Using Physics to Synchronize Clocks

 

Even the most accurate timepieces are almost certain to disagree by at least a few seconds, which can be problematic for applications such as telecommunications, satellites, wide area networks (WANs) and global positioning systems that rely heavily on time synchronization. But thanks to sophisticated computations and high-speed electronics, distant clocks with separations of thousands of miles can be synchronized within a just few nanoseconds—one billionth of a second.

Physics Ph.D. students Alejandra Valencia and Giuliano Scarcelli, under the mentorship of Dr. Yanhua Shih, conducted an experiment to show that tighter synchronization of distant clocks may be possible by utilizing quantum physics. “We used the quantum entanglement of photon pairs to achieve clock synchronization,” said Scarcelli.

By sending two entangled photons down optical fibers, the research team was able to detect synchronized events with picosecond—one trillionth of a second—accuracy over a distance of three kilometers. Synchronizing clocks in global positioning satellites to within a picosecond might make it possible to locate objects at the earth’s surface within millimeters. The team’s research, first published in Applied Physics Letters and Science News last September, might have a role in a future space-based observatory.

Valencia and Scarcelli enjoy working under the guidance of faculty members who are considered among the top-ranking physicists in the U.S. In addition, since the University— ranked 16 th nationwide for NASA funding—has close relationships with NASA, the National Institute of Science and Technology and other research institutions, Ph.D. students also have the opportunity to network with other scientists in the region.

Having traveled from their respective native countries, Italy and Colombia, Scarcelli and Valencia have found UMBC to be a home away from home. Alejandra appreciates that Shih and other professors here treat their students like fellow researchers and value their ideas. “Back home this kind of relationship does not exist. We are not as close to professors as we are here at UMBC,” said Valencia.

(1/4/05)

 

 

The Science of Snow

 

There are good reasons why Baltimore goes berserk about winter weather: Like many areas along the Mid-Atlantic, it often sits on the “rain-snow” line, or 32 F line, which makes storms difficult to forecast. “Small errors in predicting a storm’s track and intensity can mean all the difference between being on the warm side and getting mostly rain, or the cold side and mostly snow,” said Jeff Halverson, research associate professor at UMBC.

The University’s Joint Center for Earth Systems Technology (JCET) is home to NASA Goddard Space Flight Center research professors/weather and climate experts like Halverson and Ali Tokay who can help explain the science of snow. In addition to their research on global rainfall (Tokay) and tropical weather (Halverson) the pair also take turns teaching Geography 311: Weather and Climate, where students often ask about the nor’easters that occasionally dump over a foot of snow on the Mid-Atlantic.

There’s a good reason why the 50 million residents of the Northeastern urban corridor stretching from Richmond to Boston are hit by big snows fairly frequently. “The corridor’s unique geography puts its cities in a meteorological cross-hairs,” said Halverson. “The warm Atlantic Gulf Stream supplies abundant moisture, and the Appalachians ‘dam up’ or trap cold Canadian air, factors that often combine for significant snow events.”

“UMBC is in an interesting part of the U.S.; the rain-snow line can be just on top of us,” said Tokay. “If you recall December 5, 2003, UMBC was closed due to snow, but no snow was observed in greater Washington.”

Tokay, who devotes about a week of his class to winter weather, studies the microphysics of all types of precipitation. Throughout his career he’s used both high and low tech ways to study snow and ice, from yardsticks and buckets to a modern instrument called a disdrometer that measures the size, fall velocity and shape of individual snowflakes.

As a graduate student at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Tokay once braved a 22-hour blizzard to photograph individual snowflakes under a specially fitted microscope. “All snowflakes are six-sided, but it’s true as they say that no two are identical,” said Tokay. “They come in several shapes including needles, dendrites, columns and plates. Measuring snowfall is not an easy task, and running in and out of our building every five minutes at frigid temperatures was not fun, but we meteorologists live for that sort of thing.”

So what sort of winter is predicted for Maryland this year? Halverson said that official forecasts for early winter look normal, i.e. equal chances of snow or rain. “But the data suggests to me that the Mid-Atlantic is in an upswing of severe snowstorm activity and I would predict an active year with two to three major snowstorms.”

12/20/2004

 

 

Helping to Save the “Other Bay”

 

While Mid-Atlantic residents are often reminded to preserve the beauty and health of the Chesapeake Bay, Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering Upal Ghosh recently did some hard-hat meets high-tech fieldwork to help protect the West Coast’s most famous bay from cancer-causing pollutants.

Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), carcinogenic chemicals often found in waterways near cities and industrial areas, are at the heart of Ghosh’s research. Commercial fishing is banned in the San Francisco Bay due to high PCB levels in the fish. Many other U.S. port areas are in a similar state, including the Chesapeake Bay watershed, where PCB contamination has caused warnings against eating fish from most major rivers.

Ghosh helped develop an innovative approach to sediment clean-up that trades a white lab coat for a hard hat and wading boots. His technique uses a heavy-duty machine—the AquaMog—as a sort of underwater rototiller to mix activated carbon into contaminated Bay sediment.

“This process binds up the PCBs into the carbon, making them less available to bottom-dwelling organisms and fish and less likely to escape into the surrounding waters,” said Ghosh. “It’s the first time researchers are doing this in a large area using heavy equipment.” 

The U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) and the U.S. Navy supports ongoing evaluation of the technology. To test the process, the team exposes caged clams in the sediments and then measures their PCB uptake. Ghosh also checks the water quality at treated sites to monitor PCB levels being released into the Bay watershed.

The San Francisco Bay project is a collaboration with Stanford University faculty and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Ghosh and Richard Luthy, professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford, have a patent pending on the technology application.

The research team was recently awarded a project by the DOD to do a more extensive pilot demonstration study at the same site. Ghosh also receives funding from the Environmental Protection Agency to test the technology on freshwater sediments from areas of environmental concern near the Great Lakes.

“I’m excited that a technology I conceived five years ago is now going into field trial,” said Ghosh. “There is a great potential to revolutionize the way we clean up contaminated waterways in the future.”

For more details about these and other research projects at UMBC, watch the home page for the debut of a new online home for UMBC research. If you know of UMBC research projects with a positive impact on people’s daily lives, please e-mail information to researchnews@umbc.edu.

12/13/2004

 

 

Helping to Save the “Other Bay”

 

While Mid-Atlantic residents are often reminded to preserve the beauty and health of the Chesapeake Bay, Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering Upal Ghosh recently did some hard-hat meets high-tech fieldwork to help protect the West Coast’s most famous bay from cancer-causing pollutants.

Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), carcinogenic chemicals often found in waterways near cities and industrial areas, are at the heart of Ghosh’s research. Commercial fishing is banned in the San Francisco Bay due to high PCB levels in the fish. Many other U.S. port areas are in a similar state, including the Chesapeake Bay watershed, where PCB contamination has caused warnings against eating fish from most major rivers.

Ghosh helped develop an innovative approach to sediment clean-up that trades a white lab coat for a hard hat and wading boots. His technique uses a heavy-duty machine—the AquaMog—as a sort of underwater rototiller to mix activated carbon into contaminated Bay sediment.

“This process binds up the PCBs into the carbon, making them less available to bottom-dwelling organisms and fish and less likely to escape into the surrounding waters,” said Ghosh. “It’s the first time researchers are doing this in a large area using heavy equipment.” 

The U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) and the U.S. Navy supports ongoing evaluation of the technology. To test the process, the team exposes caged clams in the sediments and then measures their PCB uptake. Ghosh also checks the water quality at treated sites to monitor PCB levels being released into the Bay watershed.

The San Francisco Bay project is a collaboration with Stanford University faculty and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Ghosh and Richard Luthy, professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford, have a patent pending on the technology application.

The research team was recently awarded a project by the DOD to do a more extensive pilot demonstration study at the same site. Ghosh also receives funding from the Environmental Protection Agency to test the technology on freshwater sediments from areas of environmental concern near the Great Lakes.

“I’m excited that a technology I conceived five years ago is now going into field trial,” said Ghosh. “There is a great potential to revolutionize the way we clean up contaminated waterways in the future.”

For more details about these and other research projects at UMBC, watch the home page for the debut of a new online home for UMBC research. If you know of UMBC research projects with a positive impact on people’s daily lives, please e-mail information to researchnews@umbc.edu.

12/13/2004

 

 

Studying the Aesthetic Lives of Children

 

In addition to teaching at UMBC, for the last few years Honors College Professor of Visual Arts Ellen Handler Spitz has traveled the U.S. and abroad to discuss her research on the relationship between children’s books and the inner lives of children. Spitz was both honored and elated to receive one of only six Clark Fellowships at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts last summer. The coveted fellowship for art historians from all over the world enables them to write scholarly works in the peaceful and collegial setting of the Berkshire Hills. Spitz used her time to finish her newest book on the aesthetic and imaginative lives of children for projected publication by Pantheon, a subsidiary of Random House, in January of 2006.

In her last book, Inside Picture Books (Yale University Press, 1999), which has been translated into Italian, Japanese and Korean, Spitz examined how picture books shape our childhood and adult lives and explored the profound impact of the experience of reading to children. She revealed how classic picture books transmit psychological wisdom, convey moral lessons, shape tastes and implant subtle prejudices. The London Times’ Quentin Blake said, “What is engaging about Spitz’s book is its mixture of perception, warmth and commitment … This is a valuable contribution to a subject which asks for serious consideration: what children’s books are, and what they do, and what important and curious introductions to life are taking place as we turn the pages together.”

Spitz previously held fellowships at the Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities in Santa Monica; the Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University (formerly the Bunting Institute); the Center for Advanced Study, Stanford University; and the Center for Children and Childhood Studies, Rutgers University. She has taught and/or lectured in England, France, Israel, India, the Netherlands, Austria, Spain, Russia, Canada, GREECE, and the People’s Republic of China. In addition to many articles and reviews, she is the author of Art and Psyche (Yale, 1985), Image and Insight ( Columbia, 1991), Museums of the Mind (Yale, 1994) and SHE co-edited Freud and Forbidden Knowledge (N.Y.U., 1994) and Bertolucci’s Last Emperor (Wayne State, 1998).

At UMBC, Spitz teaches interdisciplinary honors seminars in philosophy, psychology, literature, the performing arts and visual culture. “I am thrilled to teach in UMBC’s Honors College, a program that sets high standards for our students and helps them to go anywhere they want to go. I am very interested in contributing to excellence in public education; my desire is to engage students in critical and imaginative thinking and to inspire them to engage in new ideas while deepening their understanding of disciplinary traditions. It is wonderful to be able to do this at a university with dedicated colleagues and a dynamic president who is interested in fostering a strong humanities program.”

 

 

High Marks for Leadership

 

Educators Bradford Engel ’89 and Jacques Smith ’70 are dedicated to building innovative learning communities and creating opportunities for students and teachers to develop leadership skills. They are two examples of the mission of the UMBC education department: to research teaching and learning, and to develop caring, thoughtful, knowledgeable and skilled teachers who are responsive to children, families and the community.

“My vision for a high school leadership class was to provide the tools necessary so that students could become leaders at home, in the community and at school,” said Engel, who was recently named the 2005 Maryland Teacher of the Year—the State’s highest honor for teachers—by the Maryland State Department of Education. (Two other UMBC alumni— Sharon Grimes ’90 and Kevin Mulroe ’98—were finalists for the award.)

A social studies teacher and department chair at Kent Island High School on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, Engel founded the Mentor Advisory Program (MAP), in which small student groups receive leadership training from teachers and community leaders. “I believe in offering students encouragement and helping them experience success everyday, while promoting a desire to face new challenges,” said Engel.

In the three years since MAP was founded at Kent Island High, standardized test results have improved, attendance rates have increased and the number of disciplinary referrals has dropped by nearly 30 percent. The program is also becoming a model for other Maryland high schools.

Like Engel, Jacques Smith, a principal at Meade Middle School in Anne Arundel County, believes that teachers should reach beyond curriculum and method to help children realize their full potential. Meade Middle is part of UMBC’s Professional Development School program (PDS), which creates learning communities that provide training for teachers and administrators as well as achievement programs for students. “UMBC interns learn a lot in our classrooms, but we learn, too,” said Smith. “They bring their new ideas and enthusiasm from the University and put it into action.”

Principals are critical to the positive atmosphere of their schools,” said Barbara Bourne, UMBC’s PDS coordinator for Anne Arundel County Public Schools. “Having been appointed principal before Meade Middle opened, Jacques played an important role in its design and development. Visitors can’t help but notice evidence of his management: a bright, clean and orderly school.” Meade Middle was recently named a Maryland State ” Exemplary School” for Positive Behavior Intervention Strategies.

A valued member of the community, Smith has received several grants to support community relations, including one that funds a community liaison. It’s hoped that creating a trusted presence in the neighborhoods surrounding Meade Middle will help Smith and his teachers build essential relationships with parents.

Smith also looks for ways to provide professional development for teachers. He recently took several teachers to National Middle School Association Conference in Minneapolis, and they returned with renewed enthusiasm for teaching and new strategies to share with their colleagues. “Jacques is a strong and compassionate leader who respects and values his staff in ways that help them become leaders as well,” said Bourne.

Learn more about teacher training at UMBC.

 

(11/15/04)

Illuminating the Channels of Communication

 

UMBC’s newest research center, the Center for Advanced Studies in Photonics Research (CASPR), is a hotbed for innovative photonics research. Robinson Kuis, an applied physics Ph.D. candidate, conducts laser technology research in CASPR, which is funded by the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. In fact, UMBC is ranked 16th nationwide for NASA funding.

Kuis is studying under the mentorship of Anthony Johnson, director of CASPR, and a professor of physics and computer science/electrical engineering at UMBC.  Johnson is a leading expert in the area of photonics.  Prior to UMBC, he was chairperson and distinguished professor of the physics department at the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT). He also worked in AT&T Bell Laboratory’s photonic circuits research department as a distinguished member of their technical staff for 14 years, and was the 2002 president of the 16,000-member Optical Society of America.

Under Johnson’s mentorship, Kuis—who first worked with the photonics expert as an undergraduate at NJIT—is working to shed new light on optical communications, quite literally. In Johnson’s lab, he is in the process of building a laser for the purpose of studying “nonlinear optics” as it relates to telecommunications.

Far below the ocean surface, currents of information are constantly flowing at the speed of light.  “If you send an e-mail or make a phone call to Europe today, it’s most likely to be optically controlled,” explains Kuis.  Lasers are at the heart of this high-speed telecommunications technology.  Through fiber optics, lasers relay information in the form of optical pulses or signals that are sent through optical fiber cables. 

Kuis’ entry into the world of photonics research began at NJIT with a challenge from Johnson. As a sophomore, Kuis approached Johnson after a stimulating lecture he gave on photonics. “I went to him and said, ‘Can I do research with you?’  He took me into the lab, put a laser in front of me and said, ‘Alright, make it lase. Here’s the manual.’ ” Kuis took up the challenge, and within two hours he had succeeded.

That was enough to impress Johnson, who has provided Kuis with immense support ever since. He encouraged him to apply to the Bell Labs/Lucent Technologies Cooperative Research Fellowship Program (CRFP) program, of which he himself is a product, and recommended him to his contact at Lucent Technologies where he worked. 

Of Kuis, Johnson says, “He’s an invaluable member of my research team.” 

For more details about these and other research projects at UMBC, watch the home page for the debut of a new online home for UMBC research. If you know of UMBC research projects with a positive impact on people’s daily lives, please e-mail information to researchnews@umbc.edu.

(11/8/04) 

Ensuring Better Healthcare

 

 

Founded in 1994 as a partnership with Maryland Medicaid, the Center for Health Program Development and Management (CHPDM) at UMBC provides non-partisan healthcare analysis to county, state and federal agencies, as well as to private foundations. “Our ultimate mission is to ensure better care for patients,” says Charles Milligan, CHPDM’s executive director. “This [center’s work] is an ongoing expression of a personal message; namely that the faculty and staff here are truly dedicated to the well-being of the community within which we live and work.”

CHPDM cites among its biggest achievements:

• Contributing to the design and implementation of HealthChoice, Maryland’s statewide mandatory managed care program which oversees the contracting of Medicaid providers
• Developing healthcare policies to create streamline access to community-based services for seniors
• Evaluating the quality of HMO’s and the transformation to a managed care system from a previously fragmented fee-for-service system

In addition, the Center has worked to secure children’s health insurance for the working poor, maintained a relationship with the AIDS Administration, collaborated with the Maryland Department of Aging in assessing the needs of the elderly and created a STD awareness program for women in Carroll County.

CHPDM’s unique relationship with UMBC “gives support to the public health and social service system through an independent non-partisan research organization,” explains Milligan. The Center also maintains an academic partnership with students and faculty interested in healthcare policy issues. “We enjoy being citizens of UMBC and working with the students,” says Milligan.

For the next 10 years, Milligan foresees CHPDM’s continued dedication to long-term care that will adapt to the needs of the aging population, as well as the diversification of the kind of work the Center deals in, especially mental health.

(11/1/04)

 

Examining Media Bias

 

The subject of bias in our media is one that gets many people’s hearts racing right around election time. And that is just what Director of Interdisciplinary Studies Patricia La Noue had in mind when choosing this year’s topic for the annual Mosaic Roundtable Forum. “What we hope students will come away with after this forum is the ability to look at media with a more critical eye,” says La Noue.

In addition to encouraging campuswide discussion of contemporary issues, the Mosaic Roundtable Forum is a showcase for UMBC’s nationally-known faculty experts. (Terry Eastland, publisher of the Weekly Standard, will also be participating as a guest panelist.) As in previous years, this year’s panel represents a variety of disciplines and will examine the issue of media bias from several important perspectives:

Christopher Corbett, a former reporter and news editor with The Associated Press, has been a journalist for over 30 years. His latest book, Orphans Preferred: The Twisted Truth and Lasting Legend of the Pony Express (Random House/Broadway Books, 2003) is in its seventh printing and was published in paperback this fall. In 1990, Corbett was the James Thurber Journalist-in-Residence at the Thurber House in Columbus, Ohio, where he also taught in the Ohio State University’s journalism school. Since 1994, he has written The Back Page for Baltimore’s Style magazine, which received the City and Regional Magazine Award for best column in 1998 and 1999. At UMBC, Corbett serves as faculty advisor to The Retriever Weekly and teaches journalism courses in the English department.

Susan Dwyer (moderator) is a specialist in moral psychology and ethics and public policy, and has published on reconciliation, moral development, feminist theory, free speech and cyberpornography. She is editor (with the late Joel Feinberg) of The Problem of Abortion and The Program of Pornography. Dwyer is associate professor of philosophy and director of the master’s program in applied and professional ethics at UMBC and is an adjunct member of the philosophy department at the University of Maryland College Park.

Jason Loviglio is co-editor (with Michele Hilmes) of Radio Reader: Essays in the Cultural History of Radio (Routledge, 2002) and is author of the forthcoming The Intimate Public: Network Radio and Mass Mediated Democracy ( University of Minnesota Press). In 2003, he was awarded the J. Franklin Jameson Fellowship by the Library of Congress and the American Historical Association to conduct research in the NBC archives at the Library of Congress. Loviglio is a founding member of the North American Radio Studies Network, a member of the international Radio Studies Network and a member of the International Advisory Board of Radio Journal. At UMBC, he is assistant professor of American studies and teaches courses in media, popular culture and multiculturalism.

Thomas Schaller has published commentaries and op-ed features in the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the Boston Globe, the Baltimore Sun, Salon.com and the American Prospect online, and is frequently interviewed on public television and radio. He is co-founder and executive editor of Gadflyer.com, a progressive Internet magazine. Schaller has published academic articles in American Review of Politics, Constitutional Political Economy, Presidential Studies Quarterly, Public Choice and Publius: The Journal of Federalism. He is co-author of a forthcoming book on black state legislators (State University of New York Press). At UMBC, Schaller is associate professor of political science.

UMBC’s 2004 Interdisciplinary Studies Mosaic Roundtable, “Bias in the American Media,” will be held Wednesday, October 27, from 1 to 3 p.m. on the 7th floor of the Albin O. Kuhn Library & Gallery. Members of the UMBC community and the general public are welcome. Read more about the event in Insights Online.

(10/25/04)

A Foundation for Professional Success

 

The UMBC Alumni Association’s newly elected president, Anita Maddox Jackson, health science and policy ’80, has a stellar reputation in Baltimore as a highly respected professional and caring human being. Currently director of supplier diversity for Baltimore Gas and Electric Company (BGE), she credits UMBC as “the foundation for my professional success. UMBC helped me forge a satisfying career and, at the same time, broaden my view of the world.”

Jackson ’s substantial experience both in the corporate world and in connecting institutions across the public and private sectors includes a 21-year tenure with BGE in human resources, marketing and sales and corporate communications. In her current position, Jackson directs a program which provides purchasing opportunities for minority- and women-owned business enterprises.

Nationally, Jackson is a committee vice chair of the Edison Electric Institute. She sits on the regional board of the MD/DC Minority Supplier Development Council and the local boards of BB&T Bank and Alliance, Inc. She is a member of the Executive Committee of the Rho Xi Omega Chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. Jackson received her Master of Administrative Science from Johns Hopkins University.

Jackson ’s role as president of UMBC’s Alumni Association is fitting, given her commitment to become more involved with the University. “When I returned to campus recently, I couldn’t believe how much had changed,” she explains. “UMBC has always encouraged academic excellence and personal growth—I can attest to the power of both—but these days the University is in a whole new league. I am happy to have this opportunity to serve the Alumni Association, because I recognize the importance of giving back.”

Like many UMBC alumni, Jackson will return to her alma mater this week for UMBC’s Homecoming/Family Day Celebration. The event, held October 20 through 24, is open to all members of the UMBC community. A complete schedule of events is available online.

(10/18/04)