An Introduction and Orientation to Faculty Projects & Interests

1. An Introduction and Orientation to Faculty Projects & Interests Department of Computing Sciences September 19, 2011

2. Overview • Faculty are full-time and part-time members • Interests range from theoretical foundations to practical applications • Some research is sponsored – funding for assistantships sometimes available • Actively seeking external sponsorship and partnership • Interdisciplinary research promoted

3. Examples of Funded Projects • LIKES (Beck) • Ensemble (Cassel) • Distributed Expertise (Cassel, Way) • Proximity Structures (Damian) • SHAPE (Gehlot, Way) • ViCS: The Sequel (Beck, Klassner) • Robotics and Embedded Programming (Peyton-Jones, Klassner) • Databases for Many Majors: A Student-Centered Approach (Goelman)

4. Grand Challenges of Computing CSC 9025

5. What is the “Grand Challenges of Computing” course? • CSC 9025 - Replaces old CSC 9020 “Independent Study” • Mandatory for graduate students • Conduct independent research under guidance of a faculty advisor • Encouraged to tackle topics in our discipline that interest you AND your advisor • Intended for completion in a single semester • Extension to second semester possible • Keep your eyes open for interesting topics!

6. Research Topics and Projects Sampler

7. Research Topics (1) • Programming languages and systems control for Mindstorm robots.

8. Research Topics (2) • Contexts for optimum web search strategies.

9. Research Topics (3) • Algorithm taxonomy: examples from traditional games.

10. Research Topics (4) • Web site taxonomy and focused design principles.

11. Research Topics (5) • Packing spheres into an ellipsoid: heuristic search strategies.

12. Research Topics (6) • Code optimization: 20Kb vs. 20Mb program space.

13. Research Topics (6) • Non-visual interfaces.

14. Research Topics (7) • Virtual reality in interdisciplinary projects.

15. Research Topics (8) • Web services: development, description, deployment.

16. Research Topics (9) • Constructing and maintaining wireless network topologies.

17. Research Topics (10) • Folding and unfolding polyhedra.

18. Research Topics (11) • Programming games and applications for the Droid, iPhone and iPod Touch.

19. Dr. Robert Beck Projects

20. Packing Problems Pack n equally sized spheres into the unit sphere and calculate the radius of the small spheres as a function of n. • Alternatively, use an ellipsoid of revolution instead of the unit sphere • Alternatively, solve the problems in two dimensions • Use a heuristic approach • Use a genetic algorithm

21. Program for Website Creation and Evaluation (PCWE) • Funding for non-profit organization website renovation • Requested changes become data • Systematic evaluation against design principles • Automatic measurements

22. Digital Humanities A broad topic with many research threads: • Applications of location awareness—guided tours • Models in social networks—pipelines, agents, transactions • Systems thinking, computational thinking, X thinking • Text as data

23. Dr. Lillian (Boots) Cassel Projects

24. Interests and Projects • Networks • Information Retrieval • Digital Libraries • Image Management • Distributed Expertise (w/ Dr. Way) • Recent projects • NSDL • Ontology • CPATH

25. NSDL overview Users - Students, Faculty - K-12 - Undergraduate, Graduate - Researchers - Librarians - Anyone interested in STEM Resources, Services Feedback, AskNSDL, Annotations Standards, Services Feedback, Funds Contributors - Publishers - Universities - Libraries & Museums - Government - Corporations - Anyone interested in DLs • Sponsors/Funders • - Government / Legislative • - Corporations • Foundations • Anyone interested in NSDL Information Resources, Services Stakeholders NSDL • NSF • - Fund and set direction • - Outreach & communications to stakeholders • Projects Pathways • - Provide resources, - Provide user services, • services, research content stewardship • Core Integration • Integrate Projects • Partner with Pathways • Operations • Outreach & communications • Policy Committee NVC • - Represent community - Strategic advice • Prioritize issues with CI to NSF and CI • Standing Committees • - Content, Evaluation, Sustainability, Technology • - Coordinate/engage community FUND BUILD ADVISE

26. Ensemble • The Pathway for Computing Education • Broadening the role to encompass all that a modern library is • Repository • Preservation center • Meeting place for project teams • Place to think, explore ideas, browse …

27. The Components and the Issues • Fedora repository • Drupal front end • Federated search • Group work support • Merged calendars • Fine grained access • More…

28. The Computing Ontology • A comprehensive representation of all of the computing discipline(s) • All relevant terms and the relationships between and among them • Applications • Curriculum development • Curriculum description • Research classification • Browsing the field as a whole

29. An example of a small section of the ontology for use in demonstrating the place of “hashing” in many areas of computing.

30. Dr. Mirela Damian Projects

31. Research Area: Ad Hoc Wireless Networks Omnidirectional Topology Control A A B B Topology Control: reduce overall power consumption and interference while maintaining network connectivity.

32. Research Topic: Smart Antennas Directional Topology Control A A B B Energy proportional to the area covered. Benefits: reduced interference, reduced energy consumption.

33. Dr. James Dullea Projects

34. Interests and Projects • Information Management • Data Modeling • Data Warehousing • Data Mining • Information Metrics

35. Dr. William Fleischman Projects

36. Electronic Voting Machines • How is it that five software engineering teams, working independently for five companies, ‘conspired’ to produce, in every case, electronic voting devices that are uniformly prone to malfunction and vulnerable to malicious attack? • Is this a technology that we really need? • Or is it a solution to a non-existent problem?

37. Outreach Activities • Since 1998, we have maintained a collaboration with students and teachers at Julia de Burgos Elementary School in North Philadelphia • Designed to redress some of the obstacles to learning new technologies affecting children from low income neighborhoods • This involvement began with Lance Rougeux, a 1998 graduate and alumnus of my first Ethical Issues class, who began his career as a 6th grade teacher at Julia de Burgos

38. Lance Rougeux

41. Dr. Vijay Gehlot Projects

42. Systems Modeling, Simulation, and Analysis Vijay Gehlot

43. Blood Samples Typing/Matching

44. Blood Samples: Modeling/Computer Science View • Before:[([1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29,30,31,32,33,34,35,36,37,38,39,40,41,42,43,44,45,46,47,48,49,50,51,52,53,54,55,56,57,58,59,60,61,62,63,64,65,66,67,68,69,70,71,72,73,74,75,76,77,78,79,80,81,82,83,84,85,86,87,88,89,90,91,92,93,94,95,96],[])] • After:[([62],[]),([69],[]),([73],[]),([80],[]),([88],[]),([2],[]),([4],[]),([6],[]),([9],[]),([11],[]),([15],[]),([20],[]),([22],[]),([24],[]),([25],[]),([26],[]),([32],[]),([34],[]),([37],[]),([38],[]),([39],[]),([42],[]),([94],[(4,[11,12])]),([95],[(4,[11])]),([96],[(4,[11])]),([84],[(4,[11])]),([83],[(4,[11,12])]),([82],[(4,[12])]),([81],[(4,[12])]),([79],[(4,[11,12])]),([78],[(4,[11])]),([77],[(4,[11])]),([76],[(4,[11])]),([65],[(4,[10,12])]),([64],[(4,[12])]),([63],[(4,[12])]),([61],[(4,[11,12])]),([60],[(4,[12])]),([59],[(4,[11,12])]),([58],[(4,[12])]),([57],[(4,[11])]),([93],[(4,[11])]),([92],[(4,[11])]),([91],[(4,[11])]),([90],[(4,[11])]),([89],[(4,[11,12])]),([87],[(4,[11,12])]),([86],[(4,[11,12])]),([85],[(4,[12])]),([75],[(4,[12])]),([74],[(4,[12])]),([72],[(4,[10])]),([71],[(4,[12])]),([70],[(4,[11,12])]),([68],[(4,[11,12])]),([67],[(4,[11,12])]),([66],[(4,[12])]),([27],[(4,[11,12])]),([23],[(4,[12])]),([21],[(4,[12])]),([19],[(4,[11,12])]),([18],[(4,[12])]),([17],[(4,[11])]),([16],[(4,[11])]),([14],[(4,[12])]),([40],[(4,[11])]),([36],[(4,[11])]),([35],[(4,[11,12])]),([33],[(4,[12])]),([31],[(4,[12])]),([30],[(4,[11])]),([29],[(4,[11])]),([28],[(4,[11])]),([41],[(4,[12])]),([43],[(4,[12])]),([44],[(4,[11,12])]),([53],[(4,[12])]),([54],[(4,[12])]),([55],[(4,[11])]),([56],[(4,[12])]),([13],[(4,[12])]),([12],[(4,[11,12])]),([10],[(4,[12])]),([8],[(4,[11])]),([7],[(4,[11,12])]),([5],[(4,[11])]),([3],[(4,[12])]),([1],[(4,[11,12])]),([45],[(4,[11,12])]),([46],[(4,[11])]),([47],[(3,[9])]),([48],[(4,[11,12])]),([49],[(4,[11,12])]),([50],[(4,[11,12])]),([51],[]),([52],[(3,[9]),(4,[12])])]

45. Model Components

46. Tools and Techniques

47. Dr. Don Goelman Projects

48. Funded Project (NSF DUE): Databases for Many Majors • Collaborative research with Prof. S. Dietrich, Arizona State University • Calendar: March, 2010 – February, 2012 • Curriculum development for database education to diverse majors • Software development: two animations • Advantages of (normalized) database technology over loser (I mean non-normalized) alternatives • Introduction to querying

49. Databases for Many Majors (continued) • Technical issues • Programming in FLASH/FLEX • Customization of the animations to majors • Driven by producers (Goelman/Dietrich) and consumers • XML-based • Rollout of animations at workshop at CCSCE • Home page: http://databasesmanymajors.faculty.asu.edu/

50. Other Interests and Projects • Databases: conceptual modeling • Databases: schema integration • Databases: XML for non-majors • Current Independent Studies • Suseel Baldwa: Object-Relational Databases • Keerthi Chiluka: Distributed Database Systems • Satvik Mandava: Spring-MVC Framework • Krishna Nallamothu: Business Intelligence and Data Warehousing • Ramya Numboori: NOSQL Data Stores