Government Job and Internship Fair

Penn State Harrisburg’s Career Services office is hosting a Federal, State and Local Government Job and Internship Mini-Fair, Thursday, March 1, 2012, in the Olmsted Building. The event takes place from 10 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. in the Gallery Lounge.

Participating Organizations
AES / PHEAA
AOPC
Board of Probation and Parole
Bureau of Disability Determination
Bureau of Juvenile Justice -South Mountain Secure Treatment Unit
Cumberland County Juvenile Probation Office
Dauphin County Personnel
Department of Agriculture
Department of Conservation and Natural Resources
Department of Corrections
Department of Environmental Protection - Human Resources
Department of Labor & Industry
Department of Transportation
Harrisburg Semester Internship and Seminar Program - PSU
Letterkenny Army Depot
NAVSUP
NAVSUP- Bus. Enterprise
Office of Administration, Budget
Office of Administration, Office of Information Technology
Pennsylvania Capitol Police
Pennsylvania House of Representatives Archives
Pennsylvania House of Rep., Bipartisan Management Committee
Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission
Pennsylvania State Police
State Civil Service Commission
Victim Services of Cumberland County

2012 Penn State Harrisburg Programming Competition Results

The results of the 2012 Penn State Harrisburg Programming Competition are in. Thirty-five students participated in the contest, attempting to solve as many problems as possible in two hours. The problem set consisted of five challenging problems, and the solutions had to produce an exact copy of the expected output for a large number of tests, subject to constraints on running time, memory use, and coding standards.

The first place finishers in each category will receive a $100 prize, with a $50 prize for second place, and a $25 prize for third place. The top three finishers for the two categories are as follows:

Undergraduate Students
First Place: John Seaman
Second Place: Armand Soulliard
Third Place: Sylar Jesse

Graduate Students
First Place: Jason Long
Second Place: Yi Deng
Third Place: Christopher Jackson

In the Undergraduate Student category, the second and third place finishes were very close. Armand Soulliard and Skylar Jesse both answered the same number of questions correctly, with the tie being broken only by the total time taken to answer the questions.

In the Graduate Student category, there was a three-way tie for second place that had to be broken by the total submission time. Yi Deng, Christopher Jackson, and Allen Brubaker all answered the same number of questions correctly.

In a very impressive showing, Jason Long, the first-place graduate student, answered all questions with 15 minutes left in the competition.

Penn State Harrisburg Students Speak at the Moravian College Student Mathematics Conference

On Saturday February 18, several members of the Penn State Harrisburg Math Club, along with Dr. Boman and Dr. Walker, attended the Moravian College Student Mathematics Conference. The keynote speaker, Laura Taalman, gave a talk on the many mathematical problems regarding the design of sudoku puzzles and their many related variants. A variety of talks by students across the region were given over the morning and afternoon. One of the concluding presentations was given by Penn State Harrisburg students Joe Roberge, Tyler Brown, and Siddharth Dahiya, who spoke on their ongoing work in mapping out the dependencies of Euclid’s The Elements and creating a graphical utility to display this structure.

More pictures from the event are available at the PSH Math and Computer Science Facebook Page.

Penn State Harrisburg Forming Teams for the Dickinson Programming Competition

Penn State Harrisburg will be sending two (or if there is room three) teams to the Dickinson Programming Contest on Saturday March 24th, 2012. If you are interested in competing, please send an email to Dr. Blum as soon as possible.

Contest Details

Date: Saturday March 24th, 2012

Time: 11:00am - 5:30pm

Prizes: Individual and Team prizes for the top 3 teams.

Location: Tome Hall
Dickinson College
Carlisle, PA 17013

Directions: http://www.dickinson.edu/academics/programs/mathematics-and-computer-science/content/Driving-Directions/

Parking: There is parking behind Tome Hall and also directly across the street. There is also limited on street parking available. The lots indicate faculty parking only. However, this restriction is not enforced on weekends.

OS: Macintosh OS X (10.6.8)

Languages:
C/C++ (i686-apple-darwin10-gcc-4.2.1)
Java (1.6.0_22)

Editors:
emacs (22.1.1)
pico/nano (2.0.6)
vi/vim (7.2.108)
Xcode (3.2.6)
TextEdit (1.6)
BlueJ (2.5.3)
Eclipse (3.5.2)

Reference:
Students may use any printed references that they bring with them.
In addition teams will be permitted to access the following web sites:
http://download.oracle.com/javase/6/docs/api/index.html
www.cppreference.com
www.cplusplus.com/reference/

Schedule:
11:00-11:30 Registration
11:30-12:15 Introduction & Practice Problem
12:15-1:00 Lunch (Food & Beverage Provided)
1:00-5:00 Contest
5:30 Awards

Penn State Harrisburg Hosts MATHCOUNTS

On February 4th, Penn State Harrisburg hosted students from 16 area schools for the 28th annual MATHCOUNTS competition. The competition is part of a nationwide program that each year challenges more than 500,000 sixth, seventh, and eight-grade students. MATHCOUNTS builds mathematics skills, promotes strategic problem solving, and instructs students in dealing with complex problems. The regional event is administered by the Harrisburg Chapter of the Society of Professional Engineers, and spurs interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM)-related careers.

Pictured above Penn State Harrisburg Math and CS student volunteers who helped make MATHCOUNTS a success: Beverly Brown, Siddharth Dahiya, Tyler Derr, Viplav Patel, and Joseph Roberge.

Career Fair/Interviewing Tips and Federal Internships Workshops

Career Fair Preview And Interviewing Tips
Tues. Feb. 7, 4:30 – 5:20 pm, Lib 304

Ever been to a Career Fair?
Any idea what it will be like or what you should bring?
How do you introduce yourself to a recruiter?

Career Services is offering a brief workshop to help you do your best and prepare for the upcoming Job and Intern Fairs.

For more information, see the Career Calendar at:
http://harrisburg.psu.edu/calendar/event/career-fair-preview-and-preparation

________________________________________

Finding Federal Internships
Wednesday, Feb. 8 at 5:00 p.m. Room E308 Olmsted

This webinar will highlight a number of exciting positions across government, and show you how to research, find and apply for a federal internship that’s right for you.

All majors! All student levels! Everyone can attend!

Check the listing on the Career Services calendar at:
http://harrisburg.psu.edu/calendar/event/finding-federal-internships-webinar

NOTE: Some federal internships have early application deadlines! Don’t delay! Attend this session to learn about various public service options and how to make the most of your federal application.

For further information and to indicate your plans to attend, please contact PSH Career Services, Susquehanna Bldg., 948-6260 or cmg11@psu.edu.

Job/Intern Fairs in February -- Don't miss these opportunities to connect with employers/recruiters!

PSU Spring Career Days (over 250 companies)

Computer and Information Technology, Engineering, Health and Life Sciences, Physical Sciences, and Research Career Day
www.fairs.sa.psu.edu/spring
Tuesday, February 7, 11:00 a.m.-4:00 p.m.
Bryce Jordan Center, University Park
No pre-registration is required; bring your Penn State University Student ID for faster registration at the fair! Enter the BJC through gates A or B.

---

PSH Co-sponsored Fairs

Cumberland Valley Consortium (CVC) Job and Internship Fair (over 50 companies) --www.cumberlandvalleyconsortium.com
Wednesday, February 8, 10:00 a.m.-3:00 p.m.
Holiday Inn Conference Center, Frederick, MD

Central Pennsylvania Employment Consortium (CPEC) Job and Internship Fair (over 70 companies) -- www.cpec.info
Thursday, February 16, 10:00 a.m.-3:00 p.m.
Radisson Penn Harris Hotel and Convention Center, Camp Hill, PA

You are not required to pre-register for the CVC and CPEC Fairs, however if you would like to receive a "Helpful Hints" handout to better prepare for the fairs, send an email to Colleen Monismith at cmg11@psu.edu or call 717-948-6260.
Include the following in your email --
• Your full name
• Which of the fairs your are registering for -- CVC, CPEC or Both
• Your major
• Your email address
• Your classification -- freshman, sophomore, junior, senior, or graduate student.

2012 Penn State Harrisburg Programming Competition

The 2012 Penn State Harrisburg Programming Contest will be held on Friday, February 24th, from 4:00-6:00 pm. The contest is open to all current Penn State Harrisburg undergraduate and graduate students.

Thanks to the School of Science, Engineering and Technology, there will be $350 in prizes! The first place undergraduate student and first place graduate student will receive $100 each. The second place undergraduate student and second place graduate student will receive $50 each. The third place undergraduate student and third place graduate student will receive $25 each.

There is no cost to participate, but advance registration is required. The registration deadline is Wednesday, February 22nd.

For more details, visit the contest website at: http://cs.hbg.psu.edu/contest.html.

Sun Lab Refrigerator

Welcome back everyone. At the end of last semester the ACM Club was able to procure a refrigerator for the Sun Labs to sell sodas to raise funds for the ACM. As of today the fridge is stocked! All sodas are 50¢. If we are getting low please let Amanda Minner know so she can restock. Her email address is alw5099 (at) psu (dot) edu.

ACM Club Visits Silicon Valley

Over Thanksgiving break, the ACM club visited Sillicon Valley. Their trip included tours of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the Intel Museum, and Google, among others. Pictures from the trip are available on the Math and CS program Facebook page.

Bulgarian Solitaire & Garden of Eden Partitions

You are invited to the following talk, sponsored by the Math Club.

Title: Bulgarian Solitaire & Garden of Eden Partitions
Speaker: Dr. James Sellers
Date/Time: Thursday, December 1, 6-7 pm
Location: TL 128, Science and Technology Building, Penn State Harrisburg

We consider a game closely related to partitions known as Bulgarian Solitaire which was popularized in the early 1980s in Scientific American by Martin Gardner. We will briefly discuss a few results proven about this game around the time of the appearance of Gardner's article. We will then quickly turn to a question recently posed by Brian Hopkins and Michael Jones about finding an exact formula for the number of Garden of Eden partitions (which are closely associated with Bulgarian solitaire and which I will define in the talk). I will prove such an exact formula which was developed a few years ago when I first met Brian Hopkins and learned of this problem. The talk will be completely self-contained and the proof of the main result will follow in an elementary fashion from Dyson's generating function for the number of partitions of n with fixed rank r.

Accessible to a wide ranging audience, from undergraduate students to faculty members.

The Dirichlet Problem for Various Types of Boundaries and Boundary Data

Presented by: Dr. Ronald Walker, Assistant Professor of Mathematics

Date/Time: Thursday, November 17, 2011, 12:00 to 1:00 PM
Location: W212 Olmsted

All faculty and students are invited!
We look forward to see you…
Light sandwiches & refreshments will be served.

Abstract: The Dirichlet problem is a classic boundary value problem in partial differential equations. Given continuous boundary data, Dirichlet solutions are guaranteed to exist and to be unique for a broad class of domains. Also it is known that if the domain is the unit disk (or more generally an ellipse), then polynomial boundary data will yield polynomial Dirichlet solutions. In this talk, we will explore several generalizations and variations of this latter result, such as cases where the boundary data is rational or entire, or over other domains.

Faculty Seminar Series: Computer Security Threats to Critical Infrastructure

You are invited to attend the following seminar.

Title: Computer Security Threats to Critical Infrastructure
Speaker: Dr. Jeremy Blum
Date/Time: Wednesday, Nov. 16, 12:00-1:30
Location: Gallery Lounge, Olmsted Building, Penn State Harrisburg

Synopsis:

Computer security attacks against critical infrastructure present a significant and growing global threat. This talk will focus in particular on the threats to the nation's power grid. Using anecdotal evidence and recent survey data, this talk will begin by providing an overview of the current threat landscape. Then, the talk will present current research at Penn State Harrisburg on the development of honeypot systems to mitigate the threat of computer security attacks on substation automation equipment.

Penn State Harrisburg Team Places Third in Site at ACM Regional Programming Contest

Penn State Harrisburg students Christopher Jackson, Jason Jones, and John Seaman placed third in site at the Shippensburg University site of the ACM Regional Programming Contest. Their team, Super Mega Death Worm, competed against more than 20 teams, including from as far away as Washington and Lee in Virginia. Congratulations!

If you are interested in participating in future programming contests, please let Dr. Blum know. Penn State Harrisburg will be holding an individual programming contest and will be sending teams to the Dickinson College contest in the Spring.

IEEEXtreme Programming Contest Recap

Penn State Harrisburg hosted 14 students on five teams competing in the IEEEXtreme 24-hour programming contest. This year more than 4000 undergraduate and graduate students participated in this world-wide contest, held from 8pm (EDT) Friday October 21 until 8 pm Saturday.

Dickinson College sent one team, called TUX, and Penn State Harrisburg (PSH) fielded four teams. The PSH teams included:

• goto made up of David Sagang and Manik Sinha
  
• PSH1 made up of Siddharth Dahiya, Amanda Minner, and Mandeep Singh
  
• SuperMegaDeathWorm made up of Christopher Jackson, Jason Jones, and John Seaman
  
• Voraciously Boolean made up of Tyler Derr, Viplav Patel, and Brad Steinbacher
  

Despite the grueling nature of the contest, students enjoyed the challenge and the camaraderie. You can see photos from the contest on the PSH Math and CompSci Facebook page.

Congratulations go out to all participants who successfully competed in this grueling contest. Special congratulations to Christopher Jackson, Jason Jones, and John Seaman for coming in first out of all of the PSH teams. In addition, David Sagang, Manik Sinha, and Mandeep Singh deserve endurance awards for staying awake throughout the entire contest.

Special thanks to the IEEE Susquehanna Section for providing food for participants, the Math and Computer Science program at PSH for allowing use of their labs, and Prof. Julie Lobur for proctoring the contest during the graveyard shift.