2000 - 2001 AbstractsCPSC 681 Graduate SeminarCSCW: Research Issues and PerspectivesDu Li, CS Dept, Texas A&M University
4:10pm, Monday November 13,2000 AbstractSCW (Computer-Supported Cooperative Work) is relatively a young area. It seeks computer technologies to support effective group activities over the computer networks. Interesting applications include teleconferencing, distant learning and training, collaborative authoring and design, multi-user games, and workflow systems. This interdisciplinary area draws on research results from computer science as well as human computer interaction, sociology, psychology, management, etc. Basic technical issues include process architecture, access control, concurrency control, session management, group awareness, and multi-user interfaces. Due to the essential involvement of human factors, many design tradeoffs are fundamentally different from traditional distributed computing systems. This seminar overviews some basic research issues and trade-offs in the design and implementation of CSCW systems. The speaker will summarize his Ph.D. dissertation work in COCA, a framework for modeling and supporting flexible and adaptable synchronous collaborations. Two research projects being conducted by the speaker will be presented: One is an intelligent object coordination middleware for collaborative work; the other is a collaborative active whiteboard. BiographyDr. Du Li joined the Department of Computer Science, Texas A&M University as an Assistant Professor in the summer of 2000. He received his Ph.D. degree from UCLA in June 2000, his M.S. degree from Peking University (China) in 1995,and his B.S. degree from Wuhan University (China) in 1992, all in Computer Science. His research interests include Collaborative Systems, Internet, Distributed Computing, Middleware, Logic Programming, and Databases. His email address islidu@cs.tamu.edu. His home page is http://www.csdl.tamu.edu/~lidu/. CPSC 681 Graduate SeminarSoftware Project Plan Tracking Intelligent AgentMIKE WU, CS Dept, Texas A&M University
4:10pm, Monday September 25,2000 AbstractSoftware project planning can be one of the most critical activities in the modern software development process. Without a realistic and objective software project plan, the software development process cannot be managed in an effective way. Overruns of one or two hundred percent are common. Some software projects never deliver anything. Managers have difficulty understanding and visualizing the software development process defined in a software project plan. The software project Plan Tracking Intelligent Agent was developed according to a Plan Tracing Knowledge Model to allow the manager to keep track of the software plan component. The Plan Tracking Intelligent Agent uses knowledge elicitation from the manager to define criteria of milestones. The Plan Tracking Intelligent Agent works with the Project Attribute Monitoring and Predicting Associate II (PAMPA II) to store knowledge describing an activity's initial milestone and final milestone. The Plan Tracking Intelligent Agent then uses these activity's criteria along with Facts retrieved from PAMPA II Knowledge Base to compare actual project progress to the planned progress. The resources, tasks, schedules, and milestones of the software project are described in the Knowledge Base. As the software development process evolves, the software development processes are monitored and the Plan Tracking Intelligent Agent uses the Knowledge Base to dynamically report recommendations, suggesting the software development that should be executed to best comply with the software project plan. The Plan Tracking Intelligent Agent help the manager to determine the current phase of the project, identify the critical path, calculate the Earn Value, keep track of the progress, report problems, and suggest problem solutions during software development. The Plan Tracking Agent reports risks and suggests problem solutions to help managers assure that a project is within budget, on time, and to customer satisfaction. BiographyMike Wu received a Bachelor of Science from the Chung-Cheng Institute of technology in 1986 in Taiwan. He graduated from the United States Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT) in 1993 and obtained a master degree in computer science/computer engineering. He was a project manager of the tactical software development team at Northrop Grumman Aerospace Corp. for the E-2C Airborne Early Warning Defense Weapon System in 1995. He is working on his Ph.D. degree at Computer Science Department of TAMU. CPSC 681 Graduate SeminarNetwork Intrusion Detection: Who is Breaking into Computer Systems?Michel Kouadio, CS Dept, Texas A&M University
4:10pm, Monday October 9,2000 AbstractHow many computers are hacked or compromised daily? News of compromised computer systems frequently makes headlines. However, surveys show that most organizations do not know if their systems are being misused or infiltrated, unless there is such obvious evidence as denial of service or web page defacement. How do we know that intruders are attempting or breaking into a system? Can we secure systems even when the main security mechanisms fail? How do we collect evidence of hacker activities for prosecution? In this seminar, I will answer the questions above by introducing the state-of-the-art of Intrusion Detection Technology. Because of its strategic value, security is an enabling technology of many computer and Internet-based initiatives in e-Commerce, military, telemedicine, video-on-demand etc. However, virtually all security mechanisms have flaws or vulnerabilities that may be exploited by people with various motivations. Therefore, detecting system abuse is of the utmost importance for preventing further damages and reinforcing the protection of information systems. In this talk, I will use a tutorial style to review the major intrusion detection techniques, the challenges and research trends, and give an overview of my ongoing work. BiographyMichel Kouadio is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Computer Science at Texas A&M. He is affiliated to the Distributed System Lab and his primary Research Interests include Network Security and Multimedia Networking. Before joining the department, he received a Master in Computer Science in 1996 from Iwate University (Japan) where he also spent one year as Research Student in 1993-94.He completed his Bachelor in Computer Science in 1988 at "Institut Africain d Informatique-Gabon". He worked for a number of years as a System Analyst for some international subsidiaries of the "Bank National of Paris". CPSC 681 Graduate SeminarNetwork Intrusion Detection: Who is Breaking into Computer Systems?David B. Johnson, Department of Computer Science, Rice University
4:10pm, Monday October 16,2000 AbstractIn areas in which there is little or no communication infrastructure or the existing infrastructure is expensive or inconvenient to use, wireless mobile users may still be able to communicate through the formation of an ad hoc network. In such a network, each mobile node operates not only as a host but also as a router, forwarding packets for other mobile nodes that may not be within direct wireless transmission range of each other. The mobile nodes in the network dynamically establish routing among themselves as they move about, forming their own network ``on the fly. ''Some examples of the possible uses of ad hoc networking include supporting students using laptop computers to participate in an interactive lecture, sharing of situational awareness information among soldiers on the battlefield, coordinating between emergency disaster relief personnel after a hurricane or earthquake, or providing inexpensive community-based wireless Internet access. In this talk, I will describe the design and evaluation of a routing protocol we have developed specifically for use in multi-hop wireless ad hoc networks. This protocol, called Dynamic Source Routing (DSR), is unique in its entirely on-demand operation, allowing it to adapt very quickly to routing changes when host movement is frequent, yet requiring little or no overhead during periods in which hosts move less frequently. We have evaluated DSR and compared it against other proposed routing protocols through detailed simulation, through implementation on groups of cars routing among themselves as they drive around, and through realistic emulation of the network to support controlled laboratory experiments. BiographyDavid B. Johnson is an Associate Professor of Computer Science and Electrical and Computer Engineering at Rice University, and is a member of Rice's Computer Systems Laboratory and Center for Multimedia Communication. His research interests include network protocols, distributed systems, and operating systems. He received the B.A. in computer science and mathematical sciences in 1982, the M.S. in computer science in 1985, and the Ph.D. in computer science in1990, from Rice University. Professor Johnson leads the Monarch Project at Rice University and Carnegie Mellon University, developing adaptive networking protocols and architectures to allow truly seamless wireless and mobile networking. Related to this research, He has also been active in the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), the principal protocol standards development body for the Internet, were he was one of the main designers of the IETF Mobile IP protocol for IPv4 and is the primary designer of Mobile IP for IPv6. CPSC 681 Graduate SeminarSMART CARDS AND WIRELESS DATA TRANSMISSIONEric Schoen, Technical Advisor, Austin Technology Center Schlumberger
4:10pm, Monday October 23,2000 AbstractA smart card is a microcomputer containing a processor, volatile and nonvolatile memory, robustly packaged in a credit-card sized carrier. Smart cards communicate with the outside world through physical contacts on their surfaces or by using short-range radio frequency induction links. While early smart cards were used for single purpose applications, such as payphones and parking meters, modern cards support multiple applications; high-end cards have processing power equivalent to a desktop workstation circa 1980, and run applications written in the Java language. Many include specialized hardware for cryptography. Today, smart cards are being used in a variety of applications, including financial transactions, network authentication and security, and digital cellular telephony. In my presentation, I will discuss smart card technology and applications. I will also discuss, in more speculative terms, the future of digital cellular telephony as enabled by smart card technology. CPSC 681 Graduate SeminarComputing CommunitiesPartha Dasgupta, Arizona State University
4:10pm, Monday November 20,2000 AbstractA huge installed base of general-purpose (often-sequential) applications cannot take advantage of the so-called advantages of distributed computing systems (e.g. fault masking, high performance, scalability, distributed scheduling, and so on). However, we have found that applications and operating systems can be augmented with extra functionality by injecting additional middleware into the boundary layer between them, without tampering with their binaries. Using this scheme, we separate the physical resource bindings of the application and replace it with virtual bindings. This is called virtualization. A Computing Community is a group of cooperating machines that behave like a single system and runs all general-purpose applications-without any modifications to the shrink-wrapped binary applications or the operating system. The Community is dynamic, all encompassing, autonomous (yet collaborative) and provides all the facilities that the so-called Distributed Operating Systems were supposed to possess but failed to deliver. We show how such systems can be built without any impact on the installed based of hardware and software, by using a virtualizing Operating System (vOS) residing on top of Windows NT that injects all applications with the virtualizing software. We also discuss some security methodology for handling coalitions of communities. BiographyPartha Dasgupta is on the faculty of the Computer Science and Engineering Department at Arizona State University. He has a Ph.D. in Computer Science from SUNY Stony Brook. His research interests include Distributed Operating Systems, Applied Cryptography, Parallel Processing and Networking. His research projects are funded through DARPA, NSF and corporate donations. CPSC 681 Graduate SeminarTransforming Legacy Energy Management System (EMS) Modules into Reusable Components: A Case StudyDr. Hoh In, CS Dept, TAMU
4:10pm, Monday November 27,2000 BIODr. Hoh In received his Ph.D. in Computer Science at the University of Southern California in 1998; his M.S. in Computer Science at the Korea University in 1992; and his B.S. in Computer Science at Korea University in 1990. His research interests include Engineering, Software Architecture, Software Product Line Engineering, Software Quality Assurance, Software Process Improvement, Software Cost Estimation. His interests also lie in Knowledge-based Software Engineering, Very Large Software Engineering, Agent-based Software Engineering, CSCW (Computer-Supported Cooperative Work). Other interests include Network Security, Multimedia System, Distance Learning, Telemedicine, and Data Mining. Abstract A two-layer adaptive wrapping technique is proposed in this paper to migrate legacy Energy Management System (EMS) modules into reusable components, and therefore transforming the legacy system into a component-based system. Meanwhile, an XML based database wrapping technique is proposed to provide a flexible data exchange solution. These techniques help not only maintaining the reliability but also increasing the reusability of the legacy EMS during the software evolving process. CPSC 681 Graduate SeminarPublic-Key Cryptography Meets Quantum Computing: Why Secret Agencies are Quaking in their BootsWalter C. Daugherity, CS Dept, Texas A&M University
4:10pm, Monday December 4,2000 AbstractPublic-key cryptography (e.g., RSA) is widely used (e.g., by PGP) to protect the privacy of messages, computer files, etc. Its security relies on, among other things, the presumed difficulty of factoring large numbers (on the order of 300 decimal digits, say) using classical computers. However, quantum computing offers the tantalizing prospect of exponentially increasing the speed of computation, by (loosely speaking) using a single quantum computing element to calculate many things "at the same time." Shor's1994 algorithm promises to factor numbers very efficiently, provided of course that an adequate quantum computer can be built to run it on. This seminar will introduce the fundamental ideas of public-key cryptography and how quantum computing provides a means of breaking such codes. BiographyWalter C. Daugherity is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Computer Science at Texas A&M University. He received a bachelor's degree from Oklahoma Christian University, and master's and doctor's degrees from Harvard University. His research interests include fuzzy logic, object-oriented programming, and quantum computing. CPSC 681 Graduate SeminarGraduate Student Forum
> From unmil@cs.tamu.edu Tue Jan 16 12:49:14 2001 Howdy! Welcome back. As all of us get geared up to face a new semester and continue with the graduate program, there are many questions and unknowns. Dr. Zhao will be hosting a Graduate Student Forum to answer any questions you may have about the department or your academic program. This event will be held during the CPSC 681 class hour. The details of the event are:
What: Graduate Student Forum
Hope to see you all there and start racking your brains for any questions you may have.
for CSGSA,
CPSC 681 Graduate SeminarThe Use of XML in System SoftwareJoint seminar with PARASOL Seminar series ( http://parasol.tamu.edu/seminar)Robert Metzger, Hewlett Packard
February 12, 2001 (Monday) AbstractXML is the "Extensible Markup Language". It is a self-describing data format, used for publishing data and exchanging data between applications. It is being adopted in a wide range of application areas. There are many many related standards and tools being developed to work with XML, and it is one of the hottest topics in the web world. This talk will answer the following questions:
BiographyBob Metzger has worked in software development for over 25 years, including work at I.P.Sharp Associates and Convex Computer Corp. His work at Convex produced the first commercially available compiler that performed interprocedural optimizations on multiple languages. He was also awarded a $443,000 grant from DARPA resulting in his most recent publication: Automatic Algorithm Recognition and Replacement: A New Approach to Program Optimization, co-authored with Zhaofang Wen, published by MIT Press, 2000. He is currently a Senior Software Engineer at Hewlett Packard, developing new technologies for analyzing the performance of applications. **Note** Bob Metzger will be presenting a short course on "Debugging by Thinking" this week (Feb 12-16). Details can be found on the PARASOL seminar page: http://parasol.tamu.edu/seminar CPSC 681 Graduate SeminarCplant(tm): World's Largest Linux ClusterDr. Neil Pundit Sandia National Lab February 14, 2001 4:10 p.m. 124 HRBB AbstractCplant(tm) project is aimed at producing a capacity machine for the Dept of Energy's ASCI (Advanced Scientific Computing Initiative) program. It is an MPP cluster with commodity components and Linux operating system. Current size of clusters is under 700 Alpha nodes, soon to be 2000+ nodes, and growing to be 5000+ nodes in 2 years. An overview of the project along with challenges faced and solutions implemented will be described. Neil will briefly mention Sandia's Computer Science Research Institute which fosters university collaboration with funding for students and faculty working with Sandia researchers in Computer and Computational Sciences. BiographyNeil Pundit heads the Scalable Computing Systems Dept at Sandia National Labs, and is a member of the Executive Board of the Computer Science Research Institute. His department has the overall responsibility for Cplant(tm)project (see below). Among his prior assignments before joining Sandia about 2 years ago, Dr. Pundit was with Digital Equipment Corporation (now part of Compaq) for 16 years as Group Engineering Manager, with JPL/Caltech for 6 years where he headed the Orbit Insertion operations for the Viking Mars mission. Dr. Pundit is a recipient of NASA/TRW Lunar Landing Award for the first moon landing in 1969, and NASA/JPL/Caltech Mars Landing Award for the first Mars landing in 1975, and also US Air Force Association's Theodore von Karman award (highest honor in science and engineering) as member of the Viking Flight Team. His technical direction has resulted in 30 software patents, and 2 international awards for innovative applications. CPSC 681 Graduate SeminarShell Series: Compiler Technology and Scientific ComputingDavid Padua, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
4:10pm, Monday February 19, 2001 AbstractScientific computing has always been an important focus for compiler technology, to the point that the first commercial compiler was a Fortran compiler and many of the early optimization techniques were developed to improve the performance loops containing array accesses. Today, powerful compilers are an important part of any development environment for numerical codes. These compilers usually generate very good code that can take advantage of the capabilities of the most powerful processors. Although much has been achieved since the first Fortran compiler, there are still many interesting and important issues in compiler technology that need attention. For example, techniques to detect coarse grain parallelism are quite important and more needs to be done in this area, which has proven much more difficult than originally expected. It is also important to systematize the optimization process, which traditionally has been based on ad-hoc procedures that are not well understood, and the development of compiler algorithms that take advantage of information available in very high level programs to perform advanced optimizations. As an illustration of research impacting the last two issues, I will discuss two compilers for linear algebra languages under development at Illinois. The first is a MATLAB compiler. MATLAB codes can be very inefficient when interpreted; but, when translated by an effective compiler, their performance usually matches that of equivalent Fortran codes. A batch MATLAB-to-Fortran 90 system was completed at Illinois a few years ago and we are now working on a Just-In-Time extension that we call MAJIC (Matlab Just-In-time Compiler). The techniques and performance results of both strategies will be presented. The second compiler to be discussed accepts tensor product formulations of signal processing algorithms and generates programs that implement them. By applying mathematical identities, a given formula can be transformed into a large number of equivalent forms. The tensor product compiler (TPC) searches the space of possibilities for the formula and program forms that give the best performance. The translation and search techniques used by TPC and their possible applications in more general contexts will be discussed. BiographyDavid A. Padua received the Ph.D. degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1980. In 1985, he returned to the University of Illinois where, from 1990 to 1993, he was Associate Director for Software of the Center for Supercomputing Research and Development and is now a Professor in the Department of Computer Science. Dr. Padua's interests are in parallel computing, including machine organization, programming languages and tools, and compilers. His current research focuses on the experimental analysis of compilers and on the development of techniques to make compilers more effective. Faculty Contact: Lawrence Rauchwerger (rwerger@cs.tamu.edu) CPSC 681 Graduate SeminarWhere are the hypertexts, again?Mark Bernstein, Eastgate Systems, Inc.
March 7, 2001 AbstractWhile literary hypertext is now widely studied, fluent hypertexts of any sort are still rare and esoteric. We've had good hypertext tools for fifteen years; where are the hypertexts? Many common explanations are difficult to reconcile with actual observation; a survey of recent development in narrative, in technology, and in distribution channels helps explain the delay and may offer substantial hope for more rapid progress. For more information, see http://www.eastgate.com/ht99/ CPSC 681 Graduate SeminarModeling Teamwork in Multi-Agent Systems: The CAST ArchitectureDr. Thomas Ioerger, Jianwen Yin, and Michael Miller
March 21, 2001 Multi-agent systems (MAS) are a very popular paradigm for implementing complex distibuted systems, with applications ranging from simulations to software engineering to interactive entertainment to training systems to e-commerce. Teams are a special type of MAS in which agents in a group share a set of common goals and explicitly work together to accomplish them. Psychological studies of human teamwork have shown that members of an effective team often can anticipate the goals and actions of teammates based on a shared mental model of the team structure (roles and responsibilities) and process (plans, synchronization requirements). This can be exploited to make the teamwork more efficient, such as by minimizing the need for online coordination, and by enabling team members to support each other better (e.g. through facilitation). In addition, knowledge of the roles and responsibilities of teammates can be used to generate proactive information exchange, in which agents selectively offer information to one another by inferring what might be needed for others to complete their tasks. To implement teams of agents for various applications, we have developed and implemented a multi-agent architecture called CAST (Collaborative Agents for Simulating Teamwork). Domain knowledge regarding the structure and process of a team is encoded in a language called MALLET (Multi-Agent Logic-based Language for Encoding Teamwork). Shared team processes and belief about their states are represented using a Petri Net-based model. Based on the model, CAST agents offer information proactively to those who may need it using an algorithm called DIARG (Dynamic Inter-Agent Rule Generator). Empirical evaluations using a synthetic multi-agent testbed environment indicate that the algorithms in CAST enhance the effectiveness of teamwork among agents without sacrificing a high cost for their communications. CPSC 681 Graduate SeminarBlue Gene: A Massively Parallel System
Jose E. Moreira, IBM T. J. Watson Research Center,
March 26, 2001 ABSTRACTBlue Gene is a massively parallel system being developed at the IBM T. J. Watson Research Center. With its 4 million-way parallelism and 1 Petaflop peak performance, Blue Gene is a unique environment for research in parallel processing. Full exploitation of the machine's capability requires 100-way shared memory parallelism inside a single-chip multiprocessor node and message-passing across 30,000 nodes. Even more challenging, this parallelism has to be exploited in the presence of failed components, both in the form of entire nodes and in the form of nodes that have some broken subsystems. New programming models, languages, compilers, and libraries will need to be investigated and developed for Blue Gene, therefore offering the opportunity to break new ground in those areas. In addition, system management and input/output operations in a system of this scale present their own challenges. In this talk, I will describe some of the hardware and software features of Blue Gene. I will also describe some of the protein science and molecular dynamics computations that are important driving forces behind Blue Gene. BiographyJosé E. Moreira received B.S. degrees in physics and electrical engineering in 1987 and an M.S. degree in electrical engineering in 1990, all from the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil. He received his Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1995. Dr. Moreira is a Research Staff Member and Manager, Blue Gene System Software, at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center. Since joining the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center in 1995, he has been involved in several high-performance computing projects, including the Teraflop-scale ASCI Blue-Pacific and ASCI White. Dr. Moreira is the author of over 30 publications on high- performance computing. He is currently the spec lead for the Java Community Process proposal to add multidimensional arrays to Java. In the Blue Gene project, he is co-leader of the efforts to develop system software for a Petaflop-scale machine. CPSC 681 Graduate SeminarQuantum AlgorithmsAndreas Klappenecker
March 28, 2001 AbstractFeynman suggested in 1982 to take advantage of quantum mechanical principles in the solution of computational problems. A decade later, it was shown by Shor that the Feynman model of computation allows to factor integers in polynomial time, a threat to current e-commerce protocols. This result spawned numerous activities, including an upsurge of interest in the experimental realization of quantum computers. The aim of this talk is to give an introduction to some selected quantum algorithms. We explain why only a small number of genuine quantum algorithms have been developed so far, introduce an new design method for quantum algorithms, and discuss some open problems. CPSC 681 Graduate SeminarApplications of Probabilistic Quorums to Iterative AlgorithmsHyunyoung Lee
April 2, 2001 Randomization is a powerful tool in the design of algorithms. Randomized algorithms are often simpler and more efficient than deterministic algorithms for the same problem. Simpler algorithms have the advantages of being easier to analyze and implement. A well known example is the factoring problem, for which simple randomized polynomial-time algorithms are widely used, while no corresponding deterministic polynomial time algorithm is known. Randomized algorithms have a failure probability, which can typically be made arbitrarily small and which manifests itself either in the form of incorrect results (Monte Carlo algorithms) or in the form of unbounded running time (Las Vegas algorithms). This talk presents a definition of a read-write register that sometimes returns out-of-date values, shows that the definition is implemented by the probabilistic quorum algorithm of Malkhi et al., and shows how to program with such registers using the framework of Uresin and Dubois. Consequently, existing iterative algorithms for an interesting class of problems (including finding shortest paths, constraint satisfaction, and transitive closure) will converge with high probability if executed in a system in which the shared data is implemented with registers satisfying the new definition. Furthermore, the algorithms in this framework will inherit positive attributes concerning load and availability from the underlying register implementation. A modified register definition is presented and shown to be easily implemented; the expected convergence time for iterative algorithms using the modified implementation is calculated analytically and shown experimentally to improve on that for the original implementation. The message complexity for iterative algorithms using the probabilistic quorum implementation is shown to improve on that for non-probabilistic implementations in an important situation. CPSC 681 Graduate SeminarPublic-Key Cryptography Meets Quantum Computing: Why Secret Agencies are Quaking in their BootsWalter C. Daugherity, Department of Computer Science, Texas A&M University>
Monday, April 9, 2001 AbstractPublic-key cryptography (e.g., RSA) is widely used (e.g., by PGP) to protect the privacy of messages, computer files, etc. Its security relies on, among other things, the presumed difficulty of factoring large numbers (on the order of 300 decimal digits, say) using classical computers. However, quantum computing offers the tantalizing prospect of exponentially increasing the speed of computation, by (loosely speaking) using a single quantum computing element to calculate many things "at the same time." Shor's 1994 algorithm promises to factor numbers very efficiently, provided of course that an adequate quantum computer can be built to run it on. This seminar will introduce the fundamental ideas of public-key cryptography and how quantum computing provides a means of breaking such codes. BiographyWalter C. Daugherity is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Computer Science at Texas A&M University. He received a bachelor's degree from Oklahoma Christian University, and master's and doctor's degrees from Harvard University. His research interests include fuzzy logic, object-oriented programming, and quantum computing. CPSC 681 Graduate SeminarDigital Libraries are not Libraries
J. Alfredo Sánchez
April 16, 2001 (Monday) AbstractIn this talk I contend that "digital libraries" is a misnomer for a collection of radically different ways to collect, organize, disseminate and utilize information. Digital libraries are intended to support scholarly activities based on methods and promoting work practices that are not essentially related to libraries as we have known them. I present U-DL-A (University Digital Libraries for All), an initiative aimed at transforming a traditional library into a collaborative environment for study and research supported by access to a wide range of digital collections and services. In particular, I focus on accomplishments (and obstacles) in the development of services for visualization of large information spaces, virtual reference, and collaborative document revision. BiographyAlfredo Sánchez is director of the Library of Universidad de las Américas (UDLA) and President of the Mexican Computer Science Society. He is a National Researcher Level 1 in the Mexican National Research System and an Adjunct Professor of the Computer Systems Engineering Department at UDLA. He holds MSc and PhD degrees in Computer Science from Texas A&M University, where he worked at the Center for the Study of Digital Libraries and the Hypermedia Research Lab, and a B.Eng. degree in Computer Systems Engineering from UDLA. At UDLA, he also heads the Laboratory of Interactive and Cooperative Technologies (ICT), which he founded in 1997. Research at ICT focuses on the exploration of new information technologies for supporting a wide range of human activities. ICT later became one of three labs that make up UDLA's Center for Research in Information and Automation Technologies (CENTIA). Dr. Sánchez' main research interests lie in the areas of Digital Libraries, Human-Computer Interaction, Computer-Supported Cooperative Work, and Database Systems. He has been a major force in bringing Digital Libraries to the forefront of the Mexican Science and Technology agenda. Since 1998 he leads a group of researchers from Mexican institutions in the quest to define and implement a National Digital Libraries Program. With the support of the US National Science Foundation and Mexico's National Science and Technology Council (Conacyt), he organized the First Mexico-US Workshop on Digital Libraries (Albuquerque, NM, July 7-9, 1999), which gathered digital libraries researchers from both countries to share experiences and define directions for the field. Alfredo Sánchez is a member of the ACM and the Phi Beta Delta and Phi Kappa Phi Honor Societies. CPSC 681 Graduate SeminarAWICS Series: sponsored by MotorolaProphesy: An Infrastructure for Analyzing and Modeling the Performance of Parallel and Distributed ApplicationsValerie Taylor, Northwestern University
4:10pm, Monday April 30, 2001 AbstractEfficient execution of applications requires insights into how system features impact the performance of the application. The availability of national, high-speed networks has made available distributed systems for execution of large-scale applications. Distributed systems, however, consists of heterogeneous components, such as networks, processors, run-time systems, operating systems, etc. This heterogeneity complicates the task of gaining insights into the performance of the application. This talk presents the Prophesy Project, an infrastructure that aids in gaining this needed insight based upon one's experience and that of others. Prophesy consists of three major components: a relational database that allows for the recording of performance data, system features and application details; an application analysis component that automatically instruments applications and generates control flow information; and a data analysis component that facilitates the development of performance models, predictions and trends. As a result, the Prophesy system can be used to develop models based upon significant data, identify the most efficient implementation of a given function based upon the given system configuration, explore the various trends implicated by the significant data, and predict the performance on a different system. BiographyValerie E. Taylor received her B.S. in Computer and Electrical Engineering and M.S. in Electrical Engineering from Purdue University in 1985 and 1986, respectively. She received her PhD in Electrical Engineering from University of California at Berkeley in 1991. Valerie E. Taylor is an Associate Professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at Northwestern University and holds a guest appointment with the Mathematics and Computer Science Division at Argonne National Laboratory. She has been at Northwestern since 1991. Her research interests are in the areas of computer architecture and high performance computing, with particular emphasis on mesh partitioning for distributed systems and the performance of parallel and distributed applications. In 1993, Valerie Taylor received a National Science Foundation ``National Young Investigator'' award. She holds a U.S. patent for her dissertation work on sparse matrices. She also has a copyright for the RAB tool developed at Purdue University. She is a member of the Association for Computing Machinery, Society of Industrial and Applied Mathematics, and the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers. She is a member of the SC Steering Committee and Co-Chair of the Coalition to Diversify Computing. Faculty Contact: Nancy Amato (amato@cs.tamu.edu)CPSC 681 Graduate SeminarRouting in Hypercube Networks with A Constant Fraction of Faulty NodesAbstractWe consider routing in hypercube networks with a very large number (i.e., up to a constant fraction) of faulty nodes. Simple and natural conditions are identified under which hypercube networks with a very large number of faulty nodes still remain connected. The conditions can be detected and maintained in a distributed manner based on localized management. Efficient routing algorithms on hypercube networks satisfying these conditions are developed. For a hypercube network that satisfies the conditions and may contain up to 37.5% faulty nodes, our algorithms run in linear time and for any two given non-faulty nodes find a routing path of length bounded by four times the Hamming distance between the two nodes. Moreover, our algorithms are distributed and local-information-based in the sense that each node in the network knows only its neighbors' status and no global information of the network is required by the algorithms. This is a joint work with Guojun Wang and Songqiao Chen. |
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