2018 Maryland Cyber Challenge seeks student teams

The 2018 Maryland Cyber Challenge seeks teams willing to test a range of skills simulating real-word cyber scenarios. Teams will climb a ladder of challenges demonstrating an ability to work together, understand both simple and complex vulnerabilities, defensive operations and gamified offensive operations.

Registration is now open. An initial orientation session start the week of August 13 and qualification Round 1 will be September 8-9..

The finals will take place live at CyberMaryland 2018 in Baltimore on October 10. Prizes (TBA) will be presented LIVE by during a closing session at CyberMaryland.

Get more information and register here

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by Ian Anson,
Assistant Professor of Political Science, UMBC

White House special counsel Robert Mueller recently issued 12 indictments alleging that Russian intelligence agents sought to tilt the vote in Donald Trump’s favor by hacking prominent Democrats during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign.

The Trump-Russia investigation has exposed flaws in the American democratic system – so much so that, according to many pundits, people now doubt not just the legitimacy of the Trump administration but the very foundations of the country’s political institutions.

According to a July 2018 Brown University opinion poll, only 16 percent of Americans truly believe their vote matters. Just 4 percent think the government listens to their opinion.

News of Russia’s meddling may have inflamed anti-government sentiment, but skepticism about U.S. democracy is not a new phenomenon.

I am part of a team of scholars from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County that studies American popular support for democracy over time. Historic surveys reveal a deep, long-lasting and bipartisan dissatisfaction with the U.S. government that started over three decades ago.

Measuring trust in government

The gold standard in political opinion polling is the American National Election Study, jointly run by Stanford University, the University of Michigan and the National Sciences Foundation.

Every two years between 1948 and 2016, the survey has asked Americans a variety of questions about their experience with American democracy.

Two of the survey’s questions are particularly useful for measuring public support for democracy.

One asks participants if they believe “people like me don’t have any say in what the government does.” Another asks if they think “quite a few of the people running the government are crooked.”

To understand how satisfaction with the U.S. government has changed over the past 65 years, I examined the percentage of Republicans and Democrats in each election year since 1952 who agreed with those two statements.

Changing public perception of democracy

The results varied widely over time, rising and dropping as the public reacted to political scandals, national tragedies and presidential malfeasance.

In the 1950s, after the U.S. emerged triumphant from World War II, Americans were fairly sanguine about government. In 1956, just 28 percent of people felt they had no say in government. In 1958, only a quarter of Americans saw public corruption as a major problem.

These numbers reflect a remarkable faith in U.S. democracy considering that black Americans and women – both of whom were included in the biannual survey – were still mostly excluded from politics.

Despite the gains of the civil rights movement and the feminist movement that would mark the next decade, the 1970s were so turbulent that they gave rise to an era of political alienation.

By 1974, reacting to the Vietnam War, Watergate and President Gerald Ford’s pardon of a disgraced Richard Nixon, around 41 percent of respondents agreed that they had “no say” in government decision-making.

Almost half – 48 percent – thought crooks were running the government.

Displeasure with American democracy continued to rise for the next three decades, reaching an all-time high under President Bill Clinton.

His administration started with a flurry of scandals. There was 1992’s “Travelgate,” when the White House fired its travel planners for mismanaging funds, followed by the Whitewater investigation into Hillary Clinton’s real estate dealings.

The American public was appalled. In 1994, 50 percent of Democrats and 51 percent of Republicans thought that government officials were mostly corrupt.

These events predated President Bill Clinton’s 1998 affair with intern Monica Lewinsky, which actually appears to have reduced antipathy towards the president.

Americans rally around the flag

Optimism in U.S. democracy resurged to pre-Watergate levels, if only briefly, after the Sept. 11, 2001, World Trade Center attacks.

In 2002, only 26 percent of Americans said they had no voice in government. Just 28 percent thought public corruption was widespread.

This uncritical support for government after a national disaster – often referred to as the “rally around the flag” effect – wouldn’t last long.

Soon, George W. Bush would justify invading Iraq by fraudulently claiming President Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. By 2008, as Bush’s second term ended, just over half of all Americans were once again convinced of widespread government corruption.

Skepticism about American democracy continued to rise throughout the early Obama years, following the 2010 Citizens United Supreme Court decision, which raised concerns about money in politics, and the crisis surrounding the 2012 terrorist attack on the U.S. Embassy in Benghazi, Libya.

Democratic discontent is bipartisan

One might be tempted to assume that the response to this litany of scandals has been partisan – that people react negatively only to the opposing party’s malfeasance.

But distrusting the government is not actually a particularly partisan issue, surveys show. In recent years, Democrats and Republicans have often differed little on their faith in government.

In the waning days of the Bush administration, 51 percent of Democrats and 45 percent of Republicans expressed concern that their voices were not being heard.

Under President Barack Obama, 69 percent of Republicans thought that most government officials were “crooked.” So did 59 percent of Democrats.

Democrats are somewhat more likely to feel that government is rife with graft and special interests when a Republican is in the White House, and vice versa.

But over the past six decades, Republicans and Democrats have been quite closely aligned in their views of American democracy – at least on these two measures.

Trump and democratic dissatisfaction

The American National Election Study won’t come out again until 2020.

We do not yet know how the Trump White House will impact public support for government.

The Trump administration is already swimming in scandals. In addition to the Russia problem, it has weathered Scott Pruitt’s resignation as head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson’s extravagant taste in furniture and alleged Trump family violations of the Constitution’s emoluments clause.

But the lessons of the past 66 years suggest that highly visible scandals do lead public dissatisfaction with government to rise.

The Watergate era triggered record growth in Americans’ collective dissatisfaction with government.

That record could still be broken.

* * * * * *

Ian Anson, Assistant Professor of Political Science, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Header image: Historically, the high-water mark for American dissatisfaction with government was the 1970s — the era of Vietnam, Nixon and Watergate.
AP Photo/John Duricka

Robot Governance – Institutions and Issues

Dr. Aaron Mannes, ISHPI Information Technologies

10:30-11:30 Tuesday, 24 July 2018, ITE 346

Inexpensive sensors and information storage and processing have enabled the large-scale production of robots: autonomous systems capable of acting on the world. These systems represent an enormous technological and economic opportunity that will change society in countless and unpredictable ways. They will also bring new policy challenges. This presentation examines the missions the government will need to undertake to address the challenges raised by this new technology, identifies critical gaps the government faces in carrying out these missions, and discusses institutional options to address these gaps.

Dr. Aaron Mannes is the Senior Policy Advisor at ISHPI Information Technologies, where he supports the Apex Data Analytics Engine (DA-E) at the Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate. In supporting DA-E, Dr. Mannes collaborates on big data projects that support the Homeland Security Enterprise and researches technology policy. He started at DHS as an American Association for the Advancement of Science Policy Fellow in September 2015. From 2004 to 2015, Dr. Mannes was a researcher at the University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies (UMIACS) where he was the subject matter expert on terrorism and international affairs collaborating with a team of inter-disciplinary scientists to build computational tools to support decision-makers facing 21st century security and development problems. Dr. Mannes earned his Ph.D. at the University of Maryland’s School of Public Policy in 2014. His dissertation topic was the evolving national security role of the vice president.

Dr. Mannes is the author or co-author of four books on terrorism and has written scores of articles, papers, and book chapters on an array of topics including Middle East affairs, terrorism, technology, and other international security issues for popular and scholarly publications including Politico, Policy Review, The Wall Street Journal, Foreign Policy, The Journal of International Security Affairs, The Huffington Post, The National Interest, The Jerusalem Post, and The Guardian.

This research was conducted with the support of the Apex Data Analytics Engine in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T). In no way should anything stated in this seminar be construed as representing the official position of DHS S&T or any other component of DHS. Opinions and findings expressed in this seminar, as well as any errors and omissions, are the responsibility of the presenter alone.

The post talk: Robot Governance – Institutions and Issues, 10:30 Tue 7/24, ITR346 appeared first on Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering.

Robot Governance – Institutions and Issues

Dr. Aaron Mannes, ISHPI Information Technologies

10:30-11:30 Tuesday, 24 July 2018, ITE 346

Inexpensive sensors and information storage and processing have enabled the large-scale production of robots: autonomous systems capable of acting on the world. These systems represent an enormous technological and economic opportunity that will change society in countless and unpredictable ways. They will also bring new policy challenges. This presentation examines the missions the government will need to undertake to address the challenges raised by this new technology, identifies critical gaps the government faces in carrying out these missions, and discusses institutional options to address these gaps.

Dr. Aaron Mannes is the Senior Policy Advisor at ISHPI Information Technologies, where he supports the Apex Data Analytics Engine (DA-E) at the Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate. In supporting DA-E, Dr. Mannes collaborates on big data projects that support the Homeland Security Enterprise and researches technology policy. He started at DHS as an American Association for the Advancement of Science Policy Fellow in September 2015. From 2004 to 2015, Dr. Mannes was a researcher at the University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies (UMIACS) where he was the subject matter expert on terrorism and international affairs collaborating with a team of inter-disciplinary scientists to build computational tools to support decision-makers facing 21st century security and development problems. Dr. Mannes earned his Ph.D. at the University of Maryland’s School of Public Policy in 2014. His dissertation topic was the evolving national security role of the vice president.

Dr. Mannes is the author or co-author of four books on terrorism and has written scores of articles, papers, and book chapters on an array of topics including Middle East affairs, terrorism, technology, and other international security issues for popular and scholarly publications including Politico, Policy Review, The Wall Street Journal, Foreign Policy, The Journal of International Security Affairs, The Huffington Post, The National Interest, The Jerusalem Post, and The Guardian.

This research was conducted with the support of the Apex Data Analytics Engine in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T). In no way should anything stated in this seminar be construed as representing the official position of DHS S&T or any other component of DHS. Opinions and findings expressed in this seminar, as well as any errors and omissions, are the responsibility of the presenter alone.

The post talk: Robot Governance – Institutions and Issues, 10:30 Tue 7/24, ITR346 appeared first on Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering.

UMBC’s Jane Arnold Lincove, associate professor of public policy, is collaborating with colleagues across the U.S. to launch the National Center for Research on Education Access and Choice (REACH) through a $10 million dollar grant from the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences.

“The goal is to gather top researchers across the United States who are studying different aspects of schools of choice,” says Lincove. “It allows us to share information and research questions to better understand the impact of how different school districts implement school choice.”

The new center will be based at Tulane University. Additional partners include faculty from Michigan State University, Syracuse University, Johns Hopkins University, and ten other higher education institutions across the United States.

Lincove’s research on education policy includes a focus on the charter school system in New Orleans post-Katrina. In addition to her academic publications in journals like Education Finance and Policy, Lincove has also written for policymakers and the public, through groups like the Brookings Institution and the Education Research Alliance for New Orleans.

Through REACH, Lincove will do further research to identify whether schools systems that utilize school choice deliver on the promise of improving educational equity and offering greater access to high-quality education for students, given the variability of school enrollment practices and children’s transportation and housing challenges. Her work will include research in Baltimore’s public school system, which enables schools of choice, with the support of UMBC School of Public Policy graduate students. This work will be in collaboration with the Baltimore Education Research Consortium led by Baltimore City Public Schools, Morgan State University, and Johns Hopkins University.

Lincove explains that REACH will enable scholars in this field, who are based in cities across the United States, “to share information and research questions to better understand the impact of how different school districts implement school choice.” She points out that this is especially important in districts where leaders have replaced traditional education systems with school choice in hopes of better meeting the needs of vulnerable or underserved students, such as low-income students, students from racial or ethnic minority groups, English language learners, and special education students.

Lincove is highly aware of the complexities this work involves, but she looks forward to shedding light on an issue of such public importance. “Researching school choice is challenging because there are so many stakeholders that are for and against it. But in the end,” she says, “looking at research across the United States allows us to identify what is working and help inform policy to help school systems create equitable, successful, and safe learning environments.”

Learn more about Jane Lincove and REACH.

Banner image: Jane Lincove, public policy. Photo by Catalina Sofia Dansberger Duque for UMBC.

A team of researchers from UMBC’s Center for Advanced Sensor Technology (CAST) and department of chemical, biochemical, and environmental engineering is working to develop a new, low-cost anti-malarial drug to help tackle a disease that causes over 200 million infections and 400,000 deaths annually, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

Peng Xu, assistant professor; Xudong Ge, research associate professor; and Govind Rao, professor, received $422,623 from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to support the research. Xu and Ge are the co-PIs on the grant, and Rao is the project director.

Therapies that contain artemisinin have shown to be an effective first-line treatment for malaria. Artemisinin is derived from extracts of the wormwood plant. This makes it relatively affordable to produce, but also means the medication supply depends on having an abundant and steady source of the plant.

With the support of the grant, the UMBC research group will develop a scalable and cost-effective production process. Through genetic and process engineering, they will develop an alternative yeast that can be used to more affordably produce artemisinic acid.

“This work builds on CAST’s unique strength in sensor technology and couples it with innovative yeast metabolic engineering,” Rao says. “We are excited to work with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to develop a cost-efficient manufacturing process, and, ultimately, to help eradicate malaria around the world.”

Banner image: Peng Xu, left, and Xudong Ge, right, work with a student to develop an anti-malarial drug. Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.

Hello Study Abroad Alumni,

I hope you thoroughly enjoyed your study abroad experience!

Are you looking for people to share your experience with? Are you also looking for a job? The Study Abroad Office is seeking a student to join our staff of Peer Advisors. Please complete the application via the link below and be ready to submit a resume and cover letter explaining your qualifications and interest in joining our team. 

Follow this link to the Application: Complete the Application

Or copy and paste the URL below into your internet browser: https://umbc.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_9EIW71RdSA7uIbb

Please complete the application by Tuesday, July 31st at 4:00p.m., if you are selected for an interview we will contact you to schedule a time the following week.

Best,

The Study Abroad Office