UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA WILMINGTON
Fall 2010
Volume 12, Number 1
News Bytes
Teaching Research Service
In this issue:
Faculty Focus
2
Special
Congratulations
2
2010 Award
Recipients
3
Student Showcase
4
Awesome Alumni
4
UPE Initiation
6
2009-10 Graduates
7
Other Faculty
Ventures
7
Look for the
UNCW computer
science group on
Facebook!
I will always remember
2009-10 as the year in
which we applied to ABET
for accreditation of our B.S.
in computer science
(systems option). 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.” In
support of its accreditation
application, the department
completed a comprehensive
(450+ page) self-study that
describes its curriculum,
faculty, facilities and
assessment plan. The selfstudy was submitted to
ABET in June, and we are
now preparing for a visit by
an ABET accreditation
team in November 2010. It
is our hope that by this time
next year our program will
be fully accredited by
ABET.
currently has more than 40
students. There were
significant
accomplishments in faculty
research and scholarship as
well. The Face Aging
Group continued its
impressive track record of
securing external funding
for its research. The recent
approval by UNCW of The
Institute for
Interdisciplinary Studies in
Identity Sciences represents
a crowning achievement for
this group. The USeIT
(Using Squeak to Infuse
Information Technology)
group continued its NSFfunded activities for a third
year, and hosted Squeakfest
2010, an annual meeting of
the Squeak community, at
UNCW that attracted
participants from places as
far away as Germany and
Uruguay. Computer science
faculty continued to publish
their scholarship at
international conferences,
in many cases co-authoring
papers with their students.
While maintaining its focus
on its commitment to
undergraduate education,
the department made
significant headway in
other areas as well. The
graduate program in
computer science and
information systems
continues to grow and
This year was also
distinguished in other ways.
We formed a computer
science advisory board,
whose membership
includes Carla Hunt
(manager, knowledge and
information systems,
MCNC), Ed Addison (CEO
of Teradisc and Lexxle,
Inc.), Ryan Wilkins
(Pharmaceutical Product
Development, Inc.), Larry
McAdams (president,
Construction Imaging
Systems), James Fredley
(president, Triumph
Interactive, Inc) and Shin
Kurokawa (lead software
developer, Digieffects Inc.)
The board met for the first
time in March, and we look
forward to working with the
members and reaping the
benefits of their valuable
feedback.
As we continue to make our
mark in teaching, research
and service, we invite you
to join us in any way you
can. Look for us on
Facebook, 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
News Bytes
Volume 12, Number 1
Page 2
Faculty Focus
Gur Adhar published
“Parallel Algorithms for
Maximum Independent
Set in Trapezoid Graphs
and their Applications” in
the Proceedings of ninth
International Conference
on Parallel and Distributed
Computing and Networks,
(PDCN 2010) in
Innsbruck, Austria. He
was also a session chair at
the same conference.
David Berman presented
“Splittable Triplewhist
Tournament Designs” at
the 41st Southeastern
Conference on
Combinatorics, Graph
Theory and Computing in
Boca Raton, Fla., March
2010.
Curry Guinn presented
“Remote Monitoring of
Activity, Location and
Exertion Levels” at the
Virtual Healthcare
Interaction for the
Association for the
Advancement of Artificial
Intelligence (AAAI), in
Arlington, Va. He also
presented “A Hybrid AI
Approach to the
Classification of Emotive
Text” at the International
Conference on Artificial
Intelligence (ICAI 09),
World Congress in
Computer Science,
Computer Engineering,
and Applied Computing in
Las Vegas, Nev., July
2009.
Clayton Ferner and Barry
Wilkinson led a workshop
called “Teaching a Hands
-on Undergraduate Grid
Computing Course” at
SIGCSE 2010 in
Milwaukee, Wis. Ferner
also conducted a
colloquium at Wake
Forest University’s
Department of Computer
Science in WinstonSalem, titled “Automatic
Parallelizing Compilers:
Why Bother?”
Devon Simmonds
presented “A Comparison
of Aspect-Oriented
Approaches to Model
Driven Engineering” at
the International
Conference on Software
Engineering Research
and Practice (SERP)
WORLDCOMP, in Las
Vegas, Nev., July 2009;
“A Comparison of
Software Architectural
Styles Using Aspects” at
the International
Conference on SERP
(Maziar Boddoohi coauthored); “The Viability
of UML Models in Small
Web Applications” at the
International Conference
on SERP (Jason Dudley
co-authored); “A Case
Study in Software
Reengineering” at the
seventh International
Conference on
Information Technology:
New Generations 2010
(D. C. Tucker coauthored); “XMI2USE: A
Tool for Transforming
XMI to USE
Specifications” at the
fifth International
Workshop on
Foundations and
Practices of UML (FP(Wuliang Sun, Eunjee
Special congratulations to the
following department members for
their recent accomplishments:
Curry Guinn, Laurie Patterson and Devon
Simmonds whose applications for promotion
and tenure and reappointment, respectively,
were approved by the UNCW Board of
Trustees.
Gur Adhar, David Berman, Curry Guinn, Sridhar Narayan, Fletcher Norris, Eric Patterson,
Laurie Patterson, Karl Ricanek, Devon Simmonds and Gene Tagliarini who were all recognized by one or more graduating seniors.
Emma Kay Thornton who was recognized by
one or more graduating seniors for her willingness to help our students.
Karl Ricanek and Eric Patterson whose contract and grant activity at UNCW surpassed the
$1,000,000 mark earning them membership in
the James F. Merritt Million Dollar Club
(http://www.uncw.edu/research/milliondollarclub.html).
Song and Paul Grabow
co-authored); and “A
Comparison of AspectOriented Approaches to
Model Driven
Engineering, at the
International Conference
on SERP.
Sridhar Narayan, Gene
Tagliarini and Shelby
Morge presented “Squeak
EToys” at the North
Carolina Science House,
Raleigh, December 2009.
Sridhar Narayan, Gene
Tagliarini, Shelby Morge,
Mahnaz Moallem and
Karen Hill, published
“Using Squeak Etoys with
the VernierLabPro” at
Squeakfest 2009,
Viewpoints Research
Institute, UCLA, Los
Angeles, Calif., August
2009.
Continued on p. 3
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Volume 12, Number 1
Page 3
Faculty Focus (continued from p. 2)
Sridhar Narayan, Jack
Tompkins and Gene
Tagliarini published
“Algoritharium:
Facilitating an Early
Focus on Algorithms in an
Objects-Early CS1
Course” at the 2010
International Conference
on Frontiers in Education:
Computer Science and
Computer Engineering
July 2010.
Eric Patterson, Amrutha
Sethuram, Karl Ricanek
and Frederick Bingham
published “Improvements
in Active Appearance
Model Based Synthetic
Age Progression for Adult
Aging” in the Proceedings
of the IEEE Conference
on Biometrics: Theory,
Applications, and Systems
2009.
Amrutha Sethuram, Eric
Patterson, Karl Ricanek
and Allen Rawls ’08
published “Improvements
and Performance
Evaluation Concerning
Synthetic Age Progression
and Face Recognition
Affected by Adult Aging”
in the Proceedings of the
Third IAPR International
Conference on Biometrics,
2009.
Karl Ricanek presented
“Craniofacial
Morphology” to the Facial
Identification Scientific
Working Group, FBI,
Tampa Bay, Fla., April
2010; “Diachronic
Biometrics: Morphology
of the Face” at the
University of Notre Dame,
South Bend, Ind., March
2010; “Methods for Face
Analysis” at Vietnam
National University,
University of Sciences,
Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam,
March 2010; and “Robust
3D Biometrics” coauthored with Marios
Savvides, for Biometric
Exploitation Scientific
Technology, Intelligence
Advanced Research
Project Activity, Dulles,
Va., December 2009.
Eric Patterson presented
the poster “Improvements
in Active Appearance
Model Based Synthetic
Progression for Adult
Aging” at the IEEE
International Conference
on Biometrics: Theory,
Applications, and Systems
2009, Crystal City, Va.
Eric Patterson, Karl
Ricanek and Amrutha
Sethuram published “A
Hierarchical Approach to
Facial Aging” in the
Proceedings of IEEE
Workshop on AMFG in
association with the 23rd
IEEE Conference on
Computer Vision and
Pattern Recognition
(2010).
Laurie Patterson, Gabriel
Lugo, Dargan Frierson,
Carol Midgett and Eleanor
Pusey presented
“PIMUST: The Teal K16
Road” at the Department
of Education’s Math and
Science Partnership MSP
Program, New Orleans,
La., March 2010.
Laurie Patterson
presented “Majoring in a
Virtual Environment:
Merging CS and IS into
IT” at Frontiers in
Education: Computer
Science and Computer
Engineering, 2009 World
Congress in Computer
Science, Computer
Engineering, and Applied
Computing, Las Vegas,
Nev., July 2009.
Karl Ricanek, Fang Fang,
Qijun Fang and Susan
Simmons published
“Markov Chain Monte
Carlo Model Composition
Search Strategy for
Quantitative Trait Loci in
a Bayesian Hierarchical
Model” for World
Academy of Science,
Engineering and
Technology, presented in
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil,
March 2010.
Karl Ricanek and Khoa
Luu published “Age
Estimation Using Active
Appearance Models with
Support Vector
Regression” in the
proceedings of IEEE
Biometrics: Theory and
Applications Systems,
Crystal City, Va.,
September 2009.
Karl Ricanek presented
“MORPH: Development
and Optimization of a
Longitudinal Age
Progression Face
Database” for
International Biometric ID
Management and
Multimodal
Communication, Crystal
2010 Award
Recipients
Benjamin Eldon
Barbour
Computer Science
Chairs Scholarship
Justin Matthew Cowen
Fletcher R. Norris
Scholarship
Jeffrey Stephen Bruce
Construction Imaging
Systems Scholarship
City, Va., September
2009. Allen Rawls ’08
co-authored.
Karl Ricanek, Cuixian
Chen, Yaw Chang and
Yishi Wang published
“Face Age Estimation
Using Model Selection”
in the Proceedings of
IEEE Computer Society
Workshop on AMFG, in
association with the 23th
IEEE Conference on
Computer Vision and
Pattern Recognition
(CVPR), 2010.
Khoa Luu, Ching Suen,
Karl Ricanek and Tien
Bui published “Spectral
Regression-based Age
Determination” for the
IEEE Computer Society
Workshop on Biometrics,
Continued on p. 5
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Volume 12, Number 1
Page 4
Student Showcase
Current Students’ Accomplishments
Engineering and Mathematics” at the Society for
Information Technology
and Teacher Education
2010 21st International
Conference, SITE/AACE,
San Diego, Calif., April
2010.
the Design of a Restaurant
Management System” in
the proceedings of FECS
2010 the sixth International Conference on
Frontiers in Education:
Computer Science and
Computer Engineering.
Wesley Williams and
Devon Simmonds published “A Case Study in
(continued on p. 6)
Awesome Alumni
Ricardo Valea, Phillip
Whisenhunt (pictured
above) and Camilio Alvarez were featured in the
Greater Wilmington Business Journal on Nov. 13,
2009 for their work with
iPhone applications. The
three have since formed a
software development
company called BoomCo
which is focused on
iPhone application development. The full article is
at http://tinyurl/2uhlgh5.
Congratulations to MS
CSIS student Maz Boddoohi and Maurice Benson for winning the
2010 Southeast (SE) Decision Sciences Institute
(DSI) Outstanding Student
Paper Competition. Their
paper “Variable Rectangle
Strip Cutting Heuristic
Analysis – a Real World
Implementation” was recognized at the meeting’s
luncheon on Feb. 22. The
Lindsey Kelley ’09
accepted a job offer from
Credit Suisse for a position
in their technical analyst
program at their Research
2010 SE DSI Student Paper Triangle Park location. Her
team provides effective
Competition was open to
structured technical support
Ph.D., masters and underfor multiple front/middle/
graduate students. All student
back office applications.
papers were subject to the
They are responsible for
same review process as regu- problem solving and root
lar papers.
cause analysis for problems
raised to them. She
Benjamin J. Jamieson
writes,“I cannot wait to
graduated with university
honors in computer science. take all of the skills and
His honors project was titled fundamentals that I've
“TuneToTab: From Tune to acquired here at UNCW
with me into the real
Tablature in Real Time.”
world.”
Congratulations to Will
Wharton for being among
Congratulations to Kevin
the first 60 contestants to
Matthews ’08 and ISOM
complete, 100 percent corfaculty member Tom
rectly, all of the challenges in Janicki who received
Part 2 of the IBM’s “Master the “Best Paper in the
the Mainframe” Contest and Innovative Education and
to Lyle Scott for being one of Experiential Learning
Track” award at the 40th
the winners in Part 1.
Wesley Williams, Elizabeth annual meeting of the
Southeast Decision
Snead, Shelby Morge, SridSciences Institute. Their
har Narayan, Gene
paper was titled
Tagliarini, Mahnaz Moallem “Development and
and Karen Hill presented
Preliminary Results of an
“Using Squeak Etoys to Inte- Adaptive Grading /
grate Science, Technology,
Learning System (AGLS).”
Christopher Watford ’07
has been working for GE
Hitachi Nuclear Energy
since Feb. 2007 as lead
software engineer. He also
completed emergency
medical technician training
and graduated from Cape
Fear Community College’s
paramedic school. He
writes, “Currently I’m
straddling computer science
(lead software engineer for
methods and software
development) and medicine
(emergency response
organization) at work,
which is pretty fun! I hope
to work part time as a
paramedic soon.”
Heath Newton ’06 recently
opened Cape Fear Games
(http://
www.capefeargames.com/)
at 3608 Oleander Dr. It
carries board games, card
games, rpg’s and much
more. Stop in, and say hi.
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Volume 12, Number 1
Page 5
Faculty Focus (continued from p. 3)
in association with the
23th IEEE Conference on
Computer Vision and
Pattern Recognition,
2010.
Karl Ricanek, Marios
Savvides, Damon
Woodard and Gerry
Dozier published
“Unconstrained Biometric
Identification: Emerging
Technologies” in
Computer, Vol. 43, No. 3,
February 2010.
Yishi Wang, Cuixian
Chen, Karl Ricanek and
Susan Simmons
published, “Generalized
Multi-Ethnic Face AgeEstimation” in the
Proceedings of IEEE
Third International
Conference on
Biometrics: Theory,
Applications and Systems,
2009.
Gene Tagliarini, Sridhar
Narayan, Mahnaz
Moallem, Shelby Morge
and Chandra Roughton,
published “Integrating
Computational and
Modeling Technology
Using Squeak e-Toys and
Problem-Based Learning
Pedagogy to Infuse
Information Technology
Skills into the Core STEM
Curriculum” for the
American Educational
Research Association
Annual Meeting, Denver,
Colo., May 2010.
Gene Tagliarini
presented and authored,
with Sridhar Narayan,
Mahnaz Moallem, Shelby
Morge and Katharine
Daniels, “Integrating
Computational and
Modeling Technology
with Problem-based
Learning to Improve
Teaching and Learning in
the Core STEM
Curriculum” at the Society
for Information
Technology and Teacher
Education 21st
International Conference,
SITE/AACE, San Diego,
Calif., April 2010.
Gene Tagliarini and
Shelby Morge presented
“Using an Open-Source
Modeling and Simulation
Tool to Transform
Learning and Instruction”
at the Society for
Information Technology
and Teacher Education’s
21st International
Conference, SITE/AACE,
San Diego, Calif., April
2010. Co-authors are
Mahnaz Moallem and
Sridhar Narayan.
Ron Vetter published
three guest editor
introductions:
“Authentication by
Biometric Verification”
Computer, Vol. 43, No. 2,
pp 28-29; “Professional
Ethics” Computing Now,
2009; and with Karl
Ricanek “Biometrics”
Computing Now, 2010.
Ron Vetter and Jeff
Brown published
“Flexibility Is Key for
SMS Coupons” in the
Mobile Marketer's Classic
Guide to Mobile
Advertising, pp 49.
Ron Vetter, Laurie
Patterson, Tom Janicki
and Bryan Reinicke
published “Majoring in a
Virtual Environment:
Merging CS and IS into
IT” in the Proceedings of
the 2009 World Congress
in Computer Science,
Computer Engineering,
Don’t miss the UNCW-ACM website:
http://student.uncw.edu/org/acm/
and Applied Computing:
The 2006 International
Conference on Frontiers in
Education: Computer
Science and Computer
Engineering, No. 2009, pp
360-366.
“Computer science
is cool again," said
Eric Grimson, chair
of the Computing
Research Association. The organization found that
computer science
major counts are
increasing for the
second year in a
row. See the full
article at:
http://tinyurl.com/2walf5n
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Volume 12, Number 1
Page 6
Student
Showcase
(continued from p. 4)
Camelio Alvarez, Ricardo Valea, Phillip
Whisenhunt, Ron Vetter
and Jeff Brown presented
“UNCW Mobile Applications: Interactive Text
Message and iPhone Development” at the UNCW
Board of Trustees meeting, October 2009.
Upsilon Pi Epsilon’s three officers for 2009-10, Maziar Boddoohi,
Adam M. Gaweda and Wesley Allen Williams, inducted 24 students
into the local chapter of the international computer science honor
society. Congratulations to Richard Stephen Alford, Benjamin Eldon
Barbour, Alexander Justin Beaty, Frederick Bingham, Gregory Andrew
Braden, Jeffrey Stephen Bruce, Justin Matthew Cowen, Phillip R.
Garriss, Zachary Kyle Glaser, Linwood Carlton Gordon, Patrick
Michael Green, Joseph Brandon Hilton, Lyndon Kyle Holt, Joshua
Stephen Hubbard, Dominique Christin Jackson, Micah Daniel Justad,
David Daniel Macurak, Pamela Lyn Rosoff, Lyle Scott, Michael Stokes
Shaw, James Richard Smith, Tammy Nguyen Tran, Jason Michael
Vandeventer and Phillip Jordan Whisenhunt (all pictured below.)
Ron Vetter, Camelio Alvarez, Douglas Kline and
Bryan Reinicke published
“iTour: A System for SelfGuided Virtual Campus
Tours in the proceedings
of the International Conference on Wireless Networks, 2010.
Ron Vetter, Jeff Brown
and Christopher Velado
presented “XML Interactive: A Software Framework for Developing Interactive SMS Applications” at the International
Conference on Internet
Computing.
A summer 2009 survey, conducted by
the National Association of Colleges
and Employers reported that, of the
majors offered at UNCW, computer science is the one with the highest average
starting salary: $61,407. Second is
geological sciences at $52,770.
THE VOTE IS IN:
BARBIE® DOLL’S
126TH CAREER:
COMPUTER ENGINEER.
See more at:
http://tinyurl.com/ydzxa96
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Volume 12, Number 1
Page 7
Other Faculty Ventures: Did you know that…?
Laurie Patterson
and her husband,
Phil Furia from
UNCW’s creative
writing department
(both pictured at
right), recently published a book together. “The Songs
of Hollywood,” was
released in April,
2010 by Oxford University Press. See more at
http://tinyurl.com/23lkdqv.
Karl Ricanek and Ron Vetter were guest editors of the
February 2010 issue of Computing Now, the IEEE Computer Society's online source for scientific content from
its peer-reviewed magazines, journals and conference proceedings. That issue highlighted Biometrics and is available online at http://tinyurl/3y2ufvq. They were also invited to speak with UNC’s Vice President for Federal
Programs and US Army Special Operations Command
last week.
Jack Tompkins was selected to serve as a reader at the
College Board's 2010 AP Computer Science Reading.
Ron Vetter was asked to be a keynote speaker at the
Consortium for Computing Sciences in Colleges annual
conference held November, 2009 at Roanoke College in
Salem, VA.
Ralph Bradley maintains the
membership database for the
Cape Fear Jazz Society.
The MORPH longitudinal database created by UNCW’s Face
Ageing Group is being actively
used by students and faculty in
Canada, Mexico, France, Switzerland, Germany, Spain, Italy,
Russia, Israel, Taiwan, The
Netherlands, India, Finland,
Singapore, Korea, Croatia, Wales, England, Chile, Hong
Kong, Iran, Slovenia, Cyprus, Malaysia, China, Australia,
Portugal, Turkey, Egypt and Japan.
Congratulations to Our Recent Graduates!
Fall 2009 Graduates
Master’s Degrees: Camilo Andres Alvarez, Matthew
Royce Boykin, Brian Alton Bullard, Robert Monroe
Harrison, Matthew Jonathan Mascherin, Michael
Parker Moran, Matthew Stephen Ratliff and Douglas Casey Tucker.
Bachelor’s Degrees: Jacob A Boniface, Hogan
Gordon Hagy, Jacob Michael Kane, Lindsey Jo
Kelly, Elizabeth Nicole Snead, Matthew Ryan
Traynham and Ricardo Arturo Valea.
Spring and Summer 2010 Graduates
Master’s Degrees: Maz Boddoohi, Seiken Higashionna, Matt Ratliff, Maurice Benson, Chris
Cotton, Jerry Martin and Michael Parker Moran.
Bachelor’s Degrees: Amil Nabeel Abdallah, Andrew Mitchell Barfield, Herbert Carroll Bland,
Devin Sheldon Dixon, Cory David Douglas,
Ryan Morgan Gates, Linwood Carlton Gordon,
Christopher Michael Gore, Haeden H. Howland,
Benjamin John Jamieson, Erik Lee Langston, Jan
Gabriel Lucas, Philip Michael Perry, Jason Michael Vandeventer, Phillip Jordan Whisenhunt
and Wesley Allen Williams.
Alumni and Friends:
UNIVERSITY OF NORTH
CAROLINA WILMINGTON
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