Michael T. Abrams, MPH, a senior research analyst at The Hilltop Institute, co-authored two articles published in the April 2014 issue of Psychiatric Services. The articles are both based on a study of low-income young adults (aged 18-26) discharged from an inpatient psychiatric event, a marker for serious mental distress.

Identifying Young Adults at Risk of Medicaid Enrollment Lapses After Inpatient Mental Health Treatment discusses a study that identified antecedents to Medicaid enrollment lapses in the year following discharge. Such lapses are undesirable because they suggest absence of medical attention that is especially indicated in the wake of an inpatient psychiatric stay.

Medicaid Lapses and Low-Income Young Adults’ Receipt of Outpatient Mental Health Care after an Inpatient Stay discusses a second study that estimated the impacts of Medicaid enrollment disruptions on access to mental health services in the same year following inpatient discharge. That study found that Medicaid disruptions correlated with reduced outpatient mental health service utilization and lower medication possession ratios. Jointly, these articles offer information to policymakers and others regarding the reasons and the potentially negative health care consequences of insurance discontinuities for young adults with substantial, albeit emerging, mental health needs. Such young adults represent an important subset of persons who should gain broader access to medical care coverage via the Affordable Care Act.

Conductr wants to help developers make apps that will spread out across multiple devices, taking advantage of all your display real estate.

A typical evening at my house includes at least four screens of various sizes scattered around the living room: a TV, a laptop, an iPad, and an iPhone, plus the occasional smart watch or any other gadget I might be testing. For the most part, each operates on its own, though they share a lot of the same apps and services.

To: UMBC Community
From: Philip Rous, Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs

I am delighted to announce that Dr. Yvette Mozie-Ross ’88, health science and policy, has been promoted to the position of Vice Provost for Enrollment Management and Planning. Dr. Mozie-Ross served as Associate Provost for Enrollment Management since 2011 and prior to that appointment served for five years as Assistant Provost for Enrollment Management. Dr. Mozie-Ross also served as Acting Director of Academic Services and Director of Undergraduate Admissions and Orientation. Dr. Mozie-Ross is a UMBC alumna and earned a Ph.D. in Education Policy and Administration from the University of Maryland, College Park.

This appointment recognizes the centrality of strategic enrollment management, development and planning as it impacts the mission and future of our community and the success and progression of our students. It recognizes the importance of developing a leadership structure consistent with the increasing breadth of the enrollment management portfolio and the critical importance of strong and effective leadership of the enrollment management team in supporting core academic affairs functions and initiatives, including student success, retention and graduation; student administration and oversight; and direction of the SA system and the SA functional team. As Vice Provost, Dr. Mozie-Ross will work with the Provost and with UMBC’s leadership team on strategic enrollment planning and to leverage existing tools and resources to enhance data- and evidence-driven approaches to determine and reach our institutional enrollment and student success goals.

I am grateful to Dr. Mozie-Ross for her leadership, dedication and commitment in service to the UMBC community for the past 25 years. Please join us in congratulating Dr. Mozie-Ross on her appointment as Vice Provost for Enrollment Management and Planning.

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It’s only a matter of time before more cyberweapons emerge, says the founder of the Moscow-based computer security firm Kaspersky.

The Moscow-based computer security firm Kaspersky Lab has analyzed major new kinds of malware, including Stuxnet, which four years ago was revealed to have damaged centrifuges in Iran’s uranium-enrichment facilities. That discovery of this malware, believed to have been created by American and Israeli agents, led to fears that such attacks would escalate, perhaps eventually leading to actual cyberwar (see “New Malware Brings Cyberwar One Step Closer,” “Old-Fashioned Control Systems Make U.S. Power Plants a Hacking Target,” and “Preparing for Cyberwar, Without a Map”).

It’s only a matter of time before more cyberweapons emerge, says the founder of the Moscow-based computer security firm Kaspersky.

The Moscow-based computer security firm Kaspersky Lab has analyzed major new kinds of malware, including Stuxnet, which four years ago was revealed to have damaged centrifuges in Iran’s uranium-enrichment facilities. That discovery of this malware, believed to have been created by American and Israeli agents, led to fears that such attacks would escalate, perhaps eventually leading to actual cyberwar (see “New Malware Brings Cyberwar One Step Closer,” “Old-Fashioned Control Systems Make U.S. Power Plants a Hacking Target,” and “Preparing for Cyberwar, Without a Map”).

The XML Query Working Group published XQuery 3.0: An XML Query Language, along with XQueryX, an XML representation for XQuery, both as W3C Recommendations, as well as the XQuery 3.0 Use Cases and Requirements as final Working Group Notes. XQuery extends the XPath language to provide efficient search and manipulation of information represented as trees from a variety of sources.

The XML Query Working Group and XSLT Working Group also jointly published W3C Recommendations of XML Path Language (XPath) 3.0, a widely-used language for searching and pointing into tree-based structures, together with XQuery and XPath Data Model 3.0 which defines those structures, XPath and XQuery Functions and Operators 3.0 which provides facilities for use in XPath, XQuery, XSLT and a number of other languages, and finally the XSLT and XQuery Serialization 3.0 specification giving a way to turn values and XDM instances into text, HTML or XML.

Read about the XML Activity.

1. In what ways were you involved in Sustainability efforts on campus during your time as a student?

2. What compelled you get involved? What did you get out of the experiences?

3. What changes have you seen take place during your time at UMBC?

4. What is your vision for the state of sustainability at UMBC 5 years from now?

5. What are the most important lessons you’ve learned through your work and efforts  that you wish to share with UMBC students?