Project title: Learning and Innovation at the Interface of Mathematics and Medicine: A NEW Approach

A team led by Dr. Bradford Peercy is the recipient of the Spring 2015 Hrabowski Fund for Innovation award.

The team's goal is to introduce the Neuromathematical Experience Workgroup (NEW), a new approach to training students on the interface of mathematics and neurosciences that focuses on interdisciplinary, team-based experiences.

The fundamental change in the nature of biological research toward quantitative sciences has identified a need for collaboration within biology, mathematics, and statistics. Through the NEW project, undergraduate and graduate students will develop core skills and tools required in mathematics and neuroscience to form a common foundation that will prepare them for future careers in neuroscience and as research and teaching faculty.

Project title: Multiscale multilevel iterative substructuring

Dr. Bedřich Sousedík has been awarded a $199,920, three-year grant  for the period 2015–18 from the National Science Foundation (DMS–1521563) to develop novel multiscale multilevel iterative substructuring methods with applications to flow in porous media. The award includes funds to support a Graduate Research Assistant for two years (with a possible summer internship in Sandia or LLNL) and also summer support for an undergraduate student.

The objective of this project is to develop novel algorithms for solving saddle-point linear systems combining numerical upscaling techniques with parallel, domain decomposition iterative solvers. The algorithms will be applied to the simulation of flow in porous media in real-world reservoir models. The simulation of flow in porous media finds applications in a number of areas, such as water management, oil and gas recovery, carbon dioxide (CO2) sequestration, or nuclear waste disposal, to name a few.

The setup of the underlying mathematical models and their efficient numerical solution is challenging for several reasons. The reservoirs are typically very large, so the discretized mathematical model leads to systems of equations with hundreds of millions of unknowns, they have irregular structure, which complicates the model geometry, and they consist of materials that significantly differ in geological properties, which translates in the model into jumps in coefficients over several orders of magnitude. Moreover, the geological formations quite often also contain fractures that alter the effective permeabilities, and therefore need to be be accurately incorporated in the numerical model. For example, the flow of water in granite rock, which represents one of the suitable sites for nuclear waste deposit, is conducted by the complex system of vugs, cavities and fractures with various topology and sizes. Alternatively, the fractures might result from the engineering technology, for example hydraulic fracturing (also known as fracking) used for the extraction of natural gas.

It is well known that these issues have an impact on the environment, for example the quality of drinking water. Therefore there is an urgent need to develop novel mathematical techniques that would be able to tackle all these difficulties and improve methods for solution of this class of problems arising in science and engineering.

There are many aspects of multiscale and domain decomposition methods that are quite well understood, but the major drawback of current methodologies is that they do not take full advantage of their potential by using the multiscale phenomena in the design of the solvers, which results in their inefficiency.

Multiscale methods frequently consist in fact only of two scales, whereas in a porous medium there are typically many scales. At the same time, advances in multicore architectures, networking, high end computers, and large data stores, are ushering in a new era of high performance parallel and distributed simulations. Naturally, with these new capabilities come new challenges in computing and system modeling. The goal of this project is to open new avenues to tackle these issues. In particular, we suggests a development of a multiscale method that allows for a multiple of scales, and uses the upscaling algorithm to build also a multilevel preconditioner for the iterative solver. The components of the method are thus recycled, which significantly decreases the computational cost. Moreover, this approach can be applied recursively and thus offers naturally a multilevel multiscale potential, unlike many traditional multiscale approaches that consist in fact only of two scales. It is expected that understanding of the issues related to design of multiscale and multilevel methods for extremely large problems will ultimately contribute to development of the next generation of parallel iterative solvers suitable for implementation on future exascale supercomputers.

Dr. Stephen Meskin has taken on co-editor's duties of the Puzzles column of the Contingencies magazine.  Dr. Meskin teaches and advises actuarial students in our department as an Adjust Faculty.

His inaugural column examines the existence of integer solutions of the equation x₁ + x₂ + … + x_n = x₁ × x₂ × … × x_n for any n.

Contingencies is published by the American Academy of Actuaries.

It’s a balmy Monday, late in the afternoon on the first day of the first full week of classes in the Fall semester. Small clusters of students are scattered around tables in the newly completed Campus Plaza, an expanse of pale and dark gray bricks, dotted with aluminum tables and chairs. True Grit, whose turned head makes it appear as though the chestnut-colored retriever is eternally watching an errant cat or squirrel, stands guard today as he has since the late 1980s.

Roxanne Ricamata, a freshman computer engineering major, is among the few people sitting in the recently finished plaza. She is one of the many new students for whom the completed construction projects serve only as pleasant amenities rather than a reminder of past inconveniences. “It’s a really nice campus,” said Ricamata. “I know it’s going to look even prettier when the construction is done.”

However, some students have felt much less welcomed by the new entrance. For returning students, the campus gateway feels like a downgrade due to its more complicated traffic pattern.

“They should’ve just kept the lanes. The lanes were fine,” said Terri Chase, senior media and communications studies major. Though the roundabout was intended to improve the flow of traffic, Chase has observed the opposite. “I don’t think the roundabout makes it easier,” she said, “when you drive on this campus, people aren’t very considerate of other people.” The more complicated roadway has compounded this problem.

Getting past the campus isn’t enough to alleviate Chase’s displeasure. Like many of her peers, Chase has expressed irritation over the state of the Library Pond.

“They’ve been doing construction on it since I got here,” said Chase. “I don’t even know what they’re going to do with it.” The constant delays and lack of transparency have frustrated students, who don’t see any progress taking place.

It comes as a comfort to others on campus that the current wave of construction projects is coming to a close. This has made the daily commute easier, and made campus more navigable. “I know last year there was barely, or like, a lot of walkways were blocked off and some walkways were not even here,” said Robert Galvan, a sophomore studying computer science.

Even after all the inconveniences, many students look forward to the finished products. “It looks like they’re making some progress,” said Galvan, lounging by the unfinished pond, “and it looks pretty good.”

As many student organizations were working to recruit new members and spread awareness at the fall Involvement Fest, UMBC Racing once again proudly displayed their student-made vehicle on the grass of the Quad. Each year, they put their new and improved vehicle to the test in a Baja Society of Automotive Engineers competition.

It takes about eight months for them to build and test these sturdy one-seaters. “We try to get everything done by winter break,” said Daniel Mattes, a senior mechanical engineering major. Since joining the team in 2012 as a freshman, Mattes has worked on chassis redesign, suspension and drive-train development. He is now the lead welder on the team.

Mattes’ teammate Josh Taggart, a junior mechanical engineering major, is listed as the Vice President of UMBC Racing in official SGA records. “We don’t really have a strict policy on group hierarchy, but the SGA requires groups to list certain personnel.” He’s now primarily responsible for the brake system design and maintaining a close relationship with their sponsor, the United States Army Research Laboratory.

“Many of our experienced members graduated in 2013, so the experience level dropped from about three to four years to 1.25,” said Taggart. Luckily, the number of active members has grown significantly in the past few years. Towards the end of Involvement Fest, UMBC Racing had three full pages of students signed up to receive more information.

“We’re looking for more people from majors other than just mechanical engineering, like computer science, business, graphic design and marketing,” said Mattes. A psychology major came on board last year and is now leading their business presentation, which is a crucial part of every race and is included in their final score for each competition.

Adding to Taggart, Mattes said, “We are always looking for new members to come and take part. We have taken 10-15 members to each race, which always includes a mix of new members and senior members.”

They’ve quickly discovered that the best way to ensure that their new members stay committed to the team is by bringing them to at least one race during their first year. “Once they get a taste of the action, they’re hooked.”

According to Taggart, travel expenses, including hotels and transportation to the races, take up approximately 30 percent of their total budget. Since the Baja SAE competition is made up of three races in three separate locations, the team is preparing to race in Tennessee, California and New York next semester. It’s clear they’re committed to bring home a victory this time around.

Until then, the UMBC Racing team is hoping to get the word out and see more people attend their Wednesday meetings during free hour in ITE 233. Come and take a lap!

General education courses at UMBC are a necessary evil. Every undergraduate student has to endure before graduation, but while students are forced to take them, the classes should at least be helpful in future careers for multiple majors.

Technology in today’s world is so prevalent and its uses can be seen across almost every major. It’s important that students take basic computer programming or coding courses to fulfill their general education requirements.

Computer science classes can help students gain knowledge in computer programming concepts, as well as skills in fast learning and problem solving.

“The community in computer science classes supports you because you’re all trying to find new angles or ways to solve the same problem,” said Andrea Wozniak, a sophomore animation major and Vice President of the Game Developers club on campus.

Too often, students of UMBC find themselves in general education courses that feel useless and a complete waste of money. There are physical education requirements that give students little credit and are basically an hour to play pool or bowl with friends.

When students are forced to take required classes from the university they should at least be gaining some kind of useful skill that could carry over into their specific field of study. Computer programming is one of those courses as its skills are seen in daily life.

The Game Developers Club is an example of how many different majors can use computer programming skills in their field. The club is made up of mostly computer science majors but there are other members with different interests, such as animation, 3D modeling, programming, music, film and advertising.

All of these concentrations benefit from learning more about the basics of computer programming and these students are able to improve their craft through this knowledge.

“It’s a daily part of our lives and we should seek to understand it,” said Eliot Carney-Seim, a senior computer science major. Carney-Seim believes that computer programming classes should be part of general education courses alongside English, math and science, and he’s not the only one.

Other universities have implemented computer science classes into their curriculum for required general education courses. Freshman students at Georgia Institute of Technology must take a computer science course no matter what their major is, and each student at Montclair State University in New Jersey also has to complete a computer science course to graduate.

This kind of general education requirement is something that UMBC should be considering, especially as it is an honors university specializing in STEM majors.

“I definitely think that requiring a coding course for all students is something we should consider,” said Carolyn Seaman, Associate Professor in the Department of Information Systems at UMBC. “Of course, this requirement would have to replace something else. That’s why this needs to be a campus-wide discussion.”

This addition to the general education requirement should be implemented as it may be a class that does not waste the time, money and resources of the student. In today’s current state, students should not be graduating university without any basic computer programming or coding skills.

“It’s an important class and should be more prevalent,” said Wozniak. “If students don’t want to get into it and it’s not your thing then fine, but they should know the basics.”

UMBC students should be graduating as well-rounded individuals that have taken away skills found across all general education courses, including computer programming. Knowing some basic programming is a question of literacy, and this is a kind of literacy that UMBC needs to foster in its students to better prepare them for the working world.

Last month the Democratic National Committee announced the locations and times of the sanctioned Democratic Primary Debates. However, in an unprecedented move, the DNC will only allow six debates, a far cry from the 25 debates Democratic candidates participated in the 2008 election cycle.

That’s because this year the DNC has implemented an exclusivity clause, which would bar candidates from participating in sanctioned debates if they participated in unsanctioned debates. This would effectively ruin a candidate’s bid for President, because the debates will only be held by the major news channels.

Lesser known candidates such as Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley are rightfully outraged over the lack of debates. O’Malley later claimed that the schedule “seemed geared toward limiting debate and facilitating a coronation.” The six debates would be the lowest for any election year without an incumbent since 1980, according to an article by FiveThirtyEight.

The DNC simply does not see the importance of increased debates, even when the effects of debates are right in front of them. Carly Fiorina, who is a candidate for the Republican Presidential ticket, benefited greatly from participation in a Republican debate. Although it wasn’t the main event, pundits noticed her and proclaimed her the winner.

Since then, she has surged from the bottom seven candidates to the top five in some polls, reaching 10 percent support in the Public Policy poll, one point behind Jeb Bush. According to another poll by Real Clear Politics, she has almost doubled her support in a month.

Not only are primary debates important for the candidates to be heard, but also for voters as well. In a 2013 study at the University of Missouri on voter preferences before and after primary debates, 35 percent of viewers changed their preference of candidate and 23 percent of viewers who were originally undecided supported a candidate after watching a primary debate, as compared to 86 percent of voters whose preferences didn’t change after a general election debate.

The effects primary debates have on elections are astounding. Not only can it boost a candidate from the bottom of the pack to the top, but it also can sway viewers’ preferences. Because of the immense power primary debates have on elections, there should be more scheduled debates in order for the public to make a clear decision on a candidate.

STEM. It’s practically the UMBC motto. On campus and beyond, there is a huge push to involve today’s young people in the sciences.

Despite these efforts, laboratories, offices and workshops are still filled in majority by men. To address this disparity, a new student-led initiative integrates STEM education with gender empowerment programs.

“The Reach Initiative is a mentorship research program for young high school women in Baltimore,” said Isabel Geisler, junior global studies major, and the mind behind the initiative. “[It] not only works to gain their interest in the STEM fields, but also sustain that interest.”

The program, in its pilot year, currently consists of ten high school students and ten graduate and undergraduate mentors. In its focus on older students, the program is different from many others.

“The way that most people describe STEM is a pipeline,” said Geisler. STEM education seeks to capture students in elementary school, and shuttle them down the pipe all the way to college and to a career.

However, Geisler recognized the need for increased focus on high school. “We can’t be putting all of our resources into middle school and elementary school,” she said, “We need to fill that gap in the pipeline.”

The Reach Initiative introduces young women to different STEM fields, and enables them to conduct original research under the supervision of their mentors. This research will be presented in a banquet at the end of the academic year.

What makes Geisler’s program unique, however, is its focus on feminism.

“We have a lot of gender empowerment programming that we do,” said Geisler. The program is designed to actively acknowledge the gender bias that exists in STEM careers. Geisler felt that while other programs focus on science education, they fall short of addressing these gender issues.

“So, this year we’re planning programs for micro-aggressions, for consent, and sexual harassment, for mental health and for communication skills,” said Geisler. In doing so, she hopes to address and combat real issues that face women in STEM fields.

After years of planning, the program is finally underway. Geisler hopes to double the participants next year, with aspirations for further growth. “At some point I’d like to see it be implemented at other colleges,” she said.

For now, her team of mentors is working to make a change in the local community, to bring about social change. “We don’t live in a post-sexist society,” said Geisler, and the Reach Initiative seeks to prepare young women for this reality.