UMBC head women’s basketball coach Phil Stern announced the hiring of former Retriever standout Carlee Cassidy ’10, media and communications studies and sociology, as the Director of Women’s Basketball Operations.

“I am thrilled that Carlee will start her coaching career at UMBC,” Stern said of his former player. “Carlee was a part of the greatest moment in UMBC women’s basketball history and was one of our most prolific offensive players.”

At the time of her graduation, Cassidy ranked second all-time at UMBC with 1,627 points and 347 free throws made — ranking first in both categories during the Retrievers’ Division I era — and still holds the school’s record for three-pointers (248). She became the first Retriever to earn America East All-Conference honors three times, receiving a spot on the second team as a junior and a senior and garnering first team recognition as a sophomore.

Not only did Cassidy excel in UMBC’s record book, but she also made her mark on the America East record book. The Syracuse, N.Y., native was the first player in nearly a decade to lead the America East in scoring in back-to-back seasons. She ranks 21st in the conference all-time in points and second in three-point field goals made.

Cassidy was a part of the 2006-07 Retrievers who also stamped themselves into America East history, defeating the top three teams in the league standings en route to winning a league championship. The 5-9 guard earned America East All-Tournament Team honors during the 2007 conference championships after scoring a team-best 14 points to help UMBC stun top-seeded and defending champion Hartford in the championship game, giving the program its first-ever league title that season and advancing to the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Tournament for the first time.

Following her collegiate career, Cassidy played one season with Forssan Alku Basketball Club in Finland.

“I am very excited about the opportunity to be back at my alma mater and to be a part of the UMBC women’s basketball family,” Cassidy said. “I am eager to continue to learn under Coach Stern and the rest of the staff. I am looking forward to the upcoming season and the continued success of our program in the future.”

This story originally appeared on UMBC Retrievers News.

Ph.D. Dissertation Defense

Joint Inference for Extracting Soft Biometric
Text Descriptorsfrom Patient Triage Images

Niyati Chhaya

10:00am Friday, 24 August 2012, ITE 325b, UMBC

Disaster events can result in mass casualties and missing persons, giving rise to a need to provide information about victims to the public. This can be achieved by digitally documenting information available at emergency medical care centers in the form of pictures. The images and other identifying information, such as fingerprints, cannot be broadcast due to privacy concerns, leading to a need to extract appearance-related non-unique features from this data to facilitate locating missing persons. Using humans and machines to compare images is not feasible due to the scale of the situation and the nature (presence of blood and debris) of the images. Extracting a soft biometric text descriptor (text labels describing different soft biometric features) makes it possible to organize information about individuals from these images in a searchable format without revealing the person's identity. The main aim of this thesis is to extract soft biometric features from person images to label appearance-related information and make it available as a text descriptor.

We begin by presenting soft biometric feature detectors for patient images that include an ensemble-based face detection algorithm, template-based eye detection, and eyeglasses, hair color, and skin color detection. We also present a facial hair detector that uses a combination of face and hair information. The feature detection results indicate a need to combine and exploit feature relationships for better performance. We propose a novel probabilistic graphical model that consists of different feature detectors and exploits relationships between these features using a message-passing inference algorithm to build a coherent text descriptor. Further, to understand the utility and the nature of the text descriptors, we present a study based on human descriptions that aims at extracting order and structure information about the features.

We evaluate the performance of individual feature detectors for standard and triage images and establish the challenges posed by the latter. Further, our text analysis shows extreme variability in human descriptions. However, we succeed in extracting some insights about the order of a natural text description. Through our evaluations of the graphical model, we show that for different feature detectors, datasets, and graph sizes the graphical model helps improve the accuracy of the text output. We also show that the performance of the graphical model depends on the individual nodes (feature detectors) and that the model can be used to improve the performance of the individual feature detectors. This thesis illustrates the whole process from images to text descriptors while evaluating components as we proceed. This work presents an approach to extract text labels from images using computer vision, a probabilistic graphical model, and natural language processing techniques.

Committee: Drs. Dr. Tim Oates (Chair), Marie desJardins, Tim Finin, Glenn Pearson and Jesus Caban

John 6:60-69 (NIV)

60 On hearing it, many of his disciples said, “This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?”

61 Aware that his disciples were grumbling about this, Jesus said to them, “Does this offend you? 62 Then what if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before! 63 The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you—they are full of the Spirit and life. 64 Yet there are some of you who do not believe.” For Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray him. 65 He went on to say, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled them.”

66 From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.
67 “You do not want to leave too, do you?” Jesus asked the Twelve.
68 Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. 69 We have come to believe and to know that you are the Holy One of God.”

Reflection:

We live in a world where there are so many options — from food, fashion, career, and ways in which we can live our lives … we are bombarded with endless possibilities and choices. When Jesus’ teaching was hard to accept or agree with, many disciples stopped following Jesus because they believed that they had other options. But when confronted by Jesus, Peter responds on behalf of the Twelve and declares the true reality — “to whom shall we go?” There is no other way, no other option … they were not going to leave because they had come to believe in who Jesus is, the One who has the words of eternal life.

Responding to the Transmission:

Many of us most likely have had similar experiences as the disciples when we were taught something about Christian life that was hard to believe and accept — because accepting means that we have to live differently and be different. In those situations, the questions to answer first are, is Jesus God? And did God really say that? Let’s pray that, by the work of the Holy Spirit living in us, we would not reject Jesus’ teaching, hence reject Jesus, however difficult the teaching. Let’s pray for faith like the disciples who chose to stay with Him and learned from Him what it means to live life with Christ as our Lord. As we respond with faith, He will keep us and sustain us.

Contact: Tom Moore
410-455-3370
tmoore@umbc.edu

This release is available as a pdf file.

The Albin O. Kuhn Library Gallery presents Ghosts in the Landscape: Vietnam Revisited, featuring photographs by Craig J. Barber, from September 10 through November 17.

Over a four-year period beginning in 1995, photographer Craig Barber, an ex-combat Marine, returned to Vietnam to traverse many of his former military routes, making images with an 8×10 inch pinhole camera. Intended in part as cathartic exercise and in part curiosity about what had become of this once war-torn country, the series of diptych and triptych panorama platinum images created by Barber capture the serene beauty of the country and, at times for the artist, all too memorable landscapes.

The images Barber captured are not documentary. The minutes-long exposure required to record pinhole images produce blurring in anything in motion during the exposure; this sense of movement contributes to both a feel of mystery and a dreamlike, introspective quality.

The artist states, “I began returning to Viet Nam early in 1995. My intent: photographing, writing and learning about the land I first saw as a combat Marine many years before. Full of youthful ignorance upon my initial arrival in Viet Nam, saddened and still ignorant upon my departure, I returned home with more questions than answers and more anger than I care to admit. This time, older, gentler and more mature, I hoped for a better understanding. Carrying vivid memories—some good, some not so, all intense, all needing clarification—I navigated each day through the landscape of my emotions.”

This exhibition has been organized by the George Eastman House & Museum. The presentation of this exhibition is supported by an arts program grant from the Maryland State Arts Council, an agency funded by the State of Maryland and the National Endowment for the Arts. Additional support comes from the Friends of the Library & Gallery, the Libby Kuhn Endowment Fund and the American Legion Towson Post #22, and individual contributions.

Gallery Information
The Albin O. Kuhn Library Gallery serves as one of the principal art galleries in the Baltimore region and is located on the first floor of the Albin O. Kuhn Library and Gallery. Admission to the Gallery and its programs is free.

Hours
Mon/Tue/Wed/Fri: 12 P.M. – 4:00 P.M.
Thursday: 12 P.M. – 8 P.M.
Sat/Sun: 1 P.M. – 5 P.M.

Public Information
UMBC Arts & Culture Calendar: http://www.umbc.edu/arts
Albin O. Kuhn Library Gallery: http://aok.lib.umbc.edu/gallery/
Albin O. Kuhn Library Gallery: 410-455-2270

Images for Media Use Only
http://www.umbc.edu/newsevents/arts/hi-res/
Images in this release: Eden in the Mekong (1998), Always Curious (1995), With the Rains Came Solitude (1997), platinum prints, © 2006 Craig J. Barber, courtesy George Eastman House.

Directions and Parking Information
UMBC is approximately 10 minutes from downtown Baltimore and 20 minutes from I-495.
• From I-95 between Baltimore and Washington, take exit 47B. Take Route 166 toward Catonsville and then follow signs to the Walker Avenue Garage (metered parking).
• From I-695, take Exit 12C (Wilkens Avenue) and continue one-half mile to the entrance of UMBC at the intersection of Wilkens Avenue and Hilltop Road. Turn left and follow signs to the Walker Avenue Garage (metered parking).

Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney’s pick of controversial Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan as his running mate is the subject of Tom Schaller’s latest Salon column, “Ryan pick in 5 easy steps.”

The political science professor explores what Romney’s VP selection means for the election and the GOP’s feature, starting with the arguments that Romney is playing it safe with the nomination and “the Romney camp clearly believes that a base-mobilizing strategy, rather than a swing voter-conversion strategy, is its best chance to win the White House.”

Schaller also argues that Ryan’s selection is further evidence the national GOP has become a “House-dominated party” as opposed to a presidential-oriented one. This “congressionalization of the Republican Party” is the topic of his forthcoming book from Yale University Press.