Planting a Seed

New grants grow UMBC�s research partnership with UMB

Faculty members at Maryland universities conduct important research that may provide relief for spinal cord injury victims, or develop new targeted methods to deliver drugs through nanotechnology.

More and more of that vital work is being conducted in collaborations between faculty at UMBC and the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB).

The latest venture to expand the research partnership between the two neighboring universities (separated by less than seven miles) is a joint UMBC-UMB Research and Innovation Partnership Seed Grant Program that pairs primary investigators from each university to conduct research as a team. Successful partners are offered research funding of up to $75,000 over twelve months to pursue their collaboration.

The program�s first grant recipients were announced at a ceremony and poster session held at UMBC�s Albin O. Kuhn Library on February 11, 2014. Those selected for the awards included faculty in UMBC�s College of Natural and Mathematical Science and College of Engineering and Information Technology, as well as researchers in the University of Maryland School of Medicine and University of Maryland School of Pharmacy.

At the announcement ceremony, UMB Chief Academic and Research Officer and Senior Vice President Bruce Jarrell observed that the Seed Grant Program represents the deepening of a relationship that already includes cooperation on a joint graduate school and the Institute of Marine Environmental Technology (IMET) as well as a panoply of curricular efforts in areas such as the life sciences, gerontology, health informatics and social work.

�These collaborations already exist,� Jarrell observed. �And we�re proud to have UMBC as a partner.�

UMBC President Freeman A. Hrabowski, III, is enthusiastic about the projects selected for the initial round, which include investigations that may influence the course of research into cancer, strokes and muscle degeneration.

�The Seed Grant Program is a means by which both universities can better discover each other�s strengths and needs to see how we can better collaborate,� says Hrabowski.

Jay Perman, President of the University of Maryland, Baltimore, says increased partnership between the two universities is a key element of his vision. �I cannot stress enough the importance we place on our collaborative relationship with our colleagues at UMBC. The partnerships that UMBC and UMB have enjoyed for years are real, longstanding collaborations, and have been extremely successful, if not widely known.�

At the state level, the research partnerships fostered by the Seed Grant Program will further extend Maryland�s research profile and aid in securing vital funding from federal agencies, private foundations and other funding sources.

William E. Kirwan, Chancellor of the University System of Maryland (USM), praises the new program for its �focus on cutting-edge science and health concerns� and its emphasis on interdisciplinary teamwork.

�It is this type of structured collaboration.� Kirwan says, �that will enable both UMBC and UMB�as well as the USM�to reach their full potential, and to take full advantage of the opportunities before us.�

The first five teams to receive UMBC-UMB Research and Innovation Partnership Seed Grants are:

* Kathleen Hoffman, professor of mathematics (UMBC) and Asaf Keller, professor of anatomy and neurobiology (UMB), are exploring the chronic pain of patients with spinal cord injury and how computational modeling may help analyze the neurobiological changes in the central nervous system after such injuries.

* Martin Schneider, professor of biochemistry and molecular biology (UMB) and Bradford E. Peercy, assistant professor of mathematics (UMBC) are combining forces to analyze a transcription factor (Foxo1) in skeletal muscle that activates genes in a pathway that leads to the breakdown of muscle protein. They hope to develop protocols and models that will provide new approaches to controlling this factor.

* Charles Bieberich, professor of biological sciences (UMBC) and Paul Shapiro, associate professor of pharmaceutical sciences (UMB) are working on a more targeted use of a promising cancer treatment called �kinase inhibition.� Currently kinase inhibition creates resistance over time, so Bieberich and Shapiro are looking for more selective paths to inhibit portions of an enzyme that allows cancer cells to multiply without shutting down other functions in the process.

* Marie-Christine Daniel, associate professor of chemistry and biochemistry (UMBC) and Peter Swaan, professor of pharmaceutical sciences (UMB) are exploring how nanotechnology might improve the delivery of drugs (increased dosage, or better targeting) by examining a class of molecules known as �dendrons.�

* Tulay Adali, professor of computer science and electrical engineering (UMBC) and Kelly Westlake, assistant professor of physical therapy and rehabilitation science (UMB) are exploring how using a powerful computational tool (independent vector analysis) can aid in navigating variability in cognitive neural function and better help the recovery of stroke victims.

A call for proposals for the next round of the UMBC-UMB Research and Innovation Partnership Seed Grant Program will be issued on April 15, 2014.

(02/12/14)

In this tutorial we’re going to look at how to speed up the user experience on small static sites using a few different methods. (A static site is one which doesn’t have any renewing content, so no blog posts or photo streams etc.)

The way we’re going to be doing this is by taking out page reloads. So simply put, when the user uses some navigation links, only the main content of the page changes and it doesn’t make the browser reload the page.

We will be achieving this effect in two different ways, the first only uses jQuery, and the other uses AJAX and some PHP. They both have their pros and cons, which we’ll look at as well. Take a look at the demo to see what we’re trying to achieve and let’s start with the first (and simpler) jQuery method.

Achieving the effect with jQuery

First we will look at the setup for the page. The HTML is very simple but has a few important parts, “the essentials” as it were. We need some navigation links which have a specific hash href (which we’ll explain in a minute) and a specified content area which you would already have on any other site anyway. So let’s first see what is in our index.html file:

<body>
<header>
 <h1>Speed Up Static Sites with jQuery</h1>
 <nav>
 <ul>
 <li><a href="#page1" class="active" id="page1-link">Page 1</a></li>
 <li><a href="#page2" id="page2-link">Page 2</a></li>
 <li><a href="#page3" id="page3-link">Page 3</a></li>
 <li><a href="#page4" id="page4-link">Page 4</a></li>
 </ul>
 </nav>
</header>
<div id="main-content">
 <section id="page1">
 <h2>First Page Title</h2>
 <p>First page content.</p>
 </section>
 <section id="page2">
 <h2>Look, no page load!</h2>
 <p>Second page content.</p>
 </section>
 <section id="page3">
 <h2>Ooh fade!</h2>
 <p>Third page content.</p>
 </section>
 <section id="page4">
 <h2>Fourth Page Title</h2>
 <p>Fourth page content.</p>
 </section>
</div> <!-- end #main-content -->
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.7.2/jquery.min.js"></script&gt;
<script type="text/javascript" src="custom.js"></script>
</body>

So to recap the important parts of what needs to go into the markup: we have our navigation in which each link has an href of the corresponding DIV. So the link to “Page 2″ has a href=”#page2″ (which is the id of the <section> element further down). So with this first method as you can see we have a div of #main-content surrounding our sections, and then each page content one after the other in their own separate ‘section’ element. We also call jQuery and our own custom.js javascript file in which the actual functionality of the site will be made.

But before we get to that we need to add one line to our CSS, there’s no need to go over the whole CSS file for this example as it’s all only for looks, which will change with whatever project you’re working on. However, with this first method there’s one line that’s essential and that’s:

#page2, #page3, #page4 {
display: none;
}

This hides all the ‘pages’ except the first one. So the page appears normally on first load.

The JavaScript

So now to explain what we need to achieve via jQuery. In our custom.js file, we need to target when the user clicks on a navigation link. Retrieve its href link and find the ‘section’ with that same ID, then hide everything in the #main-content div and fade in the new section. This is what it looks like:

$(function() {
    $('header nav a').click(function() {
        var $linkClicked = $(this).attr('href');
        document.location.hash = $linkClicked;
        if (!$(this).hasClass("active")) {
            $("header nav a").removeClass("active");
            $(this).addClass("active");
            $('#main-content section').hide();
            $($linkClicked).fadeIn();
            return false;
        }
        else {
            return false;
        }
    });
    var hash = window.location.hash;
    hash = hash.replace(/^#/, '');
    switch (hash) {
        case 'page2' :
            $("#" + hash + "-link").trigger("click");
            break;
        case 'page3' :
            $("#" + hash + "-link").trigger("click");
            break;
        case 'page4' :
            $("#" + hash + "-link").trigger("click");
            break;
    }
});

This code is split into two sections, the first achieves what we just talked about. It has a click function on the header nav links. It then puts the ‘#page1, #page2′ etc into a variable named $linkClicked. We then update the browser’s URL to have that same hash name. Then we have an if statement making sure the link we’re clicking is not the current tab, if it is then do nothing, but if not hide all current content and unhide the div with an ID of $linkClicked. Simple as that!

The second section checks if the url has a hash link on the end of it, if it does, it finds a corresponding link on the page with the same value (that’s why the links have specific IDs in the markup) and then it triggers that link (it clicks on it). What this does, is means the user can reload a page after having navigated to a ‘page’ and the refresh will send the user back there instead of just back to the first page, which can often be a problem with this sort of system.

So that’s the end of the first method, this results in a working static site that has instantaneous content swapping, and no page reloads. The only drawback to this method is the fact that all the content is called on the initial load, as it’s all there in the index file. This can start to be a problem with photos and extra content making the first site visit load a bit longer. So let’s look at another way to do this same effect which can eliminate that problem.

Using AJAX and PHP

To achieve this same effect but in a slightly different way, so that the initial load isn’t going to load all of our content and thus slow it down (defeating the point if the site has a lot of content) we will use a little PHP and AJAX. This means that the file structure for our project will change and look like this:

So if you look, the index file is now a .php and not a .html. We also have an extra file named ‘load.php’ as well as a new folder/directory called pages in which there are four HTML pages. Now this means that if you’re working locally you need to set up a local development environment using something like MAMP (for Mac) or WAMP Server (for Windows). Or you can upload the whole folder onto a web server if you have access and edit on there, basically you’ll need an environment where the PHP will work.

The index.php has only changed one thing, but it’s important, we will now not load all the content in there, and simply call the initial content in with a PHP include. It now will look something like this:

<body>
<header>
 <h1>AJAX a Static Site</h1>
 <nav>
 <ul>
 <li><a href="#page1" class="active" id="page1-link">Page 1</a></li>
 <li><a href="#page2" id="page2-link">Page 2</a></li>
 <li><a href="#page3" id="page3-link">Page 3</a></li>
 <li><a href="#page4" id="page4-link">Page 4</a></li>
 </ul>
 </nav>
</header>
<div id="main-content">
<?php include('pages/page1.html'); ?>
</div> <!-- end #main-content -->
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.7.2/jquery.min.js"></script&gt;
<script type="text/javascript" src="custom.js"></script>
</body>

So the line beginning <?php is calling in the first HTML file from our folder of pages and inserting in entirely into our #main-content DIV. The file called can contain whatever content you want to appear on the page.

Using $.ajax in the JavaScript

Let’s move onto the new JavaScript, it now looks slightly different, mainly we’re now using AJAX to fetch the new content from each HTML file when the user clicks on some corresponding navigation. Here’s the first function in the code (the second stays the same as before):

$(function() {
    $('header nav a').click(function() {
        var $linkClicked = $(this).attr('href');
        document.location.hash = $linkClicked;
        var $pageRoot = $linkClicked.replace('#page', '');
        if (!$(this).hasClass("active")) {
            $("header nav a").removeClass("active");
            $(this).addClass("active");
            $.ajax({
                type: "POST",
                url: "load.php",
                data: 'page='+$pageRoot,
                dataType: "html",
                success: function(msg){
                if(parseInt(msg)!=0)
                {
                    $('#main-content').html(msg);
                    $('#main-content section').hide().fadeIn();
                }
            }
        });
    }
    else {
        event.preventDefault();
    }
});

So let’s explain what’s going on. We’re adding one more variable, that’s $pageRoot. This is basically the actual number clicked (taking way the ‘#page’ part of the hash link and leaving the individual number). Then inside the same “if” statement as before we call ajax and use the other PHP file we mentioned earlier to parse the information given (which link has been clicked) and find the corresponding page. Then if it comes back with no error, we insert the new HTML from the file received into our #main-content DIV. Then just to stop it changing suddenly, we hide everything and then fade it in.

load.php

The contents of the new PHP file is short and sweet, it takes the page number that jQuery has sent it and looks to see if the corresponding HTML file exists. If it does it gets all the content and returns it to the AJAX function (which we showed a moment ago that we insert that content into the main DIV).

<?php
if(!$_POST['page']) die("0");
$page = (int)$_POST['page'];
if(file_exists('pages/page'.$page.'.html'))
echo file_get_contents('pages/page'.$page.'.html');
else echo 'There is no such page!';
?>

Following that the site should look however you want it to, but mostly work properly.

That’s it! The site now calls in the right corresponding HTML file each time the user clicks on a navigation link. It swaps out the content without making the page reload. And this way it still doesn’t have to call all the content on the initial page load! I hope you’ve managed to learn some useful method from this tutorial and that you can use it to improve some project in some way.

You can view the jQuery demo here, the PHP demo here, or download the source and take a closer look.

Have you used AJAX for loading content? Have you used a similar technique to speed up your site? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

Featured image/thumbnail, supercharged image via Shutterstock.

Create Picture-Perfect Portraits With Beautune – only $14!

Would you let a startup track your social media accounts and credit-card transactions in exchange for cash?

A startup called Datacoup is far from the only tech company hoping to get rich by selling insights mined from your personal data. But it may be the only one offering to give you money for that information.

By Ms. Katarzyna Wac

Abstract Increasingly, we use mobile applications and services in our daily life activities, to support our needs for information, communication, leisure, or even health and care needs. However, user acceptance of a mobile application depends on at least two conditions: the application's perceived experience, and the appropriateness of the application to the user's context and needs. However, we have a weak understanding of a mobile user's quality of experience (QoE) and the factors influencing it. In my talk i discuss a 4-week-long 29-Android-phone-user study, where we collected both QoE and the underlying network's quality of service measurements through a combination of user, application, and network data on the user's phones. We aimed to derive and improve the understanding of users' QoE for a set of widely used mobile applications in users' natural environments and different daily contexts. I present data acquired in the study and discuss implications for mobile applications design, especially those in mobile health domain. I propose a framework for assuring the user's experience for these applications.

Bio: Ms. Katarzyna Wac is a senior scientist (fr. "MER") at the Institute of Services Science (ISS) of University of Geneva (UniGE) and leader of the Quality of Life (QoL) research area since 2010. She holds a BSc and MSc degree in Computer Science from Wroclaw University of Technology (WUT, Poland), an MSc in Telematics from University of Twente (UT, the Netherlands), as well as a PhD in Information Systems from University of Geneva (Switzerland). In 2003-2004, Ms. Wac was a research staff member at University of Twente. In 2005 she joined University of Geneva as a research and teaching assistant, while keeping her affiliation with the University of Twente. In 2007-2010, Ms. Wac was also affiliated with the MobiHealth BV start-up company. In 2009-2010, Ms. Wac was on leave for a one-year Swiss NSF Fellowship at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU, USA), Human-Computer Interaction Institute (HCII). Along the summer 2013, Ms. Wac was supported by Swiss NSF International Visits program to research at Stanford University (Stanford, USA), and particularly at the Stanford Human-Sciences and Technologies Advanced Research Institute (H-STAR). Ms. Wac's research interests include Quality of Service-aware mobile systems and services with special emphasis on support of adaptive multimedia protocols and Quality of Service mechanisms, especially in the mobile healthcare (i.e., mHealth) domain. Ms. Wac strives towards effective and efficient pervasive mobile computing and communication - meeting the end-user Quality of Service requirements and Quality of Experience expectations. Ms. Wac is since 2012 an Associate Expert of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) European Regional Initiative for mHealth.

It’s Tuesday which means that the Treehouse Show is back! In episode 77 of The Treehouse Show, Nick and Jason (@jseifer) talk about Sass mixins, JavaScript coding, git tips, and much more.

This Week’s Links

• Z63 | 8 Sass mixins you must have in your toolbox

• Firefox Notes – Desktop

• Sass: Mixin or Placeholder?

• A re-introduction to JavaScript (JS Tutorial) – JavaScript | MDN

• carrot/share-button

• Git tips from the trenches

• A List Apart Pattern Library

The post Sass Mixins, JavaScript Coding, Git Tips | The Treehouse Show Episode 77 appeared first on Treehouse Blog.

Here’s a tricky one for you…can genetic guys use girls’ bathrooms?

This very question was recently contested in the courts of Maine, where the highest court ruled that a biological male, who has identified as a female for most of her life, may use the women’s restroom instead of the men’s.

The court further held that preventing her from using the women’s bathroom was discrimination, and a violation of her rights.

 Critics have complained that this move is impossible to enforce. Can a guy suddenly decide to “identify” as a girl just to get into the girls’ restroom?

Where do schools draw the line between who is, and who is not, allowed in a restroom? While the court stressed that males should not be “casually” granted access to women’s facilities, the question of who can use the women’s bathroom is still very unclear.

Maybe your thoughts on this are clearer… What do you think about this new commotion in the commodes?

Hey Everyone, thanks for coming to the first GBM yesterday and hope you had a great time at Vegas Night!! 

If you had not already done so, join our myUMBC group page and make sure you are the mailing list! Email Angie Norton, to sign up!!

Good luck to everyone to the rest of this spring semester!