Research @ UMBC

Thoughts on Ticklish Apes and the Evolution of Laughter

2009-06-29T16:52:22Z

Robert Provine, professor of psychology, was quoted in media across the globe recently regarding a new study on the evolution of laughter in apes. Provine, an expert on and an international expert on the neuroscience of laughter, yawning and other contagious behaviors, has long studied the distinctive, panting laughter made by apes and other primates when they are tickled. He was quoted in print and online media across the US and Europe regarding a new study led by Marina Davila Ross, a primatologist at the University of Portsmouth, UK. Davila Ross and her colleagues tickled juvenile apes and human babies, and recorded the sounds produced. The study concluded that the similar sound patterns due to ticklish laughing in humans and apes are likely based on a common ancestor that lived 10 to 16 million years ago. "I think that it's about time we get out there, start tickling the dogs and the cats, and the pigs, the rats, as well as the chimpanzees," Provine said in a National Public Radio feature on the research. "I think we'll learn a lot about what we have in common, as well as our differences." Provine’s thoughts on the study were featured in hundreds of media articles and broadcasts, including, NPR’s "All Things Considered,” the Associated Press, Nature, New Scientist, AAAS Science Now, The Guardian (UK) and Wired.

The Mathematics of Tom Stoppard's "Arcadia"

2009-05-18T16:22:12Z

The Folger Theatre's critically acclaimed production of Tom Stoppard's "Arcadia" has connections to UMBC experts in mathematics and the humanities. Michelle Osherow, assistant professor of English, associate director of the Dresher Center for the Humanities and dramaturg at the Folger, recruited Manil Suri, professor of mathematics and noted novelist, to give several talks on the mathematics of theater over the next few weeks. “Arcadia” tells the story of a math prodigy, and features a lot for a mathematician to love – fractals, chaos theory and the geometry of English garden design. To watch video of Suri discussing the math of "Arcadia," click play below:

A Fulbright to Protect First Responders

2009-04-23T16:23:28Z

Brian Maguire, clinical associate professor of emergency health studies (EHS), has won a 2009 Fulbright Scholarship to expand his groundbreaking research on the occupational risks among ambulance personnel. Maguire will spend four months in Australia in 2010, working on his research and teaching at three Australian universities: Edith Cowan, Charles Sturt and Flinders. Maguire's previous research projects were the first to document the occupational injury and fatality rates among emergency medical services (EMS) personnel in the U.S. EMS workers face a host of on-the-job health risks: everything from common back injuries, strains and sprains to more serious injuries caused by ambulance accidents and assaults by patients. "The occupational injury and fatality rates for American EMS professionals are far above the national average,"said Maguire, a former New York City paramedic, emergency services manager and health care administrator. "But because of a lack of research on the topic, it's been hard to convince people outside the profession of the serious occupational hazards. As a result, little has been done to make the job safer." "The Fulbright award will permit me to work toward developing lessons learned and best practices to protect the lives and health of emergency services personnel around the world." The UMBC EHS department provides the only graduate program of its kind in the world. For over a decade it has been providing graduate education online and has drawn students from Europe, Asia, Africa and all over the U.S. The department has been providing emergency medical services (EMS) education since 1982, including a bachelor's degree, certification programs that have been offered on-site in dozens of countries and a program that trained the 10,000 members of the National Disaster Medical System. Maguire has been a member of the EHS faculty since 1999. He is associate director of the emergency health services graduate program and director of the Center for Emergency Education and Disaster Research (CEEDR). He has been a consultant to the Department of Homeland Security and numerous health departments in the areas of bio-terrorism and disaster preparedness, an international consultant for systems development as well as a committee member for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the American Ambulance Association in the areas of ambulance and workforce safety.

Adrenaline 101: Off-Road Engineers Excel

2009-04-23T16:00:06Z

Photo Caption: A four-hour SAE Baja race is a muddy marathon.

Safety goggles are required gear in many campus labs. Mechanical engineering graduate student Sam Markkula and his teammates just prefer one that also requires a helmet, rollbars and lots of mud.

Markkula is a member of the UMBC chapter of the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE), a student club of hands-on engineers who design, build and race an off-road vehicle for Baja SAE, a series of annual endurance races against national and international competition.

The group just returned triumphant from the SAE Baja East race in Auburn, Alabama, with the best overall score (7th out of 100 teams) in UMBC SAE history. Team UMBC finished ahead of cars from Georgia Tech, Auburn University, Johns Hopkins, Cornell, Bucknell, Virginia Tech and other prestigious universities.

“Our months and countless hours of hard work have definitely paid off,” said Mark Foster, a senior mechanical engineering major and president of UMBC Baja SAE.

In addition to a four-hour long endurance race, Baja SAE teams are graded on their cars’ maneuverability, suspension, traction, speed, ergonomics and production cost. The 2009 UMBC team continued its tradition of excelling in the cost category, achieving their Top 10 overall results with the cheapest-to-produce car in the field.

“UMBC's Baja SAE team is now in the top 10 nationwide, but in our eyes, they are number one,” said Shlomo Carmi, professor and chair of mechanical engineering. “It is especially impressive that during this difficult budget cycle, they delivered again on the ‘best bang for the buck.’ We are so proud of this team of outstanding students.”

The Baja SAE endurance race is a sensory overload of noise and nerves. Drivers have to resist the urge to drive at top speeds so the car can last the entire duration without being disqualified, tumbling down steep hills, or crashing into logs, rocks and other cars. Other team members serve as pit crew for fuel or repair stops.

“Imagine over 100 lawnmowers all running in close proximity,” said Markkula. “It’s quite loud. We cleaned off at least 30 pounds of mud from each car, and the drivers probably have breathed in at least a half pound by the end of the race.”

This year’s team owes a tip of the helmet to nearby Community College of Baltimore County (CCBC) Catonsville. A change to an independent rear suspension required moving and custom-designing the gearbox. The UMBC team was fortunate to receive help from Bill Werneke, an expert machinist and instructor of CCBC-Catonsville’s manufacturing technology program.

Werneke programmed blueprints for the gearbox design into computer-assisted manufacturing and design software, and built the rig in the workshop with the help of his students. Werneke and the CCBC program serve as an apprenticeship path and hands-on training for future machinists from across Maryland.

Baja SAE is open to graduate or undergraduate students willing to contribute their time, learn how to operate the shop tools and who are in good academic standing. UMBC Baja SAE is advised by mechanical engineering professor Tony Farquhar.

The UMBC team’s next race is in Wisconsin in June. For more information, visit www.sae.org and click on the Baja SAE link.

To watch video of UMBC’s Baja SAE team in action at a 2008 event, click on the video player below:

(4/22/2009)

Two UMBC Professors Win NSF CAREER Awards

2009-04-03T20:07:53Z

Theodosia Gougousi (left) and Haijun Su, who uses virtual reality in his research, are UMBC's latest NSF CAREER award winners.

Two UMBC scientists were recently recognized as among the nation’s top young faculty in their fields by the National Science Foundation (NSF), receiving the NSF’s CAREER award, an honor that comes with five years of research funding and support.

Theodosia Gougousi, assistant professor of physics, is helping to find the next-generation hearts of consumer electronics. Haijun Su, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, uses 3-D virtual reality to make design innovations faster and cheaper for manufacturers.

Nano-scale Paving Stones
Without the expertise of physicists like Gougousi, beloved consumer electronics like iPhones, Blackberries and iPods would drain their batteries in half an hour. “Silicon-based technology has reached its limit,” Gougousi said. “Gallium Arsenide is a possible next-generation material."

The Thessaloniki, Greece native studies the properties of nano-scale insulating materials suitable to integrate in Gallium-Arsenide-based transistors, a small but vital part of computer chips. The materials must be in the form of very thin films – 1,000 to 10,000 times thinner than human hair - and are made with a process she compares to building a patio at the atomic level.

“It’s somewhat like putting down paving stones to make a patio; we stack layers of atoms one on top of the other. Our stones and glue are organic molecules and water. Our goal is to understand the interactions of these materials at the atomic level and develop techniques to produce a dependable, good quality film.”

For Gougousi, the CAREER award is justification for years of effort, but more importantly, it provides an opportunity to focus more time in the lab, the classroom and mentoring undergraduate and graduate students.

“Show Me the Motion”
Su uses virtual reality to save companies real money. His particular passion is on the early design stages of small, precise machine parts that need almost human levels of flexibility and movement.

“We use virtual reality, or VR, as a tool to design machine systems, especially those with flexible parts,” Su said. Su’s toolkit, known as the VR design environment, adds a crucial third dimension to early-stage design and prototyping.

“You need a lot of freedom to explore for the designer. Typical computer-aided design (CAD) software is bounded on a two dimensional screen and operated with a two dimensional mouse. So I say, okay, show me the motion.”

Su and his students use a virtual reality helmet, interactive glove and a pen-like gizmo known as a haptic device, which lets users feel a virtual prototype. Their goal is designing machine parts capable of precise - sometimes delicate - motions at the different scales.

His lab helps design complex and crucial parts for vehicles, robotics, precision or medical instruments, and even power tools.

“An example is the tip of a robot’s grasper arm in a factory assembly line,” said Su. “It has to be able to be flexible in order to accommodate errors. If it’s too rigid, it doesn’t work correctly.”

The key for Su’s lab is using VR to cut overall product development costs in the early, concept-design stage which itself costs little but is responsible for 75 percent of product development expenses. “The earlier you make changes, the more money you save,” Su said.

Su is honored by the CAREER award, and hopes it will enable him to spend time on another passion: educating the next generation of engineers. Hosting and teaching a two-week summer course for high school students was part of his award proposal.

Gougousi and Su are the latest in a growing number of UMBC faculty members to receive the prestigious NSF CAREER award. Half of the chemical and biochemical engineering faculty have received the honor, and since 2001, the university has had 12 honorees.

Researcher, Mentor Works to Slow Scourge of Alzheimer’s

2009-04-03T18:45:29Z

Theresa Good, professor of chemical and biochemical engineering, works to slow the toll of Alzheimer’s, one of the world’s most devastating illnesses. Her peers recently voted her as among the most talented in her field, electing Good as a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE).

The Rochester, NY native came to UMBC from Texas A&M in 2002. A former Peace Corps volunteer who taught biology and chemistry in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Good has always been drawn to real-world challenges.

About 10 percent of the population over age 60 and 50 percent of those over age 80 develop Alzheimer’s. The progressive, fatal disease causes problems with memory, thinking and behavior.

Good’s lab specializes in a protein found in senile plaques, one of the hallmarks of Alzheimer’s in the brain. Senile plaques are large globs of protein that grow to about the same size as brain cells.

Good is grateful for the AIMBE recognition, but says that her true passion is working with undergraduate and graduate students and helping them to develop into researchers.

“I’m pleased that my colleagues recognize my contributions, but to be honest, the GSA mentor award (Good won the Donald Creighton Memorial Faculty Award for Graduate Student Mentoring in 2007) meant a lot more.

I like to teach undergraduates at UMBC; they’re talented, they’re funny and every day is different. It’s wonderful to be recognized for producing useful research, but another thing I help to produce is people.”

“Theresa is a tremendous role model to her students and will go to any length to ensure that they are both growing intellectually and succeeding in their efforts,” said Julia Ross, professor and chair of chemical and biochemical engineering.

Good and her colleagues study beta amyloid protein (BAP) as a target for potential new Alzheimer’s drugs. A buildup of BAP in the brain is linked to most forms of the disease, including early-onset Alzheimer’s, impacting some patients as early as in their 40’s.

Alzheimer’s is an especially challenging adversary since it is difficult to diagnose in the early stages. “The brain is redundant; people compensate for memory loss until the damage to brain cells reaches the catastrophic stage,” said Good. Her lab is examining if fluorescent or metal nano-molecules can be used as tools for earlier diagnoses.

According to Good, there is room for cautious optimism for Alzheimer’s research and possible new therapies. “I think there will be something in clinical trials in the next five years to help prevent further neural damage, but it won’t be perfect,” she said.

(4/3/2009)

Bill Thomas, Erickson School, on NPR

2009-04-03T18:20:10Z

Bill Thomas, professor of the Erickson School, is a man on a mission: to change our concept of nursing homes, aging and eldercare forever. Thomas, a self-described "nursing home abolitionist," took his mission to the national airwaves on April 2, as a guest on National Public Radio's "Talk of the Nation." Learn more about the Erickson School at UMBC and Dr. Thomas at his blog, www.changingaging.org.

UMBC Bioethics Association Students Present at Harvard Conference

2009-03-25T19:03:12Z

Photo caption: (back row, from left) Richard Blissett, Justin Donlan, professor Andrea Kalfoglou, Michael Young, (front row from left) Mary Rhee, Jacqui Wanjohi, and Melissa Chapman attend the National Undergraduate Bioethics Conference at Harvard University. Three members of the UMBC Bioethics Student Association (BSA) presented research papers at the National Undergraduate Bioethics Conference at Harvard University March 13th and 14th. Melissa Chapman, a junior biological sciences major and vice president of BSA, discussed the ethics of genetic testing of Ashkenazi young adults to determine if they are carriers of Gaucher’s Disease. Some organizations have advocated not informing carrier couples due to the availability of a new enzyme replacement therapy treatment. Chapman argued that not informing couples denies them the right to make informed reproductive decisions. Richard Blissett, a junior bioinformatics and computational biology major and treasurer of the BSA, discussed the ethics of continuing to market preimplantation genetic screening (PGS) to patients seeking in vitro fertilization for infertility. The screening is controversial due to a lack of evidence that it increases pregnancy rates and consensus in the US and EU scientific community that it should be considered "experimental." Blissett argued that with the recent change in NIH funding for embryo research, PGS for infertile couples should only be offered in the context of well-designed clinical trials where patients are not expected to pay $5000 for the cost of the screening. Finally, Mary Rhee, a sophomore double major in philosophy and biological sciences and public relations director for BSA, discussed the ethics of facial transplantation. Rhee argued that in most of the severe cases, the transplant is not simply cosmetic, but life altering, and that patients ought to have the freedom to consent to the surgery -- even if the immunosuppressant drugs required to prevent rejection will shorten their lives-- because it so dramatically improves their quality of life. Andrea Kalfoglou, BSA faculty sponsor and assistant professor in the Health Administration and Policy Program said, “I was so proud of our UMBC students. Their presentations were thought provoking and professional. I think bioethics has really captured the imagination of UMBC students from many different disciplines.”

Video: Chris Corbett, English, Discusses the Pony Express with "UMBC in the Loop"

2009-03-25T14:44:43Z

Chris Corbett - a veteran journalist, novelist, humorist and professor of the practice of English at UMBC - discusses his recent book "Orphans Preferred: the Twisted Truth and Lasting Legend of the Pony Express." "UMBC in the Loop" is a production of UMBC's New Media Studio and the Research Channel.

Video Profile: Calla Thompson, Visual Arts

2009-03-25T14:39:49Z

Calla Thompson, assistant professor of Visual Arts, received a 2009 Individual Artist Award from the Maryland State Arts Council. The video profile below was produced by the Visual Arts department and gives insights into Thompson's work and recent exhibitions.

Biofutures: DVD-ROM By English Professor Reviewed in Nature

2009-03-05T19:23:00Z

]]> Helen Burgess, an assistant professor of English, has received a favorable review in the international science research journal Nature (March 5, 2009 edition). The DVD-ROM, Biofutures: Owning Body Parts and Information, examines the issue of owning human tissue and genetic material for research and potential profit. Biofutures uses video, text, interviews, film clips and Web links to explore ownership of human body parts. The discussion centers on themes of law, biology and culture. The review applauded the approach of exploring the subject through multimedia information sources. "The authors use their broad backgrounds in science policy, history and English literature to locate the questions of body ownership within the wider fields of social science and bioethics,” the review said. Burgess worked with co-authors Robert Mitchell, a faculty member in the Duke University English department, and Phillip Thurtle, a faculty member in the University of Washington history department. "Helen Burgess' recognition in Nature shows the wide-ranging scholarship that takes place in the UMBC Department of English today and our interest in new media," said Jessica Berman, associate professor and department chair. "This recognition also shows the value of an interdisciplinary approach to such thorny issues as the ownership of body parts and the information derived from genetic material," Berman said. Burgess is active in the new media research community as editor of the online journal Hyperrhiz: new Media Cultures. Biofutures is a production of the University of Pennsylvania Press.

Icy Dilemma: Chris Swan, Geography & Environmental Systems, in Baltimore Sun's "Bay & Environment" Blog

2009-03-04T16:14:42Z

]]> Chris Swan, assistant professor of geography and environmental systems, was featured in a March 3 entry in the Baltimore Sun's "Bay & Environment" blog. Swan is one of just a few researchers in the nation studying the environmental impact of salt used to clear roads after winter storms. Sun reporter Tim Wheeler quoted Swan and government officials on the balance between possible harm to Maryland waterways' frogs, zooplankton and insects versus safety for the state's drivers.

Zeynep Tufekci, Sociology, on Privacy & Facebook: Baltimore Sun

2009-03-04T16:02:07Z

]]> Zeynep Tufekci, assistant professor of sociology, was quoted in a Feb. 24 Baltimore Sun story on recent controversies about the popular social networking site Facebook's privacy policies. "It used to be that 'private' was intimate and invisible. But what we have here, on Facebook in particular, is intimate and visible," Tufekci says. "It's a public/private mixture that we've never had, and it's turned all sorts of things upside down."

No More Tears: Photoshop out the Tears and Sad Faces’ Emotions Turn Uncertain

2009-02-24T19:52:19Z

A noted expert on the neuroscience of laughter has turned his focus to tears. Or more precisely, how digitally removing tears from photos of crying people makes it tough to tell just what emotion is being expressed. For research recently published in the journal Evolutionary Psychology, Robert R. Provine, a professor of psychology at UMBC, gathered hundreds of slides of crying and non-crying people from photo sharing sites like Flickr. With some simple Photoshopping, tears were removed from the shots of crying people. The tear-free images and their teary counterparts were shuffled in with a long sequence of portraits of people with neutral expression and shown to undergraduate volunteers. When asked to rate the emotions being expressed by the now-tearless faces, the results were startling: faces without tears not only don’t appear very sad, but are seen as displaying awe, concern, contemplation or puzzlement. “Remarkably, the role of emotional tears as a visual signal has been neglected,” Provine said. “On one level, this confirms that tears signal sadness, but the surprise is that tears confer meaning to neutral faces. In other words, tears are a breakthrough in human emotional signaling.” Only humans produce emotional tears. "Tears add meaning and nuance to the limited expressive range of the neuromuscular instrument of the human face. Like sobbing and laughing, tears are honest signals, and are hard to fake,” said Provine. “We need to replicate research on human facial expression using tears as a variable. They change everything” Lacking Photoshop, you can approximate the effect of tear removal by using your finger to block out the tears in any photograph. Provine’s research focuses on the neuroscience of everyday life, what he calls “sidewalk neuroscience.” He believes that common behaviors can provide startling insights into human nature and how the brain works. Provine’s latest work on tears, yawning, laughter and many other fascinating but neglected human behaviors will be presented in a book to be published by Harvard University Press.

The Future of Information Sharing

2009-02-20T14:43:57Z

As the world embraces Web 2.0, the effects of social media are on the minds of several researchers at UMBC.

Assistant Professor of Sociology Zeynep Tufekci studies the impact that technology, gender and inequality have on new media. Two of her current research projects specifically examine online social networks. The first project studies how these networks are situated within social practices. The other project, funded by the National Science Foundation, examines interactions between gender, race, social class and technology in relation to career choice and inequality. A former computer programmer, Tufekci studies social media with a sociological eye.

“Connecting is a deep human need,” said Tufekci. “Social networking is scratching a strong itch by providing individuals with the ability to always stay connected.”

When looking to the future, Tufekci sees an “ultra-connected world.” She predicts the cell phone will be more interactive than networking sites like Facebook, providing users with an opportunity to geographically locate friends.

“It would have pluses and minuses,” she said. “There would be more interconnectivity, but it would certainly raise surveillance.”

Like Tufekci, Professor of Computer Science Tim Finin also studies the effects of social media but instead focuses on blogs. One of his team’s ongoing projects includes mining sentiments about different topics (movies, politics, etc.) to sense trends and patterns to evaluate the effectiveness of online advertising through blogs. The team is also learning how to use Wikipedia as a knowledge base to support computer tasks. When looking to the future, Finin sees great changes for the computer.

“In 50 years, I predict people and computers will share a common experience,” he said. “An event will happen in the world, and our computers will know about it.”

In the more immediate future, Finin sees extensive information sharing and a dramatic shift in libraries and record-keeping mechanisms.

Molly Heroux ’09 was one of the first students to enroll in the Media and Communication Studies (MCS) program. Combining her studies in MCS with psychology, Heroux accepted a summer 2008 internship at Wyeth Pharmaceuticals. Heroux worked toward identifying gaps in Wyeth’s current team communication and collaboration in order to propose alternatives to addressing communication issues using cyber tools. She conducted this research not only to enhance communication among current employees but also to attract a new generation of employees who grew up with these tools. Heroux administered surveys to gather her research, and Wyeth intends to update her survey and conduct it again on a larger scale through an Internet platform.

“There is a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of online media and a general lack of familiarity with the new modes of cyber communication,” she said. “Oftentimes, there is a one-way flow of communication from top to bottom.”

Heroux looks to social networking to solve some of these communication problems. Her list of recommendations includes instant messaging, internal social networking, one-to-one video conferencing, social news tools, online suggestion forums and fluid notions of workplace and scheduling.

“Encouraging part-time and full-time telecommuting not only cut office costs but also supports women and families.”

(2/6/09)

Zeynep Tufekci, Tim Finin
and Molly Heroux ‘09