Are you a current or prospective UMBC student?

We want to hear your story. Tell us about who your heroes are, how they inspire you and how UMBC can help you reach those dreams. Go to
www.umbc.edu/hero to tell us a little about yourself and submit a 200-300 word essay.

The winning entry will receive a $3,000 scholarship to UMBC (contingent upon acceptance to UMBC for prospective students), a UMBC prize pack and
a chance to tell your story. Runners up will receive UMBC prize packs.

The deadline for entries is April 20th.

Thanks!

UMBC

UMBC has trial access to the following EBSCO databases through April 30, 2011:

Political Science Complete
Political Science Complete™ (PSC) contains full text for more than 520 journals, and indexing and abstracts for over 2,900 titles, (including top-ranked scholarly journals), many of which are unique to the product. PSC has a worldwide focus, reflecting the globalization of contemporary political discourse.

The database also features over 340 full-text reference books and monographs, and over 36,000 full-text conference papers, including those of the International Political Science Association. PSC includes a subject-specific thesaurus with over 17,500 terms (7,366 preferred and 10,175 non-preferred terms), to provide subject searching guidance to researchers.

Public Affairs Index
Public Affairs Index is a bibliographic database covering all aspects of national and global contemporary public policy issues ranging from public health, the environment, housing, human and civil rights, to international commerce and conflict.

This database draws from a diverse array of scholarly journals, conference papers, trade publications and government documents to provide up-to-date information on a broad range of topics of concern to the world today.

Social Work Abstracts
Social Work Abstracts offers extensive coverage of more than 900 social work and human services journals dating back to 1965. Produced by the National Association of Social Workers (NASW), the database provides indexing and abstracts dealing with all aspects of the social work field, including theory and practice, areas of service and social issues and problems. Researchers seeking scholarly and professional perspectives on subjects such as therapy, education, human services, addictions, child and family welfare, mental health, civil and legal rights, and more will find Social Work Abstracts to be an indispensable resource.

For off-campus access, please login via VPN first (http://vpn.umbc.edu). Then follow the link under "News & Events" on the library homepage. For more info on remote access, see http://aok.lib.umbc.edu/services/remoteaccess.php

Please let us know what you think. Leave a comment or send your comments to Drew Alfgren at alfgren@umbc.edu.

Cops are supposed to fight bad guys… not each other.

The unrest in Syria grows worse.

Be careful if you ever attend an event with Vice President Joe Biden- you might end up stuffed in a closet.

In times of crisis, people try to help in any way they can. As Japan deals with the aftermath of a horrific earthquake and tsunami, many artists have stepped up to contribute their talent to try and raise money.

Cranes are often associated with Japan so many people, including kids, are making a thousand paper cranes to help raise money for the relief effort in Japan.

Tons of posters are for sale, with all proceeds going to help various organizations working in Japan.

There are also a bunch of other items for sale- from quilts, to jewelry, and shirts. Have fun shopping and helping the relief effort in Japan!

CSEE Professor Samuel Lomonaco is the co-organizer of a two-day workshop on Topological Quantum Information to be held on May 16-17, 2011 at the Mathematical Research Center Ennio De Giorgi in Pisa as part of an intensive research period focused on Knots and Applications. The workshop will foster inter-disciplinary communication among researchers working on topological information science.   A goal is to identify key issues involved in ultimately building a quantum computer based on a quantum system with inherently built-in topological obstructions to decoherence. For more information, contact Dr. Lomonaco at Sorry, you need javascript to view this email address.

UMBC BEATS U. PITTSBURGH 3-2 IN AN EPIC SET OF GAMES IN THE COLLEGIATE STARLEAGUE

UMBC takes down U. Pittsburgh to advance to the round of 16 in the CSL. (dates for ro16 have not yet been announced)

The VODs will be posted sometime real soon to either my channel at www.youtube.com/aegisstarcraft2 or to some other channel. (which in that case I will update this here)

If you want to hear a bit about the matches read below::

SPOILER ALERT:::

In game 1 NerZhuL came out with strong MMM play on the map Xel’Naga Caverns and Saer the protoss player from U. Pittsburgh did not throw down his force fields in time and took a huge beating early in the game, losing his natural expansion and his entire army. NerZhuL pulls back, takes a third base and advances for the win.

In game 2, LunatonePKM, the protoss player playing for UMBC is up against Xog, who is one of the top ranked zerg players on the North American server. On the map GSL Crevasse Lunatone takes an early expand and simultaneously cannons his opponent’s expansion, taking down the hatchery at Xog’s natural expansion. Xog takes his in base expansion and suffers a huge loss as Lunatone pushes in with 6 gates worth of units and delivers a punishing to Xog’s main.

Game 3 was the 2v2 with UMBC’s Cyrain and BruceLee against U. Pittsburgh’s Gamfvr and Lobo. This PTvPT game began with heavy aggression from the UMBC team, but siege tanks held the line for Gamfvr and Lobo. UMBC’s aggression continued into the mid game with Cyrain’s forces sacrificing themselves to take down Lobo’s main. However Gamfvr’s forces were left unchecked and the aggression left the UMBC team lacking in tech to stop the siege tank push and it was gg.

Game 4 saw a TvT with UMBC’s Cyrain vs Gamfvr; TvT is a complicated positional match up, with movement patterns and placement just as important as in a game of chess. This game was further complicated by the close air spawn positions on Shattered Temple. The TvT panned out with drops and counter drop plays and subtle tank movements until Cyrain found himself cornered and unable to take a third base. Gamfvr took his fourth base easily and forced an ace match in the series.

After a period of deliberation for both teams (ace match players are not announced), U. Pittsburgh did not place Xog as we expected, but instead put up Saer once again. UMBC fielded NerZhuL once again and the game was played on Metalopolis. Close spawn by air allowed both players to macro up large armies, but NerZhuL showed superior micro and drew the game and a match to a close by smashing the gateway+colossus army from Saer, bring the game and the match to a close.

Still looking for a summer internship? Check out the Google Summer of Code (GSoC).

This is a is a global program funded by Google that pays undergraduate or graduate students a $5000 stipend to write code for open source projects. GSoC has worked with the open source community to identify and fund exciting projects for the upcoming summer. The FAQ is a good place to find out more.

A set of open source projects (aka mentoring organizations) has been selected. Students apply to work on one of more of these and each mentoring organization ranks the students interested in working with them. Google facilitates the final selection and pairing. The mentoring organization works closely with the student to define tasks, check progress, help solve problems, etc. Typically the thudent works remotely, interacting with his or her mentor via email, chat, skype, etc.

Students can submit applications via the Google Summer of Code 2011 site from March 28 to April 8. Google says that that the best applications they receive are from students who took the time to interact with one of the participating mentoring organizations and discuss their ideas before submitting an application. Check out the information on the Advice for GSoC Students Page which links to a list of the 2011 mentoring organizations.

I have a plug for a particular project: Elgg. "Elgg is an award-winning social networking engine, delivering the building blocks that enable businesses, schools, universities and associations to create their own fully-featured social networks and applications." One of the people involved with Elgg's GSoC effort works at JHU/APL and may do mentoring locally. They are looking for people who know (or are willing to learn) PHP, JavaScript, and basic web development. Send email to Sorry, you need javascript to view this email address. to find out more about the ideas the Elgg project has proposed for GSCO 2011.