Get a helpful overview of key household management items as well as link to guides and apps to help you keep track of it all.

Join Inova EAP for this FREE Webinar on May 15th! 

Visit:  www.inova.org/eap 
Member Login User Name:  UMBCEAP
Password: 360231

Once logged in, click on 'Online Seminars' - click on 'View All' - title ‘DIY: Apps and Guides for Household Management’.

Please be advised that the lower-level north entrance to the Math & Psychology Building will be temporarily closed due to adjacent construction activities. This closure will allow for a new exterior stair and landscaping to be installed as part of the ILSB project. The entrance will be closed on approximately Friday May 4th, 2018 and re-open on approximately Saturday May 12th, 2018. 
 
Accessible routes to and through the Math & Psychology building will not be affected. Emergency egress from the building has been reviewed with the UMBC Fire Marshal. Posted building emergency egress plans will be updated and exit signs will be modified as necessary to reflect the temporary changes.
 
Please see the attached identifying the entrance location.
 
The area between the Math & Psychology and Biology Buildings is scheduled to permanently reopen in June 2018.
 
Thank you for your patience as we work to maintain and enhance the UMBC campus.

Thank you,
Facilities Management

1. Follow one of the Library's social media accounts
   
2. Share one of your favorite things about the Library
3. And tag the Library's account and use #VIPStudySpace

Two lucky winners will be notified on May 8! You will have use of the private room from May 9-23.

Meet Your Professor Series: Marie desJardins

Join the CS Education Club for its fourth and final installment of the Meet Your Professor series this semester featuring Dr. Marie desJardins. The series provides students with the opportunity to learn more about their professors, including how they achieved their position, what they believe makes an effective teacher, what research they conduct, and more!

Dr. Marie desJardins is Associate Dean of Academic Affairs in the College of Engineering and Information Technology, and Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering, at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.  Prior to joining the faculty in 2001, Dr. desJardins was a senior computer scientist at SRI International in Menlo Park, California.  Her research is in artificial intelligence, focusing on the areas of machine learning, multi-agent systems, planning, interactive AI techniques, information management, reasoning with uncertainty, and decision theory.  She has mentored 13 Ph.D. students, 27 M.S. students, and nearly 100 undergraduate researchers.   She is also active in the CS education community, chairs the Maryland Steering Committee for Computer Science Education, and frequently serves as a mentor and invited speaker at CS education and outreach events.

The event is Wednesday 5/2 from 12:00-12:50 in ITE 239. Light refreshments will be provided. Bring questions!

The post Meet Your Professor Series: Marie desJardins, 12-1 Wed. May 2, ITE239 appeared first on Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering.

Experts from UMBC’s School of Public Policy and Department of Computer Science & Electrical Engineering work together to understand how local governments practice cybersecurity.

By Donald Norris, University of Maryland, Baltimore County; Anupam Joshi, University of Maryland, Baltimore County; Laura Mateczun, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and Tim Finin, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

* * * * *

Within the past few weeks, two large American cities learned that their information systems were hacked. First, Atlanta revealed that it had been the victim of a ransomware attack that took many of the city’s services offline for nearly a week, forcing police to revert to taking written case notes, hampering the Atlanta’s court system and preventing residents from paying water bills online. Then, Baltimore’s 311 and 911 dispatch systems were taken offline for more than 17 hours, forcing dispatchers to log and process requests manually. Both attacks could have been prevented. And they are more evidence of the poor, if not appalling, state of local government cybersecurity in the United States.

We know this because in 2016, in partnership with the International City/County Management Association, we conducted the first-ever nationwide survey of local government cybersecurity. Among other things, the survey data showed just how poorly local governments practice cybersecurity.

Under near-constant attack, but not fully aware

Nearly half – 44 percent – of all the respondents told us they experience cyberattacks at least daily. Based on prior research, we are confident that rate is actually much higher.

The volume of attacks isn’t dropping – and in some cases it’s increasing.

But even so, many communities didn’t know how frequently they are attacked, and most didn’t count or catalog initial attacks – though more than half did track more serious incidents and breaches.

More than half weren’t able to determine who was attacking their systems.

Unprepared to respond, and with not enough support

Certainly, there are local governments that do a commendable job with cybersecurity. If previous research into government information technology systems and electronic government can be a guide, they are most likely larger, more well-funded and more well-managed governments. However, the data from our more recent survey strongly suggest that at least some, and perhaps even a large fraction of, local governments may be unable to respond to electronic intrusions.

In part this is because few local officials are aware of the need for cybersecurity. Nearly two-thirds of the respondents to the survey, who were nearly all information technology or cybersecurity officials, said that top managers understood the need. However, among other groups in local governments, awareness dropped considerably. Perhaps as a result, support for cybersecurity efforts was also not as strong as Atlanta’s and Baltimore’s experiences suggest it should be.

With most local government officials and staff unaware and unsupportive, it is not surprising that cybersecurity is so poor among American local governments. Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms admitted that cybersecurity was not a high priority, although “it certainly has gone to the front of the line.”

And yet, crucial barriers remain, largely to do with how much money is allocated to cybersecurity efforts.

Getting more people in the know

If local officials are going to do a better job protecting their information assets, they’ll first need to know a lot more about what’s actually happening. The numbers of survey respondents who answered “Don’t know” to our questions was surprisingly high. No top local officials, whether elected or appointed, should be unaware of basic cybersecurity information, like whether their systems have been attacked or breached, or who’s attacking their systems and why.

Knowing these answers will only become more critical as computing becomes more deeply embedded in systems running “smart” cities. If computers control traffic lights, sewage plants and electrical grids, then the consequence of attacks is more severe than just loss of information or computer services.

Donald Norris, Professor Emeritus of Public Policy, University of Maryland, Baltimore County; Anupam Joshi, Oros Family Professor and Chair, Department of Computer Science & Electrical Engineering, University of Maryland, Baltimore County; Laura Mateczun, Ph.D. Student in Public Policy, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and Tim Finin, Willard and Lillian Hackerman Chair in Engineering and Professor of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

Header photo by It Never Ends/Pixabay

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

The student organization CRU sponsored senior mechanical engineer and part-time lecturer Mark Lamontia to speak about how life began in the universe. The engineer examined various schools of thought and explained the facts behind them.

Lamontia was raised with a religious background. His religious beliefs shaped his view on the origin of life until he asked, “How did life begin in the first place? How does science know how it began?”

The engineer graduated from Ohio State University in 1979. He pursued scientific research to seek the answer to the origin of life.

Lamontia referred to the ongoing science versus religion controversy. He said, “I think it is more important to have your own thoughts and to find your own answers. There are a lot of evolutionists, naturalists or atheists who have their own ideas about how life started.”

Biology sophomore Andrew Simpson believed that life would not have existed without an intelligent designer. “When I see nature, I see beauty and I also see how complex life is. I think the absolute complexity begs a designer.”

Simpson heard various debates about how life likely began. “When people talk about the origin of life, it should not be about science versus religion or whether God or science created it or not,” he said. “I want to make sure that the answer [to how life began] is objectively real.”

Lamontia explained several scientific definitions and hypotheses. He said, “In Oparin’s hypothesis, you have a sea and you have extremely reactive compounds like methane, amino acids and hydrogen. We’ll blast this biotic soup with lightning and see what happens.”

He also said that Oparin’s hypothesis “was more of a theory,” and that there “wasn’t much [feasibility] behind it until the early 1950s when American chemist Stanley Miller invented the Miller Volcanic Spark Discharge Experiment.”

The experiment inspired researchers to find a way to recreate living cells in laboratories. “Stanley Miller showed that life could be simple and made inside of a tube,” Lamontia said. “However, it wasn’t simple and there were several errors. Early Earth was not full of the reactive compounds that began life. The [Miller] experiment produced a lot of brown goo and maybe a few amino acids.”

The engineer spoke about the likelihood of producing a viable living cell. “Creating one cell by random chance would take the equivalence of winning the lottery 250 times all at the same time.”

He also explained the lack of chemical reactions in DNA. “There is no chemistry in the DNA molecule. Chemistry cannot create information inside DNA.”

Lamontia included video clips and sound bites of cell creation, the monkey typewriter theorem and quotations from scientists and researchers. The monkey typewriter theorem proposes that “if there were an infinite amount of monkeys, an infinite amount of typewriters and an infinite amount of time, the monkey would almost surely type a given text, such as the works of William Shakespeare.”

He also showed monkey writing samples that the Paignton zoo produced after testing the theorem. “Five pages of text were filled with the letter S,” He said. Eventually, they were more creative and used letters such as A, J, L and M, but there was no sign of human language.”

“There will never be an explanation for the beginning of life by science,” Lamontia said. “Even if you have everything set up for life, there still has to be a designer to get it started.”