas where they often live. “If that same money was spent on a movie, dinner, bowling, the theater, a locally-owned bar, tips for bartenders and waitresses, all of that money predominantly stays within that community,” says Coates.

Coates also commented in the Baltimore Sun on the Colonial Athletic Association’s decision to award Baltimore’s 1st Mariner Arena the men’s basketball conference tournament for 2014-2016. Coates thinks it’s too soon to tell how the tournament will fare in Baltimore, but speculates that the city could lose money putting on the tournament instead of turning a profit.

Command Z: Artists Working with Phenomena and Technology curated by Lisa Moren, presented by the Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture last spring was featured today as one of the top ten art exhibitions of 2012 by City Paper.

The show, described as one that “reawakened our sense of wonder and possibility,” was alongside exhibitions presented by the Contemporary Museum, Open Space, Nudashank and others. Command Z also made the top ten list of Baker award-winning artist, Gary Kachadourian.

See the list here: “2012 Top Ten Art Shows.”

Image: Leçon de Piano, Lisa Moren and Jocelyn Robert.

The exhibition currently running at the Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture, For All The World to See: Visual Culture and the Struggle for Civil Rights, curated by Dr. Maurice Berger, was reviewed this morning by City Paper.

The review uses commentary from Berger, chronicles the impact of items featured in the exhibition and the discusses overall power of the story told through For All The World to See, to examine the way in which the exhibition relates to the evolution of black identity in America.

Read the review “Visual Politics: UMBC Show Looks at The Visual Culture Surrounding the Civil Rights Movement.”

For All The World to See is currently on display at the CADVC and will continue through March 10. For more information about the exhibition, and for the Center’s hours during winter break, visit the Arts and Culture Calendar.

Visual Arts major, Diana Chou’s painting, Play the Cards, has been selected for inclusion in a prominent, annual anthology of student work. Chou’s work originally appeared in the 2012 issue of Bartleby, where Chou’s piece wasn’t the only one to capture the attention of the judges. The highly selective collection, Bennington’s plain china: Best Undergraduate Writing 2012, will feature Chou’s work, along with fiction, poetry, non-fiction writing and fine art from a select few students of colleges and universities around the country.

The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts has awarded Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture Research Professor and Chief Curator, Dr. Maurice Berger, a $50,000 curatorial research fellowship award for his forthcoming project Revolution of The Eye: Modern Art and the Birth of American Television. This exhibition and publication project represents the first collaborative institutional effort between the CADVC and the Jewish Museum in New York, where Berger holds the title of Consulting Curator. The grant will be administered through the Jewish Museum.

About Revolution of The Eye:

“From the early-1940s through the mid-1960s, a dynamic new visual medium emerged in the United States that, in its risk-taking and aesthetic experimentation, paralleled the cutting-edge nature of modern art: television. The revolutionary and uncharted medium attracted younger television executives, writers, producers, and directors. Scores of socially and culturally progressive and predominantly Jewish network executives, producers, directors, art directors, and writers—figures such as Paddy Chayefsky, William Golden, Leonard Goldenson, Robert Kintner, Ernie Kovacs, Dan Melnick, William S. Paley, David Sarnoff, Frank Stanton, David Susskind, and Rod Serling—mined the aesthetic, stylistic, and conceptual possibilities of a new and powerful technology. These innovators worked in a cultural milieu far less constricted by the competition for box office revenue and the censorious production codes then preoccupying the motion picture industry.

As the geographic focus of the networks shifted from the Hollywood movie studios to a television industry initially centered in New York, the proximity of these innovators to the city’s dynamic artistic and cultural community—particularly the avant-garde art and philosophies of the New York School, an artistic milieu also with a significant Jewish presence—would result in a powerful conceptual and stylistic synergy between modern art and early television.”

Revolution of The Eye: Modern Art and the Birth of American Television is scheduled to be presented at the Jewish Museum in New York in the spring of 2016, and at the CADVC in 2017.

Dr. Maurice Berger is also curator of the exhibition currently on display in the CADVC, For All The World to See: Visual Culture and the Struggle for Civil Rights.

As we’ve mentioned many times before on this blog, philanthropy is intensely personal. Which is why the story behind the naming gift made by Todd Carton ’77, interdisciplinary studies, is especially touching; the gift honors his late brother.

Carton has always been interested in the arts, as was his brother, so when he heard about the new Performing Arts and Humanities Building at UMBC, he was eager to see the space students from all disciplines would be able to be touched by the arts. His gift — the naming of the building’s new box office — will not only help all who visit the building, but represents one brother’s love, and another’s legacy.

Watch a Q&A with Todd Carton ’77 here.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTrHFuGZYMo]

FROM: Greg Simmons, Vice President for Institutional Advancement & Keith Harmon, Director of the Meyerhoff Scholars Program

Earnestine Baker announced Monday at a combined Meyerhoff Scholars Family Meeting that she will retire from UMBC this month. Ernie has been an extraordinary member of the UMBC community for almost 30 years, and it is fitting that the Meyerhoff Scholars be among the first to receive this news, as she has spent most of her career at UMBC working to support the growth and success of this program and its students.

Ernie joined UMBC in 1983 as the Coordinator of Minority Recruitment in the Office of Admissions.  Between 1987 and 1992 she served as Associate Director for Scholarships at the University. In 1992, she was appointed Director of the Meyerhoff Scholars Program. For two decades, she has worked tirelessly alongside President Freeman Hrabowski and campus faculty and staff to build the program into a nationally recognized model for talented students interested in pursuing terminal degrees in the sciences, mathematics, engineering, and computer science.

Ernie, now Executive Director of the program, has a well-earned reputation as a firm but fair mentor, colleague, and leader. More than 1,000 Meyerhoff Scholars have been introduced to “Ms. Baker” at Meyerhoff scholarship “selection weekends” and Summer Bridge programs as a demanding, but dedicated and compassionate presence.  Her expectations – clearly and directly stated – were that each Meyerhoff Scholar prepare rigorously for the classroom and lab, act professionally in any situation, and serve compassionately on campus and in the community. Her deep relationships with Meyerhoff Scholars have extended far beyond graduation.  She has advised and mentored graduates in their pursuit of graduate degrees, and networked on behalf of our graduates to ensure that they have good and clear options available at vital career junctures.

In July 2009, Science, the leading journal of scientific research, news and commentary, recognized UMBC’s Meyerhoff Scholars Program as a national model demonstrating “what it takes” to help more minority students earn science degrees. Ernie has been a fundamental part of the program’s success.  Throughout the years, she has been a tireless advocate for students, applying her rich knowledge of the academic community with an innovative and pragmatic approach to problem solving. This approach has allowed her to build solid and lasting partnerships with research faculty, develop internships and summer research experiences, and forge institutional relationships for UMBC with the nation’s most prestigious colleges and universities. Her standards have been high and exacting; at the same time, she has generously demonstrated the magnanimity of spirit, humility, and compassion that is required to prepare future leaders for success.

Through her work with the Meyerhoff Program, Ernie also has served on numerous STEM advisory boards and represented the program at conferences and events throughout the nation and abroad, including participating in the 2012 College Completion Symposium with U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. Her dedication and commitment was recognized by the University System of Maryland (USM) Board of Regents, which honored Ernie as the USM Outstanding Staff Member for extraordinary public service to the university and the greater community in 2008.

Ernie has served the UMBC community with dignity, grace, and wisdom for almost 30 years. She will continue to serve on several commissions and boards, and will consult with UMBC and the Meyerhoff Scholars Program on several on-going initiatives. We intend to host a reception in January for Ernie to celebrate her numerous contributions to the UMBC community, and will share that information as details are solidified. Until that time, please join us in congratulating her for all that she has accomplished at UMBC.

On December 10, the New York Times profiled weather prognosticator William O’Toole, III, of the J. Gruber’s Hagerstown Town and Country Almanack in an article entitled “Divining the Weather, With Methods Old and New.”

Maryland Traditions, the folklife program of the Maryland State Arts Council, which is a partner with UMBC, recently honored the Almanack with its annual “Achievement in Living Traditions and Arts” Award. Maryland Traditions partnered with the New Media Studio to produce a short film for the awards ceremony, which was featured in the New York Times story.

The video can be seen here:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BfA1OOhaCY&w=560&h=315]