PROPOSAL NO.: 0206385
INSTITUTION: Florida A&M University
NSF PROGRAM: CENTERS FOR RSCH EXCELL IN S&T
PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR: Jones, Edward L.
TITLE: CREST: Center for Distributed Computing: Theory, Development and Applications
RATING: Good
REVIEW:
What is the intellectual merit of the proposed activity?
These are good researchers in a very focused area. Their stated goals include:
1. Continue to enhance the CIS department and the FAMU physics department
2. Strengthen the FAMU undergraduate program so that more students are ready for grad school;
3. Expand and strengthen the Masters in Software Engineering Science program;
4. Position the FAMU CIS Department for the Phd program;
5. Increase the NUMBER of Minority students enrolled and graduation from those two departments.
These are all consistent with the goals of CREST.
What are the broader impacts of the proposed activity?
A goal of this CREST proposal, CREST02, would be to expand and extend many of the best practices that these
researchers have gleaned from the previous CREST and NSF, as well as other grants, that the university has secured. A
consequence of previous support was a Phd degree in the physics department. A stated goal of this effort will be to
position the CIS department at FAMU so that it will be able to offer the Phd in this nationally vital area.
As the research quality of the department increases its ability to educate and attract higher achieving students will
produce a positive feed-back loop that will have significant consequences. Including more students heading off to
graduate school in the very important CS area.
Summary Statement
Over-All:
It is clear that the previous CREST grant had the desired impact of increasing faculty research prowess and therefore
their over-all competitiveness in research and granting. This is especially true for the Physics Department at FAMU
where the department is now able to offer the Phd degree. CREST was a great success.
Further, during the times of their other NSF grants, including CREST 01, they generated best practices that they wish
to extend, strengthen and share with their colleges in the CIS department with the ultimate goal of positing the CIS
department so that it can award the Phd Degree.
This reviewer has a very mixed reaction to this proposal. Clearly, they have had successes with the previous CREST
and NSF grants. The faculty is more research active and so CREST was a success. What is not clear to this reviewer,
however, is what are the total numbers of students that were impacted by the previous federal investments. This
information is no doubt contained within the proposal and this reviewer just did not find it.
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PROPOSAL NO.: 0206385
INSTITUTION: Florida A&M University
NSF PROGRAM: CENTERS FOR RSCH EXCELL IN S&T
PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR: Jones, Edward L.
TITLE: CREST: Center for Distributed Computing: Theory, Development and Applications
RATING: Good
REVIEW:
What is the intellectual merit of the proposed activity?
The PI is requesting a renewal of the CREST for Distributed Computing, in partnership with Florida International
University. The departments involved are Computer and Information Science (CIS) and Physics at FAMU and
Computer Science (CS) at FIU. In the first five years the CREST was lead by Physics. For the next five years, this
renewal request is lead by CIS. To date, this CREST has enabled the transition of FAMU from a teaching institution to
a research institution. The PIs have good research funding.
The CREST has also impacted enrollment and degree offerings. Enrollment has increased in all departments. FAMU
Physics now offers the Ph.D. FAMU CIS has a new MS program in Software Engineering Sciences. Minority
enrollment in and graduation from these programs are good. Five of eleven students earning the MS Software
Engineering degree were African-American. Two continued to a Ph.D. program. Thirteen of 25 students currently
enrolled in Software Eng. are African-American. In Physics, five BS and four MS degrees have been awarded to
minorities. At FIU 366 BSCS degrees have been awarded in the five-year award period. Of these 20 were
African-American and 172 Hispanics. Eighty MS degrees were awarded with 3 going to African-Americans and six
to Hispanics. In all, the CREST has had an impact on degrees granted to students from underrepresented groups. In
addition, the research funding of the participating faculty has increased.
One major goal for the next five years is the have the Ph.D. degree in FAMU CIS established, followed by Chemistry
and Biology. Other objectives include strengthening the FAMU CIS undergraduate program, expanding the CIS
Software Eng. program, and increase minority enrollment in these programs.
The research program for the next five years includes four thrusts:
1. Develop and analyze software architecture specifications of high assurance systems. The PIs will address the lack
of available software methods for assuring quality and reliability of crucial systems such as air traffic control,
telephone switching, banking, intensive care patient monitoring, and many others. The Software Architectural Model
(SAM), which is an outgrowth of Real-time Architectural Specification - RAS, will be used as a basis for this research.
SAM is founded on a dual formalism created by combining Petri net modeling with temporal logic. Scalability and
flexibility will be addressed.
2. Real-time heterogeneous data manipulation and management. The research addresses the need to manage text,
video, sound, images, etc. The PIs will develop this area by leveraging from previous NSF funded projects. Some
results include development of Semantic Object-Oriented Database system; Distributed Heterogeneous Databases;
and Data Visualization. Wrapper modules will be implemented in this work.
3. Apply distributed computing to molecular reaction theory. Parallel computing platforms are proposed to manage
multiparametric data sets, including data visualization, for applications such as Molecular Reaction Theory (MRT).
This work is an extension of efforts in the first five years of CREST funding. This research will serve as a foundation
for establishing the Ph.D. program in CS at FAMU.
4. Develop spoken language dialog in a distributed environment. The idea is to allow multiple users on a distributed
network to interact with a particular computer application using speech. The researchers plan to accomplish this goal
in a visual modeling environment. First, a software engineer models the speech application visually, and then s/he
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determines how the application will be distributed among the users. This capability will enable resources to be shared
by a speech application (e.g., speech recognition software).
Management plan
Director: Jones (CIS, FAMU)
Thrust Leaders and Team Members
Thrust 1. He (FIU, CS), Leader, with Deng (FIU, CS), E. Jones (FAMU), Rishe (FIU, CS), and Zhu (FIU)
Thrust 2. Rishe (FIU), Leader, with Deng, He (FIU, CS), Sun (FIU, CS), Chandra (FAMU, CIS), Humphries
(FAMU,CIS), Chekmasov, Shaposhnikov, and Kirienko
Thrust 3. Weatherford (FAMU, Physics), with Saha (FAMU, Physics), H. Jones (FAMU, Physics), and Chandra
(FAMU, CIS)
Thrust 4. Allen (FAMU, CIS), Leader, with Riggs (FAMU, CIS)
Collaboration between departments and institutions is apparent and justifies the need for a center.
External Advisory Group: well-established. Lists only six members. Monitors CREST's projects relative to annual
goals and deliverables.
Policy and Administrative Committee (PAC): oversees policy issues and administrative activities. Consists of three
FAMU upper administrators.
Steering Committee: consists of CREST faculty. Monitors project status quarterly. Assists center director in
completing center assessment, planning, and reporting.
Institutional commitment
Judging by the letter provided by the FAMU President, the partnership with FIU provided the synergy needed for the
FAMU Physics Dept. to establish the Ph.D. program and to increase research activity. For the renewal, the partnership
is evident through sub-awards in Years 1 - 3. However, this partnership will probably dissipate gradually as no
sub-awards are indicated for Years 4 and 5. There is no letter from FIU.
Assessment
Five metrics are listed to gauge progress of the center. These metrics clearly suggest the goals of the center: continued
enhancement (# of publications, # of research projects, etc.); strengthen CIS UG program (enrollment, # of UG
researchers, CIS accreditation, etc.); expand and strengthen CIS MSES program (enrollment, faculty hires, etc.); offer
FAMU CS Ph.D. (faculty size, course offerings, etc.); and increase minority students in graduate programs
(effectiveness of recruitment materials based on enrollment). Nothing is mentioned of target goals at FIU. Nothing is
mentioned of targeted improvements in attracting external research funding. There are no metrics to gauge levels of
collaborations in research and education between FAMU and FIU.
What are the broader impacts of the proposed activity?
Potential for enhancing participation of students from underrepresented groups
The PI presents numbers of students enrolled and/or graduated from FAMU CIS and Physics and FIU Computer
Science. However, he does not have the numbers (except for Software Engineering Sciences) to suggest the number
of students enrolled or graduated was directly impacted by the center. For example, of the four MS degrees awarded to
minority students by Physics, how many of them participated in the center?
Outreach
The CREST center proposes to leverage existing FAMU outreach programs by providing some financial resources
and some manpower to these efforts. These programs include recruiting and retention activities.
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PROPOSAL NO.: 0206385
INSTITUTION: Florida A&M University
NSF PROGRAM: CENTERS FOR RSCH EXCELL IN S&T
PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR: Jones, Edward L.
TITLE: CREST: Center for Distributed Computing: Theory, Development and Applications
RATING: Fair
REVIEW:
What is the intellectual merit of the proposed activity?
Please see "Summary Statement" below
What are the broader impacts of the proposed activity?
Please see "Summary Statement" below.
Summary Statement
CREST 0206385
Center for Distributed Computing: Theory, Development and Applications
Florida A&M University
Florida International University
E. L. Jones
A five-year renewal of CREST support is requested for the Center for Distributed computing a joint project of
FAMU"s Computer Information Sciences Department and FIU"s School of Computer Science/High Performance
Database Research Center. The FAMU Physics Department"s molecular electronic structure theory research group is
also to be supported. The PI, an Associate Professor of CIS at FAMU and a computer science educator, was recently
appointed interim chair of the FAMU CIS Department replacing the previous chair who was CREST Center Director
during the initial award.
The objectives of the project are:
--> Enhance research in computer science at FIU and Physics at FAMU;
--> Strengthen the FAMU CIS undergraduate program to prepare more students for graduate study;
--> Expand and strengthen the FAMU CIS Master"s in Software Engineering Science
--> Position the FAMU/CIS Department to offer the Ph.D.;
--> Increase the number of minority students enrolled in and graduating from programs offered by participating
departments.
Four subprojects are proposed:
Subproject 1. Heterogeneous Distributed Database systems (FIU). This subproject proposes to investigate 3-D
visualization of data stored in a high performance distributed database, the Semantic Object-Oriented Database, a
system developed at FIU. Ways to improve this database"s performance in dealing with heterogeneous data sources
using additional wrappers for XML and other sources will also be explored. More than 60 publications have resulted
from this subproject under CREST support and the subproject team leader has more than a dozen major external grants
and contracts from various federal and State agencies and industry valued in excess of 10 million dollars. FIU will
continue to offer 20 research internships to high school students in the Miami-Dade County Public Schools" Advanced
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Academic Internship program and is the nation"s top producer of Hispanic-American computer science baccalaureates
ranking second in the nation in total minority baccalaureates in this field.
Subproject 2. Developing and Analyzing High Assurance Systems (FIU). During the previous award this subproject
developed a formal systematic architecture specification and analysis model (SAM) which uses dual formalisms,
predicate transition nets and first order temporal logic as a formal foundation. SAM was tested by using it to specify
and analyze a control command system, a flexible manufacturing system, several common architectural connectors, a
resource access authorization system and a communication protocol. 15 journal articles and 25 conference
contributions resulted, one Ph.D. and 12 Master"s degrees resulted. 5 postdoctoral and visiting scientist research
associates were involved in the project and three major external grants were awarded. Currently 9 Ph.D. students and
3 Master"s students are working on the project. For the renewal it is proposed to develop a complete methodology that
can systematically guide the development and analysis of SAM specifications, especially the refinement and
composition of behavioral models and analysis of property specifications.
Subproject 3. Spoken language dialog in a distributed computing environment (FAMU). This is a new subproject to be
implemented by two recently hired faculty in the FAMU CIS Department and will develop methodology for using a
distributed computing environment to support multi-user spoken language applications.
Subproject 4. Applications of Distributed Computing to Molecular Reactions (FAMU - Physics). This subproject
develops and applies new algorithms describing scattering processes in atomic and molecular physics for execution on
distributed platforms Workis to continue on time-dependent configuration interaction theory and low-energy
ion-atom/molecule charge exchange. Work will begin on a new topic, relativistic electron-ion scattering, and will
involve a collaboration with the electron-beam ion trap facility at Lawrence Livermore national laboratory to validate
the theoretical results by experiment.
Achievements during the initial CREST award
FAMU/CIS
Enrollment in the FAMU CIS baccalaureate program has grown by 50% since the start of the CREST project and the
program now awards between 50 and 70 baccalaureates annually. The Master"s in Software Engineering Sciences
enrolls 25 students, more than half of whom are African-Americans, and has awarded 11 degrees (half to
African-Americans) since its inception more than 5 years. CREST supported CIS faculty have contributed 40
presentations over the past five years and have been awarded 4.5 million dollars in external grants.
FAMU/Physics
Physics faculty have contributed 64 presentations and received $920,000 in external grants and contracts since the
CREST Center"s inception at FAMU. Five Physics baccalaureates and four master"s have been awarded to minority
students during the first CREST award. The Ph.D. program in Physics began operating in F "2001 and 6 Physics
graduate students have already passed the qualifying exam half of whom have chosen to do their doctoral research
under the lead co-investigator for the FAMU Physics CREST subproject. Collaborations with the Mississippi State
University ERC have been established and additional grant support through this collaboration and one with Florida
State has been obtained. The lead co-investigator for this subproject has been recognized by FAMU each of the past
two years for his research and other professional activities while another co-investigator on this subproject was earlier
named Millenium Professor by President Clinton.
FIU School of Computer Science
FIU CREST faculty have contributed 90 articles and been awarded 14.5 million dollars since the initial CREST award
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was made. During the past five years 366 baccalaureates in computer science have been awarded by FIU, 20 to
African-Americans and 172 to Hispanic-Americans. 80 Master"s degrees have been awarded, 6 to
Hispanic-Americans and 3 to African-Americans.
The Center proposal narrative fails to present a convincing case for the Center mode of operation or the synergy
created by the choice of subproject research areas.
The proposal fails to explicitly articulate how the subprojects or the overall Center operation will achieve many of the
principal goals such as implementation of the FAMU CIS Ph.D. and stimulation of cross-disciplinary research.
Although the narrative claims that all four subprojects have defined collaborative activities requiring interaction
among researchers there is little evidence of this in the subproject narratives or the Center proposal. For example, the
Physics subproject, which is highly productive and recognized as excellent both by FAMU and nationally, is in no
fundamental way cross-disciplinary. The role of the Center Project Director in subproject 2 is not at all clear. He is
listed as a co-investigator but draws no support from the subproject budget, is not a co-author on any subproject
publications or presentations nor does he list any of the personnel from this subproject as collaborators in his bio data.
Significantly, with one exception none of the co-investigators lists a collaborator from the other institution in the
partnership in their biodata and in that one case, an Associate Professor of CIS at FAMU, there are no joint
publications listed in the bio data. All the collaborations are clearly intra-institutional. Neither is there any indication
that any FAMU students have been accepted into or indeed graduated from the computer science (or any other)
program at FIU. Specifically there is no indication of this in the lists of students earning graduate degrees in the
biodata of FIU co-investigators nor is there any indication that FAMU faculty have served on committees of students
earning FIU graduate degrees (or vice versa).
The narrative claims that $120,000 is to be used through the CREST award to hire three junior and two senior faculty
for FAMU"s CIS program during the proposed grant period but the absence of an adequate budget explanation makes
it impossible to identify these items in the proposed budget nor is this plan mentioned in the institutional commitment
letters. More importantly there is no discussion of the areas of expertise to be sought and how appointments of faculty
in those areas will strengthen FAMU"s CIS degree programs or the research subprojects proposed for funding in the
renewal proposal. Since CREST is a research infrastructure improvement, graduate focus program it is important to
know how the proposed hires will fulfill CREST program objectives as opposed to merely meeting ABET
accreditation standards for the baccalaureate.
There are a number of good features proposed for the CREST Center including hiring a Program Assistant for project
administration, initiation of a colloquium program and a guest scientist program, expanding the graduate elective
course offerings and maintaining the hardware, software and networking infrastructure. Unfortunately the absence of a
real budget explanation makes it impossible to determine how these activities are to be supported, whether by NSF or
institutional funds and, significantly because of the importance to program quality and integration of education and
research, how they are to be sustained after award expiration. Because these features are not discussed in any detail in
the narrative it is not possible to determine if the intent is that they be of benefit only to the FAMU CIS program or, if
they are to benefit both collaborating institutions, how that is to be accomplished.
It is proposed to leverage other federally funded programs such as the summer program sponsored by ONR, the
Florida/Georgia LSAMP program and FIU"s MARC program supported by NIH. However, the narrative fails to
provide details on how this will be done, who is responsible for coordination between these multi-institutional efforts
nor are funds identified in the proposed CREST Center budget to ensure these objectives are met.
Nothing in the Center narrative or the PI"s vita indicate he has prior experience in managing a large multi-institutional
research program. Moreover the project management plan assumes that the Center Director will complete all essential
project management activities and that the intensive research and collaboration will take place primarily during the
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summer, at least for the FAMU CIS faculty. This is not consistent with the CREST Program requirements of a strong
existing research and education base, a compelling vision for research infrastructure improvement and an effective
plan to achieve and sustain national research competitiveness. The management plan for the development of the
FAMU CIS Ph.D. program indicates that program has yet to make the transition from a teaching focus to a research
focus. Year round research activity, well integrated into the educational program, is one way to demonstrate that this
transition has been accomplished.
The assessment plan is extremely weak and fails either to distinguish between FAMU and FIU goals and objectives or
to identify metrics for the effectiveness of the collaboration between the partner institutions. There is no indication of
plans or goals to establish additional collaborations with nationally recognized research centers of excellence nor,
significantly as this would be the final CREST award for which the Center would be eligible, are there plans to sustain
the CREST project after grant expiration.
There are major discrepancies in the proposed Center budget including an inconsistency between the requested NSF
support in the two FIU subproject budgets and the amount of the subaward in the Center budget, absence of adequate
budget justification for the Center budget, discrepancy between the amount requested from NSF shown on form 1030
and that shown on the cover sheet, missing position counts for certain categories of personnel and participants, failure
to use the required form HRD 1030 for some subproject budgets, discrepancy between the amount of matching funds
in the letters of commitment for the two FIU subprojects and the amount shown on form 1030 and the failure to
transfer the total cost sharing amount to line M on form 1030.
Some co-investigators are missing their current and pending support.
The letter of commitment from FAMU President Humphries fails to specify the cost sharing amount given on form
1030.
In his letter of support the FAMU president also fails to specify whether the Ph.D. in CIS will be implemented at
FAMU within the tenure of the proposed CREST Center which is the primary goal of this CREST application as stated
in the proposal as well as a principal objective of the CREST program. Neither does this letter nor the proposal
assessment metrics commit to a specific date for implementation of this degree despite the fact that a CIS Ph.D. is said
to be the next program to be implemented in FAMU"s strategic plan which has received State approval.
Although real achievements have been made by some of the research subprojects and the Ph.D. in Physics has been
implemented at FAMU there remain serious reservations about continued funding of this Center at this time because
of the failure to demonstrate any real collaboration between the two partners or progress in transitioning from an
education focus for the FAMU CIS program to a research focus. It is recommended that the Center be given a no cost
extension and be encouraged to thoroughly review its objectives and structure and to resubmit a revised competing
renewal application during the next CREST competition.
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PROPOSAL NO.: 0206385
INSTITUTION: Florida A&M University
NSF PROGRAM: CENTERS FOR RSCH EXCELL IN S&T
PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR: Jones, Edward L.
TITLE: CREST: Center for Distributed Computing: Theory, Development and Applications
RATING: Fair
REVIEW:
What is the intellectual merit of the proposed activity?
This proposal requests continuation of a previously funded CREST center that was jointly undertaken by Fla Aand M
Univ and Fla International University. A major objective of the current proposal is to develop the first PHD in CS at
an HBCU (at FAMU) with the assistance of the partner FIU School of Computer Science. It is clear throughout the
proposal that collaboration between the two institiutions is the expected avenue for success of the new request and that
it was to have been the mainstay of the current grant. However a quick review of the activities and research
publications shows no apparent collaboration between the two institutions. Clearly FIU has developed an excellent
record in its development. FAMU Physics did achieve the development of the PHD. It appears that this was mainly
done with the CREST award. FAMU CIS has had two large NSF minority institution infrastructure grants along with
other significant funding. The output does not seem to match the amount of federal dollars spent. The FAMU
president does not commit to delivering the PHD in CS.
What are the broader impacts of the proposed activity?
There are interesting areas of research that are being discussed. Some new faculty members have been added at FAMU
in CS. The budget for FAMU does not indicate that the faculty will be given release time or summer time to work on
this project. There are dollars assigned to them but no time allocated for them to work on the project. This is a major
concern.along with the lack of institutional committment to the development of the objectives.
Summary Statement
This proposal has very serious shortfalls and does not make a convincing case for continuation of CREST dollars. The
record at FAMU does not measure up to the amount of federal dollars already expended.
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