Administration Building Room 218.

Learn about this three-credit experience which includes training in qualitative field research methods followed by a week applying these techniques in Switzerland through our International Field Research Program.

This is appropriate for students of all majors. The three credits are upper-level elective credit in HAPP. Students who have taken this course/research opportunity will be there to tell you about their experiences.

A limited number of $500 travel fellowships are available to for spring 2013. Applications are due soon.

See more on YouTube!  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfCSgqz9hR8&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Applications are now being accepted. 

Fashion Forward

Chic Engine, a website and iPhone app created by Computer Science Ph.D. student  Adrian Rosebrock helps you find clothes you see on friends, strangers, or online.  Just snap a photo, and let Chic Engine do the rest.

CSEE: Tell us about your “ah-ha” moment with Chic Engine. What inspired you to start it?

Adrian: It is really interesting how common, everyday conversation illuminates problems that many of us encounter in day-to-day life. I always try to pay attention to these types of problems because if you can provide a solution to them, your product could be adopted by a widespread community of users.

The inspiration for Chic Engine came from these types of everyday conversations. I always see people turn to their friends and say “I love your dress, where did you get it?” Normally, their friend can provide an answer. However, what happens if this person is not your friend and is instead a stranger walking down the street? What if you aren’t looking at a person, but instead a magazine ad or a poster of the latest GQ outside the subway? How do you find your answer?

Chic Engine, in short, is an answer to the question “Where did you get that dress?” or “Where can I find more dresses such as this one?” Given a picture, Chic Engine analyzes it, extracts the piece of clothing from it, and then returns similar results.

CSEE: What does Chic Engine do?

Adrian: Chic Engine is a visual fashion search engine. You can either upload a picture to the website or use the iPhone app to take a picture of a piece of clothing that you are interested in. Chic Engine automatically analyzes the image and then returns results with similar clothing items.

The most important facet of Chic Engine is that it does not use “keywords” as you do with other search engines such as Google or  Bing. We are no longer describing clothing in terms of words, we are describing them in terms of images. All you need is an example image of clothing that you are interested in—Chic Engine will do the rest.

CSEE: Can you explain how the website works in a technical sense?

The first thing Chic Engine needs is a query image that contains clothing that you are interested in. Once you give it that image (either by uploading it or using the iPhone app), it first extracts the clothing from the image. This process is called background subtraction. We only want to describe the clothing contained in the image, not the surrounding area.

After the clothing is extracted, it is described. In essence, the “description” is Just a list of numbers used to represent the clothing in the image.

However, these lists of number can be quite large, making the search process slow. We want to make our search process as fast as possible to satisfy our users so we must then apply some dimensionality reduction techniques to make the list of numbers more compact.

Lastly, using the compacted list of numbers, we can search against our database of images and find the most similar items.

CSEE: Which online stores does Chic Engine search within?

Adrian: Chic Engine searches many different stores. A sample of the stores include Armani, Neiman Marcus, Banana Republic, Alexander Wang, and Piperlime, to name a few. Almost all major stores are included.

CSEE: Would you consider yourself a fashion junkie? Where do you like to shop?

I am not going to lie. It is pretty rare that I miss an episode of Project Runway, so I guess that does make me a fashion junkie. I enjoy fashion, I enjoy shopping, I enjoy the entire process. Similar to architecture, fashion can be considered art, both of which intrigue me.

As for where I shop, my two go-to places as of late have been Armani and Express. But, at the same time, you can find some real gems in a thrift store while paying next to nothing.

CSEE: Have you ever used Chic Engine to find new clothes?

Of course. I am a big believer in using your own product. Someone who builds a product and does not use it themselves  likely does not understand the intimate details of the problem they are solving.

Furthermore, if you never use your product you cannot find its shortcomings and find ways to improve it. So yes, I use Chic Engine all the time.

CSEE: How is the iPhone application different from the website?

The iPhone app is essentially a mobile version of the website. In fact, I think the app is better than the website. Having the ability to snap a picture of a piece of clothing, whether it is someone walking past you on the street or in a retail store, and then immediately have similar search results is huge.

Using the iPhone app also relieves some of the user education related problems of the website. The average website user might not understand how to upload an image from their computer or copy and paste the URL of an image they like. The app solves all these problems because all they need to know how to do is take a photo. After the photo is taken, the app can handle the upload and return similar results.

The iPhone app has been downloaded 400+ times at this point*, showing that people are interested in the product. I would also like to make a version for Android users. There is no reason why they should be left out.

CSEE: Do you have any upcoming plans for the website and app? What would your ideal product do?

We recently pushed an update online that allows user to create accounts and save their searches. With search engines such as Google and Bing, it is simple enough to reenter our search query whenever we want to see the results again, but when you are dealing with images, it is more tedious. This functionality is not included in the app, so we plan to update it so users can save their mobile searches for viewing at a later date. The next version of the app will also continue to improve on user-friendliness.

The ideal app would include as many stores as possible and it would learn from what the user uploads. It would be able to model the taste of the user, and then based on the model, it would return even more relevant search results.

At this point, Chic Engine has been online four months*. It has come a long way since it was first published online, but there are still a lot of challenging problems to overcome. Overall, I think it shows great promise and I love working on it.

*Adrian was interviewed in July 2012.

Filling the Black Hole

On August 8, 2012, Computer Education for the 21^st Century’s Computer Science Education Mini-Summit revealed the problem with high school Computer Science curricula, and, more importantly, what’s being done to fix it.

Photos: Shelby Clarke

“High School is a black hole for most students with respect to Computer Science,” says Jan Cuny, the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Program Director for Computing Education.  In August, Cuny spoke about the scarcity of Computer Science in High Schools and what’s being done to encourage students—especially women and minorities—to pursue the field.

This was music to the ears of the roughly fifty high school and middle school teachers, university professors, and administrators that attended Computer Education for the 21^st Century (CE21)’s Computer Science Education Mini-Summit at UMBC. The brainchild of CSEE professors Marie desJardins, Penny Rheingans, and CWIT’s Associate Director, Susan Martin, the day-long summit was a way for Computer Science teachers to network, share best teaching practices, and get involved in fixing a problem close to their hearts. 

Probably more telling than any facts or figures on the subject was the testimony of four high school and middle school Computer Science teachers, which told how widely the high school Computer Science experience varies across our state. Dianne O’Grady-Cunniff, who teaches classes like Web Design, Keyboarding, and Introduction to Engineering Design, says that the success of her Computer Science program at Westlake High School is largely due to her school administration’s outpouring of support.  

But, support and resources must go hand in hand for success. Femi Ajimatanrareje of Prince Georges County’s DuVal High School knows this first-hand. While the administration supports his vision, resources have been hard to come by. In order to teach courses like Introduction to Engineering Design and Foundation to Technology, Ajimatanrareje had to pick up a class supply of computers and then network them himself.

Then there are schools that have the resources but lack support. Nancy Ale, who teaches courses like Software Applications, Information Communication Technology, Robotics, and Internet Safety to Sixth graders, is facing resistance from an administration that wants her to backpedal by teaching Keyboarding instead.

Most troubling are Computer Science programs that are desperate for both resources and support. Peter O’Conner, who teaches Intro to Computer Science and AP Computer Science at Boonsboro High School in Western Maryland, has to teach Computer Science in the school’s Chemistry lab. Not only are resources stretched, but O’Connor attributes a lack of understanding of the discipline on the part of guidance counselors, the administration, parents, and even students, to low enrollment. That coupled with the courses’ distinctions as electives, means that few students are willing to take his courses when familiar offerings like Art or Tech Ed would suffice. Out of the few students who do pursue Computer Science are even fewer women. In a course of 20 students, says O’Conner, he might only have two girls.

One thing that the four teachers did have in common was the conviction that demystifying Computer Science to the masses is the first step in reversing the trend in waning enrollment levels. People hear Computer Science and think Microsoft Power Point or word processing. Or, if programming does come to mind, the concept is, at best, ambiguous, or, at worst, terrifying.

Also crucial is the regulation of the subject at the state level. In her keynote speech, Jan Cuny shared staggering stats that reinforced the teachers’ testimony: Twenty years ago 25% of high schoolers took Computer Science, and now the figure is down to 19%. A mere 1% of students enter college claiming a Computer Science major. Out of that 1%, 0.3% are women.

So what’s the solution? A good first step is Computer Science: Principles, a future Advanced Placement (AP) Computer Science course being developed by the Collegeboard and NSF to help broaden participation in the field. As of now, there are more than 25 pilot sites in Berkeley, CA, Los Angeles, and Chicago that offer the class, but the goal is much broader. The CS 10K project strives to reach 10,000 teachers, and 10,000 schools by the fall of 2016. NSF has  backed the program with $38 million in funds.

The proposed course will introduce high schoolers to programming and teach them the fundamental concepts of computing, how this knowledge can be applied, and how computing has the potential to change the world. As an AP course, it will act as a bridge to the study of Computer Science in college. The hope is that the course may help fill the widening Computer Science “black hole” and help foster future analytic minds capable of creating the technologies of tomorrow.

On-Campus Interviews offer students a chance to conveniently interview for professional positions on campus.  Employers travel to our campus for the specific purpose of interviewing preselected students for currently open positions.  This is a great opportunity to interview with employers specifically interested in UMBC students and offers the advantage of a smaller applicant pool.  Interviews take place during the fall and spring. The logistics (viewing positions, applying, signing up for interview time slots, etc.) are all handled via UMBCworks.

Don't miss out on employers coming to UMBC to recruit YOU this fall! The following is a list of employers coming to conduct on-campus interviews with application deadlines in the next month.

**Carrier Corporation

Interviewing on 10/9/12 (Deadline to apply via UMBCworks:  10/4/12)
Positions:  Commercial Sales Engineer/Technical Sales
Majors:  ENCH, ENCE, ENME, ENEE

**Northrop Grumman Corporation

Interviewing on 10/11/12 (Deadline to apply via UMBCworks: 10/7/12)
Position:  Business Management Professional Development Rotational Program
Majors:  BTA, MATH, ECON, FIEC, Accounting

**Northrop  Grumman Corporation

Interviewing on 10/12/12 (Deadline to apply via UMBCworks:  10/7/12)
Position:  Software Professional Development Rotational Program
Majors:  Engineering, Programming/Software Development

**Target

Interviewing on 10/16/12 (Deadline to apply via UMBCworks:  10/07/12)
Positions:  Executive Team Leader, Store Executive Intern
Majors:  All Majors

A full list of On-Campus Interviews scheduled this fall is available on our website calendar and on UMBCworks, please check regularly for any updates or changes that may occur.

The following part-time positions have been posted within the past week to UMBCworks. Login to your account (via the link in the Jobs & Internships topic in myUMBC) and find details and application instructions as well as hundreds of other job postings!

9254072 - Bodypump Instructor - YMCA of Central MD
9254058 - Web Designer - Physicians Practice/Med-IQ
9254050 - On Campus One-on-One Aide for Spring 2013 - Private Family
9253981 - Direct Support Person - Shared Support MD
9253945 - Advisor I - Towson University

The following full-time positions have been posted within the past week to UMBCworks. Login to your account (via the link in the Jobs & Internships topic in myUMBC) and find details and application instructions as well as hundreds of other job postings!

9254111 - Graphic Designer - Believe in Tomorrow Children's Foundation
9254109 - Customer Support Engineer - Edgewebhosting, Inc.
9254105 - Database Administrator - COMSO
9254097 - Wireless Engineer - Barcoding, Inc.
9254076 - Junior Electrical Engineer - MIN Engineering, Inc.