Page 1 News Bytes News Bytes Teaching Fall 2014, Volume 16, Number 1 The Computer Science Annual Newsletter Research In preparation for my first column in the department's newsletter, I turned to the columns of my predecessors: Barbara Greim, Ron Vetter and Sridhar Narayan. I found, while technology is changing, the department news and needs remain constant. Greim's first column welcomed new faculty. I have had the wonderful job of welcoming two new assistant professors to the department. Under Narayan's care, we brought Hua Li to our department to teach digital arts courses. Once here, we found she had received the prestigious Alain Fournier award for the best computer graphics dissertation in Canada in 2013 (see later in the newsletter for more information). This fall, thanks to the very hard work of the department this summer, we welcome HyunBum Kim to teach networking. Both faculty members are, of course, also teaching other courses! In her second newsletter column, Greim reflected on enrollment pressures. She wrote of the department starting to use JAVA as the common programming language. Fall 2013 saw a switch in the department to using Python for the first two programming courses and using JAVA in the third course. For those of you who remember course numbers, CSC 121, 221, and 332 have gone by the way. CSC 131, 231, and 331 have taken their place! We are also enjoying high enrollment in the department with our enrollment numbers over 220. These numbers are outstanding and become even more noteworthy when you add in the enrollment of our joint program (with Cameron's Information Systems / Operations Management Department) in Information Technology. When the program was proposed, we thought we would have 50 at the end of the second year...not more than that at the end of the first year! Vetter's first column focused on "Student Outcomes Assessment" and preparation for re-affirmation of accreditation by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. Under Narayan, the department became accredited by ABET. Student outcomes assessment continues to meet our accreditation needs and the needs of the college and university. Assessment has continued to become an important focus as we strive to assess what students have learned and how can we tell what it is they have learned. As important as it was in 2001, it has be- Service come even more important in 2014. After an extensive national search, Vetter was named the associate provost for research and dean of UNCW Graduate School in April. Narayan's first column in 2007 spoke of Emma Kay Thornton, donor generosity, research grants and continued changes in the curriculum.Thornton continues to hold us together. This past year, she was nominated for a UNCW Outstanding Staff award and the College of Arts and Sciences award. She won the latter. We continue to receive generous donations to the department. I have reached out to donors with some success. The benefits that students have reaped from their generosity are briefly mentioned in later pages. Students have published and travelled to present their research. Thanks to donor generosity, we have had students working with LEAP Motion Systems and Google Glass, just to name a few cool pieces of hardware. Faculty members continue to apply and receive grants for a variety of topics ranging from speech to face recognition to providing teachers with skills to teach STEM. And, our curriculum continues to bring interest from other departments within UNCW. We have two programs in conjunction with Cameron's Department of Information Systems and Operations Management (the MSCSIS and the BSIT), a new music technology minor collaboration with the Department of Music, participation in a STEM Learning Community, continued collaborations for the B.S. in computer science with the various options of biology, business, chemistry, digital arts, GIS, statistics and a new proposed option with the neuroscience minor. While some things change, other things stay the same. It is a great time to be in this field and in this department! Please, tell us your celebrations and noteworthy items! Laurie J. Patterson Ed.D., associate professor and chair Page 2 News Bytes Fall 2014, Volume 16, Number 1 Friends and Colleagues Mourn the Passing of UNCW Computer Science Department Founder, Dr. Barbara A. Greim In 1969, Barbara Greim achieved her lifetime goal of being a teacher when she joined the faculty of the Department of Mathematical Sciences at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. She immediately began to improve the resources available in the UNCW William Madson Randall Library, an interest that continued throughout her life. At UNCW, Greim developed the passion for computer science that was the focus of most of her scholarly pursuits for the rest of her career. She also served on numerous campus, university-wide, and statewide committees and boards during her years at UNCW. Greim's efforts in developing the UNCW Computer Science program was recognized in 1998 when UNCW established the Department of Comput-er Science and named her interim chair, a position which she held until her retirement in July 2000 after 31 years at UNCW. New Degree Launched Fall 2013: B.S. Information Technology of technology and how it can be managed and leveraged to support business activities. The Information Technology (IT) major is an interdisciplinary major shared by two departments: the Department of Computer Science and the Department of Information Systems and Operations Management. The two departments bring different strengths and perspectives to this unique major. This multi-disciplinary program leads to a B.S. degree in information technology (BSIT). See more at www.uncw.edu/bsit/. The program closely follows the guidelines set forth by professional societies for specialized programs including the Association for Computing Machinery, the Association for Information Systems, and the IEEE Computer Society. The program develops students’ skills in the critical and practical understanding of information technology and prepares them for information technologyrelated work and/or further study at the graduate level. The curriculum provides a foundation for information technology professionals to have a perspective of the rapidly expanding and evolving science Prior to her career at UNCW, Greim received a National Merit Scholarship which she used to attend Ursinus College, Collegeville, Pa. Greim received her Bachelor of Science degree in mathematics magna cum laude with honors from Ursinus College in 1964. She did her graduate study at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she received her Ph.D. in mathematics in 1970. The primary educational objective of the program is to produce graduates who can enter into and advance in the professions of information technology as well as continue their education and obtain advanced degrees in this and related fields. With regard to program outcomes, graduates must be able to evaluate current and emerging technologies; identify user needs; design user-friendly interfaces; apply, configure and manage IT technologies; assess IT impact on individuals, organizations and the environment; and apply fundamental IT concepts and strategies to real-world problems. Enrollment has already surpassed initial estimates. Fall semester 2014 will begin with more than 56 IT majors! How Cool is This? The department received a gift of 15 Intel® Galileo Development Boards which will be available for classroom use beginning fall 2014! Page 3 News Bytes Faculty Focus Gur Adhar gave an invited research seminar at the University of Kiel, Germany titled "Parallel Algorithms for Trapezoid Graphs and AsteroidalTriple Free Graphs,"May 2013. He also attended the IEEE and ACM conference "High Performance Computing," in Bangalore, India, December 2013. Ralph Bradley continued to manage the department’s very successful internship program and served as the department’s industrial development officer coordinating the department’s advisory board. He also serves as the department’s new assistant chair. Clayton Ferner, Richard Brown, Joel Adams, Elizabeth Shoop and Barry Wilkinson presented the panel session "Teaching Parallel Design Patterns to Undergraduates in Computer Science," SIGCSE 2014, Atlanta, Ga., March 2014. Curry Guinn and Eddie Dunn ’12 published "Computational Methods for Determining the Similarity between Ancient Greek Manuscripts," in the proceedings of the 2013 International Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Las Vegas, Nev., July 2013. Hua Li successfully completed her Ph.D. and will be promoted to assistant professor for the fall. She also received the prestigious Alain Fournier award for the best computer graphics dissertation in Canada in 2013. Her dissertation was "selected through a juried process by a selection committee consisting of accomplished researchers in computer graphics." It is titled, "PerceptionMotivated High Quality Stylization.” Sridhar Narayan received funding for "SIMPLE – Simplified Image Processing for Learning Enhancement," from the CAS Summer Curriculum Development Initiative. Sridhar Narayan, Gene Tagliarini, Mahnaz Moallem, Christopher Gordon and Shelby Morge presented "Integrating Computing and STEM Education Using Simulation and Modeling Technology Tools: A Focus on Common Core State Standards (CCSS)," for the Teacher Education Council of State Colleges Fall 2014, Volume 16, Number 1 Congratulations to the following department members for being recognized by one or more graduating seniors as someone whose impact on them was significant during their undergraduate or graduate years: Gur Adhar, David Berman, Ralph Bradley, Clayton Ferner, Marni Ferner, Curry Guinn, Eric Patterson, Laurie Patterson, Karl Ricanek, Gene Tagliarini, Devon Simmonds and Ron Vetter and Universities, Washington, D.C., October 2013. Eric Patterson joined a beta-test team for the new Unreal Engine 4 C++-based game engine developed by Epic Game Studios. He also presented "An Improved Rendering Technique for Active-AppearanceModel-Based Automated Age Progression," at SIGGRAPH, Anaheim, Calif., July 2013. Laurie Patterson presented "Social Networking for Leaders," Bridges XXI, at the University of North Carolina with Jacqueline M. Olich and Margaret O’Hara, November 2013 and "'Quiet' Success” at the 2013 Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing, Minneapolis, Minn. with Lavanya Ramakrishnan, Ellen Walker and Yuqing Melanie Wu, October 2013. Karl Ricanek, Edwar d Boone and Susan Simmons published "A Restricted Model Space Approach for the Detection of Epistasis in Quantitative Trait Loci Using Markov Chain Monte Carlo Model Composition," in Agents and Artificial Intelligence, Communications in Computer and Information Science, Volume 271, Springer Berlin Heidelberg. He also published "Face Registration: Evaluating Generative Models for Automatic Dense Landmarking of the Face," in Intelligent Science and Intelligent Data Engineering Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Volume 7751, Springer Berlin Heidelberg with Amrutha Sethuram and Wankou Yang, "Human Face Aging: A Perspective Analysis Continued on p. 6 Page 4 News Bytes Fall 2014, Volume 16, Number 1 Awesome Accomplishments Curry Guinn was invited to be the guest speaker at Commencement Ceremonies for the Sciences, Humanities and Graduate Liberal Studies in the College of Arts and Sciences, May 2014. Ron Vetter was selected as associate provost for research and dean of the Graduate School after an extensive national search. He comes to the position with a strong record of success in the areas of research and graduate education and has served on the UNCW faculty for nearly two decades. His appointment became effective July 1, 2014. Curry Guinn delivering commencement address Clayton Ferner was appointed graduate program director with endorsement from both departments and all three deans, July 2014. Hua Li received the prestigious Alain Fournier Ph.D. Award for the best computer graphics dissertation in Canada for 2013. Computer Science had its first patent issued: "Demographic Analysis of Facial Landmarks," which is assigned to Karl Ricanek and UNCW as of April 2014. Ricanek also received the CAS Research Faculty Award, May 2014. Jack Tompkins was recognized as a UNCW Lecturer of the Year Award, September 2014. Emma Kay Thornton received the CAS Staff Excellence Award, May 2014. Emma Kay Thornton, front row, second from left, earns well-deserved recognition. Page 5 News Bytes Fall 2014, Volume 16, Number 1 Student Showcase Andrew Harnage, Douglas Flagg, Amber Whittemore and Devon Simmonds co-authored "A Case Study in the Model-Driven Development of CorkBoard – a WebApp for Collaborative Work," which was presented at the International Conference on Software Engineering Research and Practice (SERP), July 2013. Katelyn Kerns pr esented her honors thesis work "3D Face Mesh Correspondence Methods," Eric Patterson advisor. David Macurak, Amrutha Sethuram, Karl Ricanek and Benjamin Barbour ’11 published "DASM: An Open Source Active Model for Automatic Registration of Objects," for the IEEE National Conference on Computer Vision, Pattern Recognition, Image Processing and Graphics (NCVPRIG), Jodhpur, India, December 2013. Erik Willis, Sean Saunders, Nathan Cate, Jean-Paul Muyshondt and Devon Simmonds, published "Rift Runners – Engineering Software for a Remotely Controlled Rover, in the 2014 International Conference on Embedded Systems and Applications (ESA'14) proceedings, July 2014. The following students completed their directed individual study (DIS) topics during the 201314 academic year: Zachary Ambrose: "Models of Language Use of Persons with Alzheimer's Disease," Curry Guinn advisor. Peter Lawson: "Development of parallel applications using Paraguin," Clayton Ferner, advisor. Roger Johnson and Sean Saunders: "Development of paral- lel applications using Paraguin," Clayton Ferner, advisor. Chad Ponthieux developed a palm gesture system for controlling a UAV drone. The system was a huge success and was featured at the undergraduate research showcase. Benjamin Singer: "Models of Language Use of Persons with Alzheimer's Disease," Curry Guinn advisor. The following students successfully completed their internships: Jeremy Davis – Atlantic Telephone Membership Cooperative Kasey Eljoundi – Seahawk Innovation Fund Kyle Willcox – TriTech Software Systems Racheal Lenig, Kinesh Padia and Grayson Spease – Corning 2014 Award Recipients Brian Walker Smith-Doss Scholarship Sarah Martin Fletcher R. Norris Scholarship Uche Iheadindu Outstanding MSCSIS Student awarded by the graduate faculty Zachary Ambrose, Harry Atwal and Alexander Aziz – UNCW TAC Michael Bernard and Dana Pruitt – Credit Suisse Bryan Florkiewicz – IBM Ben Singer –National Security Agency Kelsey Smith – AAI Textron David Whitman – Corning The following students' work were recognized by the first UNCW Student Research and Creative Scholarship Showcase Harry Atwal: " Facial Recognition on A.R. Drone," Karl Ricanek, advisor. Andrew Harnage: " Incor por ating Gestur e Recognition Softwar e with Amer ican Sign Language," Karl Ricanek, advisor. Page 6 News Bytes Fall 2014, Volume 16, Number 1 Eleven new members were inducted into the local chapter of the international computer science honor society Upsilon Pi Epsilon for the 2013-14 academic year. Congratulations to Michael V. Abate, Harleen Atwal, Alexander Hamilton Aziz, William J. Dwork, James A. Grooms, Mark J. Grover, Logan Anthony Helms, Victor M. Mancha, James C. Page, William Harvey Weinel and David Ryan Whitman. Upsilon Pi Epsilon, founded in 1967, is the only international honor society for the computing sciences. Over 120 institutions of higher education around the world have established UPE chapters to recognize scholarship and professionalism. UPE was officially recognized by the ACM in 1967 and the IEEE Computer Society in 1992. See more at http://upe.acm.org/. Faculty Focus (continued from p. 3) from Anthropology and Biometrics in Age Factors in Biometric Processing," for the Institution of Engineering and Technology, with Gayathri Mahalingam, A. Midor i Albert and Richard Vorder Bruegge and "LBP-based Periocular Recognition on Challenging Face Datasets," Springer, with Gayathri Mahalingam. Ricanek and Mahalingam pr esented "Investigating the Effects of Gender and Age-group Based Differences in Identical Twins," at the National Conference on Computer Vision, Pattern Recognition, Image Processing and Graphics (NCVPRIG), Jodhpur, India, December 2013 and "Is the Eye Region More Reliable Than the Face? A Preliminary Study of Face-based Recognition on Transgender Dataset," at the IEEE Conference on Biometrics: Theory, Applications, and Systems (BTAS), Washington, D.C., October 2013. At the same conference, Ricanek also pr esented "Eyebrow Shape Analysis by Using a Modified Functional Curve Procrustes Distance," with Yishi Wang, Cuixian Chen, Midori Albert and Yaw Chang. Chris Gordon published "Design and Implementation of Computational Modeling for Learning Mathematical Concepts," in Common Core Mathematics Standards and Implementing Digital Technologies, IGI Global, 2013. Nineteenth Americas Conference on Information Systems, Chicago, Ill., August 2013. The department also welcomes new associate professor HyunBum Kim who received his Ph.D. in computer science from the Jack Tompkins r etur ned University of Texas at to full-time teaching after Dallas. His research serving two terms as interests include algorithm design/analysis/optimizati Devon Simmonds, Karl assistant chair. Ricanek and Christine ons in various areas Ron Vetter published including wireless sensor Brown published "Digital Magazines: The "BIOBase: An Adaptable Future of Publishing is networks, mobile Biometric Tool & Here," Computer, Vol. 47, computing, cyber physical Database," in the No. 1, January 2014, pp. 6 systems, distributed computing and cyber proceedings of the 2014 -7 and "Investigating International Conference Privacy and Security security. on Bioinformatics and Challenge of Health Computational Biology Applications," with Stacy (BIOCOMP'14), July Mitchell, Scott Ridley, 2014. Christy Tharenos, Upkar Gene Tagliarini, Sridhar Varshney and Ulku Narayan, Shelby Mor ge, Yaylacicegi Clark in the proceedings of the Mahnaz Moallem and Page 7 News Bytes Fall 2014, Volume 16, Number 1 Alumni News Harry Atwal ’14 was selected by Oak Ridge National Labs for a pr estigious summer appointment. He was also a featured student at April's UNCW Board of Trustees meeting where he demonstrated some of his work in the area of UAV's and biometrics. Upon completion of her MSCSIS degree, Dali Hiltebeitel ’14 was quickly hired by TAC as a tech support specialist. She is responsible for the overall supervision of TAC to ensure client success and satisfaction. John Robertson ’12 was hir ed as an account development r epr esentative by Blackbaud, Inc. in Charleston, S.C. and is thrilled with his new career working with donor databases. Pamela Rosoff ’09 is an associate pr ogr am manager at SchoolDude in Raleigh. Ricardo Valea ’09 is a mobile development team section manager - software engineer at TASC, Inc. To be included in the next newsletter, please send an email to mferner@uncw.edu. We welcome your recent professional and personal news! Positive Enrollment Numbers Spring 2014 enrollment numbers indicated over 220 computer science majors — three times more than just five years ago! More Great Stuff MSCSIS student Jazmin Capezza and president of the UNCW’s chapter of the Association for Computing Machinery, advises Wired Wizards, a Wilmington area high school team which competed for its second year in a robot building competition in Raleigh. They also placed third in the student exhibit competition at the 2014 Wilmington Information Technology eXchange (WITX) held at UNCW. Don’t miss the UNCW-ACM website: http://student.uncw.edu/org/acm/ Page 8 News Bytes Fall 2014, Volume 16, Number 1 Congratulations to Our Recent MSCSIS Graduates! Fall and Summer 2013 Master’s Degrees and Theses Titles: Spring and Summer 2014 Master’s Degrees and Theses Titles: Richard Alford, "An Evaluation of Model Driven Architecture (MDA) Tools," Devon Simmonds, advisor. Michael Abate, "An Applied Case Study of an IPv6 Conversion in a Simulated Midsized Business," Douglas Kline, advisor. Rebecca Brown, "Development of a Novel Game with Adaptive Learning Agents," Curry Guinn, advisor. Linda Dance, " Analysis and Implementation of a Reporting System for Graduate Program Management," Douglas Kline, advisor. Aaron Caldwell, "ArcGIS Server: An Application Migration, Application Template Construction and Server Analysis & Design for the University of North Carolina Wilmington Department of Geography & Geology," Douglas Kline, advisor. James Grooms, " A Web Application for Capstone Management for the MSCSIS Program," Douglas Kline, advisor. William Edwards, "Development of White Spaces Applications: Results from a Series of Projects in New Hanover County," Judith Gebauer advisor. Adam Forsythe, " Dine Healthy Mobile: An Implementation of an HTML5 Mobile WebApp," Ron Vetter, advisor. Adalia Hiltebeitel, " A UML-Based Comparison of Model Transformation Tools," Laurie Patterson, advisor. Ucechukwu Iheadindu, " A Multi-University Data Analytics System for Understanding Campus Crime," Douglas Kline, advisor. David Macurak, " An Open Source Extensible Automatic Landmarking System Using Dynamic Active Shape Models (DASM)," Karl Ricanek, advisor. Daniel Palmer, " Computational Models of Familiar and Altruistic Behavior in Predator/Prey Environments," Curry Guinn, advisor. Jeff Raynor, " An Evaluation of Classification Performance for Facial Analytics on Diverse Datasets," Karl Ricanek, advisor. Robert Healy, " Integr ating HCI Pr inciples into Device Development Curriculum," Tom Janicki, advisor. Tyler Loftis, " An Implementation of a Gr een Storage Area Network," Douglas Kline, advisor. Amy Wells, "A Virtual Machine Self-Service Portal for the UNCW CSIS Masters' Students," Douglas Kline, advisor. Page 9 News Bytes Fall 2014, Volume 16, Number 1 Congratulations to Our Recent B.S. Graduates! Bachelor Degrees Fall 2013: Bachelor Degrees Spring and Summer 2014: Zachary Gene Ambrose James John Allen cum laude Brianna Grace Anthony Michael Gregory Allen Nathan James Arnold Michael Charles Ames Michael Brian Bernard Michael Ross Anthony Nathan Delane Cate, II cum laude Harleen Atwal Hunter M. Crim Troy Blaser Cory William Dawson Jesse Haywood Creech Douglas Gerard Flagg Jeremy Allen Davis Nicholas Peter Gerzsenyi Cory William Dawson Charles Andrew Harnage Kasey Milton Eljoundi Christopher R Hetem Frank Floyd Hundley Roger Ray Johnson Katelyn Barbara Kerns summa cum laude Richard Andrew Jones Peter Joseph Lawson Christopher Matthew Keller Racheal Marie Lenig Michael P. Larsen, Brenan Lee Martinez Brenan Lee Martinez Christopher David Mendenhall cum laude Colby Gage Melvin Robert John Millar Chad Michael Ponthieux Jean-Paul Muyshondt Sean Michael Saunders magna cum laude Kinesh B. Padia Zachary Philip Tomkoski Justin Robert Poliachik magna cum laude Dana Marie Pruitt Andrew Lawrence Robie cum laude Benjamin James Singer Cannon Drew Smith Jordan Thomas Smith Kevin Edward Smith Grayson Tyler Spease Billy James Stroud Erik M Willis, cum laude And our first graduate with a B.S. in Information Technology: William Wells Loveland Alumni and Friends: UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA WILMINGTON Name: _______________________________________________________________________ Primary Business Address Address Line 2 Address Line 3 Address Line 4 Home Address: ________________________________________________________________ U N I V E R S I T Y O F W I L M I N G T O N N O R T H C A R O L I N A Dr./Mr./Mrs./Ms. Street/PO Box First Middle City State Home Phone: _______________________________________ Cell Phone: Maiden Last Suffix ZIP + 4 _____________ Work Phone: _____________________ Email _______________________________________________________ Graduation date:____________________ Degree/Major: ________________________________ Employer: ________________________________ Position: ______________________________ Spouse UNCW Graduate? 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