Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering

Dr. Richard Forno, Director of UMBC's Graduate Cybersecurity Program and Assistant Director of the UMBC Center for Cybersecurity, appeared on WEAA (88.9FM) Baltimore's 'The Marc Steiner Show' as part of a long-form panel discussion on assorted cybersecurity issues.   He was joined by Edward Erickson of the Baltimore City Paper and Stephen Bono, CEO of Baltimore-based Independent Security Evaluators.

The show, Hacking: Implications For Our Privacy and Security, was aired on August 15, 2013.

“We turn to the topic of hacking. At recent hacking conventions in Las Vegas, cybersecurity experts revealed how easy it is to hack everything from cars to pacemakers. General Keith B. Alexander, Director of the National Security Agency, spoke at one of the conferences about his organization’s use of technology to spy on people.”

Professor Alan Sherman received two research awards from the National Science Foundation to support work at UMBC on cybersecurity.

Sherman is a co-principal investigator on a two year, $300K Eager award to foster research cooperation among four successful and mature Centers of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance Research: Purdue University, UMBC, UC Davis, and Mississippi State. The project will provide opportunities for students to work on problems proposed and mentored by practitioners in the real world rather than just faculty led research. As a result, more pressing and urgent problems will be addressed, the students will benefit from the guidance of multiple and interdisciplinary research faculty from multiple institutions and the student-lead research may produce solutions for pressing national problems.

Professor Sherman also received a supplement of $271K to his UMBC Cybersecurity SFS Program award to support graduate research assistants who will work on two new projects. One will develop new algorithms for verifiable randomness that can generate random bits in a way that the recipients will have verifiably high assurance that the bits were generated in a truly random fashion. The work will improve upon the (unverifiable) NIST random beacon project. The second project will develop a new security education game, inspired by the UMBC-developed classroom game SecurityEmpire, to be fielded as a Facebook application for free use by anyone. This is joint work with UMBC faculty Marc Olano and Linda Oliva.

The research will be carried out in the UMBC Center for Information Security and Assurance under Professor Sherman’s supervision.

If you are a senior planning to apply to a graduate program next year or a current graduate student early in your program of study, you should consider applying for a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship.

NSF has opened the application for the 2014 Graduate Research Fellowship Program. These Fellowships give three years of funding to students in research based science, technology, engineering, and mathematics master’s and doctoral programs.

Funds are awarded to the student and can be used in any appropriate program. If you will be applying to graduate programs for next year, you only need describe the insititutions that you plan to apply to.

NSF's Computer & Information Science & Engineering Directorate is looking for strong applicants in this year’s program. The deadline for submission is November 4, 2013 and the application can be found here.  If you are interested, you should start by talking with your advisor and or other faculty members about the program and how to submit a strong application.

UMBC's Mobile, Pervasive and Sensor Systems Laboratory focuses on three key areas: renewable energy, healthcare applications and mobile phone systems. Their crowdsourcing-based technology for accurate and low cost detection of weed infestations was cited recently as one of the top ten technologies changing farm machinery by Farm Industry News.

D. Saraswat and N. Banerjee, Crowdsourcing App for Precision Agriculture Decision Making, ASABE Annual International Meeting, Dallas TX, August 2012.

The research was begun while Professor Banerjee was at the University of Arkansas, where the complex software system was  implemented by students Brenna Blackwell and Mahbub Rahman, who is continuing his PhD studies at UMBC.

Like the MPSSL Facebook page to follow their work or visit the MPSSL page

The third Mid-Atlantic Student Colloquium on Speech, Language and Learning (MASC-SLL 2013) is a one day event that will bring together faculty, researchers and students from universities in the Mid-Atlantic area doing research on speech, language or machine learning. The colloquium is an opportunity to present preliminary, ongoing or completed work and to network with other students, faculty and researchers working in related fields.

The first MASC-SLL was held in 2011 at Johns Hopkins University and the second in 2012 at the University of Maryland, College Park. This year the event will be held at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) in Baltimore, MD from 9:30 to 5:00 on Friday, 11 October 2013. There will be no registration charge and lunch and refreshments will be provided.

Students and postdocs are encouraged to submit abstracts describing ongoing, planned, or completed research projects, including previously published results and negative results. Research in any field applying computational methods to any aspect of human language, including speech and learning, from all areas of computer science, linguistics, engineering, neuroscience, information science, and related fields, is welcome. All accepted submissions will be presented as posters and some will also be invited for short oral presentations. Student-led breakout sessions will also be held to discuss papers or topics of interest and stimulate interaction and discussion. Suggest breakout session topics via easychair.

A full-time postdoctoral research associate position is available in the Ecosynth Project funded by NSF’s Advances in Bioinformatics Program and led by UMBC Professors Erle Ellis and Marc Olano. The Ecosynth project is developing advanced tools for mapping, measuring, and visualizing vegetation in 3D using off-the-shelf digital cameras from the ground and on low-altitude hobbyist aircraft, coupled with open source and new computer vision algorithms. High resolution 3D scanning and spectral imaging are transforming ecological science, forest inventory, carbon monitoring and biodiversity assessment.

Ecosynth makes these advances accessible broadly to ecologists and citizen scientists on demand by means of low-cost portable 3D observing and visualization systems built on publicly available hardware and open-source software. For more information on the postion see the position announcement.

The 2013 Maryland Cyber Challenge season has begun!

Last week, Challenge co-founder Dr. Richard Forno and other Challenge officials conducted a kick-off orientation webinar  (PDF) outlining the 2013 Challenge, providing a brief overview of the SAIC/Leidos competition environment (CyberNEXS), offering administrative guidance, and answering questions from prospective competitors and team advisors.

Now in its third year, the Challenge is a partnership between UMBC and SAIC/Leidos, in cooperation with the National Cyber Security Alliance, Tech Council of Maryland, and the Governor's CyberMaryland Initiative. The first two years of the Challenge saw over 700 competitors and 115 teams from Maryland competing for over $160,000 in cash prizes, internships, and more. The finals event is held as a major aspect of the CyberMaryland 2013 conference on October 8 & 9 at the Baltimore Convention Center.

Interested teams may register for the competition here.   

The UMBC Game Developers Club will hold its third annual summer game jam this coming weekend. The event will run from 5:00pm Friday August 2, 2013 until 5:00pm Sunday, August 4, 2013 in the GAIM Lab, room 005 in the Engineering building. While there are computers available in the lab, participants are encouraged to bring their personal laptops. If you plan to participate, you can register your interest by joining the Summer Game Jam Facebook event.

Computer Science and Electrical Engineering
University of Maryland, Baltimore County

An Introduction to Quantum Computing: D-Wave Systems

Robert (Bo) Ewald and Edward (Denny) Dahl

D-Wave Systems, Inc

10:00-12:00 Tuesday, July 30, 2013, ITE 325b

Bo Ewald and Denny Dahl from D-Wave Systems, Inc. will present an introduction to quantum computing and its role in their computing systems, complex machines constructed using state of the art ideas and approaches from many different fields of science and technology. While the quantum processor itself is the heart of the machine, the infrastructure that makes the processor go is also designed, built and tested extensively by D-Wave. In 2011, D-Wave System announced the D-Wave One, "the world's first commercially available quantum computer" which incorporated their 128 qubit chip-set using quantum annealing to solve optimization problems. This year a collaboration between NASA, Google and the Universities Space Research Association was announced that will create a Quantum Artificial Intelligence Lab at the NASA Ames Research Center that will use a 512 qubit D-Wave Two system to study how quantum computing might advance machine learning.

Bo Ewald has been Chief Revenue Officer and President of U.S. Business at D-Wave Systems Inc. since May 02, 2013. Mr. Ewald served as Chief Executive Officer of Graphics Properties Holdings, Inc., since April 9, 2007. Mr. Ewald has over 25 years experience in the high performance computing industry. He served as Chief Executive Officer of Silicon Graphics, Inc. from 2007 to 2009. He served as Chief Operating Officer and Executive Vice President of Scale8 Inc. He served as Chief Executive Officer of Linux Networx, Inc. until April 3, 2007 and oversaw its strategy & direction to drive continued growth. From 1984 to 1996, he held various management and executive positions at Cray Research, Inc., including President and Chief Operating Officer since December 1994. Before joining Cray Research Inc., he served as Head of the Computing and Communications Division of the Los Alamos National Laboratory and was responsible for providing computing and communications services to government customers nationwide from 1980 to 1984. Mr. Ewald is involved in various industry organizations and was appointed to the President's Information Technology Advisory Committee from 1997 to 2001. Mr. Ewald holds an M.S. Degree in Civil Engineering and Applied Mathematics from the University of Colorado and a BS Degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Nevada.

Dr. Denny Dahl received his PhD in physics from Stanford University in 1985 after completing a thesis on Quantum Monte Carlo computational techniques. He took a postdoctoral research position at Lawrence Livermore National Labs in the Parallel Processing Project and worked on simulation, analysis and applications of neural networks. Following this, Denny joined Thinking Machines Corporation and worked in their Technical Marketing Department. He obtained a patent for novel work in routing messages through the communication fabric of the CM-2, which was a massively parallel high performance computing platform. He also helped in providing technical support to a number of customers across a range of business verticals, including the petroleum and defense industries. Following Thinking Machines, Dr. Dahl participated in a range of start-up companies and developed expertise in high volume / high complexity RDBMS environments. He worked at a number of companies (eBay, Wells Fargo, JP Morgan Chase, Travelers Insurance, Western Asset Management, Williams Sonoma, Kroger, Walgreens, Teradata) providing architectural and development services related to batch and real-time data processing. Denny joined D-Wave Systems at the beginning of 2012, and has been involved in algorithm research, training, technical support for sales and communication functions within the company.

Computer Science and Electrical Engineering
Ph.D. Dissertation Proposal

Framework for Accurate Estimation of Dynamic

Power Supply Noise and its Effect on Path Delays

Sushmita K. Rao

11:00am-1:00pm Monday, July 29, 2013, ITE 346

Power-supply noise is a major contributing factor for yield loss in sub-micron designs. Excessive switching in test mode causes supply voltage to droop more than in functional mode leading to failures in delay tests that would not occur otherwise under normal operation. Thus, there exists a need to accurately estimate on-chip supply noise early in the design phase to meet power requirements in normal mode and during test to prevent over-stimulation during test cycle and avoid false failures.

Simultaneous switching activity (SSA) of several logic components is one of the main sources of power-supply noise (PSN) which results in reduction of supply voltages at the power-supplies of the logic gates. Current research concentrate on static IR-drop which accounts for only part of the total voltage drop on the power grid and therefore insufficient for nanometer designs. To our knowledge, inductive drop is not included in current noise analysis techniques for simplification. The power delivery networks in today’s very deep-submicron chips are susceptible to slight variations and cause sudden large current spikes leading to higher Ldi/dt drop than resistive drop essentiating the need to be accounted. Simultaneous switching in localized areas in a chip too result in large instantaneous current to be drawn from a particular power bump or pad reducing supply voltage further. Thus, there arises a growing need to accurately characterize the resistive and inductive voltage drop caused by simultaneous switching of multiple paths. Power-supply noise also impacts circuit operation incurring a significant increase in path delays. It is critical to account for this increase in delay during the ATPG process else it can lead to overkill during transition and delay testing. However, it is infeasible to carry out full-chip SPICE-level simulations on a design to validate the large number of ATPG generated test patterns. Accurate and efficient techniques are required to quantify supply noise and its impact on path delays to ensure reliable operation in both mission mode and during test.

A scalable current-based dynamic method is presented to estimate both IR and Ldi/dt drop caused by simultaneous switching activity. Also presented is a technique to predict the increase in path delays caused by supply noise. The noise and delay estimation techniques use simulations of individual extracted paths in comparison to time-consuming full-chip simulations and thus it can be integrated with existing ATPG tools. Simulation results for combinational and sequential benchmark circuits are presented demonstrating the effectiveness of the convolution-based techniques.

Committee: Professors Chintan Patel (Chair), Mohamed Younis, Ryan Robucci and Nilanjan Banerjee