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Learning with Less Effort: Efficient Training and Generalization in (Multi-)Robot Systems
No full textMulti-robot systems are becoming essential in applications ranging from warehouse automation to search and rescue, offering advantages in speed, coverage, and capability compared to single robots. However, getting multiple robots to learn and coordinate effectively remains challenging --- training robots to work together requires extensive effort and often fails to generalize beyond training conditions. This dissertation addresses two fundamental challenges in multi-robot learning: reducing the training effort required and improving generalization to reduce policy retraining. First, we propose methods to leverage more easily obtainable data to facilitate the learning --- using human-drawn sketches as an alternative to costly teleoperated demonstrations for manipulation tasks, and utilizing individual robot demonstrations instead of harder-to-obtain joint multi-robot demonstrations for learning collaborative behaviors. Second, we develop techniques to help learned policies adapt to new scenarios without retraining --- introducing frameworks that maintain coordination under different observation conditions and enable effective information sharing across varying initial state distributions. Building on these completed works, we propose to tackle zero-shot coordination with new teammates and generalization to diverse opponent strategies, aiming to create multi-robot systems that can quickly adapt to new partners and adversaries without extensive retraining
Designing Multimodal Touchscreen Interactions For Accessible Data Visualization Supporting Blind Users
No full textData visualization can be a democratizing force for providing advanced data analysis tools and capabilities to everyday users. However, data visualization also creates barriers for blind and low-vision (BLV) individuals, a fact that has long been recognized in the accessibility research community. Assistive technologies such as tactile graphics, data sonification (using audio to convey data), and refreshable tactile displays (RTDs) can be utilized to lower the accessibility barriers to data visualization. Yet it is only recently that visualization research has realized this fact. Since this realization, there have been various efforts from the visualization community, such as data-centric alt-text, accessible tables, and richer screen reader experiences. However, the visualization community, which arguably is best poised to tackle these challenges, has so far only scratched the surface of creating rich human-data interactions for blind individuals.
Commercial touchscreen devices such as smartphones and tablets now have in-built accessibility features, and are thus increasingly being adopted by blind individuals. These devices are also well-suited to support direct data manipulation through touch interactions. I adopted a mixed-methods approach to design multimodal (audio and haptic) chart representations and interactions that leverage such touchscreen devices by conducting four studies.
The first study involved semi-structured interviews with Ten Orientation and Mobility (O&M) experts who train BLV individuals in non-visual navigation and spatial understanding. The goal was to derive design principles for effective non-visual data interaction. Findings emphasized the usefulness of crossmodal sensory substitution (CMSS)—a strategy where tactile interactions are paired with sonification to enhance spatial awareness. Participants highlighted that BLV individuals have diverse preferences for sensory modalities, necessitating personalized multimodal experiences that cater to different skill levels and cognitive strategies. These insights informed the design of an accessible data visualization system.
The second study explored the lived experiences of BLV professionals in data-related fields through a two-step online survey. Responses from BLV individuals engaged in data analysis revealed persistent accessibility barriers at multiple stages of the data workflow—including data loading, transformation, analysis, and visualization authoring. Despite expertise in programming (e.g., Python, R, and SAS) and GUI-based tools (e.g., Excel), participants reported substantial reliance on assistive technologies, often requiring sighted colleagues’ assistance to interpret visualizations. These findings highlight the need for “born accessible” tools that allow independent and efficient data exploration without requiring external support.
The third study introduces TactualPlot, a multimodal data interaction system that leverages CMSS principles to enable blind users to explore data through touch and sound on touchscreen devices. TactualPlot was developed through an iterative participatory design process involving a blind collaborator who provided feedback on early prototypes. The system supports scatter- plots, bar charts, line graphs, and pie charts, allowing users to explore data through multi-fingertouch gestures combined with audio cues and spatial feedback. Unlike traditional sonification approaches, TactualPlot employs direct touch interactions (similar to tactile exploration) to guide users through high-level data trends before enabling deeper exploration.
The final study presents an empirical evaluation comparing TactualPlot to other accessibility solutions, including screen readers (Olli) and refreshable tactile displays (Monarch). Ten blind participants, recruited from blind individuals working in data-intensive fields, performed data analysis tasks of varying complexity across multiple visualization types. The study assessed task correctness, completion times, and user preferences, revealing that hybrid approaches combining touch and sound were preferred over uni-modal (audio-only or tactile-only) solutions. Novel multi-line braille displays such as the Monarch offer features that can combine both touch- screen interactions and haptic feedback. To better understand how blind individuals can create charts for and use RTDs in the future, I also conducted a 3-hour long co-design session with a blind participant, providing insights into how blind users conceptualize and create tactile-basedcharts
DETERMINING THE NECESSITY OF PAIR-RULE CIS-REGULATORY ELEMENTS IN DROSOPHILA MELANOGASTER
No full textIn Drosophila, the regulation of pair-rule genes such as eve involves distinct cis-regulatory elements, including stripe-specific and seven-stripe CREs, which operate in a time and space-dependent manner. To investigate the role of these CREs, I used CRISPR/Cas9 to precisely delete the respective CREs. My results demonstrate that the loss of the eve stripe 2 CRE can be compensated by seven-stripe CREs, despite these elements being controlled by different transcription factors at varying developmental stages. It also does not prevent stripe formation, indicating that seven-stripe CREs can independently drive stripe initiation. Deletion of the eve Late element, which drives seven-stripe expression, results in reduced intensity of stripe expression, particularly in stripes 2, 4, and 5, showing that seven-stripe CREs are crucial for maintaining expression through later developmental stages. These findings suggest that stripe-specific and seven-stripe CREs function coordinately to ensure precise pair-rule gene expression, emphasizing the evolutionary flexibility of cis-regulatory networks
Measurements of boulders ejected in the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) impact
No full textThe data consist of two machine readable tables, with headers that describe the format of the data. The positions table lists the X and Y (row and column) pixel where the boulder is observed in each image where it is detected. The photometry table gives the brightness (irradiance) of a boulder in a 3-pixel radius in each image where it is measured, along with the uncertainty in that measurement. The brightness is normalized to a spacecraft range of 57.63 km (the LICIACue close approach distance).This data collection contains tables that provide measurements of the positions and brightnesses of meter-sized boulders that were ejected when the Double Asteroid Impact Test (DART) spacecraft crashed into Dimorphos, the moon of asteroid (65803) Didymos on September 26, 2022. The measurements come from the LICIACube Unit Key Explorer (LUKE) instrument on board the LICIACube spacecraft that flew by the Didymos system about 3 minutes after the impact event. The positions table provides the pixel locations of each boulder in the images where it was detected, while the photometry table gives the brightness for each boulder in each of the images where it was measured.This study was supported in part by the DART mission, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) contract No. 80MSFC20D0004 to JHU/APL
Eastport and Pine Street Adaptation Report Cards
No full textThis community-level resilience report card examines the preparedness of the Eastport neighborhood in Annapolis, MD to threats like severe weather and flooding. After surveying community members to identify priority concerns in the neighborhood, indicators to assess threats and resilience around those concerns were selected to give the community a preparedness score. This report card recommends individual and community-wide actions that can reduce vulnerability in areas of concern.https://ian.umces.edu/site/assets/files/32740/eastports-preparedness-for-extreme-weather.pd
Foundational Science in Flight: USGS Bird Programs Support Conservation, Culture, and a Thriving U.S. Economy
No full textBirds are vital to our economy, ecosystems, and cultural heritage. Investing in bird conservation benefits communities, businesses, and working lands while reinforcing our nation’s legacy of stewardship and biodiversity. By valuing birds, we ensure a richer, healthier, and more vibrant future for all Americans. The USGS leads two national bird monitoring programs Thriving bird populations contribute over 90 billion in labor-related income. Across our nation, Federal and State wildlife agencies, Flyway Councils, non-governmental organizations, and more consider data from the U.S. Geological Survey’s (USGS) Bird Banding Laboratory (BBL) and Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) to be critical to meeting their mandates to set healthy harvest levels and in identifying species of conservation need. However, without stable and sufficient resources for the BBL and BBS, the capacity to monitor and address the rapidly evolving needs of migratory bird populations is at risk, jeopardizing the foundation of collaborative conservation efforts across North America.https://ian.umces.edu/site/assets/files/32362/foundational-science-in-flight-usgs-bird-programs-support-conservation-culture-and-a-thriving-u-s-economy.pd
Brain bases of real-time social interaction: A meta-analytic investigation of human neuroimaging studies
No full textINTRODUCTION: Social interactions play a central role in shaping brain function, but neuroscientific research on interactive social behavior has been limited by the restrictions of brain imaging environments. Although a growing body of neuroimaging research situates participants in real-time social interactive contexts, questions remain about the brain systems critical for understanding social interaction. This study addresses three primary
questions: 1) Is there a common network of brain regions that underlies diverse forms of social interaction? 2) Are there dissociable brain systems that contribute to different aspects of social interactive behavior? 3) What are the brain networks and cognitive functions associated with the socially interactive brain?
METHODS: We implemented a systematic search of the human neuroimaging literature to find studies involving social interaction – participants were socially engaged and interacted with perceived social partners in real-time – that contrasted against non-socially interactive control conditions. We used coordinate-based meta-analysis (CBMA) of 108 studies to elucidate common social interaction brain regions. We further analyzed subsets of studies to probe social engagement with a human (versus non-human) partner, interactive (versus non-interactive) social contexts, and reciprocal initiating (participant elicits a response from a partner) and responding (to partners actions). Finally, we used the Brainmap and Neurosynth databases to conduct meta-analytic coactivation modeling (MACM) and functional decoding to better characterize the neurocognitive systems associated with social interaction.
RESULTS: The overarching CBMA uncovered significant convergence in ten brain areas that cut across different large-scale brain networks. Follow-up analyses suggest that regions of the reward system contribute to perceived social engagement, regions of the ventral attention network are associated with reciprocal interaction, and partially dissociable brain systems relate to initiating and responding behaviors. MACM and functional decoding results suggest that 3-4 overlapping neurocognitive systems underlie social interaction: default mode network (temporoparietal junction, medial prefrontal cortex, precuneus, and cerebellum); lateral frontoparietal regions associated with cognitive control processes; and intermediary midcingulo-insular areas that are associated with reward and emotion.
DISCUSSION: The current study used a data-driven investigation of the neuroimaging literature to advance our understanding of the neural and cognitive systems critical for human social interaction. Our findings suggest that the myriad forms of social interaction may be subserved by a common network of brain areas that traverse multiple neurocognitive systems and adds support to emerging theories proposing the centrality of social interaction in human brain function.https://doi.org/10.52294/001c.13833
Radio Occultation Web Page Development
No full textThese slides were presented on 19 August 2025 by Leo Wang and Emily Xinran Ma at the 2025 CISESS Summer Internship Presentations held at the Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center (ESSIC) located at 5825 University Research Court, Suite 4001, University of Maryland in College Park, Maryland.This presentation was shared at the in-person conference of the 2025 CISESS Summer Internship Program held on 19 August 2025. The slides were presented by Leo Wang, an undergraduate student at the University of Maryland, and Emily Xinran Ma, a student at River Hill High School, under the mentorship of Xinjia Zhou (NOAA), Xi Shao (CISESS/UMD), and Guojun Gu (CISESS/UMD), and Yong Chen (NOAA). This presentation showcased the newly added features to the NOAA STAR Global Navigation Satellite System Radio Occultation (GNSS-RO) webpage. This included improvements to Integrated Calibration/Validation System (ICVS) page routing, multi-graph view functionality for ICVS pages, the addition of a monthly mean humidity anomaly page, and compiled product download statistics (such as user location, popular products, and downloads over time). The major feature highlighted was the creation of the Ground Tracker application, a web-based tool for plotting and interacting with large quantities of GNSS-RO profiles. The work done during this internship ensures that the Radio Occultation webpage remains a reliable source for accessing NOAA STAR GNSS-RO datasets and extends the page with new functionality to provide users with better tooling.This study was supported by NOAA grant NA24NESX432C0001 (Cooperative Institute for Satellite Earth System Studies - CISESS) at the University of Maryland/ESSIC
Reporte de salud de 1925 sobre la bahÃa de Chesapeake
No full textEl Reporte de Salud de la bahÃa de Chesapeake de 1925 se elaboró ​​para celebrar el centenario de la UMCES. Inspirado en el diseño de la década de 1920, este informe ofrece una visión de cómo habrÃa sido un Reporte de salud sobre la bahÃa de Chesapeake en 1925, cuando se fundó la UMCES. El estado de la bahÃa en 1925 no es una evaluación cientÃfica precisa, sino una estimación basada en opiniones fundamentadas, y generalizaciones históricas generales. El documento pretende destacar la historia de la región, incluyendo la fundación del Laboratorio Biológico de Chesapeake por el Dr. Reginald Truitt, y mostrar cómo han cambiado las cosas para la bahÃa de Chesapeake y su cuenca hidrográfica en los últimos 100 años.https://ian.umces.edu/site/assets/files/32681/reporte-de-salud-de-1925-sobre-la-bahia-de-chesapeake.pd
The Effect of the zwf Gene on Bacteriophage Replication
No full textViruses rely on host cell metabolism to replicate efficiently. The zwf gene encodes glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase, which drives the pentose phosphate pathway to produce NADPH and ribose-5-phosphate for growth and nucleotide synthesis. Disrupting zwf can alter bacterial metabolism and phage replication. Investigating the role of the zwf gene has important implications for cancer research and for phage therapy, which uses bacteriophages to target antibiotic-resistant bacteria. The objective of this project is to determine how deletion of the zwf gene in E. coli affects bacteriophage replication under nutrient-rich and nutrient-limited conditions. We hypothesized that loss of zwf would reduce phage replication by limiting NADPH and ribose-5-phosphate needed for nucleotide synthesis and redox balance.
We used a parent E. coli strain and a zwf knockout strain grown in LB media and M9 minimal media. Growth rates were compared by measuring absorbance at OD600 using a spectrophotometer. Both strains were infected with T2 bacteriophage. Samples were centrifuged at different time points, and supernatants were used to compare the efficiency of replication. T2 phage was used in serial dilutions to plate double-agar overlay assays that produce plaques indicating cell lysis.
The zwf knockout and parent strain showed similar growth in nutrient-rich conditions and similar lysis curves across all phage treatments, indicating that zwf is non-essential for growth and does not significantly affect lysis rate. Plaque assays indicated reduced plaque formation in the zwf knockout, suggesting decreased phage replication efficiency. This finding is novel and broadens the understanding of how host metabolism affects viral replication.
Future research should further analyze NADPH levels and the role of metabolic pathways in bacteriophage replication. This work provides insight into how bacterial metabolic pathways shape phage replication and may help guide the selection of metabolically resilient phages for phage therapy