CSEE Professors Tinoosh Mohsenin and Gymama Slaughter each received recent grants from NSF to apply their computing engineering expertise to develop new medical technology. What follows is an excerpt from a recent article on their work written by Joel N.Shurkin.

The Body Electric: UMBC researchers forge links between tech and medicine

Monitoring significant developments in a patient’s health outside a hospital setting can be challenging, but two UMBC researchers – Tinoosh Mohsenin and Gymama Slaughter – have won separate grants from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to help meet those challenges.

Mohsenin received a $100,000 grant from the NSF to develop signal processing architecture to detect seizures. The award of $150,000 to Slaughter from the foundation was to pursue work on nanoelectric probe arrays.

Not only does the work done by these two UMBC professors have important implications for basic medical science, but it is also research that may also provide more insight into how we think and feel, or improve how people with disabilities navigate in the world.

The U.S. Census Bureau cordially invites you to the U.S. Federal Statistical Agencies Fall Outreach Symposium.  The symposium will feature sessions on Statistics for Journalists and Statistics in the New Media Era.  We believe it will be a great opportunity for your students to learn about the extensive statistics from the federal government.  These statistics are widely used by communications professionals in journalism and public relations.  Presenters will discuss the official statistics produced by their agencies:

 

November 14, 10:00 to 12:00: Statistics for Journalists, Bureau of Labor Statistics Conference Center

 

Journalism students and reporters from broadcast, print and online media outlets will find this session helpful to their understanding of lesser-known federal statistical agencies, official statistics produced by these agencies, and how they can access and use official statistics, studies and analyses in their reporting. Presenters will include representatives of the Economic Research Service, National Center for Education Statistics, Bureau of Justice Statistics, National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics, and National Center for Health Statistics.

 

November 14, 1:00 to 3:00: Statistics in the New Media Era, Bureau of Labor Statistics Conference Center

This two-hour session focuses on digital and new media; in particular on some of the new media covered in the President’s Digital Strategy such as API’s, apps, infographics and other data visualizations.  Agencies will share examples of how they are adapting new technology and how this helped them give the public easier access to data.

 

There is no registration fee for the symposium. However, advance registration is required to ensure access to the BLS Conference Center. A detailed list of ALL presentations can be found in the attachment included on this news post.

To register, send an email to Wendy Martinez at martinez.wendy@bls.gov with “Symposium” in the subject line and include the attendees full name, a list of the session(s) attendee plans to attend, and any special needs, e.g., handicap access. For more information, see the press release.

The Science major asks, “Why does it work?”
The Engineering major asks, “How does it work?”
The Business major asks, “How much does it cost?”
The Liberal Arts major asks, “Would you like fries with that?”

Yeah, we’ve all heard that joke. Gets us every time. Right?

But don’t throw out your diploma yet.

 There’s always big debates on which college majors are the best. “Which One Will Get You Money” vs. “Which One Do You Enjoy Most”. For many people, the two often intercede. For the rest? Well. We hope you like the smell of fast food.

Despite this, recent studies have shown that the skills learned in Liberal Arts degrees -English, History, Philosophy etc.-  bring their own perks to a person’s career. Employers like hiring people that bring new skills to the table. In fact, Professor Nicholaos Jones makes another groundbreaking point in his own essay : 

Are you ready? You sure?

Staring Salaries vs. Mid-career Salaries are two different things (duh).

Liberal Arts might have lower starting salaries, but by the middle of their careers, Graduates with a Liberal Arts degree have caught up -if not surpassed- their peers in STEM careers.

Why is this? Well, mostly because Liberal Arts majors don’t have a specific job they are training for -instead, they are taught different skills that are suitable for a wide number of jobs. A Theatre Major knows how to communicate with large groups of people, they’re charismatic, empathetic. An English Major might be taught to think outside the box. History Majors might be pros at synthesizing and organizing information.

So what are these people trying to say? Lots of things probably, but, as life isn’t a multiple choice quiz… maybe we should take our liberal arts major and happily roll with it.

And when we say “roll”, we’re hopefully not talking about hamburgers.

Computer Science and Electrical Engineering
Quantum Computing Seminar

The Strange World of Quantum Computing

Samuel Lomonaco, CSEE, UMBC

2:30-3:00 Tuesday, 5 November 2013, ITE 325b

This talk will give an introductory overview of quantum computing in an intuitive and conceptual fashion. No prior knowledge of quantum mechanics will be assumed. This is the first of a series of talks based on the four invited lectures given at Oxford. PowerPoint slides can be found online here.

Samuel J. Lomonaco is a professor at the Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering of the University of Maryland Baltimore County. He is internationally known for his many contributions in mathematics and in computer science. His research interests span a wide range of subjects from knot theory, algebraic and differential topology to algebraic coding theory, quantum computation, and symbolic computation. In quantum cryptography, he has shown how quantum information theory can be used to gain a better understanding of eavesdropping with quantum entanglement. In quantum computation, he has shown how Lie groups can be used to solve problems arising in the study of quantum entanglement. In 2000 Professor Lomonoco organized the first American Mathematical Society short course on quantum computation.

Organizer: Prof. Samuel Lomonaco, Sorry, you need javascript to view this email address.