Freelance journalist Matthew Van Dyke ’02, political science, is still missing in Libya.

A recent story in The Atlantic magazine about another missing journalist mentions Van Dyke, who was originally reported missing March 13. Read the Atlantic story here.

The Committee to Protect Journalists issued an alert about Van Dyke’s disappearance earlier this month. He is one of 15 journalists currently missing or in government custody in Libya. Read the full story here and please share;  keeping Matthew in the public eye is important!

MS Defense

Exploiting Architectural Techniques for Boosting
Base Station Anonymity in Wireless Sensor Networks

Zhong Ren

2:00pm Thursday, 28 April 2011, ITE 346

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) can be deployed to serve mission-critical applications in hostile environments such as battlefield and territorial borders. In these setups, the WSN may be subject to attacks in order to disrupt the network operation. The most effective way for an adversary to do so is by targeting the Base-Station (BS), where the sensor data are collected in the field. By identifying and locating the BS, the adversary can launch attacks to damage or disrupt the operation of the BS. Therefore, maintaining the BS anonymity is of utmost importance in WSNs.

In this thesis we propose three novel approaches to boost the anonymity of the BS nodes to protect them from potential threats. We first explore the deployment of more BS nodes. We compare the BS anonymity of one versus multiple stationary BS under different network topologies. Our results show that having more base-stations can boost both the average and max anonymity of BS nodes. We further provide guidelines on a cost versus anonymity trade-off to determine the most suitable BS count for a network. Second we exploit the mobility of base-stations and explore the effect of relocating some of the existing BS nodes to the lowest anonymity regions. Our results show that having one mobile BS can dramatically boost the anonymity of the network and moving multiple BS does not provide much value. Finally, we propose to pursue dynamic sensor to cluster re-association to confuse the adversary. This can be employed when base-stations cannot safely move.

Committee members:

• Mohamed Younis (Chair)
• Yun Peng
• Charles Nicholas

Congratulations to the record number of CSEE graduate students who will make oral or poster presentations at the 2011 UMBC Graduate Research Conference on Friday April 29th. The presentations will take place in two sessions, one 9:00 to 10:50 and another 11:00 to 12:50. Poster sessions will be on the seventh floor of the library and oral presentations in UC 312. See the GRC site for a program booklet with abstracts and the session schedules.

Oral presentations:

• Yousef Ebrahimi, Increasing Transmission Power for Higher Base-station Anonymity in Wireless Sensor Network
• Zamon Granger, Stabilizing Air Pressure in a Hermetic Environment with Embedded Technology
• Congchong Liu, Optimizing MapReduce Programming Model through Adaptive Load Balance
• Kavita Krishnaswamy, Path planning a robotic arm efficiently
• Varish Mulwad, Generating knowledge from tables
• Darshana Dalvi, Genome-based Clinical Decision Support System
• Ashwini Lahane, Detection of unsafe actions in laparoscopic cholecystectomy surgical videos
• Karuna Pande Joshi, Lifecycle of virtualized services on the cloud
• Jon Ward, ICF: A Physical Layer Metric for Measuring Anonymity in Wireless Sensor Networks
• Theoplis E. Stewart Sr., Smart Grid: What are some underlying implications to overlaying digital technology onto the electric power grids?

Poster presentations:

• Sai Ma, Tom Eichele and Nicolle M. Correa, Hierarchical and graphical analysis of fMRI network connectivity in healthy and schizophrenic groups.
• Shiming Yang , Near Real"time Data Assimilation for the HYSPLIT Aerosol Dispersion Model.
• Yu Wang , A Framework for GPU 3D Model Reconstruction using Structure-from-Motion
• Akshaya Iyengar, Estimating Temporal Boundaries of Events using Social Media Data
• Brice Cannon, Paveen Apiratikul and John Hryniewicz, Characterization of semiconductor optical waveguides
• Brian White Jr., The Mobile Memory
• Xing Chen, Standoff photoacoustic chemical detection using quantum cascade lasers
• Yi Xin, On Gas Detection and Concentration Estimation via Mid-IR-based Gas Detection System Analysis Model
• Robert J. Weiblen, Calculation of the expected bandwidth for a mid-infrared supercontinuum source based on As2S3 chalcogenide photonic crystal fibers
• Pramod Jagtap, Privacy Preservation in Context Aware Geo-social Networking Applications

Many of us know that sometimes eating on campus is not always the most affordable thing. This is much more apparent when you don’t purchase a meal plan (many commuters don’t). So I was very excited when I saw the ad for…

Well looky here! That’s a steal compared to the regular rate of roughly $11 for buffet.  Granted that is how much you would pay for a buffet meal at a large chain, such as Golden Corral, but this is UMBC and we are struggling students! A Friday night meal, with some friends, all you can eat, and only $6!!! Time to make a visit.

Armed with friends and an empty stomach, I went to explore the wonders of the dining hall and get my discounted price. One thing people must remember, this deal is only for cash, credit, debit, and meals. My friend used his guest meal plan and was charged full price.

First I had the soup. They had a chicken with wild rice soup and a white bean and veggie soup. Both of them were equally delicious.

Next on the menu: Ginger BBQ Chicken, Asparagus, Cilantro Rice, Smashed Potatoes with Leeks, Carrots and Potatoes, Lasagna, Grilled Flank Steak, and Bake Fish:

The chicken was really good, more bbq-y than gingery but very tasty. The vegetables were perfectly crunchy and seasoned. My favorite was the smashed potatoes. It was probably the most perfect creamy, seasoned (we guessed rosemary and parsley, some Italian blend), mashed potatoes I had ever had. I have no idea what leeks even are but they were delicious! My friend got the lasagna and was absolutely in love with the cheese that was inside (we also guessed again at ricotta). The only things we did not like were the baked fish and the spinach. The spinach was not the most amazing thing to eat and the baked fish tasted indescribably weird and chewy. All in all, I believe we had an amazing dinner!

Dessert…

There were three options for dessert that night, other than the standard ice cream or milkshakes. They had the Seven Layer Bar, Yellow Cake with Chocolate Frosting, and a cake with no label but was a White cake with strawberry sauce and coconut.

The Seven Layer Bar was really the best combination of chewy, not so sweet, texture, and gooeyness. It was hard on the top, and as you got to the bottom there was a soft gooey layer. The Yellow Cake with Chocolate Frosting was really delicious as well. It kind of tasted like there was coffee in it also. The down side was that it was too sweet for me to finish one portion. The no label cake was a white (do not know the flavor) sponge cake. The flavor was predominately in the coconut and strawberry sauce because the cake was tasteless.

This was a fun experience for my friends and I to eat in the dining hall. It is something we don’t frequent as commuters so it was good to try something new on campus. The food was amazing and the price was even better. I hope commuters can take the time to visit the dining hall sometimes and try some of the amazing foods. From MyPantry to Kosher Korner, there is something for everyone to enjoy!

Freelance journalist Matthew Van Dyke ’02, political science, is still missing in Libya.

A recent story in The Atlantic magazine about another missing journalist mentions Van Dyke, who was originally reported missing March 13. Read the Atlantic story here.

The Committee to Protect Journalists issued an alert about Van Dyke’s disappearance earlier this month. He is one of 15 journalists currently missing or in government custody in Libya. Read the full story here and please share;  keeping Matthew in the public eye is important!

Sunday, May 1, 2011
7:30 pm, Fine Arts Recital Hall

Contact: Thomas Moore
Director of Arts Management
410-455-3370
tmoore@umbc.edu

On Sunday, May 1, the UMBC Symphony under the direction of E. Michael Richards will give the world premiere of a new work, Eclipse, by Linda Dusman, professor of music at UMBC. The performance will also feature Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 in C Minor, Op. 67; Edvard Grieg's Peer Gynt Suite No. 1, Op. 46; and a movement from Carl Nielsen's Concerto for Clarinet and Orchestra, Op. 57 [D.F.129], featuring soloist Emily Beisel, class of '11 and winner of the UMBC Symphony Concerto Competition. The concert is free and begins at 7:30 p.m. in the Fine Arts Recital Hall.

Linda Dusman began composing Eclipse during the summer of 2010 while contemplating two passages from Virginia Woolf's novel The Waves:

"...Like a ribbon of weed I am flung far every time the door opens. The wave breaks. I am the foam that sweeps and fills the uttermost rims of rocks with whiteness; I am also a girl, here in this room."

"What is the phrase for the moon? And the phrase for love?...I need a howl, a cry...I need no words."

Dusman remarked, "I began to imagine a sonic image of surging colors, instruments weaving around and among one another, attempting to answer questions that defy answers. Shadows of harmonies and melodic fragments continually eclipse one another, finally merging into a single line, embodying a spiritual ascent by a solo violin surrounded by a 'spray' of light.

"The creative process often leads to drawing connections between disparate events. During the composing of this piece, the stunning lunar eclipse of the 2010 winter solstice, and the senseless death a few weeks later of the young girl Christina-Taylor Green both became part of the emotional fabric of this piece, leaving many unanswerable questions. Eclipse is dedicated to the UMBC Symphony Orchestra and its Director, Dr. E. Michael Richards."

About the Composer
Linda Dusman's compositions and sonic art explore the richness of contemporary life, from the personal to the political. Recent premieres include her piano trio Diverging Flints, Skra for clarinet and fixed media, and Triptych of Gossips for soprano and violin. Her collaborative work with actress Wendy Salkind on writings of Gertrude Stein will be released in 2011. Dusman's music has been awarded by the International Alliance for Women in Music, the State of Maryland (in both the Music: Composition and the Visual Arts: Media categories), and the Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation, among others. Her compositions are published by I Resound Press and Silent Editions, and are recorded on the NEUMA, Capstone, and New Albany labels. As a frequent contributor to the literature on contemporary music and performance, Dr. Dusman's articles have appeared in the journals Link, Perspectives of New Music, and Interface, as well as a number of anthologies. She was a founding editor of the journal Women and Music: A Journal of Gender and Culture, and is an associate editor for Perspectives of New Music. Recently, she founded I Resound Press, a digital press/archive for music by women composers. Dr. Dusman is a Professor of Music at the UMBC and served as Chair of the Music Department from 2000-2008. Prior to her tenure at UMBC, she held the Jeppson Chair in Music at Clark University in Massachusetts.

Public Information
UMBC Arts website: http://www.umbc.edu/arts

Images for Media
High resolution images for media are available online:
http://www.umbc.edu/newsevents/arts/hi-res/
Photo: Richard Anderson

Directions
- From I-95 between Baltimore and Washington take exit 47B. Take Route 166 toward Catonsville and then follow signs to public parking.
- From I-695, take Exit 12C (Wilkens Avenue) and continue one-half mile to the entrance of UMBC at the roundabout intersection of Wilkens Avenue and Hilltop Road. Turn left and follow signs to public parking.
- Online campus map: http://www.umbc.edu/aboutumbc/campusmap/