Hello!

Final exams are quickly approaching (26 days away).   Enjoy some brain food to fuel your study session ON ME!!  

All  iCubed study group participants (that's you!) currently in a study group are eligible to enter.   Please fill out the study group registration form (attached) and return to me by FRIDAY, May 4th,  to be entered into a raffle to win 2 PIZZAS for you and your study group on UMBC Study Day (May 12th).   

For those of you not in a study group yet, contact me and I can help you find one.   I am currently forming study groups for most science/math classes including Math 106, Math150, Math151, Math152, Biol141/142,  Chem101/102, etc!!!

For more information or if you have questions, please feel free to contact me or stop by my office in University Center Room 116.

Good Luck!

TIME named President Freeman Hrabowski to the 2012 TIME 100, the magazine’s annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world. The full list and related tributes appear in the April 30 issue of TIME, available on newsstands on Thursday, April 19, and now at time.com/time100.

The list, now in its ninth year, recognizes the activism, innovation and achievement of the world’s most influential individuals.

As TIME Managing Editor Richard Stengel has said of the list in the past, “The TIME 100 is not a list of the most powerful people in the world, it’s not a list of the smartest people in the world, it’s a list of the most influential people in the world. They’re scientists, they’re thinkers, they’re philosophers, they’re leaders, they’re icons, they’re artists, they’re visionaries. People who are using their ideas, their visions, their actions to transform the world and have an effect on a multitude of people.”

President Hrabowski told The Baltimore Sun that he accepts the recognition on behalf of the whole campus. “My success and the campus’ success are the same,” Hrabowski said. “People appreciate what we’ve done at the university, and I enjoy telling the story.”

Hrabowski also told The Sun that he considers the TIME honor a recognition for universities and their leaders nationwide.

“I think we often take for granted colleges and universities,” he said. “At UMBC, we don’t take it for granted, we celebrate it. That celebration gives people hope. People need to hope that we can educate all kinds of students, and those students will go on to lead our nation.”

This post originally appeared in UMBC Insights.

President Hrabowski has been named to the 2012 TIME 100, the magazine’s annual list of “the 100 most influential people in the world.” The list, now in its ninth year, recognizes the selectees’ activism, innovation, and achievement.

“The TIME 100 list is about the infinite possibilities of influence and the power of influence to change the world,” says Richard Stengel, TIME Managing Editor.

In writing about President Hrabowski, the only college president on the list, and UMBC, TIME highlighted the university’s transformation from a regional institution to a national model for research universities in the United States:

“When you think of the top science universities in the U.S., schools like MIT and Caltech may jump to mind. But perhaps the most envied science program in the country is at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.”

UMBC’s success in undergraduate teaching and research hinges on the creativity and hard work of the university’s faculty, staff, and students. Many of our most innovative programs also would not be possible without the support of our alumni, partners, friends, and state and local leaders.

As President Hrabowski told The Baltimore Sun: “My success and the campus’s success are the same. People appreciate what we’ve done at the university, and I enjoy telling the story.”

This honor is truly a tribute to the entire UMBC community. You can read all that TIME had to say here, and highlights from other media coverage are below.

The Baltimore Sun: “In the past decade, UMBC has opened an on-campus research park, attracted minorities to the sciences with its Meyerhoff Scholarship program — which has been replicated at institutions across the country — and paired undergraduates with top scientists … UMBC’s humanities programs have also emerged as some of the strongest in the nation.” — The Baltimore Sun

WBAL TV: “To build a culture of learning really takes a great effort on the part of the faculty, the students and the administration, and he’s willing to make that commitment.” — Tim Nohe, president of the UMBC Faculty Senate and associate professor of visual arts

ABC 2: “What he does here is what reflects in these awards … It’s not because Doc is here that were receiving this. It’s because Doc has made such a difference here that we’re receiving this.” — Jeremy Brickey, UMBC senior

CBS Baltimore: “We are not just a role model anymore for diversity. We are a role model for changing how education works, and it’s all started by Freeman.” — Mike Summers, HHMI investigator and professor of chemical and biochemical engineering

The Washington Post: “Hrabowski unquestionably ranks among the five or 10 most important college presidents in the nation. In a two-decade tenure, he has elevated UMBC from commuter school to top-flight research university.” — The Washington Post

EE Graduate Seminar

From Proton to Image: A Signal Processing Aspect of MRI

Albert Kir
PhD (EE) Student, CSEE Dept/UMBC

11:30am-12:45pm Friday, 20 April 2012, ITE 237

Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) is routinely used in clinical setting for its great diagnosis and prognosis ability, and is a heavily studied research area across multiple disciplines. MRI has its tie with signal and imaging processing community since it stemmed from the study of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). The technique of Fourier imaging makes MRI possible through manipulation of the NMR signals. The issue of imaging speed has always been at the heart of functional MRI (fMRI) and interventional imaging, where a high image frame rate is required or preferable. In the past decade, partly owing to the advance in imaging hardware, a wide range of image reconstruction algorithms have been developed to accelerate the image acquisition process. There has been SENSE, SMASH, GRAPPA, and many of their variations in the parallel imaging category from the early days to the current K-T techniques based on compressive sensing (CS). In this talk, the basic imaging principle for MRI will first be presented, and then a discussion of the first parallel imaging technique, SENSE, will be given. Lastly, the use of K-T FOCUSS on fMRI will be demonstrated.

Albert Kir received the BS degree in Computer Engineering n 2005 and the MSEE degree in 2009 from UMBC. He is currently a PhD (EE) student at UMBC. Mr. Kirs current research interest includes optimization of rapid imaging techniques for structural and functional images for MRI.

Host: Prof. Joel M. Morris

"Editor's note: On April 13, Lars Hedegaard, President of the Danish Free Press Society, appealed to Denmark's Supreme Court to overturn his conviction by Denmark's Superior Court on May 3, 2011, after two years in lower courts, on charges of alleged Hate Speech. Under Denmark's Article 266(b), it is immaterial if what one says is true; evidence to support of the truth is inadmissable. All that matters is if someone has said somethiing in public that might cause someone to "feel offended," or if the prosecutor thinks someone might be justified in "feeling offended." After Mr. Hedegaard spoke privately about the Muslim treatment of women, a tape of his remarks was disseminated, apparently without his knowledge or approval. The accuracy of what he said was not in dispute. A verdict is expected this week."