In a fitting tribute to UMBC’s newest space — the Performing Arts and Humanities building — a stage-full of area cultural luminaries discussed the concept of “New Space” at the building’s opening ceremonies September 19. Among them was alumnus Kevin Griffin Moreno ’96, history, founder and host of Potluck Storytelling.

“The places we inhabit shape the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves,” Moreno told the audience during the standing room only panel moderated by Tom Hall, WYPR radio host and Baltimore Choral Arts Society director.

Read the full story about New Space and the PAHB opening.

Listen to a clip of Moreno at the New Space panel.

Moreno, who describes himself as “nonprofit policy geek by day; story collector by night,” runs Potluck Storytelling, which brings artists together to share stories, songs — and delicious food. Read more about Potluck Storytelling here.

In a fitting tribute to UMBC’s newest space — the Performing Arts and Humanities building — a stage-full of area cultural luminaries discussed the concept of “New Space” at the building’s opening ceremonies September 19. Among them was alumnus Kevin Griffin Moreno ’96, history, founder and host of Potluck Storytelling.

“The places we inhabit shape the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves,” Moreno told the audience during the standing room only panel moderated by Tom Hall, WYPR radio host and Baltimore Choral Arts Society director.

Read the full story about New Space and the PAHB opening.

Listen to a clip of Moreno at the New Space panel.

Moreno, who describes himself as “nonprofit policy geek by day; story collector by night,” runs Potluck Storytelling, which brings artists together to share stories, songs — and delicious food. Read more about Potluck Storytelling here.

Ezekiel 36: 16-38 (NIV)

¹⁶ Then this further message came to me from the Lord: ¹⁷ “Son of man, when the people of Israel were living in their own land, they defiled it by the evil way they lived. To me their conduct was as unclean as a woman’s menstrual cloth. ¹⁸ They polluted the land with murder and the worship of idols,^[a] so I poured out my fury on them. ¹⁹ I scattered them to many lands to punish them for the evil way they had lived. ²⁰ But when they were scattered among the nations, they brought shame on my holy name. For the nations said, ‘These are the people of the Lord, but he couldn’t keep them safe in his own land!’ ²¹ Then I was concerned for my holy name, on which my people brought shame among the nations.

²² “Therefore, give the people of Israel this message from the Sovereign Lord: I am bringing you back, but not because you deserve it. I am doing it to protect my holy name, on which you brought shame while you were scattered among the nations. ²³ I will show how holy my great name is—the name on which you brought shame among the nations. And when I reveal my holiness through you before their very eyes, says the Sovereign Lord, then the nations will know that I am the Lord. ²⁴ For I will gather you up from all the nations and bring you home again to your land.

²⁵ “Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean. Your filth will be washed away, and you will no longer worship idols. ²⁶ And I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit in you. I will take out your stony, stubborn heart and give you a tender, responsive heart. ²⁷ And I will put my Spirit in you so that you will follow my decrees and be careful to obey my regulations.

²⁸ “And you will live in Israel, the land I gave your ancestors long ago. You will be my people, and I will be your God. ²⁹ I will cleanse you of your filthy behavior. I will give you good crops of grain, and I will send no more famines on the land. ³⁰ I will give you great harvests from your fruit trees and fields, and never again will the surrounding nations be able to scoff at your land for its famines. ³¹ Then you will remember your past sins and despise yourselves for all the detestable things you did. ³² But remember, says the Sovereign Lord, I am not doing this because you deserve it. O my people of Israel, you should be utterly ashamed of all you have done!

³³ “This is what the Sovereign Lord says: When I cleanse you from your sins, I will repopulate your cities, and the ruins will be rebuilt. ³⁴ The fields that used to lie empty and desolate in plain view of everyone will again be farmed. ³⁵ And when I bring you back, people will say, ‘This former wasteland is now like the Garden of Eden! The abandoned and ruined cities now have strong walls and are filled with people!’ ³⁶ Then the surrounding nations that survive will know that I, the Lord, have rebuilt the ruins and replanted the wasteland. For I, the Lord, have spoken, and I will do what I say.

³⁷ “This is what the Sovereign Lord says: I am ready to hear Israel’s prayers and to increase their numbers like a flock. ³⁸ They will be as numerous as the sacred flocks that fill Jerusalem’s streets at the time of her festivals. The ruined cities will be crowded with people once more, and everyone will know that I am the Lord.”

Reflection

Israel had become a self-indulgent nation. They had become hardened in their hearts toward God. Justice and righteousness and love for God were not in their DNA. They are not in our DNA. The only power that can create them is the power of God the Father. And this is what God said He would do. He would intervene with scalpel in hand and cut us open and remove the heart of stone and give us a brand new heart where His Spirit could make His home. All of this, God did for us through Jesus Christ. Faith in Jesus Christ and in His death and resurrection usher us into the power of God that gives a new heart and life that walks in His Spirit.

Response

How is your heart today? Does it feel like stone? God can touch you again with His mighty Spirit of love and revive your heart to know His love and follow Him afresh. Let’s humbly come before the Lord and ask Him to touch our heart again, to revive and refresh us to love and follow Him.

CSEE Colloquium

Volume Calculation of Magnetic Resonance
Tissues via Image Classification

Shih-Yu Chen
Remote Sensing Signal & Image Processing Laboratory
UMBC Computer Science and Electrical Engineering

1:00pm Friday 5 October 2012, ITE 227

Magnetic resonance (MR) tissue volume calculation is very important in medical diagnosis. A general approach is to first perform image classification of desired tissue substances slice by slice and then calculate tissue volumes via classified data samples in each slice. Two issues are generally involved; (1) selection of training samples which are slice-dependent, i.e., each slice requires its own specific training samples and (2) classification which must be carried out slice by slice individually because training samples obtained from one slice are not necessarily applicable to another. We develop a volume sphering analysis (VSA) approach which can process all MR image slices as one single image cube to calculate tissue volumes via image classification using only one set of training samples that is obtained from a single image slice. The proposed VSA using one set of training samples not only performs comparably to that using training samples specifically selected for individual image slices, but also saves significant amounts of selecting training samples and computing time.

Shih-Yu Chen received the BS degree in Electrical Engineering from Da-Yeh University in 2005, and the MS EE degree from National Chung Hsing University in 2010. He is currently a PhD (EE) student at UMBC. Mr. Chen's research interest includes medical image, remote sensing image and vital sign signal processing.

more information and directions

On-Campus Interviews offer students a chance to conveniently interview for professional positions on campus.  Employers travel to our campus for the specific purpose of interviewing preselected students for currently open positions.  This is a great opportunity to interview with employers specifically interested in UMBC students and offers the advantage of a smaller applicant pool.  Interviews take place during the fall and spring. The logistics (viewing positions, applying, signing up for interview time slots, etc.) are all handled via UMBCworks.

Don't miss out on employers coming to UMBC to recruit YOU this fall! The following is a list of employers coming to conduct on-campus interviews with application deadlines in the next month.

**Northwestern Mutual Financial Network

Interviewing on 10/10/12 (Deadline to apply via UMBCworks:  9/26/12)
Positions:  Financial Representative
Majors:  All Majors

**T Rowe Price

Interviewing on 10/11/12 (Deadline to apply via UMBCworks:  9/27/12)
Positions:  Equity Associate Analyst
Majors:  ECON, FIEC, HIST, POLI, ACCT

**Northrop Grumman Corporation

Interviewing on 10/11/12 (Deadline to apply via UMBCworks: 9/27/12)
Position:  Business Management Professional Development Rotational Program
Majors:  BTA, MATH, ECON, FIEC, Accounting

**Northrop  Grumman Corporation

Interviewing on 10/12/12 (Deadline to apply via UMBCworks:  9/28/12)
Position:  Software Professional Development Rotational Program
Majors:  Engineering, Programming/Software Development

**Target

Interviewing on 10/16/12 (Deadline to apply via UMBCworks:  10/02/12)
Positions:  Executive Team Leader, Store Executive Intern
Majors:  All Majors

A full list of On-Campus Interviews scheduled this fall is available on our website calendar and on UMBCworks, please check regularly for any updates or changes that may occur.

On election day this November, some Marylanders will be voting on bond issues in addition to candidates and referenda. These ballot questions ask voters if their city or county should borrow money to fund particular projects, such as improvements to parks, schools and the Maryland Zoo in Baltimore.

At a time when government budgets are on everyone’s mind, Sheilah Kast of WYPR’s Maryland Morning asks UMBC political science professor Roy Meyers to shed light on these bond issues.

_Music of the Mind: Cliche Verre Photographs and Digital Imagery of Jaromir Stephany_, with an essay by Tom Beck, UMBC chief curator, has been published by the Albin O. Kuhn Library & Gallery. The life and work of Jaromir “Jerry” Stephany, an Associate Professor of Art from 1973 to 1999, are presented in a monograph for the first time. Stephany has the distinction of being one of only a few artists ever who devoted so much of his career to making cliché verre photographs. He learned the technique from his mentor Henry Holmes Smith (acolyte of Moholy-Nagy), and made such “cosmic” series as “Landscapes of Outer Space” and “Psychosis.” Later in his career, he scanned his negatives into a computer and added vibrant colors to the work, thereby achieving an emotional load much like the classical music that he enjoyed throughout his life. Stephany’s last body of work, “Dark Music,” captures the last movement of a life inspired by such music as Anton Bruckner’s Symphony No. 9 in D Minor. The book will be distributed by D.A.P. (Distributed Art Publishers).