CMSC 201 Computer Science I for Non-CS Disciplines
Spring 2019

This spring, Dr. Susan Mitchell will teach a special section of CMSC 201 Computer Science I designed for social and biological sciences and humanities majors. The course will cover the same content and have the same rigor as all other sections of CMSC 201 and prepare students to continue on to CMSC 202 if they wish.  As with other sections, it fulfills any major’s requirement for CMSC 201. The key difference will be that the assignments and projects will emphasize topics applicable to many non-CS disciplines, such as statistical analysis, working with large data sets, and data visualization. The catalog description is:

An introduction to computer science through problem solving and computer programming. Programming techniques covered by this course include modularity, abstraction, top-down design, specifications documentation, debugging and testing. The core material for this course includes control structures, functions, lists, strings, abstract data types, file I/O, and recursion.

The course will include a lecture from 2:30pm to 3:45pm on Mondays and Wednesdays (Section 24-LEC) and a one-hour lab on either Tuesdays 11:30-12:20 (Section 19-DIS) or Wednesdays 4:00-4:50 (Section 21-DIS).

Permission from the instructor is required to register for this section. No prior programming experience is required. The only prerequisite is that students must have completed MATH 150, 151 or 152 with a C or better; OR have MATH test placement into MATH 151; OR have completed MATH 155 with a C or better.

For permission or questions, email Dr. Susan Mitchell at *protected email*

The post CMSC 201: Computer Science I for Non-CS Disciplines – Spring 2019 appeared first on Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering.

AUDITIONS FOR FRANKENSTEIN:

This is a great opportunity to learn more about Maryland Carey Law, ask questions about the application process, and share why you are interested in attending law school.

Please bring a copy of your resume.

Register here! 

DISCLAIMER: This interview will not be included in your admissions file. 

Experiences with big companies leads Sankarshan Murthy, M.S. ’06, to become an entrepreneur of more livable spaces

By Tom Kertscher

After Sankarshan Murthy got his master’s in mechanical engineering at UMBC, and then a master’s in technology management from the Wharton School at University of Pennsylvania, it was on to Apple and then Tesla and then to his current endeavor: Using technology to create more living space  — mostly by storing furnishings and belongings up near the ceiling, until you need it.

The big-company experiences helped create the entrepreneur.

At Apple, where he was a product manager for the iPhone and Apple Watch from 2012 to 2016, Murthy learned the importance of thinking big  — something he eventually hopes to achieve with his new company, Bumblebee Spaces.

“The power of Apple  — everything is based to scale,” he said. “Some of the factories they work with are like cities. So, the impact you can have on Apple products, financially speaking, is so massive. Some of the people working at Apple control in their business units more money than most Fortune 500 CEOs.

“So, I learned about design thinking, but still ready-to-scale mentality. Whenever something’s designed, right from the time it’s sketched, people are thinking about how to make a million of one of these in one day.”

Then it was on to Tesla Motors, the electric car maker, and a different way of thinking.

Tesla co-founder Elon Musk “has set up the organization in such a way that there are no information blockers,” Murthy said. “So, if you find something inspirational to work on, or you find a problem that needs to be fixed, you get to jump on it and take it. That gives a certain level of empowerment to the people working there.”

Murthy said that approach caused him to think more entrepreneurially himself. And the contrasts between Apple and Tesla also led him to believe he could succeed on his own.

“The challenges that the Tesla team works on are pretty massive,” he said. “At Apple, I feel like they’re set up not to fail, because they have lots of money, they have time, there’s the power to wait and see, and then going to the market. Tesla has like 1/20th the number of engineers that Apple has and about 1/100th, or whatever the amount, of cash that Apple has. But, they are a lot more scrappy bunch and the things that they take on are much more ambitious.“

After a year as a staff product technologist at Tesla, Murthy left in 2017 to start Bumblebee Spaces. Already, his San Francisco Bay Area company was been featured in Inc. and the New York Times. Bumblebee says it is “creating a new way to live by unlocking the third dimension — using smart robots and an AI (Artificial Intelligence) stack, we increase usable space and reduce your footprint by storing, managing and retrieving objects on-demand in your ceiling.”

Imagine yourself in tiny apartment in the super-expensive Bay Area. After you wake up in the morning, you don’t really need your bed and your nightstand for awhile, right? So, after a couple of taps on a computer screen, up they go to the ceiling, freeing up space for daytime activities.

The inspiration came, in part, from Murthy’s move from Baltimore to the Bay Area. A mortgage for a three-bedroom house in Baltimore was less than rent for a one-bedroom house, less well constructed, near San Francisco.

“The only way to make housing affordable, without doing big suburban sprawl, is to make the best use of space possible,” Murthy said.

“The thing that we want to unlock is space.”

* * * * *

Tom Kertscher is a PolitiFact Wisconsin reporter for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. His reporting on Steven Avery was featured in Making a Murderer. He’s the author of sports books on Brett Favre and Al McGuire. Follow him at TomKertscher.com and on Twitter: @KertscherNews and @KertscherSports.

Images provided by Sankarshan Murthy.

Second Annual Perspectives on Asia Conference

The University of Maryland Baltimore County Asian Studies Council of Majors (ASCOM), in collaboration with the Johns Hopkins Office for Undergraduate Research (HOUR), is pleased to announce that the second annual Perspectives on Asia conference will take place on April 6, 2019. Undergraduate students conducting research in Asian Studies are encouraged to submit abstracts. Past presenters have drawn from a wide range of topics including political science, history, linguistics, arts, economics, and culture in Asia. We are also excited to announce that HOUR will sponsor a joint JHU-UMBC panel on the Johns Hopkins University campus on February 21, 2019.

Interested participants should email an abstract no longer than 250 words to Peri Johnson at asianstudiescouncil@gmail.com by January 30, 2019.  Students should also specify whether they would like to present at Perspectives on Asia, the JHU panel, or both. Emails should include the student’s name, email, phone, school, and project title.Research should have a topical focus, but also relate to larger themes and/or theoretical literature on Asia.

If you are interested in staying updated, please email asianstudiescouncil@gmail.com and request to be added to our conference mailing list.

by Evangeline Rose, Kevin E. Omland, and Thomas Mathew, UMBC

A paleontologist returns to her lab from a summer dig and sets up a study comparing tooth length in two dinosaur species. She and her team work meticulously to avoid biasing their results. They remain blind to the species while measuring, the sample sizes are large, and the data collection and the analysis are rigorous.

The scientist is surprised to find no significant difference in canine tooth length between the two species. She realizes that these unexpected results are important and sends a paper off to the appropriate journals. But journal after journal rejects the paper, since the results aren’t significantly different. Eventually, the scientist gives up, and the paper with its so-called negative results is placed in a drawer and buried under years of other work.

This scenario and many others like it have played out across all scientific disciplines, leading to what has been dubbed “the file drawer problem.” Research journals and funding agencies are often biased toward research that shows “positive” or significantly different results. This unfortunate bias contributes to many other issues in the scientific process, such as confirmation bias, in which data are interpreted incorrectly to support a desired outcome.

A new method: Equivalence

Unfortunately, publication bias issues have been prevalent in science for a long time. Due to the structure of the scientific method, scientists often focus only on differences between groups – like the dinosaur teeth from two different species, or a public health comparison of two different neighborhoods. This leaves studies that focus on similarities completely hidden.

However, pharmaceutical trials have found a solution for this problem. In these trials, researchers sometimes use a test known as TOST, two one sided test, to look for equivalence between treatments.

For example, say a company develops a generic drug that is cheaper to produce than the name-brand drug. Researchers need to demonstrate that the new drug functions in a statistically equivalent manner to the name brand before selling it on the market. That’s where equivalence testing comes in. If the test shows equivalence between the effects of the two drugs, then the FDA can approve the new drug’s release on the market.

While traditional equivalence testing is very helpful for preplanned and controlled pharmaceutical tests, it isn’t versatile enough for other types of studies. The original TOST cannot be used to test equivalence in experiments where the same individuals are in multiple treatment groups, nor does it work if the two tests groups have different sample sizes.

Additionally, the TOST used in pharmaceutical testing does not typically address multiple variables simultaneously. For example, a traditional TOST would be able to analyze similarities in biodiversity at several river locations before and after a temperature change. However, our new TOST would allow to test for similarities in multiple variables – such as biodiversity, water pH, water depth and water clarity – at all of the river sites simultaneously.

The limitations of the traditional TOST and the pervasiveness of the “file drawer problem” led our team to develop a multivariate equivalence test, capable of addressing similarities in systems with repeated measures and unequal sample sizes.

Our new equivalence test, published in October, flips the traditional null hypothesis framework on its head. Now, rather than assuming similarity, a researcher starts with the assumption that the two groups are different. The burden of proof now lies with evaluating the degree of similarity, rather than the degree of difference.

Our test also allows researchers to set their own acceptable margin for declaring similarity. For example, if margin were set to 0.2, then the results would tell you if the means of the two groups were similar within plus or minus 2 percent.

A step in the right direction

Our modification means that equivalence testing can now be applied across a wide range of disciplines. For example, we used this test to demonstrate equivalent acoustic structure in the songs of male and female eastern bluebirds. Equivalence testing has also already been used in some areas of engineering and psychology.

The method could be applied even more broadly. Imagine a group of researchers who want to examine two different teaching methods. In one classroom there is no technology, and in another all of the students’ assignments are done online. Equivalence testing might help an school district decide if they should invest more in technology or if the two methods of teaching are equivalent.

The development of a broadly applicable equivalence test represents what we think will be a huge step forward in scientists’ long struggle to present real and unbiased results. This test provides another avenue for exploration and allows researchers to examine and publish the results from studies on similarities that have not been published or funded in the past.

The prevalence of publication bias, including the file drawer problem, confirmation bias and accidental false positives, is a major stumbling block for scientific progress. In some fields of research, up to half of results are missing from the published literature.

Equivalence testing provides another tool in the toolbox for scientists to present “positive” results. If the scientific community takes hold of this test and utilizes it to its full potential, we think it may help mitigate one of the major limitations in the way science is currently practiced.

* * * * *

Evangeline Rose, Ph.D Candidate in Biological Sciences, University of Maryland, Baltimore County; Kevin E. Omland, Professor of Biological Sciences, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and Thomas Mathew, Professor of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

Header image: © Yerbolat Shadrakhov | Dreamstime.com

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

UMBC is celebrating the Rhodes Trust’s recognition of Linda Wiratan ’19, biochemistry and molecular biology, as a Rhodes Scholar finalist. This honor comes just one year after Naomi Mburu ’18, chemical engineering, became UMBC’s first-ever Rhodes Scholar. The Rhodes Trust announced the winners on Saturday, November 17, after an intensive application and interview process. Wiratan was one of fourteen finalists in the Washington, DC district, which draws students from Maryland, Delaware, and Washington.

The Rhodes Scholarship is unique, because it selects students “not only for their outstanding scholarly achievements, but for their character, commitment to others and to the common good, and for their potential for leadership in whatever domains their careers may lead.”

Wiratan, who is also a Goldwater Scholar and a member of the UMBC Honors College, exemplifies these values in her roles as a researcher, student leader, and socially-conscious entrepreneur who blends science and the arts.

Research and outreach

Wiratan began her research career as a high school student in Marcin Ptaszek’s organic chemistry lab, working closely with graduate student Nopondo Esemoto ‘12, biochemistry and molecular biology, and postdoc Joshua Akhigbe, whom she counts among her most ardent supporters and mentors.

She has spent the last two years conducting research on plant immunity with Hua Lu and postdocs Chong Zhang and Min Gao, funded by two Undergraduate Research Awards. This summer she worked with molecular and cellular biology professor Craig Hunter and postdoc Andrey Shubin at Harvard University on a mammalian cell biology project. Wiratan, who also has a creative writing minor, has also written about her research for The Conversation, and been an author on four academic journal articles.

Wiratan holds a firm belief that society benefits when the general public has an opportunity to better understand science. As a first-year student, she joined UMBC’s chapter of the American Chemical Society, a group with a mission to promote chemistry education and the public appreciation of chemistry. The chapter organizes outreach events with elementary and middle school students in the local community. As a senior, Wiratan now serves as its president.

Through her business, City of Cells, Wiratan also blends science, the arts, and a public education mission to share her love of science with others. She produces animations to explain scientific concepts and sews toys designed to look like cells—when unzipped, the organelles come spilling out.

Unshakeable resolution

Though still early in her scientific training and career, Wiratan has already made significant contributions to her community and to society through her scientific and creative work, and the challenges she has tackled along the way reveal her tremendous dedication, determination, and persistence. Wiratan began a struggle with severe depression as a young adult, prior to entering UMBC. Once at the university, she was focused on completing her degree, and she expected to travel an anonymous path toward that goal, but that changed when she connected with the Honors College.

Simon Stacey, director of the Honors College, reached out to Wiratan during her first year, after hearing about her from an Honors College advisor. He encouraged her to stay in touch.

“If I had not had that conversation in the first semester of freshman year, I would not be where I am today,” reflects Wiratan, who names Stacey among her strongest supporters and mentors.

Wiratan has continued to face challenges throughout her time at UMBC, any one of which could have derailed her dreams of becoming a scientist. Throughout college, she has faced depression, social anxiety, and the increasing risk of breast cancer. Abruptly during her third year, she had to begin independently supporting herself, which came with pressure to balance spending on food, housing, education, and medical needs. And through all of these life-changing events and more, she has persevered.

“My overwhelming impression of Linda is of unstoppable, unshakeable resolution,” says Stacey. “She was just never going to give up.”

Wiratan created a comprehensive budget. She found new ways to manage her practical and personal needs. And through it all, Stacey says, “she kept going to class, kept submitting work, kept doing her research, and kept applying for and taking advantage of opportunities.”

Shifting science culture

As she progresses through her emerging career in science, Wiratan also wants to bring broader awareness to the intersection of mental illness and academia, to decrease stigma and increase support for people experiencing depression, anxiety, and other challenges. As a start, she created a group on the Goldwater Scholars online forum to discuss these issues, and she intends to make this one focus of her work moving forward.

“Mental illness is something society needs to address at the graduate school level, because graduate students are six times more likely to have depression or anxiety than the general public,” Wiratan notes. “I think that’s a big issue.”

She’d also like to increase an appreciation of scientists as whole people. “For people who have interests in fields other than science, such as art,” she says, “I would like science mentors not to see that as a disadvantage or a weakness or a sign of not being committed to your field.” Rather, she hopes scientists can value each other for all their contributions to the world, scientific and otherwise, and be encouraged to incorporate those other skills into their research when appropriate.

Wiratan is a self-identified introvert who was once hesitant to lead, but that’s changing. In a world where extroverts are often identified for leadership roles, “I think as an introvert I could inspire other people who might feel disadvantaged because they have a quiet temperament, or maybe they just don’t know how to walk into a room full of strangers and start a conversation.”

Rather than a boisterous personality, it’s her core values and grit that set Wiratan apart. “She is a thoroughly decent and humane person—kind, generous, deeply humble,” says Stacey. “She has a capacity for authentic sympathy that I can only imagine has been reinforced by her own experiences, and a quiet and self-reflective wisdom.”

A bright future

Wiratan’s experience as a Goldwater Scholar and the support of her mentors throughout her UMBC career have boosted her confidence. “It confirmed to me that I’m headed in the right direction with the choices I make,” she says. “I’ve taken a lot of risks as an undergraduate that I would never have taken if my mentors hadn’t told me to just try—the worst that happens is you fail and then you move on.”

“Being a Rhodes finalist tells me that I can combine all of these things—my passion for cell biology research, my interest in educating the public, and also my promotion of mental illness discussion within academia—and have a really unique, rewarding career,” Wiratan says.

“I could not more firmly believe that Linda is destined for great things,” Stacey says. “There’s clearly a stellar academic future for her, and she will be a wonderful teacher and mentor. I am also certain she will make a real contribution to helping the public understand the value of science and scientists.”

Wiratan is excited for what lies ahead. “My mentors have become like a family to me,” she says. “I didn’t always think I could make it this far, but I did.”

Banner images: Linda Wiratan in Hua Lu’s lab, where she works with Arabidopsis thaliana, a common model species used in plant research. All photos by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.