University Of Maryland, Baltimore County Research Articles

Much ado about chicken poo

Lee Blaney tells people he has the best-smelling lab on the campus of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC). He’s joking. The environmental engineer and his team operate reactors bubbling with slurries of chicken manure that give off a stinky ammonia odor. “Once you get used to it, it’s really not that bad,” Blaney says. “But probably only people who deal with a lot of crap get used to it.” Blaney and his students willingly live with this stench because they see a resource trapped in the smelly waste. At last month’s American Chemical Society national meeting in San Diego, Blaney’s graduate student Utsav Shashvatt reported on the group’s process to extract phosphorus from chicken litter, the dry, dirtlike mixture of manure and other debris farmers scrape from the bottom of their chicken houses. By pulling phosphorus out of the manure, the researchers hope to provide a sustainable source

Improving Maryland’s Offshore Wind Energy Resource Estimate Using Doppler Wind Lidar Technology to Assess Microtmeteorology Controls

There is enormous potential to harness the kinetic energy of offshore wind and produce power. However significant uncertainties are introduced in the offshore wind resource assessment process, due in part to limited observational networks and a poor understanding of the marine atmosphere’s complexity. Given the cubic relationship between a turbine’s power output and wind speed, a relatively small error in the wind speed estimate translates to a significant error in expected power production. The University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC) collected in-situ measurements offshore, within Maryland’s Wind Energy Area (WEA) from July-August 2013. This research demonstrates the ability of Doppler wind lidar technology to reduce uncertainty in estimating an offshore wind resource, compared to traditional resource assessment techniques, by providing a more accurate representation of the wind profile and associated hub-height wind speed variability. The second objective of this research is to elucidate the impact of offshore micrometeorology controls (stability, wind shear, turbulence) on a turbine’s ability to produce power.Compared to lidar measurements, power law extrapolation estimates and operational National Weather Service models underestimated hub-height wind speeds in the WEA. In addition, lidar observations suggest the frequent development of a low-level wind maximum (LLWM), with high turbinelayer wind shear and low turbulence intensity within a turbine’s rotor layer (40m-160m). Results elucidate the advantages of using Doppler wind lidar technology to improve offshore wind resource estimates and its ability to monitor under-sampled offshore meteorological controls impact on a potential turbine’s ability to produce power.

Multispectral, Hyperspectral, and Polarimetric Imaging Technology

1School of Automation, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an, Shanxi 710072, China 2Department of Electronics and Informatics (ETRO), Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), Pleinlaan 2, 1050 Brussels, Belgium 3Department of Computer Engineering, Sejong University, Seoul 143-747, Republic of Korea 4Anhui Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hefei, Anhui 230031, China 5Department of Electrical Engineering, National Taipei University of Technology, Taipei 10608, Taiwan 6Remote Sensing Signal and Image Processing Laboratory (RSSIPL), University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC), Baltimore, MD 21201, USA

Forest census and map data for two temperate deciduous forest edge woodlot patches in Baltimore, Maryland, USA

This data set reports on a census of all trees within two 6.25‐ha plots (250 m × 250 m) of temperate deciduous woodlot patch on the campus of the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC), Baltimore, Maryland, USA. Woodlot patches are primarily of the tulip poplar association. From 2011–2012, a 25 m × 25 m quadrat grid was established for each plot by total station surveying equipment. From 2012–2014, the location and DBH (diameter at breast height, 1.37 m) of all woody stems ≥ 1 cm DBH that reached ≥1.37 m tall were censused, whether living or dead. All such stems were also marked with numbered metal tags. All living stems were identified at least to genus and to species when possible. All censused stems and associated data (tag number, DBH, location, species, status) were entered into a geographic information system (GIS) map layer based on stem location within a Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM) projected coordinate system where each stem was represented as a unique point feature. The primary objective of these data is to provide a reference for stem location and diameter for the calibration and evaluation of ground‐based 3D remote sensing technologies based on computer vision and personal digital camera or cell phone image collections. With regular re‐census, the data could also be used for tracking growth, mortality, and recruitment of patchy forest woodlots within a suburban landscape mosaic.

Cwbr Author Interview: Through The Heart Of Dixie: Sherman's March And American Memory

Civil War Book Review (CWBR): Today the Civil War Book Review is excited to speak with Anne Sarah Rubin, associate professor of history at the University of Maryland Baltimore County. Professor Rubin previously authored, A Shattered Nation: The Rise and Fall of the Confederacy, 1861-1868. Today we get to discuss her most recent book, Through the Heart of Dixie: Sherman's March and American Memory. Professor Rubin, thank you for joining us today.Anne Sarah Rubin (ASR): Thank you very much for having me.

Erratum: Dopamine signals mimic reward prediction errors

Nat. Neurosci. 16, 777–779 (2013); published online 25 June 2013; corrected after print 1 July 2013 In the version of this article initially published, Mihaela D. Iordanova's affiliation was given as the Department of Psychology, University of Maryland Baltimore County instead of the Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology, University of Maryland, School of Medicine, and the former was omitted from Geoffrey Schoenbaum's affiliations.

Polarized Imaging Nephelometer for in situ airborne measurements of aerosol light scattering.

Global satellite remote sensing of aerosols requires in situ measurements to enable the calibration and validation of algorithms. In order to improve our understanding of light scattering by aerosol particles, and to enable routine in situ airborne measurements of aerosol light scattering, we have developed an instrument, called the Polarized Imaging Nephelometer (PI-Neph). We designed and built the PI-Neph at the Laboratory for Aerosols, Clouds and Optics (LACO) of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC). This portable instrument directly measures the ambient scattering coefficient and phase matrix elements of aerosols, in the field or onboard an aircraft. The measured phase matrix elements are the P(11), phase function, and P(12). Lasers illuminate the sampled ambient air and aerosol, and a wide field of view camera detects scattered light in a scattering angle range of 3° to 176°. The PI-Neph measures an ensemble of particles, supplying the relevant quantity for satellite remote sensing, as opposed to particle-by-particle measurements that have other applications. Comparisons with remote sensing measurements will have to consider aircraft inlet effects. The PI-Neph first measured at a laser wavelength of 532nm, and was first deployed successfully in 2011 aboard the B200 aircraft of NASA Langley during the Development and Evaluation of satellite ValidatiOn Tools by Experimenters (DEVOTE) project. In 2013, we upgraded the PI-Neph to measure at 473nm, 532nm, and 671nm nearly simultaneously. LACO has deployed the PI-Neph on a number of airborne field campaigns aboard three different NASA aircraft. This paper describes the PI-Neph measurement approach and validation by comparing measurements of artificial spherical aerosols with Mie theory. We provide estimates of calibration uncertainties, which show agreement with the small residuals between measurements of P(11) and -P(12)/P(11) and Mie theory. We demonstrate the capability of the PI-Neph to measure ambient aerosol with two data sets from the Deep Convective Clouds and Chemistry (DC3) field campaign, from flights over Colorado in June 2012.

Performance Testing of Fast Read Digital Thermometers1

Performance Testing of Fast Read Digital Thermometers1

A Mighty Wind: The Derecho of June 29, 2012

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Additional informationNotes on contributorsJeffrey B. HalversonJEFFREY B. HALVERSON is a professor in the Department of Geography and Environmental Sciences, University of Maryland Baltimore County. He is also serves as the Severe Storms Expert for the Washington Post's Capital Weather Gang.

Institutional Change in Higher Education: Innovation and Collaboration

To remain globally competitive and increase the number of young people completing two- and four-year college degrees, America needs to expand access to higher education and focus attention on the success of those who enroll. Expertise in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) will be particularly important for maintaining a thriving economy and in developing innovative solutions to global challenges. However, only 6 percent of 24-year-olds in the United States hold first degrees in these fields, placing the country 20th in a comparison group of 24 industrialized countries. Many American students initially interested in STEM areas select other fields after they begin college: only 33 percent of white students, 42 percent of Asian American students, and about 20 percent of black, Latino, and Native American students who aspire to complete a STEM major succeed. This paper examines strategies developed at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) and elsewhere that have created an atmosphere of inclusive excellence and are allowing more students of all backgrounds to succeed in STEM areas and other disciplines. Culture change at UMBC began 25 years ago with the development of the Meyerhoff Scholars Program for high-achieving minority students interested in STEM research careers. Lessons learned from that program have motivated University-wide changes as faculty, staff, and students have pursued broad initiatives to redesign courses, build community, and support and engage students.

Producing and Circulating Kichwa Community in Intercultural Ecuador

PRODUCING AND CIRCULATING KICHWA COMMUNITY IN INTERCULTURAL ECUADOR John Stolle-McAllister University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) Over the past thirty years, Ecuador’s Indigenous movement has made remarkable advances in winning rights and recognition for Indigenous peoples, and positioning themselves as important players in national politics . Mobilizing discourses of community, as both ideological and organizational strategies, has been a key to that success. While historically community has been connected to well-defined geographic territories and cultural practices, in recent years those seemingly immutable entities have faced serious challenges. Economic, political and cultural changes from the outside world coupled with the movement’s success in bringing uneven social mobility and increased public participation with the country’s majority White-Mestizo population have contributed to substantial restructuring of what it means to be a community. In this article, I argue that Kichwa1 activists and community members in the northern highland areas of Otavalo, Cotacachi and Cayambe produce their communities, by constructing political, economic, educational and communicational relationships that incorporate the drastically changing social and economic structures in which they find themselves. Community is not a predetermined social fact, nor is it an ideal abstraction, but rather it is a continuous process of discursive production and circulation. Kichwa political actors and organizations have opted for different community strategies that reflect reflect the material realities and the political possibilities of each organization and each project. Each in its own way, however, represents attempts to connect past and future, that is to build on ancestral practices and knowledge, while at the same time enacting a community that accounts for demographic changes, class differentiation and national and global integration. The production of community becomes increasingly complicated as political leaders and activists often deploy an essentialized notion of community to promote a unified front in confrontations with the state and dominant white-mestizo society. The reality of community is, and always has been, much more complicated. In everyday interactions, community often still refers to rural, geographic locations in which extended networks of families live and work, but as the Indigenous movement creates more spaces for participation and has increased the physical and economic mobility of some of its members, community takes on a more abstract, idealized meaning as well. These articulations of community are increasingly intercultural endeavors in that although they C 2012 Southeastern Council on Latin American Studies and Wiley Periodicals, Inc. 29 The Latin Americanist, September 2013 are distinctly Kichwa, they are developing in explicit relationships with multiple other cultural groups. The four examples that I examine in this essay represent different attemptstodefineandconstruct communityincontemporarycircumstances, as well as the pitfalls to the notion of community itself that many organizations encounter. The municipalities of Otavalo and Cotacachi, for example , have elected Kichwa mayors and Indigenous organizations are highly influential in municipal politics. From positions controlling the formal institutions of power, they have enacted inclusive policies that build on the municipality’s intercultural makeup. At the same time, however, political conflicts between Indigenous organizations highlight the difficulty of actually speaking for a community. In Cotacachi, the Union of Peasant Organizations of Cotacachi (Unión de Organizaciones Campesinas de Cotacachi–UNORCAC), has a long history of fostering local, integrated development that seeks to find economic support for local communities by building on ethnic knowledge and practices, while seeking economic sustainability. The Confederation of the Kayambi People (Confederación del Pueblo Kayambi), works to help its member communities strengthen their identities and work toward economic development in particular through an education project designed to allow young Kayambi adults to find productive work without abandoning their local relationships and practices . The last project I examine is the website, otavalosonline.com, which represents a different type of community building corresponding to the transnational dispersion of many Otavalos. While the notion of belonging to a group with historic continuity is clearly an important part of the community discourse being circulated by these media activists, they are also producing a community that is not completely dependent on that past by posing the question of what it means to be a member of the Otavalo “community,” when one does not physically live within the physical confines of the community. In all of these cases...

Determination of Planetary Boundary Layer Height on Short Spatial and Temporal Scales: A Demonstration of the Covariance Wavelet Transform in Ground-Based Wind Profiler and Lidar Measurements*

Abstract This article explores the application of the covariance wavelet transform (CWT) to lidar and, for the first time to the authors' knowledge, wind profiler data to examine the possibility of accurate and continuous planetary boundary layer (PBL) height measurements on short temporal resolution (1- and 15-min averages, respectively). Determining the mixing in the PBL was one goal of a study of the spatial and diurnal variations of the PBL height over Maryland for July 2011, during NASA's Earth Venture mission DISCOVER-AQ. The PBL heights derived from ground-based lidars [at University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC); 39.25°N, 76.70°W], a 915-MHz wind profiler, and radiosondes (at Beltsville, Maryland; 38.92°N, 77.02°W) were compared. Results from the comparison show an R2 = 0.89, 0.92, and 0.94 correlation between the radiosonde PBL heights and two lidars and wind profiler PBL heights, respectively. Accurate determination of the PBL height by applying the CWT to lidar and wind profilers will allow for improved air quality forecasting and understanding of regional pollution dynamics.

ERM Ideas and Innovations: Flexible Workflows for Constantly Changing ERM Environments

This issue's ERM Ideas and Innovations column is from Kelly Shipp, Electronic Resources Librarian, University of Maryland Baltimore County. Kelly's premise, based on an article by Gustanfson-Sundel...

Tapping the Philippines' Rich Biodiversity for the Treatment of Diabetes

The Philippines is a mega-diverse country, and is one of the 17 countries that contain two-thirds of the entire biological diversity of the Earth [1]. This provides a fertile source of plant-derived bioactive agents for the treatment of diabetes, which is a disease that threatens a significant portion of the global population [2]. Employing the oral glucose tolerance test, the hypoglycemic activity, in normoglycemic mice, of methanolic extracts of ten Philippine plants (Syzygium cumini, Morinda citrifolia, Andropogon citratus, Ipomoea aquatica, Mimosa pudica, Averrhoa bilimbi, Polymnia sanchifolia, Benincasa hispida, Anacardium occidentale, Helianthus annuus) folklorically used for the treatment of diabetes was determined. To elucidate the mechanism of action, the alpha glucosidase inhibitory activity of the active plant extracts was evaluated employing a spectrophotometric technique. Among the plant extracts tested, Benincasa hispida, Morinda citrifolia, and Helianthus annuus were found to show promising results in significantly lowering blood glucose level with 47.80%, 40.10% and 36.69% hypoglycemic activity, respectively, when administered orally at a dose of 5 mg/20 g mouse. In comparison, metformin, administered at a dose of 3 mg/20 g mouse gave a 48.95% hypoglycemic activity. The same plant extracts did not exhibit inhibitory activity against alpha glucosidase at a concentration of 1000 µg/mL implying a different mechanism of action for the observed blood glucose lowering activity. Isolation and identification of the active principles from these active plants are being pursued. Acknowledgements: The authors would like to thank the funding agencies who made this work possible: National Institutes of Health through the FIRCA Grant Prime Award No. 1R03TW008213 – 01A1, Subaward No. 0000007997 and the University of the Philippines Diliman. Special acknowledgment to the University of Maryland Baltimore County, Maryland, USA, the Institute of Chemistry and the Natural Sciences Research Institute, University of the Philippines Diliman, Quezon City, Philippines where all research support and collaborative work were done.

Polarisationish, speaking the language and making the movie

Event Abstract Back to Event Polarisationish, speaking the language and making the movie Justin Marshall1*, Thomas Cronin2, Viktor Gruev3, Nicholas W. Roberts4, Sonke Johnsen5, Tsyr-Huei Chiou1, 6, Shelby E. Temple1, 4 and Martin J. How1 1 The University of Queensland, Queensland Brain Institute, Australia 2 University of Maryland Baltimore County, The Department of Biological Sciences, United States 3 Washington University, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, United States 4 University of Bristol, Biological Sciences, United Kingdom 5 Duke University, Biological Sciences, United States 6 National Cheng Kung University, Life Sciences, Taiwan Colours and colour vision for communication and camouflage are things we are familiar with. Polarisation vision research has mostly focussed on, navigation, ‘matched filters’ and taxes that are most like the lower ‘grades’ of colour vision in which innate or fixed actions are the end result. New(ish) results in both aquatic and terrestrial habitats are now revealing a rich language of polarisation signalling, communication and possibly camouflage that might elevate the use of polarised light to something closer to colour? The additional contrast or information that polarised light might supply is certainly available to many invertebrates and even some vertebrates. Foraging, mate choice, agonistic conflicts, camouflage and aposematism seem rich hunting grounds for the interested behavioural ecologist, but because we don’t see polarisation, extra care is needed in gathering data, making observations and interpreting results. This presentation sets out some ideas and new methods to both image (and hunt for) polarisation in the environment and quantify behaviours relative to polarised signals. We present evidence for polarisation discrimination an order of magnitude better than previously expected in cephalopods and crustaceans and examine the ‘spectrum’ of elliptically polarised messaging in stomatopods. Results from a new generation of bio-inspired, nanofabricated, very cool polarisation video cameras are also presented to explore some of the discoveries and pitfalls of this expanding area of visual neuroscience. Figure 1 Acknowledgements Asian Office of Aerospace Research and Development Airforce Office of Scientific Research Dr Willard Larkin for continued support and constructive ideas Keywords: Polarisation, Visual Neuroscience, Visual ecology, bio-inspired nanotechnology, Behavioural Ecology Conference: International Conference on Invertebrate Vision, Fjälkinge, Sweden, 1 Aug - 8 Aug, 2013. Presentation Type: Oral presentation preferred Topic: Colour and polarisation vision Citation: Marshall J, Cronin T, Gruev V, Roberts NW, Johnsen S, Chiou T, Temple SE and How MJ (2019). Polarisationish, speaking the language and making the movie. Front. Physiol. Conference Abstract: International Conference on Invertebrate Vision. doi: 10.3389/conf.fphys.2013.25.00071 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 27 Feb 2013; Published Online: 09 Dec 2019. * Correspondence: Prof. Justin Marshall, The University of Queensland, Queensland Brain Institute, Brisbane, Queensland, 4072, Australia, justin.marshall@uq.edu.au Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Justin Marshall Thomas Cronin Viktor Gruev Nicholas W Roberts Sonke Johnsen Tsyr-Huei Chiou Shelby E Temple Martin J How Google Justin Marshall Thomas Cronin Viktor Gruev Nicholas W Roberts Sonke Johnsen Tsyr-Huei Chiou Shelby E Temple Martin J How Google Scholar Justin Marshall Thomas Cronin Viktor Gruev Nicholas W Roberts Sonke Johnsen Tsyr-Huei Chiou Shelby E Temple Martin J How PubMed Justin Marshall Thomas Cronin Viktor Gruev Nicholas W Roberts Sonke Johnsen Tsyr-Huei Chiou Shelby E Temple Martin J How Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.

Negotiating the Geopolitics of Student Resistance in Global Feminisms Classrooms

In the spring of 2009, I started my feminist teaching career by designing and offering GWST 340—Global Perspectives on Gender and Women in the Gender and Women’s Studies (GWST) Program at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC). As a teacher simultaneously otherized on multiple fronts of identity and power formations, I encountered challenging incidents of student resistance while offering the course in 2009, 2010, and 2011. This article, by focusing on the geopolitics of student resistance that I experienced in these classes, discusses my pedagogical negotiations with it. In the rest of this introduction, I describe the scarce literature on student resistance to feminist pedagogies and situate my work in dialogue with feminist scholars whose experiential pedagogical pieces have helped me in the design and teaching of GWST 340. Then I provide some background information on the teacher, the course structure, the student composition of the classes, and the institutional site. Finally, I analyze the key components of the course and explore both my pedagogical intentions and the students’ reactions to them. I end the article by offering insights on how to manage and diminish student resistance in global gender studies courses and inviting further knowledge production on the subject matter. Reflecting bell hooks’s conception of teaching as liberatory and transformative, I wanted to create a participatory classroom setting for GWST 340, where knowledges, experiences, and emotions would be provided by both the teacher and the students. This partnership would be fashioned to gain a more in-depth understanding of intermingling imperialist and patriarchal forms and structures of oppression both globally and locally. Such a critical perspective would necessarily center on a critique of U.S. hegemony, which in today’s intensely globalized world implies a substantial scope of economic, political, cultural, and military power. In addition to understanding gendered structures of global domination, which I believed were always already implicated in the local, I also wanted students to develop a sense of women’s agency (especially women living in the so-called Third World who are too often represented as victims in hegemonic Western discourses). Gaining such awareness on women’s initiative and

Complexity compounded: The evolution of phototransduction in stomatopods

Event Abstract Back to Event Complexity compounded: The evolution of phototransduction in stomatopods Megan L. Porter1*, Daniel I. Speiser2, Alexander K. Zaharoff2, Roy L. Caldwell3, Todd H. Oakley2 and Thomas W. Cronin4 1 University of University Baltimore County, Biological Sciences, United States 2 University of California Santa Barbara, Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology, United States 3 University of California, Berkeley, Integrative Biology, United States 4 University of Maryland Baltimore County, Biological Sciences, United States Stomatopod crustaceans have complex visual systems containing up to 16 different spectral classes of photoreceptors. Complexity is also found at the molecular level, with a previous study of stomatopod opsin genes describing many more expressed transcripts than predicted based on photoreceptor physiology. How other phototransduction cascade components contribute to stomatopod visual system complexity is still unknown. This study continues research on stomatopod visual systems by investigating additional components of the G-protein coupled receptor (GPCR) phototransduction cascade using retinal transcriptome datasets (generated using 454 or Illumina platforms) from four species: Hemisquilla californiensis, Neogonodactylus oerstedii, Pseudosquilla ciliata, and Squilla empusa. These species represent taxonomic and visual system diversity within the order Stomatopoda. Using Drosophila melanogaster genes as queries, assembled transcriptomes from each species were searched for phototransduction transcripts using reciprocal BLAST methods. Based on these searches, transcripts from genes specifying 13 different phototransduction components were identified from stomatopod retinal transcriptomes; however, not all 13 genes were identified in any single species. Identified phototransduction genes include visual arrestins, all subunits of the heterotrimeric G-protein (i.e. Gαq, Gβ, Gγ), phospholipase C, G protein-coupled receptor kinases 1 and 2, transient receptor potential (TRP) channels, and opsin transcripts. The set of expressed transduction genes suggest that stomatopods utilize a Gq mediated GPCR signaling cascade in their retinal photoreceptors. Two of the phototransduction genes – arrestin and opsin – were identified in the assemblies of all four species. In particular, the opsin contigs identified expand known stomatopod diversity to short-wavelength and ultraviolet sensitive arthropod clades, and repeat the results of previous studies that recovered more opsin transcripts than spectrally distinct types of photoreceptors. Keywords: phototransduction, Stomatopoda, Opsin, GPCR signal transduction, visual system evolution, retinal transcriptomics Conference: International Conference on Invertebrate Vision, Fjälkinge, Sweden, 1 Aug - 8 Aug, 2013. Presentation Type: Oral presentation preferred Topic: Transduction, signalling and coding Citation: Porter ML, Speiser DI, Zaharoff AK, Caldwell RL, Oakley TH and Cronin TW (2019). Complexity compounded: The evolution of phototransduction in stomatopods. Front. Physiol. Conference Abstract: International Conference on Invertebrate Vision. doi: 10.3389/conf.fphys.2013.25.00010 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 28 Feb 2013; Published Online: 09 Dec 2019. * Correspondence: Dr. Megan L Porter, University of University Baltimore County, Biological Sciences, Baltimore, MD, 21250, United States, Megan.Porter@usd.edu Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Megan L Porter Daniel I Speiser Alexander K Zaharoff Roy L Caldwell Todd H Oakley Thomas W Cronin Google Megan L Porter Daniel I Speiser Alexander K Zaharoff Roy L Caldwell Todd H Oakley Thomas W Cronin Google Scholar Megan L Porter Daniel I Speiser Alexander K Zaharoff Roy L Caldwell Todd H Oakley Thomas W Cronin PubMed Megan L Porter Daniel I Speiser Alexander K Zaharoff Roy L Caldwell Todd H Oakley Thomas W Cronin Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.

Leading a culture of change and innovation

AbstractHrabowski, the longtime president of the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC) details the culture change initiatives that were necessary in his institution for increasing minority participation in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) subjects. The Meyerhoff Scholars Program, instituted in 1989, partnered the school with Baltimore philanthropist Robert Meyerhoff and national agencies and foundations. The program initially focused on developing research careers in science and engineering for African American males, and later “broadened to include women, other minority students, and majority students interested in diversity issues, and it has been widely recognized as a national model in preparing students for research careers.”

PROMISE

PROMISE: Maryland's Alliance for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (AGEP), sponsored by the National Science Foundation, is a consortium that is designed to increase the numbers of underrepresented minority (URM) PhDs in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields who will pursue academic careers. A strength of PROMISE is its alliance infrastructure that connects URM graduate students on different campuses through centralized programming for the three research universities in Maryland: the University of Maryland Baltimore County (the lead institution in the alliance), the University of Maryland College Park, and the University of Maryland Baltimore (UMB). PROMISE initiatives cover graduate student recruitment, retention, community building, PhD completion, and transition to careers.Although it is not a fellowship, PROMISE offers professional development and skill-building programs that provide academic and personal support for URM students on all three campuses. PROMISE on UMB's campus includes the School of Medicine, which sponsors tricampus programs that promote health and wellness to accompany traditional professional development programs. PROMISE uniquely and atypically includes a medical school within its alliance. The PROMISE programs serve as interventions that reduce isolation and facilitate degree completion among diverse students on each campus. This article describes details of the PROMISE AGEP and presents suggestions for replicating professional development programs for URMs in biomedical, MD/master's, and MD/PhD programs on other campuses.

Cultivating ‘Habits of Mind’ in the Scholarly Pharmacy Clinician: Report of the 2011-12 Argus Commission

The American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP) Argus Commission is comprised of the five immediate past AACP presidents and is annually charged by the AACP President to examine one or more strategic questions related to pharmacy education often in the context of environmental scanning. Depending upon the specific charge, the President may appoint additional individuals to the Commission. President Crabtree requested that the 2011-12 Argus Commission examine the following questions as part of his examination of critical issues of excellence and relevance in academic pharmacy: • What is core with respect to the scientific foundation of clinical education? • How and when do we teach this foundational material? • How can we infuse an attitude of inquisitiveness and scholarly thinking in pharmacists and other health care professionals? • How can we nurture emerging scientists among our students and young faculty? • What ultimately will keep our graduates from being technicians vs. professional clinicians? The work of the Argus Commission was advanced significantly by examining related reports and projects from outside pharmacy and from engaging in dialogue with education leaders across the health professions. When the Commission met in December 2011 they were joined by leaders from academic dentistry, allopathic and osteopathic medicine, nursing, optometry, physicians assistant, public health, veterinary medicine and health administration programs. The meeting began with a presentation by Cynthia Bauerle, Ph.D., Senior Program Officer for PreCollege and Undergraduate Science Education at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) based in Chevy Chase, MD. HHMI and the Association of American Medical Colleges have collaborated on several projects to ensure that the scientific foundation for physician education remains contemporary and strong. They jointly published the “Report of Scientific Foundations for Future Physicians Committee”1 in 2009, which the Argus Commission considered carefully in its work. Dr. Bauerle presented an on-going HHMI project referred to as the NEXUS Project2. The National Experiment in Undergraduate Science Education is relevant to all programs in health professions education which depend on the adequate undergraduate preparation of future clinical scientists in core competencies in mathematics, physics, chemistry and biology. This four year project which began in early 2010 involves grantees at four universities (Purdue University, University of Maryland College Park, University of Maryland Baltimore County and the University of Miami) and draws heavily upon the scientific foundations for future physicians report as the project teams work to significantly modify the pedagogical approach for teaching and assessing learning in the fundamental building blocks of science at the undergraduate level. Throughout the full day meeting and subsequent analysis by the Argus Commission, participants acknowledged the continuum of learning and competency attainment so vital to ensuring that future pharmacists and colleagues across the spectrum of the health professions are inquisitive learners and problem solvers comfortable in applying both the scientific method and evidence-based content to the identification and resolution of clinical issues/problems at the individual patient and population levels. This begins far down the pipeline in pre-collegiate education and continues throughout the period of pre-professional and professional education with an ultimate goal of creating a scientific thinker with the requisite abilities to apply that knowledge in practice.