UMBC Information Systems Distinguished Speaker

The Potential of Technology Systems for Enhancing the
Independence and Quality of Life for Older Adults

Dr. Sara J. Czaja

Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
and Department of Industrial Engineering
University of Miami

10:00am Thursday, March 28, 2013, ITE 456, UMBC

Sara J. Czaja is a Leonard M. Miller Professor in the Departments of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and Industrial Engineering at the University of Miami. She is also the Scientific Director of the Center on Aging at the University of Miami and the Director of the Center on Research and Education for Aging and Technology Enhancement (CREATE). The focus of CREATE is on making technology more accessible, useful, and usable for older adults. Dr. Czaja has extensive experience in aging research and a long commitment to developing strategies to improve the quality of life for older adults. Her research interests include: aging and cognition, aging and healthcare access, family caregiving, aging and technology, and functional assessment. She is a fellow of the American Psychological Association and the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society and the Gerontological Society of America. She served as a member of the Technical Advisory Panel of the APA Presidential Task Force on Integrative Healthcare for an Aging Population. In addition, she is a member of the National Research Council/National Academy of Sciences Committee on Human Factors and Home Health Care.

The UMBC Council of Computing Majors (CCM) will hold a general meeting from 3:00pm to 4:00pm this Wednesday, April 27, in the CSEE Department conference room, ITE 325b.

Come discuss service opportunities, CSEE speakers, and upcoming CCM events.  Several professors have generously agreed to lecture on tools and topics in computer science.  Dates and details will be announced at the meeting.

The Council of Computing Majors is a student organization for CMSC and CMPE majors and other students interested in computing.  Come if you are interested in joining or just finding out more about the CCM.

For questions of more information, send email to Sorry, you need javascript to view this email address.

The CSEE Department will hold a CMPE Undergraduate Townhall Meeting on Wednesday, April 3, 2013 from 11:30am to 1:00pm in the University Center Ballroom Lounge. All CMPE majors and other interested students are welcome.

We will discuss recent important changes to the CMPE program, course scheduling, current Capstone projects, the BS/MS program, guidance about undergraduate research opportunities, and more. There will also be ample time for questions and discussion.

Please sign up in your CMPE classes by Friday, March 29. If you have any questions, please contact Professor Chintan Patel at Sorry, you need javascript to view this email address.

Rick Forno, Assistant Director of the UMBC Center for Cybersecurity, was quoted in an article in the Louisville KY Courier-Journal about a compromised online poll the paper ran about Internet voting. The paper's March 20th poll was prompted by a Kentucky initiative to make voting easier for overseas personnel and asked "Should overseas U.S. military personnel be allowed to vote via the Internet?".

University of South Carolina computer science professor Duncan Buell and his students cast tens of thousands of votes for the "No, the possibility of fraud is just too great" response to highlight the potential risks of online voting.  Before the poll was shut down, more than 91% of the votes cast were negative and only 7% were positive ("Yes, it can be made just as secure as any balloting system").

In the Courier-Journal article, Forno pointed commented on relatively low security for most online polls.

But the difference between an online newspaper poll and state-run online election balloting is “night and day,” said Richard Forno, director of the Graduate Cybersecurity Program at the University of Maryland Baltimore County and assistant director of the university’s Center for Cybersecurity. “I’m not saying it’s impossible to hack some online voting for a state election, but it’s much more difficult to do it there” than with the newspaper’s poll, Forno said. A state election system “would have far more security features built in,” he said.  …   Forno said hacking generally is on the increase in the United States. “We’re seeing more and more cyber-related incidents” of all kinds, ranging from foreign theft of the intellectual property of U.S. companies to theft of personal information and webpage defacement, he said.

The security of voting systems is a specialty of UMBC Professor Alan Sherman, whose Center for Information Security and Assurance has worked on secure voting systems for more than ten years. In 2009, Sherman and his students helped the city of Takoma Park, Maryland use the Scantegrity voting system — the first time any end-to-end cryptographic system will be used in a binding governmental election.

The Problem with Print: publishing born digital scholarship

Professor Helen J. Burgess
Department of English, UMBC

4:00pm Monday, 25 March 2013
7th Floor, A. O. Kuhn Library

Dr. Burgess will discuss some of the difficulties for academics seeking to work and publish outside traditional "print-bound" models of humanities scholarship – including issues of professional evaluation and distribution – and show some examples of "born digital" works that would benefit from a new model of publishing. A reception, sponsored by the Libby Kuhn Endowment Fund, will follow the program.

Helen J. Burgess is an Assistant Professor of English in the Communication and Technology track. Dr Burgess received her BA(Hons) and MA(Dist.) in English Language and Literature from Victoria University of Wellington, in New Zealand, and her PhD in English from West Virginia University. She is active in the new media research community as editor of the online journal Hyperrhiz: new Media Cultures, and technical editor of Rhizomes: Cultural Studies in Emerging Knowledge. Dr Burgess is coauthor of Red Planet: Scientific and Cultural Enounters with Mars and Biofutures: Owning Body Parts and Information, both titles published in the Mariner10 interactive DVD-Rom series at the University of Pennsylvania Press. She has interests in multimedia and web development, open source and open content production, electronic literature, and science fiction.

As more corporate and personal data moves online, Assistant Director at the UMBC Center for Cybersecurity Richard Forno provides tips on protecting financial information before a cyberattack hits.

In this video, Mariko Sanchanta of the Wall Stree Journal Digital Network interviews Dr. Rick Forno on the risks of cyberattacks on banks and other financial insititutions.

The Institute for Creative Technologies (ICT) offers a 10-week summer research program for undergraduates in interactive virtual experiences. A multidisciplinary research institute affiliated with the University of Southern California, the ICT was established in 1999 to combine leading academic researchers in computing with the creative talents of Hollywood and the video game industry. Having grown to encompass a total of 170 faculty, staff, and students in a diverse array of fields, the ICT represents a unique interdisciplinary community brought together with a core unifying mission: advancing the state-of-the-art for creating virtual experiences so compelling that people will react as if they were real.

Reflecting the interdisciplinary nature of ICT research, we welcome applications from students in computer science, as well as many other fields, such as psychology, art/animation, interactive media, linguistics, and communications. Undergraduates will join a team of students, research staff, and faculty in one of several labs focusing on different aspects of interactive virtual experiences. In addition to participating in seminars and social events, students will also prepare a final written report and present their projects to the rest of the institute at the end of summer research fair.

This Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) site is supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation. The site is expected to begin summer 2013, pending final award issuance.  For questions or additional information, please contact reu at ict.usc.edu.  

Research Labs
When you apply, we will ask you to rank your top three interests from the labs listed below. We encourage applicants to explore the lab websites to learn more about the individual research activities of each group.

	MxR Lab Research areas: virtual reality, interactive media, human-computer interaction, gestural user interfaces, spatial illusions, human perception
	Graphics Lab Research areas: image-based lighting, 3D scanning, surface reflectometry, image-based modeling, 3D displays
	Multicomp Lab Research areas: human communication, machine learning, facial and body gestures, verbal content, prosodic signals
	Natural Language Dialogue Group Research areas: human-human and human-machine dialogue, dialogue management, speech recognition, natural language understanding, natural language generation, expressive conversational speech synthesis, information retrieval
	Narrative Group Research areas: social media, information retrieval, natural language discourse, storytelling, triangles
	Virtual Worlds and Avatars Group Research areas: activities in virtual worlds that promote health, avatar identity, avatar emotions, web-based virtual worlds, social support spaces
	Computational Emotion Group Research areas: affective computing, emotion and decision making, cognitive modeling, virtual humans, human-computer interaction, media psychology
	Embodied Cognition Group Research areas: studying the relation between cognitive and emotional processes and physical behavior with the goal of creating more life-like animated virtual humans
	MedVR Lab Research areas: resilience training, allostatic load, psychophysiological assessments, advanced statistical analysis, post-traumatic stress disorder

Location and Housing
The ICT facility is located in the Playa Vista community of West Los Angeles, about 10 miles west of the main USC campus, and includes a 150-seat theater, game room, and gym. There are numerous restaurants and stores within walking distance, including the Westfield Culver City mall, and the beach is only a 10 minute drive away. The university also provides free shuttle service between the institute and the downtown USC campus.  Since ICT is located in its own separate facility, summer students typically live in apartments near the institute rather than on-campus dorms. We will direct accepted students to a number of resources for locating nearby housing and provide a stipend to support the cost of living.

Benefits

• Participate in a unique multidisciplinary community that combines academic research with the creative talents of Hollywood and the video game industry.
• Work with some of the leading researchers in human-computer interaction, computer graphics, and virtual humans.
  Receive a total of $5000 over the ten week program, paid as an hourly wage.
• Receive an additional $2800 stipend for housing and living expenses.
• Travel will be reimbursed up to $600 for students living 95 miles or more outside of the Los Angeles area.

Eligibility

• U.S. citizenship or permanent residency is required.
• Students must be currently enrolled in an undergraduate program.
• Students must not have completed an undergraduate degree prior to the summer program.

Important Dates

• Application deadline: March 31, 2013
• Notification of acceptance begins: April 12, 2013
• Notification of declined applicants: April 30, 2013
• Start Date: June 3, 2013
• End Date: August 9, 2013

How to Apply
Step 1: Application Form
Fill out the online application. You must first complete this form before the rest of your application materials will be reviewed.

Step 2: Submit Additional Materials
Email the following materials to Sorry, you need javascript to view this email address. :

• The most recent unofficial transcripts from all undergraduate institutions you have attended.
• A one page personal statement. This may include your research interests and how you came to be interested in them, your previous research experiences, your reasons for wanting to participate in the research at the ICT, and how this participating in this experience might better prepare you to meet your future goals.

Step 3: Recommendation Letter
Please direct a faculty member to email a letter of recommendation directly to Sorry, you need javascript to view this email address. .

The Institute for Creative Technologies (ICT) offers a 10-week summer research program for undergraduates in interactive virtual experiences. A multidisciplinary research institute affiliated with the University of Southern California, the ICT was established in 1999 to combine leading academic researchers in computing with the creative talents of Hollywood and the video game industry. Having grown to encompass a total of 170 faculty, staff, and students in a diverse array of fields, the ICT represents a unique interdisciplinary community brought together with a core unifying mission: advancing the state-of-the-art for creating virtual experiences so compelling that people will react as if they were real.

Reflecting the interdisciplinary nature of ICT research, we welcome applications from students in computer science, as well as many other fields, such as psychology, art/animation, interactive media, linguistics, and communications. Undergraduates will join a team of students, research staff, and faculty in one of several labs focusing on different aspects of interactive virtual experiences. In addition to participating in seminars and social events, students will also prepare a final written report and present their projects to the rest of the institute at the end of summer research fair.

This Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) site is supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation. The site is expected to begin summer 2013, pending final award issuance.  For questions or additional information, please contact reu at ict.usc.edu.  

Research Labs
When you apply, we will ask you to rank your top three interests from the labs listed below. We encourage applicants to explore the lab websites to learn more about the individual research activities of each group.

	MxR Lab Research areas: virtual reality, interactive media, human-computer interaction, gestural user interfaces, spatial illusions, human perception
	Graphics Lab Research areas: image-based lighting, 3D scanning, surface reflectometry, image-based modeling, 3D displays
	Multicomp Lab Research areas: human communication, machine learning, facial and body gestures, verbal content, prosodic signals
	Natural Language Dialogue Group Research areas: human-human and human-machine dialogue, dialogue management, speech recognition, natural language understanding, natural language generation, expressive conversational speech synthesis, information retrieval
	Narrative Group Research areas: social media, information retrieval, natural language discourse, storytelling, triangles
	Virtual Worlds and Avatars Group Research areas: activities in virtual worlds that promote health, avatar identity, avatar emotions, web-based virtual worlds, social support spaces
	Computational Emotion Group Research areas: affective computing, emotion and decision making, cognitive modeling, virtual humans, human-computer interaction, media psychology
	Embodied Cognition Group Research areas: studying the relation between cognitive and emotional processes and physical behavior with the goal of creating more life-like animated virtual humans
	MedVR Lab Research areas: resilience training, allostatic load, psychophysiological assessments, advanced statistical analysis, post-traumatic stress disorder

Location and Housing
The ICT facility is located in the Playa Vista community of West Los Angeles, about 10 miles west of the main USC campus, and includes a 150-seat theater, game room, and gym. There are numerous restaurants and stores within walking distance, including the Westfield Culver City mall, and the beach is only a 10 minute drive away. The university also provides free shuttle service between the institute and the downtown USC campus.  Since ICT is located in its own separate facility, summer students typically live in apartments near the institute rather than on-campus dorms. We will direct accepted students to a number of resources for locating nearby housing and provide a stipend to support the cost of living.

Benefits

• Participate in a unique multidisciplinary community that combines academic research with the creative talents of Hollywood and the video game industry.
• Work with some of the leading researchers in human-computer interaction, computer graphics, and virtual humans.
  Receive a total of $5000 over the ten week program, paid as an hourly wage.
• Receive an additional $2800 stipend for housing and living expenses.
• Travel will be reimbursed up to $600 for students living 95 miles or more outside of the Los Angeles area.

Eligibility

• U.S. citizenship or permanent residency is required.
• Students must be currently enrolled in an undergraduate program.
• Students must not have completed an undergraduate degree prior to the summer program.

Important Dates

• Application deadline: March 31, 2013
• Notification of acceptance begins: April 12, 2013
• Notification of declined applicants: April 30, 2013
• Start Date: June 3, 2013
• End Date: August 9, 2013

How to Apply
Step 1: Application Form
Fill out the online application. You must first complete this form before the rest of your application materials will be reviewed.

Step 2: Submit Additional Materials
Email the following materials to Sorry, you need javascript to view this email address. :

• The most recent unofficial transcripts from all undergraduate institutions you have attended.
• A one page personal statement. This may include your research interests and how you came to be interested in them, your previous research experiences, your reasons for wanting to participate in the research at the ICT, and how this participating in this experience might better prepare you to meet your future goals.

Step 3: Recommendation Letter
Please direct a faculty member to email a letter of recommendation directly to Sorry, you need javascript to view this email address. .

The first Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering was awarded to five people who made major contributions to the development of the internet and the WWW: Louis Pouzin, Robert Kahn, Vinton Cerf, Tim Berners-Lee and Marc Andreesen each played a significant part in the development of the technology.

The UK government initiated the QE Prize as a companion to the Nobel prizes to raise the profile of engineering and recognize outstanding advances that have changed the world and benefited humanity.

"Louis Pouzin, Robert Kahn and Vint Cerf made seminal contributions to the protocols (or standards) that together make up the fundamental architecture of the Internet. Tim Berners-Lee created the worldwide web (WWW) which vastly extended the use of the Internet beyond email and file transfer. Marc Andreessen wrote the Mosaic browser that was widely distributed and which made the WWW accessible to everyone. His work triggered a huge number of applications unimagined by the early network pioneers."

The first Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering was awarded to five people who made major contributions to the development of the internet and the WWW: Louis Pouzin, Robert Kahn, Vinton Cerf, Tim Berners-Lee and Marc Andreesen each played a significant part in the development of the technology.

The UK government initiated the QE Prize as a companion to the Nobel prizes to raise the profile of engineering and recognize outstanding advances that have changed the world and benefited humanity.

"Louis Pouzin, Robert Kahn and Vint Cerf made seminal contributions to the protocols (or standards) that together make up the fundamental architecture of the Internet. Tim Berners-Lee created the worldwide web (WWW) which vastly extended the use of the Internet beyond email and file transfer. Marc Andreessen wrote the Mosaic browser that was widely distributed and which made the WWW accessible to everyone. His work triggered a huge number of applications unimagined by the early network pioneers."