Ephesians 4:26-27,29-32 (NIV) – “‘In your anger do not sin’: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold…Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.”

“Paul, again quoting the Old Testament (Psalm 4:4), doesn’t say you shouldn’t be angry; anger itself is a natural human emotion, and to pretend it isn’t here is a form of lying. But he insists that you mustn’t let it lead you into sin. You must learn to tame it, to deal with it before you lie down to sleep. Otherwise you are leaving an open door and inviting the satan to come in. Everything that follows from anger – the raised voices, the shocking words, the sour taste in the room – all these must be put away…

Paul adds some comments in the more positive direction. In particular, you should behave as those on whom God’s Holy Spirit has placed God’s mark. The word Paul uses could refer to the ’seal’ or official stamp on a document or package, marking it out for a particular use or occasion. The mark indicates who it belongs to and what it’s for. The presence of the Holy Spirit in the community, and in the heart of the individual Christian, declares that we belong to God, and that we are destined for full  ‘redemption’… That is central to the Christian hope, and possession this hope gives particular shape to our present lives.” [Wright, Nicholas T.  Paul for Everyone: The Prison Letters. 2004]

Let’s pray for ourselves and for our churches in light of this truth – that God has sealed us with His Spirit for the day of redemption.  Pray that we will live, then, in the Spirit, not grieving Him, but pleasing Him.  Pray that we will be kept safe and pure until the day of redemption.

The UMBC Cyber Defense Lab presents

BFT—From the “Saddest Moment” to the Era of Blockchains

Haibin Zhang, CSEE, UMBC

12:00–1:00pm, Friday, 20 October 2017, ITE 231

Blockchains can generally be divided into two categories: permissionless blockchains (e.g., Bitcoin, Ethereum), and permissioned blockchains (e.g., Hyperledger Fabric). In permissionless blockchains, anyone can participate in the protocol. In permissioned blockchains, participants know the IDs of all other participants but do not need to trust them, a particularly useful scenario for business applications. As an emerging technology transforming business models, permissioned blockchains inspired a large number of industrial implementations. The Hyperledger Project (under the Linux Foundation) became a global collaborative project, now with 150+ industry members. Byzantine fault-tolerant (BFT) protocols regained prominence because they can support permissioned blockchain systems. For building permissioned blockchains, BFT is widely regarded as the most appropriate primitive, one accepted by academe and industry. In this talk, I will describe a number of efficient BFT blockchain systems that I helped invent, including BChain, ByzID, CBFT, and secure causal BFT. In addition, I will share my vision for blockchains and associated research opportunities.

Haibin Zhang is an assistant professor in the CSEE Department at UMBC. He is interested in cloud computing, cryptography, security, privacy, and distributed systems. He received the best paper candidate award at the 33rd IEEE International Symposium on Reliable Distributed Systems and proved the security of a NIST standard on ciphertext stealing.  Zhang is one of the main inventors of Norton Zone, Symantec’s scalable cloud storage, and BChain, a highly efficient BFT protocol fully implemented within Hyperledger blockchain framework.

Host: Alan T. Sherman, *protected email*

The UMBC Cyber Defense Lab meets biweekly Fridays.  All meetings are open to the public

In spring 2018, Sherman will teach a CMSC-491/691 special topics class on blockchains and digital currencies.

The post talk: H. Zhang on BFT- From the “Saddest Moment” to the Era of Blockchains, 12pm Fri 10/20 appeared first on Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering.

The UMBC Cyber Defense Lab presents

BFT—From the “Saddest Moment” to the Era of Blockchains

Haibin Zhang, CSEE, UMBC

12:00–1:00pm, Friday, 20 October 2017, ITE 231

Blockchains can generally be divided into two categories: permissionless blockchains (e.g., Bitcoin, Ethereum), and permissioned blockchains (e.g., Hyperledger Fabric). In permissionless blockchains, anyone can participate in the protocol. In permissioned blockchains, participants know the IDs of all other participants but do not need to trust them, a particularly useful scenario for business applications. As an emerging technology transforming business models, permissioned blockchains inspired a large number of industrial implementations. The Hyperledger Project (under the Linux Foundation) became a global collaborative project, now with 150+ industry members. Byzantine fault-tolerant (BFT) protocols regained prominence because they can support permissioned blockchain systems. For building permissioned blockchains, BFT is widely regarded as the most appropriate primitive, one accepted by academe and industry. In this talk, I will describe a number of efficient BFT blockchain systems that I helped invent, including BChain, ByzID, CBFT, and secure causal BFT. In addition, I will share my vision for blockchains and associated research opportunities.

Haibin Zhang is an assistant professor in the CSEE Department at UMBC. He is interested in cloud computing, cryptography, security, privacy, and distributed systems. He received the best paper candidate award at the 33rd IEEE International Symposium on Reliable Distributed Systems and proved the security of a NIST standard on ciphertext stealing.  Zhang is one of the main inventors of Norton Zone, Symantec’s scalable cloud storage, and BChain, a highly efficient BFT protocol fully implemented within Hyperledger blockchain framework.

Host: Alan T. Sherman, *protected email*

The UMBC Cyber Defense Lab meets biweekly Fridays.  All meetings are open to the public

In spring 2018, Sherman will teach a CMSC-491/691 special topics class on blockchains and digital currencies.

The post talk: H. Zhang on BFT- From the “Saddest Moment” to the Era of Blockchains, 12pm Fri 10/20 appeared first on Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering.

“If you haven’t lost somebody yet, you will. Everyone dies.” –Leslie Pietrzyk

Grief is something that everyone experiences more than once throughout their lives and often encounter some type of grief of varying severity on a daily basis.

When grief introduced itself into the life of Leslie Pietrzyk, she took a different approach in that she decided to acknowledge her grief, and then to share it with the rest of the world.

Pietrzyk (pronounced P-trick) lives in Alexandria, Virginia and teaches a writing program at Johns Hopkins University. In 2015, Pietrzyk was the winner of the Drue Heinz Literature Award for short stories. UMBC hosted a reading for Peitrzyk on Tuesday, Oct. 3 in the university library.

When Pietrzyk’s husband, Rob, was thirty-seven years old, he unexpectedly suffered a heart attack during breakfast and passed away, leaving Leslie to maneuver the world of being a young widow. Twenty years later, she stood in front of an audience of university students and faculty to share her grief.

Her book, “This Angel on my Chest” includes numerous short stories, all of which feature young widows. She weaves fact and fiction together throughout the stories in the book. Pietrzyk asserts that she challenged herself to include one truth about how she coped with her grief in each story, although the coping mechanism may not always be what is immediately obvious in each story.

During her talk at UMBC, Pietrzyk read a story from her book called, “The Quiz,” in which she presents different scenarios a woman might face and how through options A, B, C and D, the woman should always pick D – the answer which includes informing anyone around her that her husband died unexpectedly at a young age.

The audience was full of quiet people, all of us unsure how to address the sensitive topic of loss and love, and how they so frequently intertwine. Perhaps sensing our anguish, Pietrzyk addressed the audience with some insight: “You can’t always predict what’s going to be painful.” She assured us that given the many years since her husband’s passing, she was open to hearing our thoughts and questions without the possibility of her breaking down.

After her reading, there was a brief question and answer platform. I asked Pietrzyk if writing was the thing that helped her. Pietrzyk responded: “Writing is the thing that has helped me through my life. Writing always helps me.” But she clarifies that this therapeutic writing manifests in different ways. Writing in a journal daily about her feelings was helpful in a way different from writing a novel, which she wanted other people to read.

Pietrzyk’s book and her experience are sensitive, strong, sad and brave. Her way of measuring up to her grief is extraordinary, and while she is right that we all will lose someone to death, she is also right about how we can practice our own therapeutic ways of coping with this grief, such as writing and being honest about our feelings.

UMBC ODK has a new LinkedIn group! This is a great way to connect with current members and to network with alumni. To enter the group, please visit this page and ask to join (you can also invite others who are in our circle):

Oct. 27 @12-1pm: Dr Christelle Viauroux

Location: PUP Room 367

Title: Inequalities in higher education

Nov.10 @12-1pm: Dr Maria Bernedo

Location: PUP Room 367

Title: The Longer-term Impacts of Efficient Technology as a Solution to Environmental Externalities

Nov.10 @ 3-4pm: Sumitrra Ganguli 

Location: PUP Room 367

Title: Reputation to Leverage: A Bayesian DSGE approach

Dec. 8. @12-1pm: Dr Dennis Coates

Location: PUP Room 367

Title: TBA

Vanessa Flora-Nakoski has joined McDaniel College as the new writing center director. In this role, she manages the day-to-day operations of the writing center and oversees McDaniel students who serve as peer tutors. She also teaches as a lecturer in the English department.

Previously, Flora-Nakoski worked for the Writing, Reading, and Language Center at Montgomery College, where she recruited, trained, coached, supervised and evaluated tutors. She was also a writing coach and tutor at the University of Maryland, University College, a tutor in the composition and literature center at Howard Community College, and a teaching assistant in the UMBC honors program. She has also taught composition and rhetoric at Montgomery College, Stevenson University, Howard Community College and the University of Iowa. She also serves on the executive board of the Maryland College Learning Center Association.

A resident of Sykesville, she earned both a bachelor's degree from UMBC and a master's degree from the University of Iowa in American studies. She completed graduate certificates in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages from UMBC and strategic management from the Harvard Extension School.