John 1:1-14 (NIV)

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

6 There was a man sent from God whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. 8 He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light.

9 The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 11 He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 12 Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God — 13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.

14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Reflection:

John’s prologue speaks of the incredible truth that Jesus is the Word and that in Him was life and He was the light of all mankind. John also talks about the human condition, that the world could not “recognize” Him and did not “receive” Him, even though in Him was the life-light blazing for all mankind. But the grace and love of God is such that despite us, the Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us so that we could receive Him, believe in Him, and become children of God.

Responding to the Transmission:

Let’s pray that we would believe and receive the Word who gives us life. And as we receive, let’s ask for this life-light to blaze and overflow, so that others too would receive and believe and become children of God.

MS Thesis Defense

A Specialist Approach for Classification of Column Data

Nikhil Puranik

1:30pm Friday 24 August, 2012, 325b ITE, UMBC

Much information is encoded in spreadsheets, databases, and tables on the Web and in documents. Interpreting this content and making its meaning explicit in a representation language like RDF enables many applications. This thesis addresses the problem of identifying the semantic type of the information represented in a table column containing conventionally encoded data such as phone numbers or stock ticker symbols. We describe a ‘specialist’ approach for classification in which different specialists work together to come up with a ranked list for the given input column. We use three types of specialists: those based on regular expressions, dictionaries and classifiers. We discuss a serial and parallel framework for the specialists. We evaluate our system in two ways: by testing individual specialist for accuracy and by testing the performance of the overall system in terms of generation of ranked list. We also discuss the scalability of the system in terms of addition of new specialists and performance impact for systems with hundreds of specialists.

Committee: Drs. Tim Finin (chair), Anupam Joshi, Tim Oates and Yelena Yesha

Hi everyone!

I am your assigned mentor for the iCubed study at UMBC.  I just wanted to touch base with you before school started, and give you four things that you should do before the semester begins.

We will be having an information session on MONDAY, AUGUST 27 at 4:00 pm in Physics Room 101 (Lecture Hall 6). This is DIFFERENT from the location on the flyer that you received in the mail, due to a renovation delay!

At this session, you’ll get a chance to meet me, meet each other, and learn a little bit more about the iCubed study.

Here are the things that I’d like you to do before this meeting:

1.       Vote for our first Group Meeting times! Please follow this link to a Doodle poll, fill in your FIRST NAME and LAST INITIAL in the box for “Your name,” and select ANY of the days and times that work with your schedule. Why? Because there are nearly 80 students in our group and having YOU help me select the days and times to meet is far more efficient than having me look up all of your schedules.  It also allows you to take into account work and other commitments that you have beyond your class schedule.

2.       If you haven’t already, accept the invitation to join the myUMBC Group “iCubed: Mentoring by a Professional Advisor.” You should have a message in your UMBC email account with the invitation link, OR you can log into myUMBC, and look under the “Activity” section for an invite (that’s the lightning bolt icon up at the top, to the left of your name). Why? Announcements from iCubed and select information from other campus resources are fed to this Group page. It just might help you find a new club, get help with a class, or land an internship in your field!

3.       Be prepared to check your UMBC email account regularly. UMBC considers this your “official” email address, so critical communications – about classes, grades, housing, finances, etc. – will go to this account. Why? We have no way of knowing if xxsoccerstar35xx@mail.com really belongs to you, and there may be some information that I need to discuss that cannot be released without your permission (your grades, for example). Your UMBC email is connected to the rest of your UMBC account, so I know that it’s you on the other end!

4.       Set up the Google Calendar feature that is connected your UMBC email account. Why? I’ll be sending you invites to group sessions and individual meetings throughout the year. Having a Google calendar will let you plug them right into your calendar, and it’s easy to have it feed reminders to your UMBC email account (or your smart phone). Also, I keep a web-based appointment calendar.  If you want to come in to talk to me about something, I’ll send you a link to my availability, and you can schedule an appointment without a lot of phone- or email-tag! One note of caution – make sure that your calendar’s Time Zone is set to Eastern. Otherwise you’ll be hours late or early all the time!

I look forward to seeing you on Monday!

Michelle

Get a chance to meet your mentor! Bring your UMBC Red Card (Campus ID) to get your free iCubed@UMBC Team t-shirt!

Please note: This is a different room from the one listed on the flyer that you received in the mail - some rennovation delays have forced a room change!

Missouri representative Todd Akin’s claims regarding “legitimate rape” served as the inspiration for political science professor Tom Schaller’s latest column inThe Baltimore Sun.

In “Todd Akin rape claim is just the tip of the GOP wacko iceberg,” published August 21st, Schaller noted that regardless of how offensive and strange the views of the embattled Missouri senatorial candidate are, they are not so atypical when compared with other views held by far right politicians regarding sex, contraception, abortion, feminism, economic policy, climate change and race.

Schaller concluded the column by making note of Akin’s support for repealing the 17th Amendement, which allows for the direct election of candidates to the United States Senate by popular vote:

“If we followed their reckless advice, imagine what cohort of crazy House Republicans might be appointed by their state legislatures to the Senate — the chamber our founders designed to serve as the saucer to cool the hot passions of the House. Or don’t. Just thinking about it may drive you crazy.”