Sad news. Rob Pike reports on Google Plus that Dennis Ritchie died at his home this weekend after a long illness. Ritchie created the C programming language and was a key contributor to Unix. In 1983 he received the Turing Award with his long time colleague Ken Thompson for the development of operating systems theory and the implementation of the UNIX. He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 1988 and has received many other national and international awards, including the including the IEEE Richard W. Hamming Medal, te National Medal of Technology and the Japan Prize.

Update 10/14: The New York Times published a story on Ritchie yesterday, Dennis Ritchie, Trailblazer in Digital Era, Dies at 70.

Update 10/15: In Dizzying but Invisible Depth, Jean-Baptiste Queru offers an interesting perspective on "why the mainstream press and the general population has talked so much about Steve Jobs' death and comparatively so little about Dennis Ritchie's".

Update 10/15: Bjarne Stroustrup on the importance of Ritchie’s contributions to our field: They said it couldn’t be done, and he did it.

410.271.1658

gmnkande@gmail.com

Are you interested in an internship in politics, public policy, or public administration?

Each spring semester, the UMBC Political Science Department sponsors an internship program in Policy, Politics, and Public Administration. Students accepted into this program obtain internships with local and state legislators, members of Congress, political parties, interest groups, think tanks, lobbyists, government agencies, and non-profit organizations. While gaining practical experience and making important contacts in the Baltimore, Annapolis or Washington areas, students earn 7 academic credits. 

Students interested in an internship with Maryland’s legislature, the General Assembly, should try to meet the priority application deadline of Friday, Oct. 21. If we hear from you first, however, General Assembly internships applications may be accepted after this date. The deadline to apply for all other internships is Friday, November 4.

Read more details and download the application instructions at the Political Science Department’s website, http://www.umbc.edu/politicalsci/internships/

For more information, contact Dr. Laura Hussey in the Political Science Department at lhussey@umbc.edu

EE Graduate Seminar

Optical Sensors for Biotechnology and Bioengineering

Yordan Kostov, PhD
Research Associate Professor
UMBC Center for Advanced Sensor Technology

11:30am-12:45pm, Friday 14 October 2011, ITE 231

Interaction of the light with the matter is one of the fundamental interactions in the nature. It is used in a variety of fields, stretching from telecommunications to life sciences. In this talk, the use of luminescence for sensing purposes will be highlighted. In particular, fluorescence spectroscopy will be illustrated. Multiple examples that employ different characteristics of the fluorescence (excitation and emission spectrum, decay time, polarization, and combination thereof) will be given. The presented sensing principles are used for measurements of oxygen, pH, CO2, ethanol, etc. As an optical chemical sensor requires successful interweaving of elements from 5 different scientific areas (analytical chemistry, polymer science, optics, electronics and computer science), the problems and the requirements for system integration are discussed.

Dr. Yordan Kostov received his B.Sc. and M.Sc. with honors in 1987 from Department of Electrical Engineering, Odessa Politechnic Institute, Former USSR. He received a Ph.D. Degree in Electrical/Chemical Engineering from Bulgarian Academy of Sciences for his work in the area of optical chemical sensors and biosensors. After that, Dr. Kostov spent an year as a post-doctoral fellow at the Institute for Technical Chemistry, University of Hanover, Germany. In 1994 he accepted a position as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biotechincs, Sofia Technical University, Bulgaria. In 1999 he became a post-doctoral fellow at University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute, at the Medical Biotechnology Center. He joined the UMBC Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering as a Research Assistant Professor in 2000, and is now Research Associate Professor since 2006. Dr. Kostov also holds a position as an Assistant Director of the Center for Advanced Sensor Technology at UMBC. He is involved in the development of chemical and biochemical sensors for biotechnology, bioengineering and biomedical applications.

Seminar Host: Prof. Joel M. Morris