University System of Maryland Chancellor Jay Perman delivered a statement on March 19 detailing that all undergraduate, face-to-face instruction will be conducted using distance-learning for the rest of the academic year.

According to Perman, those students who do not have access to reliable internet service or laptops will be provided with the necessary equipment and will receive free internet service through carriers from their university. 

Individual universities have been collaborating for “weeks now,” according to Perman, in order to share resources about “technology plans and platforms for things like final exams, clinical simulations and lab demonstration.”

While undergraduate students will be spending the rest of their semesters online, graduate students and students in professional programs are subject to different academic “considerations,” which includes seeking “guidance from the relevant accrediting bodies and boards that provide certification” before finalizing instructional changes, Perman said.

The USM is recommending that reimbursement for students’ room and board costs will occur on a prorated basis, Perman said, and stated that financial aid packages will not be impacted, under “good guidance from the federal government.” 

“Distance learning has still more implications to housing, specifically the fair adjustment of cost, including room and board,” Perman said. 

Each university is formulating a schedule for student move out procedures. “Obviously, this needs to be done in an orderly fashion — with special attention given to the fact that we cannot have people gathering in large crowds, and that we need to be able to maintain social distancing,” Perman said. 

In an email communication from UMBC President Freeman Hrabowski and Provost Philip Rous, they stated that “students who have left campus for spring break will continue to be unable to access their residence halls. Students with an urgent need to retrieve items from their residence halls prior to this announcement may contact Residential Life.”

Residential Life staff will be disinfecting high-touch areas and trying to alleviate crowding in “pinch points,” or small spaces where large groups could gather.

All USM schools have also been instructed not to hold traditional, in-person commencements and are encouraged to “be creative with how they celebrate their graduates,” Perman said. 

Perman issued a word of warning to students who may not be social distancing. “This isn’t a break. It’s not a respite from the semester. It’s not a party. I urge students staying in their family homes or in off-campus housing to follow the state and federal guidelines on gatherings,” Perman said.

As of March 19, 38 percent of patients hospitalized were between 20 and 54.

Earlier in the meeting, Board of Regent members voted unanimously to temporarily delegate authority to Perman to amend board policy as needed to respond to COVID-19. This temporary authority was granted for up to 1 year, with a fiscal spending limit of 10 million dollars.

Treasurer of the Board of Regents William Wood cited Perman as being uniquely qualified, after his time as a doctor and the president of the healthcare campus at the University of Maryland, Baltimore. “He’s the perfect person for this responsibility,” Wood said.

These decisions come just hours after Governor Larry Hogan asked the USM Board of Regents to keep students off campus and move the remainder of the semester online. Perman noted that Governor Hogan’s press conference was in alignment with the decision that the Board of Regents was moving towards.

As of March 17, two UMBC community members were being tested for COVID-19. UMBC has not released results and does not plan to unless the tests are positive.

Synergy-based human-machine interfaces

Ramana Vinjamuri
Harvey N. Davis Distinguished Assistant Professor
Stevens Institute of Technology

1:00-2:00 pm Monday, 23 March 2020

Online Webex meeting

Human-machine interfaces (HMIs) have not only become popular technologies but have become the hope of many individuals for restoring their lost limb function. Any HMI has two important intrinsic design components—(i) decode the human commands and (ii) controlling the machine to convert that command into action. Decades of research went into making the interface between the human and the machine seamless but were unable to effectively address the inherent challenges, namely, complexity, adaptability, and variability. To overcome the above challenges, it is critical to computationally understand and quantitatively characterize the human sensorimotor control. Emerging areas in HMIs critically depend on the ability to build bioinspired models, experimentally validate them and utilize them in adaptive and intuitive control. The human hand with high dimensionality encompasses the three inherent challenges and may serve as an ideal validation paradigm. How the central nervous system (CNS) controls this high dimensional human hand effortlessly is still an unsolved mystery. To address this high dimensional control problem, many bioinspired motor control models have been proposed, one of which is based on synergies. According to this model, instead of controlling individual motor units, CNS simplifies the control using coordinated control of groups of motor units called synergies. However, there are several unanswered questions today— Where are synergies present in CNS? What is their role in motor control and motor learning? By combining the concepts of human motor control, computational neuroscience, machine learning and validation with noninvasive human experiments, can we answer these fundamental questions? The goal of this research is to develop efficient, seamless and near-natural human-machine interfaces based on biomimetically inspired models.

Ramana Vinjamuri received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering in 2008 specialized in dimensionality reduction in control and coordination of human hand from the University of Pittsburgh. He worked as a postdoctoral research associate (2008-2012) in the field of Brain Machine Interfaces (BMI) to control prosthesis in the School of Medicine, University of Pittsburgh where he received Mary E Switzer Merit Fellowship from NIDILRR in 2010. He worked as a Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the Johns Hopkins University (2012-2013) in the area of neuroprosthetics. He is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Stevens Institute of Technology (2013-Present). In 2018, he received Harvey N Davis Distinguished Teaching Award for excellence in undergraduate and graduate teaching. He received the NSF CAREER Award in 2019. His other notable research awards are from USISTEF and New Jersey Health Foundation. He also holds a secondary appointment as an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Indian Institute of Technology, Hyderabad, India.

The post Online talk: Synergy-based human-machine interfaces, 1-2 3/23, Webex appeared first on Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering.

Hello COEIT Community,

Please forward this email to your graduate and undergraduate students and research faculty that may have items left in labs or offices.  At this time, the campus buildings are closed and no one should be on campus. One-time campus access, to pick up personal items and items needed to work remotely from your lab or office, is being authorized by the college on a case-by-case basis. This is intended only to retrieve books, notes, computer chargers, etc. that may remain in offices or labs.  

We are currently monitoring who is visiting our buildings, and limiting visits to a one-time, short (20 minutes or less) visit to allow faculty, staff and students to pick up any items needed.  Further, visits may need to be spaced out to limit social interactions. Please follow the steps below if you need to come on campus:

• Email me, Amy Heckhaus, at heckhaus@umbc.edu with your preferred day and time of your one-time visit.  Please include which rooms you plan to enter.

• If you are a student, please cc your advisor on this email.

• I will email you back approval (or deferment, if necessary) of your visit.

• When you are on your way to campus, please alert the campus police at 410-455-5555 that you are coming, where you are going, and that the college has approved your one-time visit.

• While on campus, please limit your time, social distance from anyone you see, and practice good hygiene procedures.

Anyone found in violation of these guidelines may have their authorizations to buildings revoked.  Remember, there is no work that should be taking place in laboratories. Should you have questions regarding your research program, please refer to https://research.umbc.edu/covid19/.  These are unusual times we are in right now, and we are all trying our best!  Should you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Thank you,

Amy

Thank you for your interest in the 2020 MEEC Conference and Vendor Showcase.  In light of the COVID-19 concerns, the MEEC Board of Directors has taken the steps to postpone the April 1 Conference and reschedule it to Tuesday, October 6, 2020.