Rebuilding Manhood is an 11-week group for students who identify as men to explore manhood, masculinity, and other intersecting identities. 

Be a part of a student group seeking to create a new culture through discourse. 
Develop meaningful connections with campus leaders. 
Make a different at UMBC and in society at large. 

Applications can be completed by visiting: http://www.umbc.edu/womenscenter/rebuildingManhood.html

Applications are due Wednesday, Feb 5, 2014. 
(Applicants will be accepted on a rolling basis, so don't wait until 2/5 to turn in your application!)

Meetings will take place on Fridays at 2pm in the Women's Center beginning Friday, Feb 7, 2014. (The group does not meet during spring break) 

For more information, contact the Women's Center at womens.center@umbc.edu.

Every January, we as a community acknowledge the need for awareness and education related to stalking. While we often joke about "facebook stalking," the fact is that stalking isn't a joke and can be a very scary experience for victims and their families and friends. Please read the proclamation below for more information.

Additionally, be sure to check out UMBC's Relationship Violence Awareness and Prevention website for more information on stalking and other forms of interpersonal violence: www.umbc.edu/rvap or http://umbc.edu/rvap/stalking/ for the direct link to stalking information.

If you need support from campus members related to a stalking incident, please contact a member from the SARVRT team (contact information can be found on the RVAP website).  

For more information from the Stalking Resource Center: http://victimsofcrime.org/our-programs/stalking-resource-center

Presidential Proclamation -- National Stalking Awareness Month, 2014

NATIONAL STALKING AWARENESS MONTH, 2014

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BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

A PROCLAMATION

Each January, we draw attention to a crime that will affect 1 in 6 American women at some point in their lives. Although young women are disproportionately at risk, anyone can be a victim of stalking -- regardless of age, sex, background, or gender identity. While many victims are stalked by ex-partners, sometimes the perpetrators are acquaintances or even strangers. During National Stalking Awareness Month, we extend our support to victims and renew our commitment to holding their stalkers accountable.

Stalkers seek to intimidate their victims through repeated unwanted contact, including harassing phone calls, text messages, or emails. Cyberstalking is increasingly prevalent, with more than one quarter of stalking victims reporting being harassed through the Internet or electronically monitored. Many victims suffer from anxiety, depression, and insomnia, and some are forced to move or change jobs. Stalking all too often goes unreported, yet it also tends to escalate over time, putting victims at risk of sexual assault, physical abuse, or homicide.

My Administration remains dedicated to pursuing justice for victims of stalking and ensuring survivors receive the support they need. Last March, I was proud to sign the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act. Every time we renew this landmark legislation, we improve it, and this time was no exception. This renewal expanded protections for Native American and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender victims of stalking, domestic violence, and sexual assault. It amended the Clery Act to require colleges to report crime statistics on stalking, continued to allow relief for immigrant victims, and strengthened support and training programs that have proven effective in helping law enforcement bring offenders to justice.

We also stand behind the tireless advocates who provide essential services to victims. Along with law enforcement, prosecutors, court personnel, and survivors, these devoted women and men are links in a chain that has made a difference -- one person, one family, one case at a time. This month, let us resolve to strengthen this chain, bring stalkers to justice, and give hope to everyone who has suffered from this crime.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim January 2014 as National Stalking Awareness Month. I call upon all Americans to recognize the signs of stalking, acknowledge stalking as a serious crime, and urge those affected not to be afraid to speak out or ask for help. Let us also resolve to support victims and survivors, and to create communities that are secure and supportive for all Americans.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this thirty-first day of December, in the year of our Lord two thousand thirteen, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-eighth.

BARACK OBAMA

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/12/31/presidential-proclamation-national-stalking-awareness-month-2014

Computer Science and Electrical Engineering
University of Maryland, Baltimore County

Ph.D. Dissertation Defense

Multi-Modal Saliency Fusion for Illustrative Image Enhancement

Christopher J. Morris

10:30-12:30, Wednesday, 15 January 2013, ITE 365 & 352

Digitally manipulated or augmented images are increasingly prevalent. Multisensor systems produce augmented images that integrate data into a single context. Mixed-reality images are generated from insertion of computer generated objects into a natural scene. Digital processing for application-specific tasks (e.g., compression or network transmission) can create images distorted with processing artifacts. Digital image augmentation can lead to the inclusion of artifacts that influence the perception of the image.

Visual cues (e.g., depth or size cues) may no longer be perceptually consistent in an augmented image. A feature deemed important in its local context may no longer be in the broader integrated context. Inserted synthetic objects may not possess the appropriate visual cues for proper perception of the overall scene. Finer cues that distinguish critical features may be lost in compressed images. Enhancing augmented images to add or restore visual cues can improve the image’s perceptibility.

This dissertation presents a framework for illustrating images to enhance critical features. The enhancements improve the perception and comprehension of the augmented image. The framework uses a linear combination of image (2D), surface topology (3D), and task based saliency measures to identify the critical features in the image. The use of multi-modal saliency allows the visualization designer to adjust the definition of critical features based on the attributes of the scene and the task at hand. Upon identification, the features are enhanced using a non-photorealistic rendering (NPR) deferred illustration technique. The enhancements, inspired by an analysis of artists’ techniques, bolster the features’ perceptual cues.

To measure the amount of similar salient features between the enhanced image and the original image, the framework describes the Saliency Similarity Metric (SSM). The SSM is feedback with which to make informed decisions to tune the visualization. The benefits of illustrative enhancement are analyzed using objective and subjective evaluations. Using conventional metrics, illustrative enhancements improve the perceptual image quality of images distorted by noise or compression artifacts. User survey results reveal that enhancements must be carefully applied for perceptual improvement. The framework can be effectively utilized in mobile rendering, augmented reality, and sensor fusion applications.

Committee: Drs. Penny Rheingans (chair), Dan Bailey, Jian Chen, Thomas Jackman (Desert Research Institute), Anupam Joshi and Marc Olano

NSF Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU): Molecular and Biochemical Analysis of Proteins

Department of Biochemistry, Purdue University

Dates: May 27 - August 1, 2014 (Please note that program dates cannot be modified)

Overview of Program

- Ten-week mentored research experience

- Career development sessions each week

- $5,000 stipend

- Campus housing provided

- Round-trip transportation to West Lafayette, IN

Eligibility

- Undergraduate who has completed at least 4 semesters of college study

- Students must have at least one semester of college remaining after the summer of 2014

- U.S. citizen or permanent resident

- Grade point average of at least 3.0 on a 4.0 scale

Application

- Online application requiring a statement of career goals and interest in the program

- Two faculty letters of recommendation

- Copy of transcript

Application deadline is February 14, 2014.

Computer Science and Electrical Engineering
University of Maryland, Baltimore County

Ph.D. Dissertation Proposal

Functional Reference Ontology Development: a Design Pattern Approach

Yunsu Lee

1:00pm Friday, January 10, 2014, ITE325b, UMBC

The next generation of smart manufacturing systems will be developed by composing advanced manufacturing components and IT services introducing new technologies. These new technologies can lead to dramatic improvements in the ability to monitor, control, and optimize all aspects of manufacturing. The ability to compose advanced manufacturing components and IT services enhances agility, resiliency, and productivity of a manufacturing system. In order to make the composition possible, functional knowledge of manufacturing components and IT services should be captured and shared explicitly. Recent researches have shown that a semantically precise and rich reference functional ontology enables effective composition. However, since domains of factories and production networks are large, evolving, and heterogeneous, developing a reference functional ontology is a challenging task. Specifically, conceptual functionality modeling that characterizes various features of manufacturing components and IT services at different levels of abstraction is a difficult task. Even if the reference functional ontology is developed successfully, there will certainly be interoperability issues between the reference functional ontology and local proprietary information models. Firstly, the conceptual conflict issues may arise primarily from the fact that the reference functional ontology does not reflect actual users’ or providers’ conceptualizations. Secondly, structural conflict issues may arise from diverse modeling choices in local, proprietary information models.

The objective of our research is to assess utility of design patterns in addressing the issues in the reference functional ontology development, specifically OWL ontology design patterns (ODPs). To achieve the objective, we will assess inductive approaches to identifying the ODPs, and explore development of a methodology for resolving structural differences between the reference functional ontology and local proprietary information models. The key potential contributions of this work include 1) new method to identify information patterns of functionalities in manufacturing components and IT services, 2) new inductive ODP development process which starts with the pattern definition of the specific functionality concepts, with subsequent grouping of these patterns into more general patterns, and 3) ODP-based ontology transformation to resolve structural conflicts between the reference functional ontology and local proprietary information models.

Committee: Drs. Yun Peng (chair), Tim Finin, Yelena Yesha, Milton Halem, Nenad Ivezic (NIST) and Boonserm Kulvatunyou (NIST)

The National Security Agency is soliciting nominations for the 2013 Best Scientific Cybersecurity Paper Competition. The competition is for scientific papers published between October 1, 2012 and December 31, 2013 that show an outstanding contribution to cybersecurity science. The nomination deadline is March 31, 2014.

The competition was created to stimulate research toward the development of systems that are resilient to cyber attacks. Entries are judged on scientific merit, the strength and significance of the work reported, and the degree to which the papers exemplify how to perform and report scientific research in cybersecurity.

The three winning papers from the 2012 cometition can be viewed at the Cyber-Physical Systems website.

This year’s nominations will be reviewed by a panel of distinguished experts including Dr. Whitfield Diffie, Dr. Dan Geer (In-Q-Tel), Dr. John McLean (NRL), Professor Angela Sasse, (University College London), Prof. Fred Schneider (Cornell), Mr. Phillip Venables (Goldman Sachs), Prof. David Wagner (UC Berkeley), and Dr. Jeannette Wing (Microsoft Research).

The contest winner and honorable mentions will be announced on the NSA external web site and the winner will be invited to present the winning paper to an audience of cybersecurity experts. For more information on eligibility criteria, criteria for judging and nomination procedures, see the 2013 Best Scientific Cybersecurity Paper Competition site.

The Summer Undergraduate Program in Emory Renal Research (SUPERR) will promote an appreciation for the study of kidney, urology, and hematologic (KUH) diseases among undergraduate students who are interested in furthering their scientific research and could be encouraged to pursue a career in biomedical scientific research.  Early exposure of undergraduate researchers to these exciting areas of study will give promising students first hand experience in laboratory methods to answer questions that directly affect human health and disease.  Our goal is to foster sustained interest in KUH diseases, thereby increasing the number of students applying to PhD and MD/PhD programs, and increasing the cadre of scientists in the biomedical workforce studying these topics in the future.

SUPERR will expose undergraduate students to current questions in KUH diseases that are being investigated by NIDDK supported investigators at Emory University.  Following a national recruitment, selected students will participate in a 12-week didactic and laboratory-based experiential program on our Atlanta campus to advance their knowledge of nephrology, urology, and hematology research through laboratory experimentation, clinical research, career development activities, responsible conduct in research training, and opportunities to present and share their research.   Specific targeted skills will include data acquisition, analysis and interpretation, and scientific presentation. The culmination of the 12-week training will be participation at the NIDDK sponsored Summer Student Research Symposium in Bethesda, MD.

Meet Susanna. She is a Biological Sciences major and MARC U*STAR Scholar. She is also a current Undergraduate Research Award (URA) scholar. Her research explores the female song in the Puerto Rican Oriole.

How did you find your mentor for year research project?
Dr. Omland was my BIOL142 professor. I talked to him after class about lecture material and my interests. From there we started talking about a research position.

How did you know this was the project you wanted to do?
I love learning about the different mechanisms, causes, and results of evolution. I knew Dr. Omland’s research was going to teach me a lot about evolution.

Is this your first independent research project?
Yes, I have been working on this project, Testing for Female Song in the Newly Recognized Species: The Puerto Rican Oriole for over a year now.

Do you get course credit for this work? How much time do you put into it?
Yes. I have been getting course credit every semester that I have been in lab. During the semester, it depends how much school work I have but I put in about 8 or 12 hours a week or more.

How did you hear about the Undergraduate Research Award (URA) program?
My advisor, Dr. Omland recommended the URA to me.

What academic background did you have before you applied for the URA? How much did your mentor help you with the application?
I was a sophomore and had been working in my lab for just less than a year. Dr. Omland must have advised me about my abstract 20 times! We made sure that it was perfect!

Was the application difficult to do?
My advisor, Janet Mcglynn, and Devon Fick gave me and other applicants a lot of advice on how to write a successful application. I had also previously written other grant applications so I was able to edit my writing to fit the scope of the URA.

What has been the hardest part about your research?
The hardest, but most exciting part is the field work. I study the Puerto Rican Oriole, so I get to travel to Puerto Rico and study this bird. I have to wake up before the sun rises, typically 4 a.m. to be out and ready to record the bird songs as soon as they wake up. It’s exhausting work following the birds, taking notes on everything they do, and making sure I get good clear recordings.

What was the most unexpected thing?
The most unexpected things is the amount of support I have been given. Dr. Omland, the Office of Undergraduate Education, the MARC U*STAR program, the graduate students in my lab, and the undergraduate students who help with the field work make an amazing team. The support everyone gives me has definitely helped me be successful!

How does your research relate to your work in other classes?
Apart from field work, I run experiments to determine the sex from feather samples we have taken from birds at the study sites. This gives me lots of practice with PCR and electrophoresis which was really helpful in genetics when we learned about different methods of analyzing DNA. Currently, I am in "Genes to Genomes" and my background in evolution is proving to be a huge advantage.

What else are you involved in on campus?
I am the secretary of Hispanic Latino Student Union and a member of the pre-veterinary society.

What is your advice to other students about getting involved in research?
Talk to your professors and don’t be afraid to say “I really want to learn about this from you, can I work with you?” The worst they can say is no, but they might really admire your enthusiasm and help you get a position somewhere else.

What are your career goals?
I will continue on to graduate school and eventually get my Ph.D. in evolutionary genetics. I love learning and don’t ever want to stop. A career in research lets me learn something new every day and lets me determine exactly what questions I want to investigate.

Have you shared the results of your work with professionals in your field?
Yes. I presented my research at the American Ornithological Society/Cooper Ornithological Society meeting in Chicago over the summer, and then at the UMBC Biological Sciences Summer Undergraduate Research Festival! This past September I presented my poster at the South Eastern Population Ecology and Evolutionary Genetics meeting at a UVA Field Station. I won Best Undergraduate Poster! It was an amazing experience! People were very interested in that my project looks at sexual selection differently than it typically is.

Read her abstract here...