EXCELSIOR Recognizing Faculty Scholarship in the College of Arts and Sciences Fall 2012

From the Dean

Faculty members in the College of Arts and Sciences are actively engaged in research and various forms of creative and scholarly pursuits. These include publication of books, journal articles, and novels, as well as artistic productions. Excelsior (“ever upward”) is a newsletter devoted to sharing their achievements with the general public. In addition to this publication, the College hosts a periodic Scholars Forum, a public gathering of scholars from the campus and outside, to engage in discussions of topics of general interest.

Roman Sznajder, Professor of Mathematics

On August 19-24, 2012, I participated in the 21st International Symposium on Mathematical Programming (ISMP), which convened in Berlin, Germany. The ISMP is the most important meeting of the mathematical optimization community around the world. It is a triennial event and the sites alternate between Europe and the Americas. The next meeting is planned to take place in Pittsburgh, PA.

This was the most attended event in its history; there were more than 1,700 registered speakers and 21 plenary and semi-plenary lectures, including 5 history of mathematics lectures. There were 40 parallel tracks running three times a day, Monday through Friday. It was a shame that it was impossible to attend all of the sessions one would have liked to

attend. There even were several concurrent sessions with the same name (e.g., conic programming, combinatorial optimization). The “hot” topics at the conference included: variational analysis, implementation and software, conic programming, combinatorial optimization, to name a few. I presented a talk, Complementarity properties of linear transformations on product spaces via Schur complements, in the Complementarity and Variational Inequalities session.

Looking back to the previous (20th) ISMP meeting in Chicago, one can observe a certain paradigm shift. Mathematical Optimization is a rapidly expanding discipline increasingly geared towards various practical applications. These include medical applications such as data mining, radiation therapy, and computer tomography, among others. Nowadays, these applications have solid theoretical foundations.

The afternoon history of math sessions featured several well-known mathematical figures, including Gottfried Leibniz, Leonhard Euler, Carl Weierstrass, and Hermann Minkowski. These were mathematicians either working in Berlin or in some way connected to this city. The greatest interest was in the session describing the work of Konrad Zuse who in May 1941 finalized the invention of the first working, freely programmable machine using Boolean logic and floating-point arithmetic. In 1949, he created the first company which commercially produced computers. The presentation was made by Dr. Horst Zuse, the oldest child of Konrad Zuse, and a computer scientist himself.

I would like to commend the organizers for virtually flawless arrangement of talks, schedule of accompanying events, and very friendly atmosphere.

It is wonderful to see and interact with the top experts in one’s field at one place at the same time! Neither e-mail exchanges nor regular mail are as effective as interpersonal, face-to-face contact. One gets inspired by the enthusiasm and creativity of one’s colleagues and new ideas flow freely. One refreshes old friendships and makes new ones.

Dr. Sznajder is an outstanding scholar and prolific author with numerous publications in prestigious journals. Additionally, he is a regular peer-reviewer for journals in mathematics.

Dr. Fred Mills. Professor, Department of History and Government

Dr. Fred Mills is very prolific scholar. He published seven articles on public policy between March and October 2012. A few of his latest articles are as follows:

Mills, F. A phenomenological approach to psychoprosthetics. Disability & Rehabilitation, 2012; Early Online: 1–7 © 2012 Informa UK, Ltd. ISSN 0963-8288 print/ISSN 1464-5165 online. DOI: 10.3109/09638288.2012.708819

The phenomenology of human embodiment can advance the practitioner’s understanding of the lived human body and in particular, what it means to incorporate a prosthetic device into one’s body. In order for a prosthesis to be incorporated into the lived body of the patient, the prosthesis must arguably be integrated into the body schema. This article uses the phenomenology of Maurice Merleau-Ponty and others to identify three of the necessary conditions of embodiment that determine the body schema: corporeal understanding, transparency and sensorimotor feedback. It then examines the structure of each of these conditions of embodiment and how other artifacts.

Education reform gets high marks in El Salvador. Council on Hemispheric Affairs (March 5, 2012)

After just three years in office, the left of center Farabundo Marti National Liberation (FMLN) Administration of President Mauricio Funes is receiving high marks for its achievements in the area of education reform. A February 2012 national poll by La Prensa Graphica Datos gives Funes a 71.4% approval rating. According to the poll, his Administration’s principle successes include the government provision of uniforms, shoes and supplies to public school children and assistance to low income persons. In order to put these public perceptions and the initial outcomes of the education reforms in perspective, this article analyzes the political context, the state of education back in March 2009, and the philosophy behind the education reform program.

Dr. Kehbuma Langmia. Associate Professor, Department of Communications

Dr. Langmia has several books to his credit. His is an outstanding scholar who continues to raise the bar of excellence in the area of scholarship. A synopsis of some of his recent works is as follows:

The secret weapon of globalization: China’s activities in sub-Saharan Africa. Journal of Third World Studies, Vol. 28 (2), 2011

Of late, we have come to realize that if it is not the West digging up gold, diamonds and elephant tusks from Africa, it is China struggling to maintain its foothold in the continent. These two forces, operating under the banner of globalization of world trade and technology, are now becoming the

replica of Western imperial forces that scrambled for Africa’s natural rich resources before and after the First and Second World Wars. The question that is often asked is who really wants to “help” the struggling continent of Africa compete in the world stage of global politics and development and who is using camouflage to further cripple the continent to its knees? This paper, therefore, seek to unravel this mystery with particular attention on China’s role in the economic, political, and technological development of sub-Saharan Africa and that of its predecessors the European colonizers.

Traditional Cultures and Their Effects on Globalization: An African Perspective (A book chapter in Kirk St. Amant and Bolanle Olaniran’s Globalization and Digital Divide, 2011. Cambria Press, New York.

Traditional cultures have defined and differentiated people over the years. Globalization has helped to offset this diversity by creating more confusion. Indigenous cultures, especially in the developing world, are gradually being eroded by the wind of so-called “global culture.” This global culture, in essence, is a whirlwind that is crushing development and burgeoning traditional modes of expressions, particularly in Africa. For global culture to gain roots in Africa, the theoretical concepts of Africana critical theory and Afrocentricity should be the starting point. Eurocentricity, the dominating conceptual framework, is used time and time again when referring to Africa, and this practice seems to be the issue affecting globalization and digital divide as it relates to Africa. This chapter examines this phenomenon in greater detail by demonstrating the importance and value of local cultures in Africa, and Cameroon in particular, that have been ignored by global technology and how globalization can succeed to address these issues. Dr. George Acquaah, Dean/Professor, College of Arts and Sciences

Dr. Acquaah published the 2nd edition of one his critically acclaimed textbook “Principles of Plant Breeding and Genetics” in summer 2012. The 1st edition was not only translated into Farsi, but was judged by a panel at the world premier Wageningen University in Holland, as the best in its class, after reviewing 13 other books! Translation into Farsi is in progress. Two others of Dr. Acquaah’s seven textbooks are in multiple editions. One of them, “Understanding Biotechnology,” was translated into Chinese.

Dr. Acquaah was also featured in the prestigious International Innovation, a European magazine devoted to disseminating science, research and technology in their fall 2012 issue. The primary topic of the article was an NSF project he co-authored with Dr. Alan Anderson, Assistant Prof of Chemistry at BSU. His talks about his innovative STEMing the TIDE (promoting Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Through Integrated and Diversified Experiences) initiative.

DR. Mario Fenyo, Professor, Department of History and Government

Dr. Fenyo has been a fixture at Bowie State University since 1988. He represents the ethnic diversity of the institution in microcosm, having lived, worked, taught and studied in Europe (Eastern and Western), Africa (Nigeria, Sudan, Namibia), Asia (Korea), the Caribbean (Puerto Rico, Trinidad) and, of course, various regions of the United States. He has served as President of the Association of Third World Studies.

Dr. Fenyo teaches world civilizations, history of the United States, history of Europe and, occasionally, African-American and Latin American history as well. He writes books, essays and articles on a variety of topics, but his favorite ones include the “Third World” (compared), and 20th /21st century East-Central Europe, particularly Hungarian history.

Some of his book length publications include Hitler, Horthy and Hungary (Yale University Press), Literature and Political Change (Philadelphia: American Philosophical

Society). He is also a co-author of PanAfricanism/Caribbean Connections, and Law and Politics at the Grassroots (both

by Universe Inc). He has published about fifty articles, chapters in books and essays, including some on pedagogy. He is best known for the twenty-two monographs he was commissioned to translate (mostly for Columbia University Press and the authors). Professor Abdul Karim Bangura of the African Institute has published a collection of his articles under the title Mario Fenyo on the Third World—a Reader

Dr. Fenyo is collaborating with Ms. R. Bailey (Dept.of Fine and Performing Arts) on an analysis of the life, politics and poetry of the late Puerto Rican patriot Julia de Burgos. He is also working on the application of fractals to the analysis of Ousmane Sembene's (the Senegalese writer and director) novel "God's BIts of Wood" in French.

Prof. Bob Bartlett, Assistant Professor, Department of Fine and Performing Arts

Professor Bob Bartlett, a noted playwright and director, has authored numerous plays that have been performed to audiences at prestigious venues including The Kennedy Center, Active Cultures, and the Edinburgh Fringe Festivals. His play Whales was runner-up winner of the ACTF’s 2011 David Mark Cohen National Playwriting Award and the Mark Twain Prize for Comic Playwriting. The play was also semi-finalist for the 2012 O’Neil Playwright Competition and finalist for the 2011 Kendeda Graduate Playwriting Competition. On October 28th, 2012, he directed the Arhol Fugard play Blood Knot, along with the noted Danny Glover as guest director. It was night to remember!

Bob Bartlett (standing) and Danny Glover in center

Dr. Jie Yan, Associate Professor, Department of Computer Science

Dr. Yan is at the forefront in the field of artificial intelligence. She has two patents to her credit. She is interested in facilitating student learning through the use of animated pedagogical agents to engage students. One of her current projects is on the development a life-like animated virtual tutor embedded learning module. She presented her work to an audience of her peers in July in Nevada: Yan, J., Agada, R., Life-Like Animated Virtual Tutor Embedded Learning Module, in the proceeding of The 2012 international conference on E-Learning, E-Business, Enterprise Information Systems, and E-Government, July 16-19,

Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, 2012, Page(s):225 – 228 In recent years, converging evidence indicates that learning gains can be achieved by designing computer programs that use pedagogical agents that foster social agency. Research has shown that learning programs with well-designed animated pedagogical agents engage and motivate students, produce greater reported satisfaction and enjoyment by students, and produce greater learning gains than programs without these agents. We believe that comprehension of speech produced by a lifelike computer character with accurate visual speech and simultaneous expressive head and face movements will produce better comprehension and learning than listening to the auditory message alone. In this research, in order to engage students in their learning experience, a life-like animated virtual tutor enhanced learning module that controls learning interactions with students was presented. This module is designed to present scientific lectures to students in optimal ways through narrated animations and to provide interactive support to students as they learn science expositions, and to assess and train comprehension through question-answer dialogs

with a life-like animated virtual tutor. Results show that animated virtual tutor with life-like facial expressions and head movements has great impact on student’s impressions and engagement in the learning process. “Strive To Succeed, Not Because Of, But In Spite Of”…George Acquaah