Dr. Brian Marcus, professor in the Department of Mathematics at the University of British Columbia, will give a seminar Wednesday (Nov. 11) at 4:10 p.m. in Room 124 of the H.R. Bright Building on campus.

Dr. Brian Marcus

Marcus’s talk, “Computing the Entropy of Two-dimensional Shifts of Finite Type,” is part of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering Distinguished Lecturer Series.

An open reception will immediately follow Marcus’ presentation.

Abstract
A one-dimensional shift of finite type (SFT) is the set of infinite sequences that do not contain, as a sub-word, any finite word in a given finite list. The simplest example is the golden mean shift, which is defined as the set of all infinite binary sequences which do not contain the word “11″ (i.e.., 1’s are isolated). SFT’s are ubiquitous as models of dynamical systems and also as constraints imposed on sequences to improve the performance of data recording systems. Perhaps the most fundamental quantity associated to an SFT is its entropy (called “topological entropy” in dynamical systems and “capacity” in information theory); entropy is defined as the asymptotic growth rate of the number of allowed finite words in the system. The entropy is easily computable as the log of the largest eigenvalue of a nonnegative integer matrix. For instance, the entropy of the golden mean shift is the log of the golden mean.

A two-dimensional SFT is defined as the set of tilings of the integer lattice that do not contain as a sub-array any finite array in a given finite list. Two-dimensional SFT’s are much less understood than their one-dimensional counterparts. In particular, there is no known closed-form expression for the entropy, which is defined as the asymptotic growth rate of the number of allowed arrays in the system. Even for the simple case of the two-dimensional golden mean shift (also known as the hard square model), which is defined as the set of all binary tilings that do not contain two adjacent 1’s, horizontally or vertically, there is no known explicit formula.

In this talk, we present recent results in joint work with Erez Louidor and Ronnie Pavlov. These include improved numerical approximations to entropy of specific SFT’s and their cousins (sofic shifts), numerical approximation schemes which are provably exponentially accurate for a class of SFT’s including the two-dimensional golden mean shift, and a few new exact computations of entropy.

Biography
Dr. Brian Marcus received his B.A. from Pomona College and Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, both in mathematics. His main research interests are in symbolic dynamics and information theory. He has been on the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the research staff of the IBM Almaden Research Center. He has held visiting and adjunct positions at several universities, including UC-Berkeley and Stanford University. He has been professor of mathematics at the University of British Columbia since 2002, serving as head of the mathematics department from 2002 to 2007. He is an IEEE Fellow, was co-recipient of the IEEE Leonard G. Abraham Prize Paper Award, co-author of An Introduction to Symbolic Dynamics and Coding (Cambridge University Press), has published extensively in mathematics and engineering journals, and holds 12 U.S. patents.

Faculty Contact: Dr. Anxiao (Andrew) Jiang, ajiang@cse.tamu.edu

Submitted by Tony Okonski, tonyo@cse.tamu.edu

Popularity: unranked [?]

Texas A&M University will host the 34th Annual IBM-sponsored Association for Computing Machinery International Collegiate Programming (ICP) contest Nov. 6 and 7.

The competition, which is considered the world’s most prestigious computer programming competition, will pit teams from eight universities against each other as they vie for the regional championship and a chance to advance to the World finals that will be held in February 2010 in Harbin, China.

The best and the brightest information technology students from around the globe will compete for awards, scholarships, prizes and bragging rights to the “world’s smartest trophy.”

During the competition, teams of three students will be challenged to use their programming skills and rely on their mental endurance to solve complex, real-world problems under a grueling deadline.

Tackling these problems is equivalent to completing a semester’s worth of computer programming in one afternoon. The team that solves the most problems correctly in the least amount of time will win a coveted spot in the world finals.

In addition to Texas A&M, other schools competing in the regional include: Baylor University; Rice University; Southwestern University; Texas State University; The University of Texas at Austin; Trinity University; and the University of Houston.

Last year, Texas A&M had three teams compete in the competition, with one of the teams finishing third overall in the south regional, which included 68 teams competing at four sites.

The ICP was started at Texas A&M in 1970 and has grown to include teams in approximately 90 countries on six continents.

Written by Tim Schnettler, tschnettler@tamu.edu

Popularity: unranked [?]

Dr. Mark Lenox with the Texas A&M Institute for Preclinical Studies (TIPS) will give a talk Nov. 6 at 4 p.m. in Room 124 of the H.R. Bright Building on campus.

Lenox’s talk, “Improving Animal and Human Health by Accelerating Drug and Device Development,” is part of the Alliance for Bioinformatics, Computational Biology and Systems Biology (ABCS) Seminar Series.

Abstract
The Texas A&M Institute for Preclinical Studies (TIPS) was created as a conduit through which new ideas in healthcare technology could be implemented and FDA approved. FDA certification of new drugs, devices and therapies requires that all testing be performed according to FDA Good Laboratory Procedures (GLP). Without GLP protocols, even the most promising technologies will not pass FDA certification. Research performed at universities generates a tremendous number of good ideas that never reach the clinic because they are unable to overcome the barriers necessary for FDA approval.

Similar barriers exist for small companies. By providing a framework under which testing protocols can be performed under GLP conditions, TIPS dramatically lowers the cost barriers for university researchers as well as small companies who wish to further develop their ideas and get them ready for an FDA application. In this presentation, we will discuss the origins, capabilities, and structure of TIPS and how it can achieve this goal.

Biography
Dr. Mark Lenox leads the imaging core at the Texas A&M Institute for Preclinical Studies (TIPS). His B.S. degree is in systems engineering from Arizona State, with an M.S.E.E. from Texas A&M and Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Tennessee. Lenox has 20 years of experience in imaging, including 17 years at CTI Molecular Imaging (now part of Siemens Medical) and was part of the engineering team that performed the early development and commercialization of Positron Emission Tomography (PET). He led the High Resolution Research Tomograph program at CTI, and later was director of new product development in the preclinical imaging division. In the preclinical imaging division, he was responsible for the design and implementation of the industry leading Inveon preclinical PET imaging systems. Lenox’s experience includes all levels of design and implementation of imaging systems hardware and software as well as regulatory approvals.

For more information please visit the ABCS Web site at http://abcs.tamu.edu/abcs-seminar.html.

Submitted by Tony Okonski, tonyo@cse.tamu.edu

Popularity: unranked [?]

The Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Texas A&M University sponsored the university’s inaugural Nano/Micro Poster Symposium to promote multidisciplinary interaction and scientific communication among students and faculty in the field of nano/micro technology.

The Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering sponsored the inaugural Nano/Micro Poster Symposium.

The symposium started with an invited talk, “Three Dimensions of Individualized Nanomedicine,” from Dr. Mauro Ferrari, a world-renowned expert in nanomedicine. He is currently a professor and chairman of the Department of Nanomedicine and Biomedical Engineering and a professor of internal medicine, at the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston, as well as a professor of bioengineering at Rice University and president of the Alliance for NanoHealth in Houston. This also was the inaugural talk for the newly launched monthly Texas A&M Nano/Micro Seminar Series.

Following Ferrari’s talk was a poster session, which included more than 65 posters from various disciplines, with more than 150 people from 16 departments across campus participating.

The steering committee was lead by Dr. Arum Han, assistant professor in the electrical and computer engineering department. Other committee members included: Dr. Arul Jayaraman, chemical engineering; Dr. Mike McShane, biomedical engineering; Dr. Dong Hee Son, chemistry; Dr. Winfried Teizer, physics; and Dr. Choongho Yu, mechanical engineering.

Written by Deana Totzke, deana@ece.tamu.edu

Popularity: unranked [?]

Dr. Valerie Taylor

Advances in technology, and computing in particular, occur on an almost daily basis. Today’s cutting-edge technology could become obsolete in just a few months. One trend in the computing industry is toward an increase in the number of cores on a microchip.

The rationale driving chip manufacturers to develop multicore processors is that these processors provide better performance per watt than single-core processors. Multicores systems require significant sharing of resources such as memory and networks, which can constrain performance and impact power consumption.   Not much is known about the power-performance tradeoffs in multicore systems.

Texas A&M University’s Dr. ValerieTaylor is developing infrastructure that will help engineers and application developers better understand how such multicore systems work. She recently received $2.4 million from the National Science Foundation’s Computer Systems Research program to develop Multicore Application Modeling Infrastructure or MuMI (pronounced “mummy”).

“Multicore processors are the foundation of next-generation computing systems. The computing industry is only going to increase the number of cores on a chip,” said Taylor, who is head of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering.

MuMI will facilitate systematic measurement, modeling, and prediction of performance, power consumption, and power-performance tradeoffs in multicore systems. MuMI will also be used to model, analyze, and optimize the power consumption and performance of key benchmarks and applications of multicore systems such as weather and climate modeling applications, biomolecular simulations and energy simulations.

Collaborating with Taylor on this project are Dr. Shirley Moore from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville and Dr. Kirk Cameron from Virginia Tech.

TEES is the lead site for MuMI, with a funding of $865,000 and Taylor as the sole primary investigator on the TEES grant. TEES is the engineering research agency of the State of Texas and a member of The Texas A&M University System.

Written by Marissa Doshi

Popularity: unranked [?]

Hewlett-Packard donated more than $250,000 in equipment to the Department of Computer Science and Engineering.

Hewlett-Packard has donated computing equipment valued at more than $250,000 to Texas A&M University’s Department of Computer Science and Engineering.

Hewlett-Packard’s donation helped the department upgrade existing facilities and redirect funds toward the purchase of new equipment for open-access and teaching laboratories. The laboratories were dedicated to Hewlett-Packard at a ceremony held on August 28 to honor dignitaries from Hewlett-Packard.

“As the next generation of Aggie engineers receives a top-notch education in computer science and computer engineering, they will each also have access to highest-quality resources, thanks to the generosity of one of the world’s largest technology companies, Hewlett-Packard,” said Dr. N.K. Anand, interim executive associate dean of academics for Texas A&M Engineering. “The full suite of resources donated by Hewlett-Packard is valued at more than a quarter of a million dollars, but the impact this technology will have on the education we deliver is priceless.”

The Dwight Look College of Engineering has enjoyed a long relationship with Hewlett-Packard. From student scholarships and internships, to providing a conduit of supportive partnerships between industry and faculty, HP has helped support all 12 engineering departments.

“We appreciated Hewlett-Packard’s support, especially in these difficult times. Their donation will allow our students to have the opportunity to work with the kind of equipment that is being currently used in the industry,” said Dr. Karan Watson, interim provost and executive vice president for academics at Texas A&M.

Students have already begun using the donated equipment. Jeremy Kelley, a Ph.D. student used the donated Hewlett-Packard servers for his research to process Twitter data.

“Initially, data processing would take me a week, but using the new servers, I was able to complete the job in about half a day,” Kelley said.

Hewlett-Packard dignitaries who attended the dedication ceremony were Ron Noblett (Class of 84), vice president of shared engineering services; Terry Hartline, director of integrated systems test; Jonathan Mooty, program manager of OEM opportunities and previously, site manager of the Hewlett-Packard facility at Research Park; and David Beikirch, project manager of integrated systems test, who previously served at the Research Park location as a systems engineer.

“As Hewlett-Packard moves forward, certain changes are being made, and the Hewlett-Packard facility at Research Park had to be shut down,” Noblett said. “We are glad that the equipment from the facility will now be used by the students of this department. Their contribution to our business is incalculable. The work they put in during their internships and later helps HP maintain leadership in the industry. We look forward to continuing our partnership with Texas A&M and hope to keep the students interested in Hewlett-Packard.”

Written by Marissa Doshi

Popularity: 19% [?]

Representatives from several federal agencies will discuss the details of their different research programs at the Texas Research Exchange Fest 2009 Sept. 7–8 at the Hilton Hotel and Conference Center located near Texas A&M University in College Station.

The event is organized to focus on five major areas within computer science and engineering — security, software, networks, information and high-performance computing — and aims to encourage collaborations among the researchers at Texas universities and industry.

The event will include poster sessions and collaborative discussions in addition to the informational sessions featuring the representatives from different federal agencies.

Representatives from the National Science Foundation, Los Alamos National Laboratory, U.S. Department of Energy, and The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency will give guest lectures and help to facilitate discussion.

For a schedule of events and information on how to register please visit http://www.cse.tamu.edu/tref.

Submitted by Tony Okonski, tonyo@cse.tamu.edu

Popularity: 48% [?]

When the legendary science fiction writer Isaac Asimov penned the “Three Laws of Robotics,” he forever changed the way humans think about artificial intelligence, and inspired generations of engineers to take up robotics.

Dr. Robin Murphy

In the current issue of journal IEEE Intelligent Systems, two engineers propose alternative laws to rewrite our future with robots.

The future they foresee is at once safer, and more realistic.

“When you think about it, our cultural view of robots has always been anti-people, pro-robot,” explained David Woods, professor of integrated systems engineering at Ohio State University. “The philosophy has been, ’sure, people make mistakes, but robots will be better — a perfect version of ourselves.’ We wanted to write three new laws to get people thinking about the human-robot relationship in more realistic, grounded ways.”

Asimov’s laws are iconic not only among engineers and science fiction enthusiasts, but the general public as well. The laws often serve as a starting point for discussions about the relationship between humans and robots.

But while evidence suggests that Asimov thought long and hard about his laws when he wrote them, Woods believes that the author did not intend for engineers to create robots that followed those laws to the letter.

“Go back to the original context of the stories,” Woods said, referring to Asimov’s I, Robot among others. “He’s using the three laws as a literary device. The plot is driven by the gaps in the laws — the situations in which the laws break down. For those laws to be meaningful, robots have to possess a degree of social intelligence and moral intelligence, and Asimov examines what would happen when that intelligence isn’t there.”

“His stories are so compelling because they focus on the gap between our aspirations about robots and our actual capabilities. And that’s the irony, isn’t it? When we envision our future with robots, we focus on our hopes and desires and aspirations about robots — not reality.”

In reality, engineers are still struggling to give robots basic vision and language skills. These efforts are hindered in part by our lack of understanding of how these skills are managed in the human brain. We are far from a time when humans may teach robots a moral code and responsibility.

Woods and his coauthor, Robin Murphy of Texas A&M University, composed three laws that put the responsibility back on humans.

Woods directs the Cognitive Systems Engineering Laboratory at Ohio State, and is an expert in automation safety. Murphy is the Raytheon Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at Texas A&M, and is an expert in both rescue robotics and human-robot interaction.

Together, they composed three laws that focus on the human organizations that develop and deploy robots. They looked for ways to ensure high safety standards.

Here are Asimov’s original three laws:

• A robot may not injure a human being, or through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
• A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
• A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

And here are the three new laws that Woods and Murphy propose:

• A human may not deploy a robot without the human-robot work system meeting the highest legal and professional standards of safety and ethics.
• A robot must respond to humans as appropriate for their roles.
• A robot must be endowed with sufficient situated autonomy to protect its own existence as long as such protection provides smooth transfer of control which does not conflict with the First and Second Laws.

The new first law assumes the reality that humans deploy robots. The second assumes that robots will have limited ability to understand human orders, and so they will be designed to respond to an appropriate set of orders from a limited number of humans.

The last law is the most complex, Woods said.

“Robots exist in an open world where you can’t predict everything that’s going to happen. The robot has to have some autonomy in order to act and react in a real situation. It needs to make decisions to protect itself, but it also needs to transfer control to humans when appropriate. You don’t want a robot to drive off a ledge, for instance — unless a human needs the robot to drive off the ledge. When those situations happen, you need to have smooth transfer of control from the robot to the appropriate human,” Woods said.

“The bottom line is, robots need to be responsive and resilient. They have to be able to protect themselves and also smoothly transfer control to humans when necessary.”

Woods admits that one thing is missing from the new laws: the romance of Asimov’s fiction — the idea of a perfect, moral robot that sets engineers’ hearts fluttering.

“Our laws are little more realistic, and therefore a little more boring,” he laughed.

For more information, contact Robin Murphy

This press release was originally written by Ohio State University.

Popularity: 42% [?]

Civil engineering's David Rosowsky has been a PI on an NSF project that set out to design mid-rise wood structures for high seismic regions. The project came to a conclusion in July when the researchers’ seven-story wood-frame building successfully survived a an earthquake.

In states that border the Gulf of Mexico, residents are experts on what to do when a hurricane hits: board up the windows, pack up priceless belongings, head into the hours of endless traffic and hope for the best.

Unfortunately, there is little individuals can do to prepare for natural disasters that strike with little or no warning.

Earthquakes are among the deadliest and most sudden natural disasters, leaving residents reliant upon their homes’ earthquake safety standards. One researcher at Texas A&M University is working to give residents of mid-rise buildings in earthquake prone areas greater peace of mind.

For the past five years Dr. David Rosowsky, department head and A.P. and Florence Wiley Chair in the Zachry Department of Civil Engineering at Texas A&M, has been one of the principal investigators on the National Science Foundation’s NEESWood Project. Researchers  set out to design mid-rise wood structures for high seismic regions. The project came to a conclusion earlier this summer when the researchers’ seven-story wood-frame building successfully survived a maximum credible event ground motion — an earthquake that may be expected to occur on average only once in 2,500 years.

According to Dr. John van de Lindt, lead project investigator and associate professor of civil engineering at Colorado State University, wood-frame structures are currently limited to four stories “due to the lack of understanding of the dynamic response of taller (mid-rise) wood-frame construction, non-structural limitations such as material fire requirements, and potential damage considerations for non-structural finishes.”

The end goal of the project is to be able to increase the maximum height of wood-frame structures and to lessen the damage to low-rise structures due to earthquakes.

The first full-scale test conducted as a part of the NEESWood project was held at University of Buffalo’s Structural Engineering and Earthquake Simulation Lab in 2006. The team constructed a two-story, 1,800 square-foot townhouse and put it through five mock earthquakes on two interconnected piston-powered shake tables. The mock earthquakes increased in magnitude with each test with the last test equaling the strength of San Francisco’s 1906 earthquake, which had magnitude ranging from 7.7 to 8.3.

The project then moved to Miki City, Japan, for its second and final phase, where the NEESWood researchers worked with the Japanese government’s National Research Institute for Earth’s Science and Disaster Prevention. Miki City is home to the world’s largest shake table in the Hyogo Earthquake Engineering Research Center, E-Defense.

“Both the U.S. and Japan already have derived benefits [from the tests] and will continue to derive benefit in the coming years,” Rosowsky said. “It was truly a collaborative project. While the research was conducted and the structure was designed here in the United States, the entire Capstone structure was built and tested in Japan.”

The building that was constructed for testing in phase two was a six-story wood-frame condominium with a seventh story comprised of concrete and steel representing street-level retail shops. It is 14,000 square-feet with 23 residential one- and two-bedroom units for living space.

“The building was designed using a new approach to designing mid-rise wood story structures… a design procedure called direct displacement design,” Rosowsky explained. “The procedure was developed at Texas A&M University as part of the NEESWood project…And the structure was designed so that under different intensity ground motions, different intensity shakings, the displacement of each story would be kept below specified target levels.”

On June 30, two tests were run on the building. In the first test a mock earthquake was simulated representing the magnitude of an earthquake that takes place only once every 72 years. The second test simulated an earthquake that takes place once every 475 years. On July 6, the building went through the same two tests but with the steel-frame components locked down.

On July 14, the building went through its final test — a maximum credible event based on the 1994 Northridge, Calif., earthquake, scaled to 180 percent intensity. The test is believed to represent an earthquake that would occur, on average, once every 2,500 years.

“The good news is that the test was successful. Not only did the building stay together, but it met all of the performance requirements… it met all of the drift expectations. This confirms that we can design and build mid-rise wood frame structures in high seismic regions and that these structures will perform satisfactorily (as designed).”

Though the final test has been successfully completed, the researchers still have a lot yet to learn from their experiments.

“Now the focus is on taking a look at all the data from the more than 300 sensors on the building, and trying to make sense of all of that information,” Rosowsky said. “The data collected during the test will be used for years to come to validate computer models and further refine seismic design procedures, codes, and standards for engineered wood structures built in seismic regions.”

For more information on the NEESWood Project please visit, http://www.nsf.gov/news/newsmedia/neeswood/index.jsp.

The Zachry Department of Civil Engineering was named in 2005 in honor of the generous and longstanding support of the Zachry Foundation of San Antonio, Texas. The department is one of the largest civil engineering programs in the world and consistently ranks among the top departments in the United States. The undergraduate program is ranked seventh and the graduate program eighth among public institutions in the most recent U.S. News & World Report rankings.

Written by Cassidy Thomas

Popularity: 32% [?]

Dr. Udo Pooch of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering was among four Texas A&M retired faculty members granted emeritus status by The Texas A&M University System Board of Regents.

Dr. Udo Pooch

Pooch, who retired from the Dwight Look College of Engineering after 40 years of service, was named Professor Emeritus of Computer Science.

The title is added to each faculty member’s current designation or rank. The title recognizes individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the university and the system through their dedicated service.

In 1969, after receiving his Bachelor of Science in physics from the University of California, Los Angeles, and his Ph.D. in theoretical physics from the University of Notre Dame, Pooch became an assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science at Texas A&M. In 1974, he became associate professor and then professor in 1980. He served as the Endowed Raytheon Professor of Computer Science from 1993 to 2008. He has won the Award for Outstanding Achievement in Teaching at both the college and university levels. He is ACM Member and a Senior Member of IEEE.

Pooch has served the department and university for 40 years and has had a very productive career in research and academia. He has supervised 57 Ph.D. students and more than 250 masters students; published 21 books and book chapters; produced 47 journal papers, 157 conference papers and 47 reports, and generated more than $6 million in research funding.

His research interests include topics such as operating systems, fault tolerant systems, performance, measurement and uation, computer networks and data communications, real-time systems, computer architecture, computer law, computer system security, artificial intelligence, simulation, operations research, theoretical physics, psychometrics, and statistics.

Written by Tony Okonski, tonyo@cse.tamu.edu

Popularity: 29% [?]