Rice Mobile Information System
ERIT Proposal
The power and capability of mobile devices continues to improve. Equally important, the
ability to pass digital data to and from a mobile device is starting to see great
improvement. A couple of years ago, it was not uncommon to find a person carrying a
pager, a cell phone, a PDA and a notebook computer. Many advances discussed later in
this proposal are resulting in smart phone systems offering better connectivity, storage,
and computing capacity in one device than all the first three devices, and in many cases
even eliminate the need to carry a notebook computer.
The main thrust of this proposal is to put Rice at the forefront in the area of using
connected intelligent mobile devices (primarily Smart Phones and cellular connected
PDA’s) combined with customized backend software and agents to create a connected
mobile information system. There are some related projects taking place at CMU and
Duke that are well funded; however both institutions have chosen an approach that limits
their abilities.
Rice’s effort in this area is primarily centered on a course shared between Computer
Science (COMP-446) and Electrical and Computer Engineering (ELEC-446) with
additional support from IT. We have also received a small amount of funding from
Microsoft and HP. If Rice wants to be at the forefront of this technology, we need to step
up our effort significantly before we are left behind.
The proposed system would use a new breed of Windows Mobile based Smart Phones
and connected PDAs connecting over 2.5G and 3G cellular wireless data networks.
Although these devices are capable of connecting directly to the internet, the proposed
system will improve response time and functionality using features such as a .NET
backend gateway and client level caching. It will tie into XML portal efforts being
undertaken by Rice IT. Based on such a platform, we will then build pervasive services
for education, campus safety, and personal health for the Rice community members.
The main purpose of the ERIT grant will be to greatly accelerate this project beyond what
could be done with only a classroom / project scenario including understanding how to
best leverage this technology to improve the educational and campus life of Rice
students. If fully funded, the money would add two full time graduate students to the
project. In the minimal, “planning grant” scenario, the project would be augmented by
undergraduates working over the summer and during the course’s off semester to keep
the project moving forward and to add continuity.
External funding opportunities
Industrial funding opportunities
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We will be seeking funds from Microsoft and probably Samsung and Motorola to help
with our hardware and software needs. Since we will be leveraging cellular wireless
networks, we can also seek funding from Sprint, Verizon, Cingular and T-Mobile. The
larger the Rice based initiative is, the higher the funding level we should be able to
achieve from these outside sources.
Intel, with its new reorganization, is devoted to promoting digital health, i.e., utilizing
information technology to enhance healthcare. Our mobile information system with its
potential service for pervasive personal health monitoring and reporting will be very
interesting to Intel. We will seek funding from Intel through its University Program.
Lin Zhong has worked with Microsoft Research on Windows based Smart Phones, their
interfaces and new services. Microsoft has been striving to establish a prominent
presence in the cell phone/smart phone market. It is eager to see more applications and
services that can be enabled on Windows based Smart Phone. Our mobile information
system and its services will be of great interest to Microsoft. I have already spoken to
Microsoft Academic Relations Manager Bradley Jensen about coupling the CITI grant to
the ability to get more Microsoft funds, and he is receptive to the dialog.
Federal funding opportunities
National Science Foundation: NSF, through its program in Computer Information
Science and Engineering (CISE), has a number of proposal solicitations that are highly
related to our project. For example, the Advanced Learning Technologies (ALT)
solicitation will be very interested in our mobile information system with its educational
services. Building the mobile information system will be a research challenge highly
related to the CISE Computing Research Infrastructure (CRI) solicitation.
National Institute of Health: The mobile information system with the pervasive personal
health monitoring and reporting service is likely to revolutionize the way diseases are
diagnosed and treated. In collaboration with researchers from the Dept. of Bioengineering
and the Texas Medical Center, we will actively seek funding from NIH for the
application of our mobile information system for healthcare.
Dept. of Homeland Security: The prototype mobile information system will provide a
campus safety (physical parameters such as toxicant and radiation level) monitoring
service through multiple Smart Phone end users. Such a service can be eventually
leveraged to cover a metropolitan area such as Houston. We will also actively seek
funding from the Department of Homeland Security for this big picture.
Deliverables and objectives
Our deliverables are:
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
Design the technologies required to implement an effective mobile information
system for Rice students, faculty and staff based on Smart Phone devices
communicating over 2.5G and 3G cellular data networks.

Develop server and client side caching technologies to overcome issues related to
slow and unreliable connectivity. This greatly increases response time and
increases functionality when out of communications range.

Study the changes to the environment at Rice that result from this new level of
information access and determine how to best use it to further the education
process at Rice. Investigate the human factors involved in the design of such a
mobile information system, and study the user and social acceptance of it.

Fully integrate into planned Rice IT efforts around XML based Portal systems.

Develop a .NET XML web service backend system to format data for small
devices, act as an always available fixed resource and user agent and to increase
data and information security.

Develop a prototype service for personal health/safety for the Rice community
based on such a mobile information system. A Smart Phone will function as the
personal server that collects and reports physical information.
Our overall objectives are:

Be one of the premiere institutions leveraging highly portable technology to
improve campus life. We feel we have a significantly better approach than those
being used at CMU and Duke and can interface well with MIT’s iCampus
initiative.

Keep Rice at the leading edge of smart, connected mobile device systems thereby
increasing our ability to obtain external funds.

Providing Rice with the reputation of providing a leading edge infrastructure for
incoming freshman and graduate students.
Current state of the art
Notebook Computers have been around for many years, yet most people do not carry one
with themselves at all times and they do not fit into pockets. PDAs are becoming more
capable; however most lack sufficient wide area connectivity and are too large. Cell
phones have a small form factor, but traditionally did not provide significant levels of
data communications, readability and performance. On May 10th, Microsoft introduced
its next generation of smart phone devices (for which Scott Cutler and some students in
COMP446/ELEC446 were part of the Beta test program) along with a large number of
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prominent hardware and software vendors. We are starting to see great convergence
devices capable of working with modern computer science tools.
As mentioned previously, we are not the only ones working on such systems. There is a
large multi institution portal effort called uPortal (http://www.uportal.org/) that, while
targeting desktop computers, contains capabilities for mobile clients. Rice is working on
an implementation of uPortal. At present, this does not address the smart phone,
connected environment. It is not a competitive threat for us and is likely to be a great
collaborative resource for us since it gathers data in standard formats.
Duke gained great publicity early this academic year by announcing that every incoming
freshman would be given an Apple iPod. While this was good for publicity and attracting
students, it was not a great success as the iPods were primarily useful only in audio
centered tasks. They lacked a wireless communications option and were quite limited in
functionality. Duke is scaling back on this program for next year.
CMU has a program called MyCampus (http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~sadeh/mycampus.htm).
MyCampus is based on wireless LAN connected PDAs and has concentrated primarily on
the permission and privacy issues in a user agent scenario. When we contacted them for
more details than we found on the web, we were told by the project leader that the bulk of
the project was on the web. What was most surprising about this program was the list of
faculty, researchers and sponsors. The list was much more impressive than the
technology shown on the web.
The most promising external effort is MIT’s iCampus initiative (http://icampus.mit.edu).
iCampus is a project funded by Microsoft Research and based at MIT that promotes a
wide range of information technologies to promote the educational process. It has
connections with MIT’s Open Courseware initiative as well as it iLabs experimental
infrastructure. It is also acting as an umbrella program for other educational efforts
leveraging information technology and this project, particularly with our connection to
Connexions, would fit well with iCampus.
Innovative aspects of the proposal
This project is centered on many emerging technologies.
 New smart phone devices are powerful, well connected, have useful input and
output mechanisms yet still fit easily in one’s pocket or purse. They are true
convergence devices.
 Utilization of XML data feeds, RSS concurrency and .NET web services
 A truly mobile information system geared for academic institutions, particularly
Rice that is likely to be continuously carried by students, staff and faculty.
 Portable access to content well suited to electronic distribution such as
Connexions modules
The mobile information system we propose has the following innovative aspects:
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
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It will be the first prototype of a connected, distributed Smart Phone system of
collaborative users that provide collective data services through existing 2.5 G
and 3G network. By designing and prototyping such a system, we will be able to
explore many important research issues. With a prototype system, we will be able
to experiment advanced pervasive/ubiquitous services. These will be itemized
next.
Many issues involved are important research topics: energy-efficient design for
longer Smart Phone battery life; operating system and middleware supports for
system management; user and society-aware design of such a system involving
many users in a community.
Based on the mobile information system, we will be able to prototype and
experiment many novel pervasive/ubiquitous services. The pervasive personal
health and campus safety monitoring and reporting services that we will prototype
will be the first.
For the personal health and campus safety services, we will design and prototype
a personal-area network (PAN) of wireless biosensors to collect physical
information and report to a Smart Phone, and to become an integral part of the
mobile information system. Such a PAN will be the first of this nature. Meeting
the energy efficiency, security/privacy, and usability challenges will make
significant contributions to the research community.
Interdisciplinary aspects of the proposal
This project already collaborates with IT, Computer Science and ECE. As it grows, it will
interface will all aspects of life on the Rice campus aided by Rice uPortal and Sharepoint
projects. It will incorporate a Connexions reader as well as an interface into our Digital
Library efforts. In the long run, the project will involve researchers from the Dept. of
Bioengineering for sensors that collect the user’s physiological data for pervasive
personal health services through a Smart Phone. We will seek collaborations from the
Texas Medical Center for leveraging the mobile information system for better healthcare.
Moreover, since the mobile information system involves massive end users, the user and
social acceptance studies are important. We are seeking collaborations from the Depts. of
Psychology and Anthropology.
This project aims to provide a revolutionary level of connectivity and access in an
entirely mobile fashion. As such it will change the dynamics of many areas of our
campus and could change the way we teach and live. There will be a wealth of
opportunities to leverage the humanities and social science communities of Rice and this
is why Chris Kelty, Assistant Professor of Anthropology is participating in the project.
Impact and exploitation plan.
There are many ways this project will impact Rice.
 It will be a very useful information platform for the entire Rice community
 It will generate great publicity / recruiting tool showcasing Rice at the forefront of
some fun and interesting technologies
 It provides collaborative opportunities between Rice IT and academic
departments
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

Leadership in this area will greatly help us achieve additional funding from
Microsoft as well as new cell phone sponsors (particularly Motorola and
Samsung).
ECE just hired Lin Zhong to start as a new Assistant Professor in September
2005. He has a strong interest in mobile devices and this could be a great initial
project for him in this area. He will actively seek external funding to continue
research as this seed funding will start.
Project work plan, timetable, and milestones
Timetable



The test run of COMP446 / ELEC446 took place in the spring 2005 semester with
a carefully recruited set of students
The first real run of COMP446 / ELEC446 with smart phones is set for the fall
2005 semester.
ERIT funding will be used starting January 2006 to hire an undergraduate student,
one graduate student or two graduate students depending on the funding level we
receive. It is a race against the clock. I believe we are in a good position to take a
leadership role, however if we do not move fast enough, we are likely to lose the
lead, and thus our ability to receive primary Microsoft and other funds.
Milestones






Initial deployment of backend server, mobile technology tool kit, a user’s website
and a developer’s website will be completed by the end of the fall 2005 semester.
Full feature plan to be developed over the spring 2006 semester
By the beginning of summer 2006, we expect the mobile information prototype
system to be ready. The system will consist of multiple Windows Mobile based
Smart Phones for the end users and several backend servers.
By the end of summer 2006, we expect to implement and experiment prototype
services for campus safety and personal health monitoring and reporting based on
the mobile information system.
With the increased funding levels, we will complete interfaces to Rice’s uPortal
and/or Connexions programs by January 2007. With two staff, we will do both of
these, with one, we will have to choose.
As noted, we are still exploring the interests of a number of co-investigators, each
of which will offer a milestone in conjunction with their efforts.
Budget
The budget is given for three funding levels. The small project covers a very modest
development of the system and adds continuity between offerings of the project course.
The desired, medium level program significantly increases both the system growth and
our exploration into improving Rice with the technology.
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The large level support provides the resources required to have Rice be a significant
leader in this area.
The pertinent elements are:
 One undergraduate (employee) for a semester and summer as a minimum
 One graduate student (full support) for a year for the base case of the full project
 Two graduate students (full support) for a year for the large project
 We will also have some extra hardware, software and service expenses
o Software for development ($3K -$10K, donated from Microsoft)
o Smart Phones (minimum of 6, max 25, $500 each with an excellent chance
of full or partial donations from Samsung and/or Motorola)
o Service $20/month/phone for data services. There is a good potential of
having this funded from Cingular, Sprint and Verizon
 With this grant, it is quite reasonable to assume we will receive funds and
equipment from external sources. I would anticipate the ability to get matching
funds for any CITI dollars up to a total of $50,000 and potentially move this
project well beyond what is proposed here. I have already spoken to Microsoft
Academic Relations Manager Bradley Jensen about coupling the CITI grant to the
ability to get more Microsoft funds, and he is receptive to the dialog.
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2006 ERIT Proposal Budget
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Software (MSFT Donation)
Equipment
Wireless Service
Cutler
Baraniuk
Kelty
Zhong
Undergraduate Student
Grad Student
Total
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
Anticipated external support
Net requested from ERIT
3,000
3,000
1,500
1
1,000
1,000
7,000
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
16,501 $
5,000
5,000
2,500
1
2,500
3,000
5,000
5,000
20,000
48,001
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
10,000
12,500
6,250
1
5,000
6,000
10,000
5,000
40,000
94,751
$
$
6,501 $
10,000 $
18,001 $
30,000 $
31,751
63,000
ERIT Proposal – (Cutler – et al)
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Scott Cutler, Adjunct Professor and Lecturer
Contact Information
Office: Duncan Hall, Room 2001
Voice: 281–364–2291, FAX: 713–348–5686, E-mail: cutler@rice.edu.
Education
B.S.
M.S.
Ph.D.
1973
1973
1976
MIT, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
MIT, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
MIT, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Positions Held
2001–present
1998-2001
1995-1998
1990-1995
1984-1990
1976-1984
Present position
Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, Compaq Computer Corp,
Commercial PC Group
Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, Digital Equipment Corp, PC
Group
Vice President, Software Architecture, Chips and Technologies Inc
Vice President, Software, Tandy Computer Corp
Engineering and Management Positions, General Electric Corporate Research
and Development
Current Courses
ELEC694
“Future Personal Computing Technologies”
ELEC446/COMP446 “Mobile Wireless Services Project”
Honors
GE Dushman Award
PC Magazine Award for Technical Excellence
Professional Memberships
Past Senior Member, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
Past Treasurer, IEEE Consumer Electronic Society
Former Chairman of GE’s “GOSAM” - 3500 member internal Electrical Engineering professional
organization
Professional Activities and Development
Member, Houston Angel Network
Board member of numerous cultural organizations such as the Houston Symphony
Chaired corporate patent committees and engineering promotion boards
Institutional Service
Rice University
Committee to establish an Undergraduate Business Program for Engineering Students
Computer and Information Technology Institute Advisory Board
Connexions Review Team
Research


Current research in the area of digital media and its use in personal computing environments with a
concentration in small, wireless mobile devices.
25 years of industrial experience advancing the personal computer industry from its inception
o Creation of products sold in the millions of units and billions of dollars in sales
o Technologies for eliminating performance bottlenecks in personal computing systems
o Object oriented game technologies and the use of virtual machines to avoid early computer
hardware limitations.
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Significant Industrial Achievements

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Conceived and then brought to market the first iPAQ computer. It finished its first year of
production at a $1B run rate and was the fastest product to reach 100,000 units
Devised various corporate strategies that created two $B businesses and poised one company for
acquisition by Intel.
Identified and developed chip architectures optimized for Microsoft Windows
o Wingine - First cost effective high performance Linear Frame Buffer graphics for Windows –
allowed graphics performance to linearly scale with processor frequency.
o Printgine - First commercial implementation of Enhanced Capabilities Printer Port (ECP).
Developed Tandy’s DeskMate family of products including
o DeskMate runtime became the industry standard MS-DOS low-end graphical user interface in
the late 1980’s. Significant DeskMate applications included the first graphical version of Lotus
123, the first graphical version of Intuit’s Quicken and TandyLink online community, which
later grew into America Online when it was ported to Microsoft Windows.
First use of personal computers for business uses at General Electric
Co-authored the “ZORK” family of computer games – one of the first games to sell over 1,000,000
copies and still in production 25 years later.
Consulting Positions
Board Member or advisor to small technology companies
Consulting in the use and deployment of personal computing technologies to government and industrial
groups
Expert witness in the area of microprocessor architecture and applicability
Publications
7 Issued US Patents
7 4,533,960 System for encoding and decoding video signals
6 4,425,628 Control module for energy management system
5 4,386,347 Method of, and apparatus for, increased resolution slewing of a bar-graph-display data input/output
system
4 4,376,969 Control signal and isolation circuits
3 4,310,896 Method of interfacing remote units to a central microprocessor
2 4,301,509 Method for cooking meat or poultry in thermal oven
1 4,291,303 Touch pad and display tube circuitry
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Lin Zhong, Assistant Professor in ECE, Rice University (Since Sept.
2005)
CONTACT INFORMATION
Phone: (609) 258-1354 (Office)
(609) 439-1895 (Home)
Email: lzhong@princeton.edu
http://www.princeton.edu/~lzhong
EDUCATION
Princeton University, Princeton, NJ
Ph.D. in Computer Engineering, expected August, 2005
M.A., May 2002
Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
M.S. in Electronic Engineering, July 2000
B.S. in Electronic Engineering with Honors, July 1998
RESEARCH INTERESTS
-Mobile & pervasive computing systems: energy efficiency, user interfaces & new services
-Networked embedded system design and optimization
-Power analysis and optimization of ICs and systems
-Architecture and CAD of circuits using emerging nanometer devices
-High-level synthesis and statistical modeling of ICs
HONORS & AWARDS
-Harold W. Dodds Honorific Fellowship, Princeton University, 2004-2005
-AT&T Asian Pacific Leadership Award, 2000
-Excellent Graduate of Tsinghua University, 1998
-Completed the five-year undergraduate curriculum of Tsinghua University in four years
-Received merit-based scholarships from Tsinghua University every year 1994-1999.
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
1. Hardware Devices Group, Microsoft Research, Redmond, WA
Summer Research Intern: June 2004 to Aug. 2004 and June 2005 to Aug. 2005
2. System-level Design Department, NEC Labs, America, Princeton, NJ
Summer Research Intern: June 2003 to Sept. 2003
3. Dept. of Electrical Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ
Graduate Research Assistant: Sept. 2000 to present
Assistant Instructor: ELE206 - Introduction to Logic Design: Spring 2002 and Spring 2003
4. Dept. of Electronic Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
Graduate Research Assistant: Sept. 1998 to July 2000
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
Refereed Conference Proceedings
Mobile &Pervasive Computing
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1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Lin Zhong and Niraj K. Jha, "Graphical user interface energy characterization for handheld
computers," in Proc. IEEE/ACM Int. Conf. on Compilers, Architectures & Synthesis for Embedded
Systems (CASES), Oct. 2003.
Lin Zhong and Niraj K. Jha, "Dynamic power optimization for interactive systems," in Proc. Int.
Conf. on VLSI Design, Jan. 2004.
Yunsi Fei, Lin Zhong, and Niraj K. Jha, "An energy-aware framework for coordinated dynamic
software management in mobile computers," in Proc. IEEE/ACM Int. Symp. on Modeling, Analysis,
and Simulation of Computer & Telecommunication Systems (MASCOTS), Oct. 2004.
Lin Zhong and Niraj K. Jha, "Energy efficiency for handheld computer interfaces: Limits,
characterization, and practice," to appear in USENIX/ACM MobiSys, June 2005
Le Yan, Lin Zhong, and Niraj K. Jha, "User-perceived latency based dynamic voltage scaling for
interactive applications," to appear in IEEE/ACM Design Automation Conf. (DAC), June 2005.
CAD & VLSI
6.
Lin Zhong, Jiong Luo, Yunsi Fei and Niraj K. Jha, "Register binding based power management for
high-level synthesis of control-flow intensive behaviors," in Proc. IEEE Int. Conf. on Computer
Design (ICCD), Sept. 2002.
7. Lin Zhong and Niraj K. Jha, "Interconnect-aware high-level synthesis for low power," in Proc.
IEEE/ACM Int. Conf. on Computer-Aided Design (ICCAD), Nov. 2002.
8. Pallav Gupta, Lin Zhong and Niraj K. Jha, "A high-level interconnect power model for design space
exploration," in Proc. IEEE/ACM Int. Conf. on Computer-Aided Design (ICCAD), Nov. 2003.
9. Rui Zhang, Pallav Gupta, Lin Zhong, and Niraj K. Jha, "Synthesis and optimization of threshold logic
networks with application to nanotechnologies," in Proc. IEEE/ACM Design Automation & Test in
Europe Conf. (DATE), Feb. 2004.
10. Lin Zhong, Srivaths Ravi, Anand Raghunathan, and Niraj K. Jha, "Power estimation for cycleaccurate functional descriptions of hardware," in Proc. IEEE/ACM Int. Conf. on Computer-Aided
Design (ICCAD), Nov. 2004.
Refereed Journal Articles
1.
2.
3.
Rui Zhang, Pallav Gupta, Lin Zhong, and Niraj K. Jha, "Threshold network synthesis and
optimization and its application to nanotechnologies," IEEE Trans. on Computer-Aided Design of ICs
& Systems, Jan. 2005.
Lin Zhong and N. K. Jha, "Interconnect-aware low power high-level synthesis," IEEE Trans. on
Computer-Aided Design of ICs & Systems, Mar. 2005.
K. S. Vallerio, Lin Zhong and N. K. Jha, "Energy-efficient graphical user interface design," accepted
by IEEE Trans. on Mobile Computing.
PATENTS
US Patent filed, Oct. 2003 (Power estimation for cycle-accurate functional descriptions)
PROFESSIONAL SERVICES
Member, Technical committee for First Int. Conf. Embedded Software & System, 2004.
Member, Program committee for Int. Conf. on Embedded & Ubiquitous Computing, 2004.
Reviewer for VLSI Design Conf. 2004, DATE 2004/2005, IEEE Trans. on CAD of ICs &
Systems
PROFESSIONAL SOCIETIES
IEEE; Society for Information Display (SID)
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