5:30-6:45 Monday 22 April 2019, Math/Psych 101

CMSC 626 Guest Lecture — all are welcome to attend

In this talk, we will introduce the basics of IPv6 and some of the security issues associated with it. Specifically, we discuss the motivations, history and adoption of IPv6, and current status in the global Internet. We then detail the structure of an IPv6 address and the types of addresses used, and the conceptual model for address assignment in IPv6. The modes of deployment of IPv6, and understanding of how dual-stack mode works, is then provided. We then discuss the basic model for IPv6 control protocols, ICMPv6, and how they support low-level network operations. We then identify IPv6’s place in the network stack, and explain how that does, and does not, affect security. Several basic threats to IPv6 devices and networks will be identified as well as how common network security posture/hygiene can be affected by dual stack operation. Lastly, we identify some key concepts in secure use of IPv6, and discuss the concept of NAT and its use in IPv4 and why IPv6 does not use it.

Mr. Neal Ziring is the Technical Director for the National Security Agency’s Capabilities Directorate, serving as a technical advisor to the Capabilities Director, Deputy Director, and other senior leadership. Mr. Ziring is responsible for setting the technical direction across many parts of the capabilities mission space, including in cyber-security. Mr. Ziring tracks technical activities, promotes technical health of the staff, and acts as liaison to various industry, intelligence, academic, and government partners. Prior to the formation of the Capabilities Directorate, Mr. Ziring served five years as Technical Director of the Information Assurance Directorate. His personal expertise areas include security automation, IPv6, cloud computing, cross-domain information exchange, and data access control, and cyber defense. Prior to coming to NSA in 1988, Neal worked at AT&T Bell Labs. He has BS degrees in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering, and an MS degree in Computer Science, all from Washington University in St. Louis.

The post talk: IPv6 and its Security Issues, 5:30 Mon. 4/22 appeared first on Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering.

UMBC’s Presidential Faculty and Staff Awards offer the campus community an opportunity to reflect on the essential contributions of university employees to making UMBC a supportive and successful learning community. This year’s ceremony, on April 3, recognized eight members of the UMBC community for their commitment to inclusive excellence.

Passion for pedagogy

Carolyn Forestiere, associate professor and chair of political science, received the Presidential Teaching Professor Award in recognition of her exemplary teaching, mentorship, and pedagogical innovation. She is known for challenging students to develop a deeper understanding of course material and to apply their learning through real-world examples. Her approach to guiding students through the process of writing a research paper, outlined in the 2017 textbook Beginning Research in Political Science, has been adopted across departments.

In accepting her award, Forestiere focused on the importance of educators actively connecting students with the subjects they are teaching by modeling excitement for each topic. “Show genuine enthusiasm in any subject that you teach…The key is to find what you’re passionate about and to try to give that to our students,” she says. “It’s that enthusiasm that engages our students.”

Sarah Leupen, senior lecturer in biological sciences, is the 2019 recipient of the University System of Maryland Board of Regents’ Faculty Award for Excellence in Teaching. Her creativity and innovation in teaching have extended far beyond her own classroom, inspiring faculty across UMBC and the world.

When she arrived at UMBC, Leupen launched a Biology Teaching Circle as a space for faculty to explore and discuss pedagogy that could be implemented in classrooms across campus. She has also been involved with UMBC’s Faculty Development Center, leading workshops on a range of topics and techniques. In 2016, she received a Fulbright Award to extend her work abroad. She spent the year at Charles University in the Czech Republic, training medical school faculty in the use of evidence-based teaching practices.

In receiving her award, Leupen thanked her students for teaching her something new each day. She also echoed Forestiere’s remarks, sharing that being enthusiastic for her students takes their classroom engagement to the next level.

Innovative research

Govind Rao, professor of chemical, biochemical, and environmental engineering and director of the Center for Advanced Sensor Technology, is this year’s Presidential Research Professor. Rao is known for the collaborative nature of his work and for bringing together student and faculty researchers from across disciplines to produce innovative solutions to challenges. 

Rao described the question, “What have you done for others?” as the driving force behind his work. His lab has created low-cost sensors to monitor bioprocesses and provide crucial medical care to people in remote places and in communities with limited resources.

Lorraine Remer, research professor for the Joint Center for Earth Systems Technology, received the 2019 UMBC Research Faculty Excellence Award. A leader in the field of remote sensing, Remer has received numerous accolades and awards recognizing her significant contributions to the atmospheric sciences. Recently, she was a named a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union and one of the most cited researchers in her field.

Remer came to UMBC seven years ago after 21 years at NASA and a successful career in the private sector. She serves as CEO and owner of Airphoton LLC, a start-up company founded in 2012 at bwtech@UMBC business incubator.

Supporting students and promoting well-being

Liz Steenrod, program management specialist for the Language, Literacy, and Culture doctoral program, was recognized with the Presidential Distinguished Non-Exempt Staff Award. Steenrod has advanced the program throughout the past six years — a time of tremendous growth, with the program expanding to serve more than 75 doctoral students.

Steenrod has implemented new processes and practices that support faculty and students in the program, particularly tools to help graduate students see their progress and stay on track to reach key milestones. In her remarks, Steenrod highlighted how helpful and supportive people at UMBC are and the ways dedicated and hardworking colleagues have inspired her work.

Jessica Hammond-Graf, senior associate athletic director and senior woman administrator for student-athlete well-being, received the Jakubik Family Endowment Award. During her more than 15 years of leadership at UMBC, she has led the advising and support of hundreds of student-athletes. Her efforts have significantly reduced the number of student-athletes earning below a 2.0 GPA. Today, more than 50 percent student-athletes earn a 3.0 GPA or higher each semester.

Hammond-Graf also created the Retriever Leadership Institute, which brings student-athletes together to develop and strengthen their leadership skills. Students focus on effective teamwork, managing conflict, and recognizing their roles as leaders at UMBC. Groups across UMBC have modeled other programs on the Retriever Leadership Institute.

In speaking at the awards ceremony, Hammond-Graf shared how the leaving things better than you find them is a value that resonated with her as a child, and that continues to motivate her work through today. “By leaving it better than you found it, you continue to move yourself, others, and the organization along a path of growth,” she says.

Shelly Graham, executive administrative assistant for student affairs, received the Karen L. Wensch Endowment Award for Outstanding Non-Exempt Staff. A member of the UMBC community for over 30 years, Graham is often the first person that people connect with when they are reaching out to Student Affairs. She provides training and support for people across campus, and handles delicate and confidential situations with professionalism and compassion.

Valerie Thomas, chief human resources officer and associate vice president for human resources, and a member of the UMBC community for 17 years, received the Presidential Distinguished Staff Award. During her time at UMBC, she has implemented several initiatives to promote the wellbeing of university employees. This includes, among other projects, growing work-life balance initiatives and co-chairing a committee that was responsible for implementing UMBC’s smoke-free campus policy.

President Freeman Hrabowski thanked the honorees by highlighting common themes in their remarks that particularly resonated with him: staff and faculty supporting each other and the passion and excitement that are core to the UMBC community. “We are celebrating…the people who make UMBC such a special community,” he said. “It’s your collective contributions that are the UMBC experience and story. You are what makes UMBC, UMBC.”

Banner image: Govind Rao speaking during the Presidential Faculty and Staff Award event. All photos by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.

By Charles Betley, Senior Policy Analyst, UMBC

Cigarettes have been known for years to cause many diseases. Tobacco companies now have to pay $9 billion each year to help states pay for the costs of treatment to people they sickened.

April 15 is Tax Day in the U.S., and it is a bitter pill for many.

For state Medicaid plans, though, which pay a heavy price for tobacco-related illnesses, it can be a shot in the arm of sorts. April 15 is also the day when the five largest tobacco companies pay US$9 billion dollars to state governments, each and every year, forever, because of a 1998 legal settlement meant to compensate states for the costs of tobacco-related illness such as cancer, emphysema and heart disease. Actual payments made by the tobacco companies vary year to year because of adjustment factors written into the settlement; each of the states’ payments varies as well.

Payments from tobacco companies, as well as tobacco taxes, help to support health care and other services for low-income people served by state Medicaid programs. Even though the federal government supports each state’s Medicaid program by paying at least half the costs, many states have difficulty finding revenues to pay the remaining share.

Determining how much tobacco use costs states’ Medicaid programs puts the payments from tobacco companies into perspective. One estimate found 15% of nationwide Medicaid costs were caused by tobacco use. But such estimates based on national surveys may not account for which tobacco-related diseases are most prevalent in a particular state. How many of the state’s Medicaid participants smoke, and how hospitals and doctors are paid, also affect a state’s Medicaid costs.

The Center for Mississippi Health Policy was interested in estimating the actual costs to Mississippi Medicaid for treating tobacco-related disease. The center wanted a price tag that more accurately reflected the health-related behaviors of people in Mississippi and health care services available in the state. Our team of researchers from The Hilltop Institute at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) conducted the study. We think our study is the first to focus on Medicaid costs using actual state Medicaid data.

Getting a truer picture

Instead of applying estimates of total costs of smoking from national surveys to individual states as previous studies have done, our research assessed how specific, individual smoking-related illnesses create costs for Mississippi. This lets the state better understand how much it differs from nationwide averages for both its total Medicaid costs and the sources of those costs.

First, we reviewed medical literature for studies that identified how tobacco use or exposure changes the risk of acquiring a particular illness. Many studies of how much smoking increases the risk of getting particular diseases have been conducted since the U.S. surgeon general first reported on the health hazards of smoking in 1964. In 2014, the surgeon general summarized many of these studies in a 50th anniversary report.

Some of the diseases we studied, such as prostate cancer, may have many causes in addition to tobacco use. Others, such as lung cancer, are almost always caused by tobacco. Once we found a number specifying how much smoking increased the risk for contracting each disease, we multiplied those risk scores by the percentage of people in Mississippi Medicaid who smoked. That enabled us to estimate what percentage of Mississippi Medicaid spending for each of these diseases was smoking-related. The Mississippi Medicaid program gave us data to determine the cost of each service paid to treat each person with the specific diagnosis.

We then adjusted this initial estimate for other factors that were not captured in the Medicaid payment data. We added adjusted costs for prescription drugs that could be used to treat smoking-related conditions. In addition, many Medicaid participants are in nursing homes because of diseases acquired from smoking. So we added the costs of nursing home stays based on residents’ diagnoses and the same risk scores.

Tobacco use can also affect the health of nonsmokers exposed to second-hand smoke. Mississippi had estimated the costs of second-hand smoke using national estimates. We updated those numbers based on relative risk of tobacco-related diseases we found in the more recent data.

An expensive set of illnesses

In total, we estimated that the cost of tobacco-related illness to Mississippi Medicaid was $388 million in 2016 and $396 million in 2017. This made up about 9% of Mississippi’s annual spending on Medicaid. Our estimates were somewhat lower than the national cost estimates of 15%. We believe this is because Mississippi Medicaid covers large numbers of children and younger adults – a tobacco-related disease may appear only after many years of smoking.

Many Mississippi Medicaid participants may still be too young to be diagnosed with tobacco-related illnesses. Furthermore, our estimates only included diseases with measures of increased risks because of smoking that are presented in the medical literature or the 2014 surgeon general’s report. So, our estimates are relatively conservative.

We believe our study results will help policymakers in Mississippi assess the benefits of policies affecting tobacco. These could include increasing tobacco cessation services, raising the minimum age for buying tobacco products, raising taxes on tobacco products and requiring smoke-free public places. Our approach to estimating costs could also be used by other states to conduct their own analyses of tobacco-related costs to Medicaid to inform their policy choices.

****

Charles Betley, Senior Policy Analyst, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Header image courtesy of Public Domain Pictures from Pexels. 

Sexual Assault Awareness Month is a national campaign focused on preventing sexual assault, harassment, and abuse, and it’s a month of great significance for the UMBC community. This year’s programming at UMBC is especially meaningful as the University responds to a call by students, faculty, and staff to do more to prevent sexual assault and other forms of sexual misconduct.

Retriever Courage: Speak, listen, learn, act

Retriever Courage was formed in fall 2018 in response to specific recommendations from students, faculty, and staff on how the university administration could improve community safety and wellbeing. The initiative outlined a shared governance process to better prevent and respond to sexual assault and other forms of sexual misconduct in ways that are inclusive, proactive, caring, and transparent.

This work involves dozens of partners across the university. They include the University Steering Committee, Retriever Courage Implementation Team, student and faculty/staff advisory committees, a prevention and response training implementation team, and procurement groups that assisted with the selection of an external consultant team now reviewing all related UMBC policies, practices, and resources.

“The thoughtful efforts of students, and the responsiveness of the University administration, faculty, and staff has been groundbreaking,” says University Steering Committee Chair Adam Harvey ’17, Ph.D. ’21, physics, who also serves as vice president of the Graduate Student Association. “Retriever Courage is beginning to transform the culture at UMBC and how people support each other in the campus community.”

At the same time, Retriever Courage partners say continuing to increase campus-wide involvement is critical to the long-term work of creating lasting change and growing a community where everyone feels safe and supported.

“Preventing sexual violence and misconduct is a collective and ongoing responsibility,” says Susan McDonough, associate professor of history, and affiliate faculty of gender, women’s, and sexuality studies.

McDonough serves as faculty co-chair for the Retriever Courage Faculty/Staff Advisory Committee. She shares, “We have joined together to show up and do what we do best – to learn about the history of our own policies and practices, to research ways that other institutions have tackled these issues, and to educate for awareness and prevention.”

“Sexual violence is not a special interest issue, but rather a social justice issue that impacts us all,” says Student Advisory Committee Co-chair Aliya Weberman Ph.D. ’21, clinical and community psychology. “Whether it is attending a Sexual Assault Awareness Month event, such as Take Back the Night; joining a group or committee working on these issues, such as We Believe You or Retriever Courage; or just telling someone impacted by sexual violence that you believe them and it’s not their fault; we can all make a difference.”

Commitment to action

Committee members share that several Retriever Courage projects directly responding to UMBC community input have been completed or are underway.

UMBC is currently distributing new campus ID cards that prominently display emergency resource information, and two Retriever Courage displays, including both on- and off-campus resources, were installed in The Commons. The displays are part of a pilot project proposed by the student activist/advocacy group We Believe You.

UMBC hired Jody Shipper, J.D., and Cherie Scricca, Ed.D. of Grand River Solutions, Inc. to work with Retriever Courage partners and the UMBC community during the spring semester. The consultants are reviewing UMBC policies, practices, and resources related to sexual assault prevention and response, and will share their recommendations in May.

Over 2,000 UMBC community members have participated in mandatory, in-person Title IX/sexual misconduct prevention and response training since December, and faculty and staff also completed a complementary online training. About 200 students are participating in an in-person pilot training project in April that will help determine a plan for training all students.

Facilities Management also continues to repair and add lighting in areas of concern to students.

Elle Everhart, staff co-chair of the Faculty-Staff Advisory Group and program management specialist in gender, women’s, and sexuality studies, says, “We are only just beginning to address the broader issues of toxic masculinity and rape culture on our campus, but the work done to date is a strong first step.”

“A 365-days-a-year undertaking”

As this work moves forward, the Retriever Courage partners are continually thinking about how the university can better support survivors of all identities and experiences. “We truly all know survivors whether we know them by name or not,” says Jess Myers, director of UMBC’s Women’s Center. “Our efforts to support survivors and cultivate a survivor-responsive campus need to be a 365-days-a-year undertaking,” Myers adds. “We all are responsible for this work.”

Implementation Team Co-Chair and Vice President for Student Affairs Nancy Young feels heartened by the work to date and committed to the work ahead. “We are encouraged by the engagement and collaborative spirit of our Retriever Courage partners and the UMBC community,” she shares. “The safety and wellbeing of our students and our entire community have been and must remain our priority in the long term.”

“The work of Retriever Courage is just the beginning,” says Young. “We encourage everyone to be involved as we make broader and far-reaching improvements in order to have a lasting impact.”

The UMBC community is invited to participate in Sexual Assault Awareness Month workshops and events organized by the Women’s Center and campus partners, including Take Back the Night on Thursday, April 18, 6 to 9 p.m.

UMBC community members can also get involved with Retriever Courage by contacting committee members and learning other ways to help prevent and respond to sexual violence/misconduct at UMBC.

Featured photo: A Take Back the Night survivor speak-out event. Photo courtesy of the Women’s Center at UMBC.