UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA WILMINGTON
Fall 2012
Volume 14, Number 1
News Bytes
Teaching Research Service
In this issue:
Faculty Focus
2
Special
Congratulations
2
2012 Award
Recipients
3
Student Showcase
4
UPE Initiation
5
Awesome
Accomplishments
6
Alumni News
7
Graduates
7
The Computer Science
Department’s B.S.
degree (Systems
Option) is now fully
accredited to
September 30, 2017
You may recall from last
summer’s newsletter that a
year ago we were waiting
to hear back from the
Accreditation Board for
Engineering and
Technology (ABET) about
our application to accredit
our B.S. Computer Science
(Systems Option) degree
program. It took a lot of
hard work, and it certainly
was not swift, but we
finally received notice in
August 2011 from ABET
that our program had met
all the requirements for
accreditation and was
accredited effective
October 2009. ABET
accredits programs in
engineering, computer
science and technology,
and defines accreditation as
“assurance that a college or
university program meets
the quality standards
established by the
profession for which it
prepares its students.”
Among the criteria used to
evaluate a program are the
curriculum, the faculty, the
facilities and the
assessment practices. The
accreditation makes us one
of seven ABET-accredited
computer science programs
in North Carolina. This is a
significant event for the
department and we are
delighted to have this
external recognition of our
continued commitment to
excellence in
undergraduate education.
Mirroring trends at
universities nationwide,
enrollments in computer
science continued to grow
for the third year in a row.
The graduate program in
computer science and
information systems also
reported strong interest in
its offerings. The Face
Aging Group continued its
impressive track record of
securing external funding
for its research.
Demonstrating their
commitment to excellence
inside and outside the
classroom, computer
science faculty continued
to publish their
scholarship at
international conferences
and journals, in many
cases co-authoring papers
with their students, as
detailed in the following
pages. Ron Vetter
continued to serve as the
editor-in-chief of IEEE
Computer. Funded by a
grant from NC QUEST
(North Carolina Quality
Educators through Staff
Development and
Training), computer
science faculty partnered
with colleagues in the
Watson College of
Education to introduce
computing into the
middle-school
mathematics curriculum in
select Onslow County
schools.
The department takes
pride in its dedication to
teaching, research and
service, and as the
accomplishments
described above show, this
year was no exception. As
we continue to make our
mark, we invite you to
join us in any way you
can. Look for us on
Facebook and on
LinkedIn, and if you
happen to visit
Wilmington, we would
love for you to drop by
and say hello.
Sridhar Narayan,
Ph.D. professor and
chair
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Faculty Focus
Gur Adhar published
“Performance Driven
Simulated Annealing for
Layout of Two-Terminal
Nets on VLSI Chips,” in
the Proceedings of the
International Conference
on Agile Manufacturing
(ICAM), December
2011. He was also the
keynote speaker at the
International Conference
on Agile Manufacturing.
The title of his talk was
“Ordering Elements in a
Finite Element Mesh by
Peano Curves to Preserve
Their Proximity in
Space.”
David Berman and
Douglas Smith published
“Mitchell Tournaments”
in the Bulletin of the
Institute of
Combinatorics and its
Applications. He also
attended the 2012 Joint
Mathematics Meetings in
Boston, Mass., January
2012. There he attended
the mini-symposium
“The Lore and Legacy of
Alan Turing” and the
short course “Discrete
and Computational
Geometry.”
Ralph Bradley attended
ACM’s Special Interest
Group on Computer
Science Education
Conference (SIGCSE
2012) in Raleigh, N.C.
He also continued as
coordinator of the
department’s Advisory
Board.
Clayton Ferner
presented “Parallel
Computing, Multi-core
Computing, Grid
Computing, and Cloud
Computing: Where Are
We Headed?” at
UNCW’s Osher
Lifelong Learning
Institute, May 2012.
Marni Ferner offered
a new CSC 475 course
in spring 2012 called
Database Web
Applications. Students
learned how to create
dynamic Web
applications using PHP
and MySQL.
Curry Guinn, Douglas
Kline, Paul Martin,
Kevin Matthews and
Thomas Janicki
published “Teaching
Introductory Visual
Basic Using MS Team
Foundation Server,” for
the Information
Systems Education
Conference (2011
ISECON), Wilmington,
NC. He also published
“Assisting Social
Conversation between
Persons with
Alzheimer's Disease
and their
Conversational
Partners,” with Nancy
Green and Ronnie
Smith for Speech and
Language Processing
for Assistive
Technologies (SLPAT),
Vol. 3.
Sridhar Narayan,
Gene Tagliarini,
Shelby Morge, Mahnaz
Moallem and
Christopher Gordon
Volume 14, 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:”
David Berman, Clayton Ferner, Marni
Ferner, Curry Guinn, Eric Patterson,
Laurie Patterson, Karl Ricanek, Devon
Simmonds, Gene Tagliarini and
Ron Vetter
received funding for
their grant, “INCOME:
Integrating Computing
and Mathematics
Education,” through
NC QUEST / Quality
Educators through Staff
Development and
Training across North
Carolina.
Eric Patterson was
awarded an IPAX
Faculty Fellowship, at
Sony Pictures
Imageworks, Los
Angeles, Calif., where
he collaborated with
face-related computer
graphics artists,
researchers and
developers. He also
collaborated with two
visiting researchers,
Anoir Borgi from
Tunisia and Kang Liu
from Germany in facerelated research.
Laurie Patterson,
Kevin Matthews,
Thomas Janicki and
Ling He published
“Implementation of an
Automated Grading
System with an
Adaptive Learning
Component to Affect
Student Feedback and
Response Time,” in the
Journal of Information
Systems Education
(JISE 2012). She
contracted to collaborate
with Tony Gaddis on the
text, Alice 3.0 and Java,
Pearson Publishing,
2011 and was also hired
by Pearson to create
PowerPoint
presentations to
accompany Snyder’s
Fluency in IT, 5th
edition. She also the
program chair of UNC’s
Bridges Program.
Karl Ricanek presented
“The Beautiful and
Complex Face” at Oak
Ridge National Labs
Oak Ridge, Tenn.,
October 2011. He also
presented “Post 18
month performance,” an
Intelligence Community
Advanced Research
Project Activity, for
(continued on p.3)
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Volume 14, Number 1
Faculty Focus (continued from p. 2)
Biometric Exploitation
Science & Technology
(BEST), Washington,
D.C., August 2011. His
recent co-authored
publications include
“Improved Image-based
Automatic Gender
Classification by Feature
Selection,” in the Journal
of Artificial Intelligence
and Soft Computing
Research, Vol. 1, No. 3,
pp. 241 -253; “Genetic
and Evolutionary
Methods for Biometric
Feature Reduction,” in
the International Journal
of Biometrics, “A
Comparison of Genetic
and Evolutionary Feature
Extraction Methods for
Facial Recognition,”
“Applying GEC in
Feature Selection and
Weighting for LBP,
oLBP, and Eigenface,”
and “Hybrid GEC-Based
Techniques for MultiBiometric Recognition,”
all for the International
Conference on Genetic
and Evolutionary
Methods (GEM 2011);
“Sequential RowColumn 2DPCA for Face
Recognition,” in the
Journal of Neural
Computing and
Applications, pp. 1-7; “A
Comparison of GECBased Feature Selection
and Weighting for
Multimodal Biometric
Recognition,” “GECBased Multi-Biometric
Fusion” and “SSGA and
EDA Based Feature
Selection and Weighting
for Face Recognition,” all
for IEEE Congress on
Evolutionary
Computation.
Devon Simmonds
presented “Understanding
Software Engineering,” at
the ISIS Research Group
Meeting, UNCW, July,
2011.
Devon Simmonds, Karl
Ricanek and Lawrence
Cahoon received funding
for their grant “CASIS
3rd YR,” from the Army
Research Laboratory
(ARL)/Central
Intelligence Agency
(CIA).
Gene Tagliarini, Sridhar
Narayan, Shelby Morge
and Mahnaz Moallem coauthored “The power of
simulation and modeling
for learning STEM
content.”
Jack Tompkins began
developing a new course
on programming mobile
devices. He also served
on the University College
Advisory Board and the
Radiation Safety
Committee.
Ron Vetter, Jason
Dudley ’11, Jeff Brown
and Thomas Janicki
published “Building a
Real-Time Bus Tracking
Data Display System,” in
the Journal of
Information Systems
Applied Research, Vol. 5,
No. 2, pp. 38-50.
Ron Vetter, Andrew
Martin ’11, Jeff Brown
and Tom Janicki
published “CMobile: A
Mobile Photo Capture
Application for
Construction Imaging,”
in the Journal of
Information Systems
Applied Research, Vol.
5, No. 4, October 2012,
pp. 55-68.
Be sure to see the
news release “UNC
Wilmington's
Department of
Computer Science
Joins Select Group of
Programs with ABET
Accreditation,” at
http://appserv02.uncw.edu/
news/artView.aspx?id=3285
2012 Award
Recipients
Phillip Andrew Walker
Smith-Doss
Scholarship
Nicholas Antonio Ruiz
Fletcher R. Norris
Scholarship
Christopher Matthew
Keller
Computer Science
Chair’s Scholarship
Daniel O’dor
Construction Imaging
Systems Scholarship
Tiffany Brooke Jordan
Construction Imaging
Systems Scholarship
How cool is this?
Karl Ricanek recently received a request from the
United States Secret Service to provide technical expert
advice on face recognition systems. He helped them
define their needs for face recognition systems: matching video to mug shot images. He also delivered a software system for large scale integration of biometric
templates and landmark ground truthing to the Federal
Bureau of Investigations (FBI) and an automated system for chronological age-estimation as well as a system for advanced synthetic facial aging to the Intelligence Agency Advanced Research Activity (IARPA).
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Volume 14, Number 1
Student Showcase
Michael Komisin ’11
and Curry Guinn, published “Identifying Personality Types Using
Document Classification
Methods,” for the 25th
International Florida Artificial Intelligence Research Society Conference in Marco Island,
Fla., May 2012.
Benjamin Barbour ’11
and Karl Ricanek published “An Interactive
Tool for Extremely
Dense Landmarking of
Faces,” for the First International Workshop on
Visual Interfaces for
Groundtruth Collection
(VITGTA 2012), European Commission Advanced Visual Interfaces,
Capri, Italy.
Ricardo Valea ’11
(pictured below) was
awarded IEEE’s Computing Now Volunteer of
the Month for October
2011. He received
recognition for his Computing Now iPhone app.
Michelle Willcox ’12,
Thomas Lovette, Yuli
Bonner ’11 and Devon
Simmonds published “A
Case Study in Software
Project Estimation,” for
the International Conference on Frontiers in Education: Computer Science
and Computer Engineering (FECS) 2012 and
“ClipBits – A Case Study
in Model-Driven Software Engineering,” for
the International Conference on Software Engineering Research and
Practice, (SERP), 2012.
Michael Nipper and
Devon Simmonds published “GiftScroll - An
Online Gift Registry for
the Android Mobile
Phone,” for International
Conference on Software
Engineering Research
and Practice, (SERP).
Selin Benli, Anthony Habash ’12, Andy
Herrmann, Tyler Loftis
and Devon Simmonds
published “A Comparative Evaluation of Unit
Testing Techniques on a
Mobile Platform,” in Information Technology:
New Generations 2012.
Mark Lanter ’11, Lyle
Scott ’10, Ashley Young
’11, Selin Benli, Andy
Herrmann, and Devon
Simmonds published
“Exploring Model-Based
Design,” in Information
Technology: New Generations 2012.
Left to right: Trent Jernigan, Michael Sodomsky, Nathan
Brown and Michelle Fogwell at the DIS / Internship
presentations, December 2011.
Jason Vandeventer ’10
and Benjamin Barbour
’11 published
“CodeWave: A RealTime, Collaborative IDE
for Enhanced Learning in
Computer Science,” for
ACM’s Special Interest
Group on Computer Science Education Conference (SIGCSE 2012) in
Raleigh, N.C. Their publication is based on work
which originated in the
department’s computer
engineering course.
The following students
completed their directed
individual study (DIS)
topics during the 2011-12
academic year (faculty
advisor names are in parentheses):
Nancy Bordelon ’12, “A
Comparison of Automated
Software Testing Tools,”
(Devon Simmonds);
Michelle Fogwell ’12,
“Programming an Arduino,” (Fred Bingham);
Adam Forsythe,
“Design of a Web-based
Nutrition System,” (Ron
Vetter);
Michael Sodomsky,
“Dynamic Keystroke on
Mobile Devices: Developing a Robust Database,” (Karl Ricanek);
Jui (Ray) Sun, “Study of
Linux,” (Clayton
Ferner);
Zach Wilson, “The Writing Continuum: A Webbased Solution to Scoring
the Writing of Elementary Students,” (Ron Vetter).
The following students
also presented information about their internship experiences at
the DIS/Internship
presentations in
December:
Nathan Brown
UNCW ITSD
Michelle Fogwell
Corning
Trent Jernigan
rPath
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Volume 14, Number 1
CSC Student
Earns UPE
Scholarship
Award
Each summer the Executive
Council of Upsilon Pi Epsilon
(UPE) evaluates a large number
of scholarship applications from
students at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. All
scholarship applicants are required to complete a comprehensive application form including a
statement on their long-term
plans for the profession, a summary of their contributions to
their respective UPE chapters
and related student activities at
their university. Applicants are
also required to submit all college-level transcripts and a recommendation from their UPE
faculty advisor. Yuli Bonner
’11, was awarded this prestigious
scholarship for 2011 by Upsilon
Pi Epsilon.
Upsilon Pi Epsilon’s three officers for 2011-12, Michelle Fogwell,
Jason Vandeventer and Michelle Willcox (pictured above), inducted 23
new members into the local chapter of the international computer
science honor society. Congratulations to Michael Allen, Benjamin
Beeman, Selin Benli, Alexandria Cole, Jesse Creech, Derek Faver,
Jason Felds, Keith Greats, Brooke Jordan, Howard Kleinberg, Matthew
Laird, Tyler Loftis, Daniel O'dor, Christine Posey, Robert Pryce, Travis
Radtke, Scott Ridley, Benjamin Singer, Brennan Smith, Ray Jui Sun,
Ricardo Valea, Phillip Walker and Amy Wells.
Don’t miss the UNCW-ACM website:
http://student.uncw.edu/org/acm/
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Volume 14, Number 1
Awesome Accomplishments
Working with Igloo Vision from the United Kingdom and Laughing
Soul Media from Wilmington, Eric Patterson helped to bring an immersive, 360-degree virtual-reality display dome to the CIS building
during May 2012. This involved several CSC and Digital Arts students who assisted in developing and delivering content epitomizing
the intersection of technology, innovation and gaming.
Ron Vetter and Jeff Brown’s technology start-up company, Mobile Education, LLC, received individual recognition for
their contribution to the “Get to know PHIL” Student Philanthropy Campaign” entry in the 2012 CASE District III
Awards Program. They also participated in a case study integrating their two-way text messaging application with the
university’s EMS Master Calendar. Dean Evans & Associates, Inc. published the following article:
http://tinyurl.com/7fbodg8.
The Face Aging Group, led by Karl Ricanek, was highlighted in the Wilmington
StarNews on April 1, 2012. See
http://www.starnewsonline.com/article/20120401/COLUMNIST/120339969 for
the complete article titled “I, 40 - Aging Group Gives Glimpse at Future Face,” by
Mike Voorheis.
Ricanek also collaborated with four other UNCW faculty members, all from different departments, to bring the “Face Age” exhibit to the Warwick Center in April
2012 as part of Chancellor Gary L. Miller’s installation celebration.
UNCW became the newest member
of the CyberWatch consortium in
Septermber 2011. Ron Vetter (near
right) and Ulku Yaylacicegi (far
right) led a group of six undergraduate and two graduate students to the
Southeastern Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition (SECCDC) at
Kennesaw State University in March 2012.
Noteworthy News
“People who make technology are better off than people who use technology,” according to a Georgetown
University report in December 2012. See the complete article at http://tinyurl.com/d5bkntp.
In January, the National Association of Colleges and Employers reported that “Graduates in the computer sciences disciplines are now averaging $60,594, up 4.1 percent over the 2010 average for this category.” See the
complete article at http://tinyurl.com/d2hnv3d.
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Volume 14, Number 1
Alumni News
Caroline Koska Reda ’85 was a keynote speaker at
the Cameron School of Business, Business Week,
March 2012.
Jonathan Richey ’03 is a lead programmer for
InterCoastal Net Designs (www.icoastalnet.com) in
Ocean Isle Beach, N.C.
Yuli Bonner ’11 is working as a Scala programmer
for Atlantic Corporation.
Alex Beatty ’11 and Illia Ziamtsov ’11 were both
accepted to Clemson University's very competitive
M.F.A. in digital production arts program.
Ricardo Valea ’11 accepted a position with TASC
Inc in Chantilly, Va., as a mobile software engineer.
To be included in the next newsletter,
please send an email to
mferner@uncw.edu.
We welcome your recent professional or
personal news!
Congratulations to Our Recent Graduates!
Spring and Summer 2012 Graduates
Master’s Degrees:
Nancy Bordelon, “A Comparison of Automated Software Testing
Tools,” Devon Simmonds, advisor.
Candace Burwell, “ ‘myATMC’: The Design and Implementation of
an iPhone Webapp,” Ron Vetter, advisor.
Phillip R. Garriss, “Myday Medication Reminders,” Devon
Simmonds, advisor.
Patrick Green, “An Analysis, Design, and Implementation of a
Business Intelligence Solution for Powerplay Mobile,” Ron Vetter,
advisor.
Anthony R. Habash, “Language Analysis of Speakers with Dementia of the Alzheiemer’s Type,” Curry Guinn, advisor.
Ricardo A. Valeo, “Going Mobile with Warehouse Skateboards,”
Ron Vetter, advisor.
Jason M. Vandeventer, “Expression Recognition and Processing,”
Eric Patterson, advisor.
Fall 2011 Graduates
Master’s Degrees:
Bachelor’s Degrees: Justin John Barbera, Jordan Frane Clifton,
Michelle Lynn Fogwell cum laude, James E. Forte, Ryan D.
Garner, James Campbell Horton, Ashley Shannon Munday,
Anton M. Nikolov, Matthew Ryan Pollard, Christine Nicole Posey, John Paul Robertson, Wayne Edward Shaw, Kevin Matthias
Shea summa cum laude, Vincent Thanh Sang Tran, Derrick
Javon Turner, William Michael Wharton, Michelle Ann Willcox
cum laude and Adam Daniel Yeager.
Bachelor’s Degrees: Colin D. Barefoot
cum laude, Alexander Justin Beaty
magna cum laude, Yuli Melvin
Bonner, David Michael Brown, Elizabeth Andrea Haller, Michael Louis
Page, Ashford Christian Smith, Michael Kurt Sodomsky Richard Earl
Weatherly and Illia Ziamtsov summa
cum laude.
Kyle Holt, “Extending Shared-Memory
Parallelism to a Distributed-Memory
Parallelizing Compiler,” Clayton
Ferner, advisor.
Michael Christopher Komisin,
“Identifying Personality Types Using
Document Classification Methods,”
Curry Guinn, advisor.
Lorie Ann McClain, “Comparative Assessment of Software Development Project Effort Estimation Tools,” Thomas
Janicki, advisor.
Alumni and Friends:
UNIVERSITY OF NORTH
CAROLINA WILMINGTON
Name: _______________________________________________________________________
Department of Computer Science
Phone: 910.962.7182
Fax: 910.962.7457
Email: cscdept@uncw.edu
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C O M P A N Y
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Home Phone: _______________________________________ Cell Phone:
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Degree/Major: ________________________________
Employer: ________________________________ Position: ______________________________
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Spouse’s Employer: _________________________ Position __________________________
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Visit our secure online giving site: http://www.uncw.edu/giveonline to make a gift to the Computer Science Department Trust Fund.
Enclosed is my gift of $__________ for the Computer Science Department Trust Fund (make checks payable to UNCW) or
charge my ___Visa or ___Mastercard or ___American Express
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