The job search aggregator indeed.com collects job listings from a large number of of websites, including job boards, newspapers, associations, and company career pages. Using this data, they regularly report on job trends by country, region and keywords. Their most recent report by industry shows the weakness of the economic recovery but also shows a strong market for IT jobs.

Indeed has a web page that lets you see trends in the number of job postings with certain keywords. Amazingly, the current top ten trending phrases are all IT related: HTML5, mobile app, Android, Twitter, jQuery, Facebook, social media, iPhone, cloud computing and virtualization.

Mobile app Job Trends

Mobile App jobs

If you are preparing to look for a job or just trying to better prepare for a career, it is an interesting source of data. One thing to keep in mind is that you should invest your time in college building a foundation of knowledge and skills that will support you for the rest of your life, both professionally and as a well-rounded person. The undergraduate programs at UMBC aim to do just that. But you might give some thought to choosing some electives that will prepare you for the opportunities you will find in the short term, too. As usual, finding the right balance is the key.

Amazon has announced a new program allowing students to rent textbooks.

“Kindle Textbook Rental is a flexible and affordable way to read textbooks. You can rent for the minimum length, typically 30 days, and save up to 80% off the print list price. If you find you need your textbook longer, you can extend your rental by as little as 1 day as many times as you want and just pay for the added days.”

Amazon’s typically sells its kindle textbooks for nearly the same as the hardcopy ones, so renting a textbook may be attractive. We’ve not yet seen any Computer Science or Computer Engineering kindle books for rent, so can’t say how much of a discount there is if you rent for a semester.

By the way, the format that Kindle uses is based on Mobipocket, which is based on HTML. There are some good open source systems that you can use to create kindle-compatible documents from various sources.

Amazon has announced a new program allowing students to rent textbooks.

“Kindle Textbook Rental is a flexible and affordable way to read textbooks. You can rent for the minimum length, typically 30 days, and save up to 80% off the print list price. If you find you need your textbook longer, you can extend your rental by as little as 1 day as many times as you want and just pay for the added days.”

Amazon’s typically sells its kindle textbooks for nearly the same as the hardcopy ones, so renting a textbook may be attractive. We’ve not yet seen any Computer Science or Computer Engineering kindle books for rent, so can’t say how much of a discount there is if you rent for a semester.

By the way, the format that Kindle uses is based on Mobipocket, which is based on HTML. There are some good open source systems that you can use to create kindle-compatible documents from various sources.

The Community College of Baltimore County this month held a five-day cybersecurity camp for teenagers who may be on track to becoming cyber experts. Twenty-two students from Baltimore and Howard counties took part in the camp, which was intended to get high school students interested in security, and to consider pursuing college degrees or entry-level positions in the field. WBAL has a short article and video.

The Community College of Baltimore County this month held a five-day cybersecurity camp for teenagers who may be on track to becoming cyber experts. Twenty-two students from Baltimore and Howard counties took part in the camp, which was intended to get high school students interested in security, and to consider pursuing college degrees or entry-level positions in the field. WBAL has a short article and video.

While you can find a treehouse to rent using Airbnb, they also have a mockup of one for their employees to chill in.

Last week’s Wall Street Journal had a story, The Perk Bubble Is Growing as Tech Booms Again, on how technology companies compete for employees by offering more and more extravagant perks.

“Here in the capital of the latest tech boom, engineers and product developers work late into the night creating the next big thing. But they take office culture just as seriously, fueling behavior that is reaching a level of froth not seen in a decade.

Some Web start-ups are partying like it’s 1999. Airbnb’s housewarming later this month is to include a visit by rapper and occasional tech investor M.C. Hammer. The party room at reviews site Yelp Inc. has three beer kegs with built-in iPads to offer information about what’s on tap. Last month, start-ups Peanut Labs Inc. and AdParlor Inc. sponsored the sold-out “Pirates of Silicon Valley Cruise,” a $600-per-person seafaring party.

While you can find a treehouse to rent using Airbnb, they also have a mockup of one for their employees to chill in.

Last week’s Wall Street Journal had a story, The Perk Bubble Is Growing as Tech Booms Again, on how technology companies compete for employees by offering more and more extravagant perks.

“Here in the capital of the latest tech boom, engineers and product developers work late into the night creating the next big thing. But they take office culture just as seriously, fueling behavior that is reaching a level of froth not seen in a decade.

Some Web start-ups are partying like it’s 1999. Airbnb’s housewarming later this month is to include a visit by rapper and occasional tech investor M.C. Hammer. The party room at reviews site Yelp Inc. has three beer kegs with built-in iPads to offer information about what’s on tap. Last month, start-ups Peanut Labs Inc. and AdParlor Inc. sponsored the sold-out “Pirates of Silicon Valley Cruise,” a $600-per-person seafaring party.

Ph.D. Dissertation Defense

Finding a Temporal Frame Comparison Function
for the Metacognitive Loop

Dean Earl Wright III

9:00am Wednesday 26 July 17 August 2011, ITE325 UMBC

The field of Artificial Intelligence has seen steady advances in cognitive systems. However, many of these systems perform poorly when faced with situations outside of their training. And as the real world is dynamic, this brittleness is a major problem in the field today. Adding metacognition to such systems can improve their operation in the face of perturbations found in dynamic environments. The Metacognitive Loop (MCL) works with a host system, monitoring its sensors and expectations. When a failure is indicated, MCL advises the host system on corrective actions.

Differing amounts of metacognition can be made available to the host system. At the lowest level no assistance is given. Above that are rule-based systems with hard-coded responses to stimulations. Next are evaluative systems that weigh multiple inputs using neural network or other techniques. At each level, the metacognition system can provide useful assistance in more situations.

The next level of metacognition adds a temporal dimension. A metacognitive system that has no concept of time has to either treat each new problem as (1) a symptom of previously encountered problems or (2) a completely new problem. Both of these extremes lead to providing poor advice to the host system. Thus, the temporal level of metacognition needs a more discriminating test to compare the current situation encountered by the host system with previous problems.

Several algorithms were developed to find the one that would provide the best performance for a simulated Mars Rover that faced with a dynamic environment with multiple perturbations. Several methods were found that allow MCL to provide good advice most of the time and allow the Mars Rover to successfully complete complex tasks.

Committee:

• Dr. Tim Oates (chair)
• Dr. Marie desJardins
• Dr. Tim Finin
• Dr. Anupam Joshi
• Dr. Don Perlis (UMCP)

Software Development Times reports that Computer Science is the top major for job offers.

“Computer science graduates now get more offers of employment than any other major. This is the first time since 2008 that computer science has topped the list: previously, accounting majors had the highest offer rate. In 2011, 56.2% of computer science majors received job offers, compared to only 53.8% of accounting majors. The offer rate for computer science majors increased 13.8% this year from the previous year.”