Events

Department of Estuarine and Ocean Sciences Seminar - Avijit Gangopadhyay

The School for Marine Science and Technology Department of Estuarine and Ocean Sciences Seminar Announcement "The Gulf Stream and it's Rings: 1980 - 2019" Avijit Gangopadhyay Professor Department of Estuarine and Ocean Sciences The School for Marine Science and Technology University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Wednesday, December 2, 2020 12:30 pm to 1:30 pm via Zoom *************************************************************************** Join Zoom Meeting https://umassd.zoom.us/j/9853722453 Passcode: 079786 Meeting ID: 985 3722 4534 One tap mobile +16468769923,,98537224534# US (New York) +13017158592,,98537224534# US (Germantown) Dial by your location +1 646 876 9923 US (New York) +1 301 715 8592 US (Germantown) +1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago) +1 669 900 6833 US (San Jose) +1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma) +1 346 248 7799 US (Houston) Meeting ID: 985 3722 4534 Find your local number: https://umassd.zoom.us/u/ac0zPAJ66N Join by SIP 98537224534@zoomcrc.com Join by H.323 162.255.37.11 (US West) 162.255.36.11 (US East) 115.114.131.7 (India Mumbai) 115.114.115.7 (India Hyderabad) 213.19.144.110 (Amsterdam Netherlands) 213.244.140.110 (Germany) 103.122.166.55 (Australia) 149.137.40.110 (Singapore) 64.211.144.160 (Brazil) 69.174.57.160 (Canada) 207.226.132.110 (Japan) Meeting ID: 985 3722 4534 ******************************************************************************* To view a video of an SMAST seminar (post-October 1, 2014), go to https://www.umassd.edu/smast/events/seminar-series/ and click on a highlighted title. For additional information, please contact Sue Silva at s1silva@umassd.edu

Department of Fisheries Oceanography Seminar - Dr. Emily S. Klein

The School for Marine Science and Technology Department of Fisheries Oceanography Seminar Announcement "From Stellwagen Bank to the Scotia Sea: Using models to support wise decisions in a changing world " Dr. Emily S. Klein Senior Postdoctoral Associate Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future Boston University Wednesday, December 2, 2020 2:30 pm to 3:30 pm via zoom Abstract: In a world of climate change and increasing human needs, how do we balance sustainable use of our oceans for both ecological and human well-being? Increasingly, systems models that include people, ecosystems, and the environment are a valuable tool in helping us navigate potential trade-offs and balance across human and ecological needs. My work has used such models to provide insight in systems as disparate as Stellwagen Bank and the Scotia Sea in Antarctica. Closer to home, climate change is increasing the strength and frequency of coastal storms, increasing demand for sand to re-nourished impacted beaches. Yet that same sand is home to sand lance (Ammodytes dubius), a little fish that is a critical prey for numerous other species important in our commercial fisheries. Along with colleagues, we use an ecosystem model to explore trade-offs between sand mining and sand lance, as well as indirect outcomes for other sectors including those commercial fisheries and the whale watching industry. In the Southern Ocean, Antarctic krill, Euphausia superba, are also a key prey species for an array of charismatic predators, including whales and penguins, and support a significant international fishery. Here, we used another ecosystem model to examine trade-offs given ocean warming, fishing, and alternative management strategies including marine protected areas. Both projects provide needed insight to support management decisions, for federal agencies in charge of permitting sand mining here to the international consortium in charge of protecting the Southern Ocean, demonstrating direct links between cutting-edge science and on-the-ground management strategies. Brief bio: Dr. Kleins research involves understanding marine social-ecological systems through time by directly including human communities and applying diverse and innovative resources and approaches. She is also deeply concerned about increasing diversity and inclusion in science, work Dr. Klein hopes to advance as part of her career. She received her BSc from the University of California, San Diego, and a MSc and PhD in Natural Resources at the University of New Hampshire. Since her graduate work, she has held postdoctoral positions at Princeton University and with Southwest Fisheries Science Center, and is currently with the Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future at Boston University. Dr. Klein lives in an 1830s farmhouse in rural Vermont. ************************************************************************************ Topic: UMassD Fisheries Oceanography Seminars, Fall 2020 Join Zoom Meeting https://umassd.zoom.us/j/95032521911?pwd=WnhZY1ZKRGdnQjBvWklGcU5nbkZJQT09 Meeting ID: 950 3252 1911 Passcode: 136809 One tap mobile +13126266799,,95032521911# US (Chicago) +16468769923,,95032521911# US (New York) Dial by your location +1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago) +1 646 876 9923 US (New York) +1 301 715 8592 US (Germantown) +1 346 248 7799 US (Houston) +1 669 900 6833 US (San Jose) +1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma) Meeting ID: 950 3252 1911 Find your local number: https://umassd.zoom.us/u/azXxoOxWk ************************************************************************************ To view a video of an SMAST seminar (post-October 1, 2014), go to https://www.umassd.edu/smast/events/seminar-series/ and click on a highlighted title. For additional information, please contact Sue Silva at s1silva@umassd.edu

Charlton College of Business Graduate Program Virtual Information Session

This information session is for any prospective students interested in graduate business programs at UMass Dartmouth. This event will include information on the following programs: - MBA - MS Accounting - MS Finance - MS Healthcare Management - MS Technology Management This is a virtual zoom event designed to answer questions about the various degree and certificate programs.

Accounting and Finance Research Seminar

The Accounting and Finance Department announces the following research seminar. Speaker: Associate Professor. Jeff Chen (Texas Christian University) Title: Non-GAAP Earnings and Auditors' Going Concern Opinions Date: Friday, December 4, 2020 Time: 10:30 AM Location: via Zoom Meeting https://umassd.zoom.us/j/4387551509?pwd=SmZyUGZCak1ZSUpOUmFaclc3OFhyZz09 Meeting ID: 438 755 1509 Passcode: 20200211 Abstract: We examine whether auditors' going concern opinions reflect an assessment of non-GAAP earnings, focusing on firms with a GAAP loss but a non-GAAP profit (i.e., a non-GAAP switch) as a predictor of future loss reversals. Using management and analyst non-GAAP earnings to proxy for auditors' assessments of core performance, we find that auditors are significantly less likely to issue a going concern opinion when there is a non-GAAP switch. This finding is attributable to analyst non-GAAP switches while there is no association for non-GAAP switches indicated solely by management. Further, we find that the weight that auditors place on non-GAAP switches in their going concern assessments is consistent with the weight implied by a bankruptcy prediction model, and that non-GAAP switches are associated with lower Type II errors by the auditor. Overall, our evidence suggests that auditors look beyond the GAAP financial statements to assess core profitability when making going concern determinations. For additional information, please contact Prof. Hongkang Xu at hxu5@umassd.edu.

ECE Doctor of Philosophy Dissertation Defense by: Qisi Liu

Topic: Probabilistic Reliability and Security Risk Assessment Zoom Teleconference: https://umassd.zoom.us/j/94834229550 Abstract: With advances and globalization of information technology such as big data and cloud computing, topics about potential risks with security vulnerabilities have been brought to the forefront. Considerable efforts have been made to estimate security risks with an unlimited cycle of disclosed vulnerabilities in the form of threats or attacks and management strategies to mitigate these risks. On the other hand, reliability is often considered as one of the most vital factors that affect functioning of critical computing systems. Existing works on risk analysis have mostly focused on either security or reliability, but not both. In addition, the existing approaches for quantifying risks are mostly based on simple multiplications of frequencies and quantitative consequences of hazard occurrence without considering dependencies among the hazards. In this dissertation research, an integrated framework is explored for simultaneously and systematically modeling and quantifying both reliability and security risks of modern technological systems. Under the framework, we advance the state of the art in quantitative security risk assessment by modeling sequential cyber-attacks, where multiple sequence-dependent hazardous actions are performed to launch a successful attack. Continuous-time Markov chain (CTMC) and semi-Markov process (SMP) based methods are proposed to estimate the occurrence probability of a security risk for systems undergoing the sequential cyber-attack. While the CTMC-based method is limited to the exponentially distributed state transition time, the proposed SMP-based approach is applicable to analyzing attacks with arbitrary types of transition time distributions. Both methods are illustrated using case studies where Trojan attacks in the banking application are modeled and analyzed. In this dissertation research, we make another contribution by modeling and analyzing survivability and vulnerability of a cloud RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) storage system subject to disk faults and cyber-attacks. The cloud RAID survivability is concerned with the system's ability to function correctly even under the circumstance of hazardous behaviors including disk failures and malicious attacks. The cloud RAID invulnerability is concerned with the system's ability to function correctly while occupying a certain state immune to malicious attacks. A CTMC-based method is suggested to perform the time-dependent disk level survivability and invulnerability analysis and an SMP-based approach is implemented to analyze the steady-state disk survivability and invulnerability. Combinatorial methods are suggested for the cloud RAID system level analysis, which can accommodate both homogeneous (based on combinatorics) and heterogeneous (based on multi-valued decision diagrams) disks. A detailed case study on a cloud RAID 5 system is conducted to illustrate the application of the proposed methods. Impacts of parameters modeling different attack, recovery and rescue behaviors on the disk and system survivability and invulnerability are also investigated. Note: All ECE Graduate Students are ENCOURAGED to join the zoom teleconference. All interested parties are invited to join. Advisor: Dr. Liudong Xing Committee Members: Dr. Hong Liu and Dr. Honggang Wang, Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth; Dr. Yan Sun, Department of Electrical, Computer and Biomedical Engineering, University of Rhode Island. *For further information, please contact Dr. Liudong Xing via email at lxing@umassd.edu.

ECE Research Component of PhD Qualifier Exam by: Christian Ellis

Topic: A Path Towards Risk Averse Autonomous Vehicle Navigation Zoom Teleconference: https://umassd.zoom.us/my/chellis Abstract: Current approaches to developing autonomous moving agents only allow the agent to operate in an environment representative of its previous experience. For agents that are modeled using a Markov decision process (MDP), a policy for navigation behavior is generated as the result of optimizing a reward function. Traditionally, this reward function is pre-defined by the algorithm designers and immutable. If the designed reward function fails to capture all aspects of the agents operational environment, undesired behavior will occur when the agent fails to optimize the true reward function and therefore express indifference to potentially dangerous, unseen scenarios. In the context of autonomous ground vehicles (AGV), consider an AGV which has been optimized in a wooded, off road environment described by a representative reward function. If the AGV is placed in a different environment such as an urban area, the original reward function will fail to accurately describe the desired behavior due to the presence of new terrain features, leading to potentially dangerous behavior. When an agent encounters features never seen before during training, how can an agent respond to these features? In these potentially dangerous scenarios (edge cases), an agents behavior should be risk adverse to decrease the chance of total system or mission failure. This research explores the development of a risk adverse AGV by expressing uncertainty in the designed reward function by considering all possible reward functions that satisfy the training MDP. A Bayesian method is proposed to infer a reward function from a partially defined reward function based on human demonstrations and a training MDP, which enables risk averse behavior. NOTE: All ECE Graduate Students are ENCOURAGED to join the zoom teleconference. All interested parties are invited to join. Advisor: Dr. Lance Fiondella Committee Members: Dr. Liudong Xing and Dr. Hong Liu, Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth *For further information, please contact Dr. Lance Fiondella via email at lfiondella@umassd.edu.

Department of Biology PhD Proposal Defense by Abhishek Naik

Department of Biology and IMS PhD Proposal Defense Announcement "Impacts of antifouling disturbance on compositional and functional stability of marine biofilms" by Abhishek Naik Advisor Dr. Pia Moisander Associate Professor, Department of Biology, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Committee Members Dr. Mark Silby Associate Professor, Department of Biology, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Dr. Robert Drew Associate Professor, Department of Biology, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Dr. Jackie Collier Associate Professor, School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, Stony Brook University Tuesday, December 15, 2020 1:00 pm via Zoom (zoom information will be sent later)

Charlton College of Business Graduate Program Virtual Information Session

This information session is for any prospective students interested in graduate business programs at UMass Dartmouth. This event will include information on the following programs: - MBA - MS Accounting - MS Finance - MS Healthcare Management - MS Technology Management This is a virtual zoom event designed to answer questions about the various degree and certificate programs.