Compiler - November 2009
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Issue 38 | November 2009 View in a Web browser
Picture of the Month
November 2
College of Computing
Information Session
CCB 360
vcal ical
November 5
GVU Brown Bag: Hans
Klein
TSRB 132
vcal ical
November 8
Connect with Tech
CoC
vcal ical
November 9
UROC Job Fair
TSRB 132-124 (Ballroom)
vcal ical
Homecoming '09 a CoC Success
College of Computing students (back row, l to r) Aurel Lazar, Stephen Long, Azhar BandeAli, Taylor Wrobel, Abhishek Shroff, (front row, l to r) Joy Buolamwini and Michael
Slaughter get ready to compete in the annual Mini 500 tricycle race during Georgia Tech's
Homecoming 2009. The College, marking the first time ever an academic unit formally entered
the competition, represented itself well, taking third overall in the Student Organizations
division (see story below).
Financial Dashboard for September 2009
Proposed Contracts for August 2009
$15,995,887
Total
$
Amount
23
$14,401,994 43%
IC
CS
November 9
TSO Brown Bag on CoC
Information Security
KACB 1116W
vcal ical
November 12
GVU Brown Bag:
Nicholas Lurie
TSRB 132
vcal ical
Research News
2009 YTD New Awards
November 9
College of Computing
Information Session
CCB 360
vcal ical
CSE
RIM
6%
2%
GVU
November 12-13
M@CC Overnight Event
vcal ical
Sponsor
Value
PI
Co-PIs
Title
November 16
College of Computing
Information Session
CCB 360
vcal ical
NSF
$450,000
Nick
Feamster
None
Taint-Based Information
Tracking in Networked
Systems
November 18
Roswell High School
College and Career Fair
30%
19%
Newly Awarded Contracts
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Roswell High School
vcal ical
NSF
$259,071
Milos
Prvulovic
None
Beyond Secure Processors Securing Systems Against
Hardware Attacks
NSF
$65,000
Karsten
Schwan
Douglas
Blough, Calton
Pu, Sudhakar
Yalamanchili
Industry/University
Cooperative Research Center
for Experimental Research
NSF
$477,239
Santosh
Pande
None
Software Tools and
Techniques for Maximizing
Realism on Multi-Core
Processors
AFOSR
$299,143
George
Biros
None
Uncertainty Quantification for
Large-Scale Inverse
Scattering
NSF
$450,000
Patrick
Traynor
Jonathon Giffin
Characterizing and Mitigating
Device-Based Attacks in
Cellular...
NSF
$1,076,272
Ling Liu
Mustaque
Ahamad,
Calton Pu, Lilly
Immergluck
Privacy-Preserving
Information Network and
Services for Healthcare
Applications
NSF
$499,354
Elizabeth
Mynatt
None
Making Health Personal: The
Emerging Role of Personal
Technology
NSF
$116,874
Haesun
Park
None
Fast and Accurate
Nonnegative Tensor
Decomposition: Algorithms
and Software
NSF
$180,000
Alexander
Gray
None
Density-Preserving Maps
NSF
$1,000,000*
David
Bader
None
Understanding WholeGenome Evolution through
Petascale Simulation (NSF
PetaApps)
NSF
$1,080,000** Santosh
Vempala
Dana Randall,
Prasad Tetali,
Eric Vigoda
Collaborative Research:
Random Processes and
Randomized Algorithms
NSF
$400,000
Calton Pu
None
Collaborative Research:
Spam Processing, Archiving,
and Monitoring
NSF
$200,000
Patrick
Traynor
None
Provably Anonymous
Networking Through Secure
Function Evaluation
NSF
$405,000
Jonathon
Giffin
None
Local Remediation of Global
Internet Epidemics
Lucent
Technologies
$150,000
Blair
MacIntyre
None
The Next Step in Mobile AR:
The Development of an
Application Enablement
* Multi-institutional award. Georgia Tech share is $400,000; partners include University of
South Carolina and Penn State University
** Multi-institutional award. Georgia Tech share is $780,000; partners include University of
Rochester
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November 23
College of Computing
Information Session
CCB 360
vcal ical
November 30
College of Computing
Information Session
CCB360
vcal ical
1st
Prize taken by CoC
“pomp” in Homecoming
Display contest
40
Number of students
who helped with CoC
Homecoming Activities
480
Number of pizzas &
burritos consumed
during Oct. 24-25
GameFest
>100
Number of research
demos presented by
GVU during Oct. 15
FutureMedia
Conference
This month various groups
at CoC are pursuing
partnerships with the
following companies:
Google
Intel
SAIC
Yahoo!
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People@CoC
MacIntyre, Vetter Speak at NVidia GPU Tech Conference
Associate Professor Blair MacIntyre (IC) and Adjunct Professor Jeffrey Vetter (CSE) were
among the speakers at the 2009 NVidia GPU Technology Conference, held Sept. 30 to Oct. 2
in San Jose, Calif. The annual conference is devoted to exploring new technologies and
applications driven by the graphics processing unit (GPU). MacIntyre spoke at three sessions,
including the first-day general session on “Important Trends in Visual Computing” and two
others on “Zombies on Tegra: A Case Study in Mobile Augmented Reality” and “Handheld
Augmented Reality”. Vetter also spoke at a first-day general session on “Breakthroughs in
High Performance Computing” and at another, “Supercomputing Super Session.” Video of both
general sessions is available at the conference website above.
Vempala Talks Algorithms and Star Shapes at MIT
Professor Santosh Vempala (CS) gave an invited talk on Oct. 1 at the MIT Operations
Research Center on "Efficient Algorithms for Some NonConvex Families," presenting joint work
with CS graduate students Karthekeyan Chandrasekaran and Daniel Dadush, and
introducing a new technique for proving isoperimetric inequalities in high dimension. From the
abstract: “Star-shaped bodies are an important nonconvex generalization of convex bodies
(e.g., linear programming with some violations). We present an efficient algorithm for
sampling a given star-shaped body.”
Arkin, Conte Elected to IEEE Society Boards
Professors Ron Arkin (IC) and Tom Conte (CS) have been elected to three-year terms on
the Boards of Governors for two IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers)
societies. Arkin will serve as a governor for the IEEE Society on Social Implications of
Technology (SSIT), which addresses such issues as environmental, health and safety
implications of technology; engineering ethics and professional responsibility; history of
electrotechnology; technical expertise and public policy; peace technology; and social issues
related to energy, information technology and telecommunications. Conte will serve a 2010-12
term as governor for the IEEE Computer Society, whose members work in a wide range of
computing fields, from artificial intelligence to networking, to software engineering and
graphics processing.
Freeman in Demand as Speaker and Adviser
Though he misses being on campus, Emeritus Dean and Professor Peter Freeman has been
keeping quite busy. He continues to serve on several advisory boards and to advise the GENI
Project Office and was asked to join an international advisory board for the G-Lab Project in
Germany and to be an ACM Distinguished Lecturer. In the past year Freeman has given invited
keynote speeches in Japan and Greece, as well as several invited talks in the United States
and abroad, with more scheduled in 2010. He is serving as co-chair for two international NSF
workshops in the next few months (U.S.-Japan in December and Middle East Regional in
January). Writing projects and consulting take up the rest of Freeman’s time, but he claims to
not be working more than 40-50 hours/week. As he noted recently to Compiler, “Reports of
my retirement are greatly exaggerated.” For more details and copies of his talks, visit
Freeman’s website.
Mynatt on Broadband 2020 Panel
Professor Beth Mynatt (IC) participated at the Broadband 2020 Symposium, held Oct 20 at
the Georgia Tech Global Learning Center. The daylong symposium organized by the Georgia
Centers for Advanced Telecommunications Technology (GCATT) and the Georgia Tech
Broadband Institute (GTBI) aimed to take stock of progress to date toward pervasive
broadband connectivity and the steps needed to achieve measurable and world-leading levels
of broadband-for-all by the year 2020. At the symposium panel, Mynatt and her co-panelists
described the many dimensions of the challenge—technology, services, economics and
policy—and addressed the particular needs of the underserved communities. The symposium
started with a welcome from Georgia Tech President Bud Peterson and concluded with
remarks from Michael Cassidy, president of the Georgia Research Alliance.
Yeung Group Approved to Work on UIUC Petascale Computer
A four-institution collaboration led by P.K. Yeung, adjunct professor in CSE and professor in
Aerospace Engineering, is one of 18 groups funded by the National Science Foundation to use
the future Blue Waters petascale computer, which is expected to become available at the
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) in 2011. The group's scientific focus is in the
study of turbulent fluid flows, and simulations of world-record resolution are expected to lead
to critical advances relevant to many other fields of science and engineering. Several team
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members are set to begin work soon with Blue Waters project staff, based at UIUC's National
Center for Supercomputer Applications (NCSA), on state-of-the-art code development for
massively parallel computers up to the petaflop level.
Vempala Co-Authors Spectral Algorithms Book With MSR’s Kannan
Distinguished Professor Santosh Vempala (CS) has published a new book with renowned
scientist Ravindran Kannan, principal researcher for Microsoft Research India. Titled Spectral
Algorithms (Now Publishers), the book examines modern applications of spectral methods and
novel algorithms for estimating spectral parameters. “Spectral” methods, which are widely
used in engineering, applied mathematics and statistics, refer to the use of eigenvalues,
eigenvectors, singular values and singular vectors. In addition to studying “sampling on the Y”
methods for use in matrix computations, the book also presents recent extensions of spectral
methods, from matrices to tensors and their applications, to combinatorial optimization
problems. Spectral Algorithms was launched during the Foundations of Computer Science
(FOCS) conference, held Oct. 24-27 in Atlanta.
GVU Has Strong Presence at CC09
Many members of the GVU community participated in Creativity & Cognition 2009, held Oct.
27-30 in Berkeley, Calif. The GVU Center was represented by seven accepted papers, eight
posters, one art installation and two demos. In fact, those seven papers constituted 20
percent of the overall program, whose broad theme was “Everyday Creativity.” GVU faculty
participated in conference organization as part of the Organizing Committee (Ellen Do (IC,
Arch)) and Program Committee (Amy Bruckman (IC), Jason Freeman (Arch), Ashok Goel
(IC), and Brian Magerko (IC, LCC)). For a full list of the center’s CC09 participation, visit the
GVU website.
2009-10 Foley Scholars Honored at Reception
The 2009-10 Foley Scholars are Marshini Chetty and Erika Poole, both human-centered
computing Ph.D. candidates in Interactive Computing. The finalists and recipients of the 200910 Foley Scholarship were honored at the Foley Scholars Reception & Dinner, sponsored by
GVU's industrial partner Google, on Oct. 14 at the Ansley Golf Club. The Foley Scholarship is
awarded on a merit basis for overall brilliance and potential impact. Chetty and Poole were
selected from an outstanding group of eight finalists that included Betsy DiSalvo, Matt
Flagg, Andrea Grimes, Thomas Smyth, Erich Stuntebeck and Sarita Yardi.
Personnel Announcements
Robert "Bobby" Strickland has joined CoC as a Tech Temp in Communications effective
10/26/09. His email address is rstrickl@cc and is located in CCB 140. Welcome Bobby!
G. Florin Constantin has joined CoC as a Post-Doc in CS effective 10/1/09. His email address
is florin@cc, phone number is 5-4610 and is located in KACB 2111. Welcome Florin!
General News
Computing Makes Its Mark in GT Homecoming Celebration
The College’s official participation in Oct. 12-17 Homecoming celebration marked a first for
Georgia Tech: It was the first time an academic unit produced a team and competed in
Homecoming events against other student organizations, according to junior CS major
Michael Slaughter, who led the effort. And the College represented itself extremely well,
finishing third (out of 25) in the Student Organizations division and earning first place in the
Display contest. The CoC “pomp,” constructed in the plaza outside the College of Computing
building, was modeled on an actual computer complete with a peripheral drive and monitor.
The tissue paper-festooned creation also earned “Most Attractive,” “Most Creative” and “Most
Impressive Size” honors, Slaughter said, while the College team took more first place prizes in
the Spirit Display, the Photo Scavenger Hunt and the Great Clown Car Act. More than 40
students helped out with the College’s activities, with Slaughter giving special kudos to Taylor
Wrobel, Ajai Karthikeyan, Brian Aikens, Mallory Milam and Gabriel Arronte. “Start
early, dream big but stay realistic,” Slaughter advised his fellow students for next year. “Focus
first and foremost on the greater goal of building community, then winning, and most
importantly, having fun!”
College Launches ‘Shining Star’ Employee Recognition Program
To recognize and reward superlative performance and achievement by staff employees, in
October the College launched the Shining Star initiative, designed by Team MUM. Each
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quarter, nominations will be solicited from one of four groups—peers, administrators,
faculty/students, and supervisors—and submitted to a selection committee composed of
representatives from the College, each school/division, and Team MUM. That committee will
then vote on a quarterly Shining Star based on consistent performance criteria. Each quarter’s
winner will receive a monetary reward of $50 and a paid day off. “Too often our staff provide
us top-notch support with little or no recognition,” interim Dean Jim Foley wrote in his
announcement of the program. “Let’s work together to make the Shining Star initiative the
catalyst of change in those oversights.” More information on Shining Star is available on the
College intranet.
GVU On Display at FutureMedia Conference
The GVU Center was heavily involved in the FutureMedia Conference, held Oct. 15 at the Hotel
Palomar in Midtown Atlanta. The unprecedented conference called on academics, venture
capitalists, entrepreneurs and industry leaders to explore what comes next in digital, social and
multimedia. GVU's involvement started at the morning panel, where Director Beth Mynatt
(IC) presented her views on the nascent state of digital media. The panel discussion was
followed by a lunch keynote delivered by GVU alumnus Krishna Bharat, now distinguished
research scientist and principal scientist at Google and the creator of Google News. The
afternoon program was filled with GVU’s annual research showcase where faculty and students
presented more than 100 research projects to conference visitors.
Fall 2009 GameFest Doubles Attendance Record
The Georgia Tech Association for Computing Machinery (GTACM) and SIGgame groups held
their semesterly GameFest party and tournament, Oct. 24-25 in the Klaus Building. Event
attendance ballooned to more than 500 attendees, including 250-plus tournament
participants—nearly double the attendance of the Spring 2009 GameFest. The most popular
tournament was Team Fortress 2, with 10 six-person teams participating. Other tournaments
included Call of Duty 4 - Modern Warfare, Counter-Strike Source, DotA Allstars and Starcraft:
Brood War on PC; Halo 3 on Xbox 360; and Super Smash Brothers Brawl on Wii. More than
$1,500 in prizes, funded by tournament fees, was awarded to the tournament winners. GTACM
and SIGgame held the event in coordination with the Residence Hall Association and Student
Government Association.
College Hosts Board Members at Yellow Jackets’ Homecoming Game
Interim Dean Jim Foley, his wife, Marylou, and Senior Director of Development Mary Alice
Isele hosted several members of the Dean’s Advisory Board in the College of Computing box
on Oct. 17 for Georgia Tech’s 28-23 Homecoming victory against Virginia Tech. In addition to
board members, two CoC school chairs, Aaron Bobick (IC) and Richard Fujimoto (CSE),
were there to cheer on the Yellow Jackets. Board members also got a surprise visit from
Georgia Tech President Bud Peterson and his wife, Val, just before halftime. Peterson met
each board member individually and thanked them all for their support of the College. Tim
Saponas, who also has a degree from University of Colorado (where Peterson served as
chancellor before coming to Georgia Tech earlier this year), told the president he was
especially grateful for the work Peterson has done at both of his alma maters. The president
responded with a laugh that Saponas must have been an especially happy man in 1990 when
the two schools shared the college football national championship. Below are the board
members who attended the game:









Joe Bankoff (Woodruff Arts Center) and wife Lisa
Keith Cooley (Oversight Systems) and wife Peg
Stephen Fleming (Georgia Tech)
Jim Lester (Aflac) and wife Faye
David McCoy (Gartner)
Said Mohammadioun (TechOperators) and wife Diane
Tom Noonan (IBM Internet Security Systems)
Tim Saponas (Intel Corp.) and son
Alan Warren (Google) and dad Roger
TSO Offers New Web Support Services
The Technology Services Organization recently purchased SSL certificate hosting services for
the cc.gatech.edu domain. With this service, websites hosted on College-managed servers can
now generate and use an SSL certificate that will be trusted by most browsers. Even better:
there is no additional cost to the site owner. If you are interested in a CoC SSL certificate,
please contact helpdesk@cc.
Also, a new web resource is available for building research group and lab Web pages. It’s a
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content management system based on the popular Drupal technology. Thanks to research
community volunteers, the site continues to thrive and be enhanced, and visitors can now use
the following prefix to reference the sites: https://research.cc.gatech.edu. This Web resource
is provided for College researchers only and is not intended for class usage. If you are
interested in using this new resource, please contact Randy Carpenter.
The Compiler is a publication of the Office of Communications
All content © 2009 The College of Computing at Georgia Tech
Contact Communications View The Compiler Online View Past Issues
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11/4/2009