http://www.ittc.ku.edu Latest news from the Information Technology and Telecommunication Center at the University of Kansas en-us Copyright 2009 ITTC http://www.ittc.ku.edu/rss http://www.ittc.ku.edu/images/ittc-new-logo.jpg http://www.ittc.ku.edu Neil Sculthorpe began a two-year post-doctoral research position with ITTC's Functional Programming Group this spring. He joined the Haskell Equational Reasoning Model-to-Implementation Tunnel (HERMIT) project. ITTC investigator Andy Gill's group is working to dramatically reduce all-too-common bugs and glitches that occur in current software. Finding ways to reduce errors could potentially save billions of dollars annually.

"Neil is a welcome addition to our team. He brings a depth of theoretical understanding of the fundamental ideals behind the construction of high-assurance software. The HERMIT project will build on his previous work and allows us to use the combination of software engineering and mathematics to make the evaluation of software more manageable," said Dr. Gill, who received a $500,000 NSF grant this fall for HERMIT. "When you are building large systems with millions of lines of code, finding errors can be very difficult. Unreliable software then hurts companies' reputations and costs them customers."

HERMIT mathematically, or formally, analyzes each step of development, providing rigorous connections between system requirements and the programming details of real applications. While system requirements and programs are typically written in two different computer languages and often evaluated in a third, HERMIT provides a common foundation that generates evidence that the description and action match. These continuous checks and balances make it much harder for errors to be introduced.

Dr. Sculthorpe, who received his Ph.D. in Computer Science this past summer from the University of Nottingham, will focus on worker/wrapper transformation. This is a verification technique for connecting specifications to efficient implementation. He says a major goal of the project is to make applying transformations as painless as possible, allowing the HERMIT tool to be used by non-expert users.]]> http://www.ittc.ku.edu/view_article.phtml?id=247 http://www.ittc.ku.edu/view_article.phtml?id=247 mward@ittc.ku.edu (Michelle Ward) Thu, 17 May 2012 00:00:00 -0500 Prasad Kulkarni won the Harry Talley Teaching Excellence award at the Department's Graduation Dinner and Awards Ceremony on Thursday night. Graduating EECS seniors vote for the professor who has contributed significantly to their education and has developed a strong rapport with them.

"Professor Kulkarni is a great professor because he is as kind as he is intelligent. He knows what he is talking about and he makes a real effort to keep his students involved in class," said EECS senior Drew Manderfeld. "He possesses the rare quality of putting as much effort into teaching as he wants us to put into discovery and learning.

EECS senior Jason Gevargizian does not remember a teacher ever learning students' names as quickly or working as hard to involve all students in lectures as Dr. Kulkarni. Gevargizian had him for Compiler Construction (EECS 665), which was a course developed by Dr. Kulkarni to address the design and construction of translators for programming languages.

"Dr. Kulkarni is not only responsive to his students but also tailors his responses to meet our needs. He is incredibly dedicated to helping his students improve and succeed," said Gevargizian, who was so impressed by Dr. Kulkarni's enthusiasm for his research in software security and efficiency that he has begun conducting research at ITTC.

EECS senior Jason Eslick notes how Dr. Kulkarni takes time to learn about students' goals and future plans and offers them helpful advice. He provides undergraduate research opportunities, allowing students to apply what they are learning to real-world challenges. Dr. Kulkarni treats his students with respect and positive encouragement, says Eslick, who has conducted research under his direction in ITTC's Computer Systems Design Laboratory.

"Professor Kulkarni is a great teacher both in the classroom and out of the classroom," said Eslick. "I think most students have great respect for Professor Kulkarni because he is a very effective teacher who cares about students. Professor Kulkarni knows his subject field very well, and can effectively convey concepts. He presents relevant material and assigns meaningful, worthwhile assignments."

In 2010, Dr. Kulkarni received one of the most prestigious National Science Foundation honors given to junior faculty members. The Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award supports junior faculty who excel at integrating teaching and research. Dr. Kulkarni's research focuses on building more secure and better performing software systems. Security and Performance (EECS 700), introduced in the Fall 2009 semester, incorporates his research and gives students opportunities to investigate security, protection, and performance aspects on modern software and hardware. Additionally, Dr. Kulkarni's work forms the basis of Compiler Construction and Virtual Machines (EECS 700).

Dr. Kulkarni joined EECS in the fall of 2007. He earned his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Computer Science from Florida State University in 2003 and 2007, respectively.]]> http://www.ittc.ku.edu/view_article.phtml?id=246 http://www.ittc.ku.edu/view_article.phtml?id=246 mward@ittc.ku.edu (Michelle Ward) Tue, 01 May 2012 00:00:00 -0500
The IBM Shared University Research (SUR) award includes five compute blades, a large memory blade, a graphical processing unit blade, two storage servers and 72 terabytes of disk storage to the renovated Bioinformatics Computing Facility. The KU award builds on a donation earlier this year of three IBM BladeCenter chassis to the BCF.

The BCF renovation is being funded through a $4.6 million grant from the National Institutes of Health as part of the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act of 2009.

The BCF, which is set to open this summer, will greatly enhance the computing capabilities of the university, giving researchers a 20-fold increase in computing power to support investigations ranging from biology and disease to national security and climate change.

"At most universities, researchers work department-by-department or individually to get the computing resources they need," said Perry Alexander, director of the Information and Telecommunication Technology Center, which houses the new BCF. "The BCF unites university resources and provides an outstanding staff to maintain a secure, energy efficient, world-class computing facility. Now, KU researchers can spend less time managing computational resources and more time conducting scholarly work."

IBM's Shared University Research Award program strives to connect researchers at universities with IBM Research, IBM Life Sciences, IBM Global Services and IBM's development and product labs.

The KU-IBM partnership will develop new hardware and software approaches to modeling and simulations of complex real-world systems. Researchers will be able to process and analyze huge volumes of structured and unstructured data, share their findings, explore new approaches and store the results of their research. Advanced systems modeling will enable more accurate predictions and large-scale analyses that incorporate data from multiple disciplines into a single framework with the goal of accelerating scientific breakthroughs.

IBM Systems and Technology Group University Alliances Executive Keith Brown sponsored the award to help the University of Kansas expand its High Performance Computing capabilities.

"We are pleased to help provide KU with the computational framework needed to develop and evaluate a hybrid computing cluster that is optimized for a number of simulation paradigms," said Brown. "Modeling cell processes and structures, predicting the impact of climate change on biodiversity and exploring massive data sets using visual and analytical techniques are examples of how HPC technology can be used to achieve our goals of helping to create a Smarter Planet."

Gerald Lushington, director of KU's Molecular Graphics and Modeling Laboratory, uses the BCF in developing computational methods able to extract information from voluminous medical and chemical research.

"Laboratory instruments for studying problems in molecular biology and medicine have grown incredibly sophisticated very quickly, to the point where they produce such huge volumes of useful data that we need very powerful computers to meaningfully analyze data," Lushington said."The renovated BCF in Nichols Hall provides the high performance computing hardware necessary to do this work, and the IBM SUR grant will deliver a valuable infusion of computing power for these calculations."]]> http://www.ittc.ku.edu/view_article.phtml?id=245 http://www.ittc.ku.edu/view_article.phtml?id=245 mward@ittc.ku.edu (Michelle Ward) Fri, 27 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0500 Joseph Evans, the Deane E. Ackers Distinguished Professor of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science, has been appointed to a three-year term the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) Council.

"I am extremely honored by this appointment. The work of the CCC is critical to the future of computing research," said Evans.

The CCC includes 18 leaders of the computing research community from industry, government and academia. The council directs and oversees the operations of the CCC, which provides scientific leadership and vision to computing research and future large-scale computing research projects. It helps identify major research opportunities and establish grand challenges for the computing field. It also creates venues for community participation in developing a vision for computing research and in launching new research activities.

His ITTC research includes cognitive wireless networking, networked information systems architecture, and adaptive systems.

Evans has served as director of the Information and Telecommunication Technology Center (ITTC) and as director of Research Information Technology at KU, and as a program director at the National Science Foundation. He has been a researcher at the Cambridge University Computer Laboratory, Olivetti & Oracle Research Laboratory, USAF Rome Laboratories, and AT&T Bell Laboratories. He has co-founded several companies, including a network gaming company acquired by Microsoft in 2000 that formed the foundation for Xbox Live, and a defense-oriented venture acquired by General Dynamics in 2010 which developed TIGR, a tactical information system used worldwide by the US Army.

For more details, please see the CCC Press Release]]> http://www.ittc.ku.edu/view_article.phtml?id=244 http://www.ittc.ku.edu/view_article.phtml?id=244 mward@ittc.ku.edu (Michelle Ward) Mon, 09 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0500
ITTC researcher Shannon Blunt will receive the prestigious Fred Nathanson Memorial Radar Award on May 9 during an awards ceremony in Atlanta. The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Aerospace and Electronic Systems Society selected Blunt for the highly competitive honor that each year recognizes one researcher under the age of 40 for outstanding contributions to the field of radar.

"Shannon's work is a shining example of the power of cutting-edge engineering. He continues to break new ground in the development of radar and electromagnetic signals and is truly deserving of this recognition. We are proud to see him honored with this award," said Dean of Engineering Stuart Bell.

"Given the past recipients of this award and the numerous other deserving candidates, I am deeply honored to stand among them," said Blunt."I continue to be amazed at the wide array of new technologies being developed to sense the world around us, and I am absolutely thrilled to get to play a part in it."

As a pioneer of waveform diversity research, Blunt has created innovative techniques to "deconstruct" signals that vary in time, frequency and space to tease out desired information. He says it is a little bit like listening for whispers in a crowded room. Enhanced sensitivity to signals of interest is one of the fundamental goals of radar research.

"I regard him as one of the up-and-coming young stars of the radar community," said Hugh Griffiths, president of the IEEE Aerospace and Electronic Systems Society and a professor at University College London. "In terms of his stature as a result of this work, I can say that he has a truly international reputation. He has made some significant contributions in the new subject of Waveform Diversity--indeed, he is regarded as one of the flag-bearers in this subject."

The broad scope of signal processing, his area of research, allows Blunt to explore a variety of related problems. For example, while researchers have traditionally looked at ways to minimize interference, Blunt actually developed a new form of high-speed covert communication that exploits the "crowded room" of radar echoes to embed hidden signals. This new form of communication, developed under a U.S. Air Force Young Investigator Award, may provide soldiers in harm's way a new means to communicate safely.

Blunt also recently teamed with researchers from the Hogland Brain Imaging Center (HBIC) at the KU Medical Center to explore new methods for brain imaging. Leveraging a technique he had previously developed for radar antenna arrays, Blunt and KU Med researchers created the patent-pending Source Affine Image Reconstruction (SAFFIRE) algorithm to enable more accurate generation of magnetoencephalography (MEG) images, which can be used to detect abnormalities in brain function and could aid in the understanding and treatment of Alzheimer's disease and other neurological disorders.

"Dr. Blunt has established himself as an expert and valuable resource on a diverse array of radar-related research topics that may benefit from advanced signal processing," said KU Distinguished Professor Emeritus Richard Moore, who pioneered the field of radar remote sensing of the environment and founded the KU Radar Systems and Remote Sensing Lab, for which Blunt is the current director.

After receiving his Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the University of Missouri in 2002, Blunt worked at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C., before coming to KU in 2005. He has received the Harry Talley Teaching Excellence Award in 2008 and the Miller Professional Development Award for Research and Bellows Scholar Award from the School of Engineering in 2008 and 2010, respectively. He served as general chair for the IEEE Radar Conference in 2011 that for the first time took place in Kansas City.]]> http://www.ittc.ku.edu/view_article.phtml?id=243 http://www.ittc.ku.edu/view_article.phtml?id=243 mward@ittc.ku.edu (Michelle Ward) Fri, 06 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0500
Judy Wu, Distinguished Professor of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Kansas, believes graphene will lead to high-efficiency, ultrathin solar panels that will be cheaper to build than current models.

Now, Wu's research group in KU physics, in collaboration with Professor Rongqing Hui's group at the Information and Telecommunication Technology Center, has made a breakthrough with the material. They've developed a technique for attaching a layer of metal nanoparticles to graphene, vastly improving graphene's capacity to soak up sunlight and re-emit it in a much-condensed form due to "plasmonic resonance," a critical step toward high-efficiency solar cells that drastically improves their light absorption.

"We made it in a very simple way, heating a very thin layer of silver on graphene, which dissolves to create a nanoparticle array," Wu said. "It's so straightforward, you can readily commercialize it. It's very low-cost."

Wu's findings are published in the current issue of the journal Advanced Materials, a top-notch international journal in materials research, and also featured on the cover of the March issue of Advanced Optical Materials, which is the journal's quarterly forum for the publication of the best work in the field of materials science dealing with all aspects of light-matter interactions.

Wu's technique to make "plasmonic" graphene further boosts the material's great potential to revolutionize optoelectronics of all kinds.

"At the interface of metal and graphene, a stream of electrons is injected into the graphene, which can enhance its conductivity by 400 percent," the KU researcher said. "Also, the metal nanoparticles improve graphene's ability to absorb and re-emit light."

Aside from improving performance, Wu's plasmonic graphene has the potential to make solar cells much cheaper to produce and purchase.

"For solar cells and most optoelectronic applications, you want to use less material," said Wu. "But current solar cells use a lot of material -- 40 percent of solar cell's cost is material. So if you want to reduce costs, you can immediately reduce the cost of material -- and now you can go thinner. Imagine solar cells as thin as a piece of paper, flexible and lightweight."

Beyond applications in solar-power generation, Wu sees graphene as a promising replacement for indium tin oxide, or ITO, in transparent conductors that are critical to all touchscreens, displays and LEDs.

"Long-term use of ITO has severe limitations," said Wu. "Indium is scarce and consequently becomes prohibitively expensive as demand for solar cells increases. It was $600-800 per kilogram recently."

Wu's group now is exploring ultrathin solar cells on plasmonic graphene and use of plasmonic graphene in photodetectors.

This research was jointly funded by ARO, NSF and the NSF EPSCoR Kansas Center for Solar Energy Research. Wu collaborated on the work with KU researchers Guowei Xu, Jianwei Liu, Qian Wang, Rongqing Hui, and with researchers Zhijun Chen and Victor A. Maroni from Argonne National Laboratory.]]> http://www.ittc.ku.edu/view_article.phtml?id=242 http://www.ittc.ku.edu/view_article.phtml?id=242 mward@ittc.ku.edu (Michelle Ward) Wed, 04 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0500
The exhibition is co-sponsored by and was conceived in consultation and collaboration with KU's Information and Telecommunication Technology Center and the Biodiversity Institute. It will run from March 24 to July 20 in Gallery 318 North.

Turing's world-changing innovations include the Turing Machine, a conceptual machine that builds on the notion of the algorithm and lays the foundation of modern computing. As a cryptanalyst during World War II, Turing's breakthroughs in logic allowed him to decipher the German encrypting device known as the Enigma Machine, which was used extensively in communication between German U-boats. Turing was also deeply involved in the idea of "Machine Intelligence," and he developed a test for artificial intelligence that is still in use today. Late in his career Turing became fascinated with the field of mathematical biology, a field that explores the mathematical underpinnings of morphogenesis, the origins and evolution of biological form.

The exhibition, which draws from the permanent collections at the Spencer, displays works that resonate with the kinds of questions that drove Turing's research: finding meaning in patterns, and finding connections between mathematics and computing, intelligence and natural form.

Please go to the Spencer Museum of Art page for more information on the exhibit.]]> http://www.ittc.ku.edu/view_article.phtml?id=241 http://www.ittc.ku.edu/view_article.phtml?id=241 mward@ittc.ku.edu (Michelle Ward) Tue, 27 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0500 James Miller always warns students in his Introduction to Computer Graphics course about the difficulty of their first 3D assignment. But students, being students, often ignore this warning. Starting well after office hours, exasperated students go online for help, only to find examples using advanced features that add to their confusion, says Miller, co-director of ITTC's e-Learning Design Lab (eDL).

To prevent blurry eyed, frustrated students from handing in incomplete assignments, Miller developed an easy-to-use, interactive tool, Metaview, that can run on any computer using Java Web Start. Metaview is packaged with a variety of self-test features and built-in 3D models to demonstrate major concepts.

The inspiration for Metaview came after Miller saw Tinker toys being used to show the relationships among the horizontal, vertical, and depth components in 3D models. He thought if the example could be more flexible and be embedded in a powerful interactive framework that it could help students master the skills needed to create 3D models in medicine, architecture, engineering, animation, and other fields. Metaview does this, allowing students to better understand connections between models and programming constructs.

Miller has solicited anonymous student feedback from multiple Introduction to Computer Graphics courses. While the feedback has been positive, it exposed a few bugs that have been corrected and led to usability improvements in Metaview and a related website.

Work continues on Metaview. eDL researchers are developing a version that is compatible with computer tablets and other new smart, portable devices. To better understand the mathematics of lighting models, Miller is building tools that will allow interactive placement of light sources.

The work was supported in part by the National Science Foundation.]]> http://www.ittc.ku.edu/view_article.phtml?id=240 http://www.ittc.ku.edu/view_article.phtml?id=240 mward@ittc.ku.edu (Michelle Ward) Fri, 09 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0600 Lingjia Liu, an assistant professor in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, has been invited to serve as an editor of the prestigious IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications (TWireless).

"Dr. Liu is an outstanding researcher in the fields of fundamentals and applications of cellular and ad-hoc networks," said Andreas Molisch, a professor in the Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Engineering at the University of Southern California, who nominated Liu for the position. "On top of that, he has experience in both industry and academia. I am sure he will greatly contribute to ensuring the quality of the IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications."

First published in 2002, TWireless has grown into one of the most prestigious journals in the area of communications. It has an acceptance rate below 30 percent and its 2.18 citation index is higher than nearly all other journals that focus on communications. TWireless is ranked first in telecommunications and seventh in the field of electrical and electronic engineering among all IEEE journals, according to Eigenfactor Score.

At KU's Information and Telecommunication Technology Center (ITTC), Liu is developing technologies that will enable future wireless systems and networks to support heavy traffic, while providing reliable and secure service for time-sensitive and data-intensive applications, such as streaming video and web conferencing. By increasing the efficiency of wireless communication, more users and applications will be able to use the increasingly crowded spectrum.

Liu was selected as one of the New Faces of Engineering in 2011 by the National Engineers Week Foundation Diversity Council. He has more than 10 journal publications, 20 conference papers and 30 U.S. patent applications along with numerous technical contributions to major wireless standards.

He has served as a technical program committee member of leading international conferences in telecommunications including the IEEE International Conference in Communications and IEEE Global Communications Conference. In addition to TWireless, Liu serves as an associate editor for EURASIP Journal on Wireless Communications and Networking and Wiley's International Journal on Communication Systems.

Prior to joining KU in the fall of 2011, Liu spent more than three years in the Dallas Technology Laboratory of Samsung Electronics. He led work on downlink multi-user MIMO, coordinated multipoint transmission and heterogeneous networks for 3GPP LTE/LTE-Advanced standards. He received the Global Samsung Best Paper Award in 2008 and 2010 and has more than 10 essential intellectual property rights (IPRs) in 4G standards such as 3GPP LTE/LTE-Advanced and IEEE 802.16m.]]> http://www.ittc.ku.edu/view_article.phtml?id=239 http://www.ittc.ku.edu/view_article.phtml?id=239 mward@ittc.ku.edu (Michelle Ward) Thu, 08 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0600 Erik Perrins, an associate professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science, has accepted an invitation to serve as an area editor for the IEEE Transactions on Communications. His duties include assigning papers to the 13 editors within the modulation and signal design area, monitoring their performance and assisting the editor-in-chief.

"Erik is an internationally renowned researcher in the field of modulation and signal design for telecommunication systems. He has served as an editor for several years and has done an excellent job in this capacity," said Robert Schober, a professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of British Columbia, who nominated Perrins for the position. "This made him a natural choice when the position of area editor became vacant."

Perrins' research expertise is in wireless communications. He recently received a Department of Defense research grant to help develop new communications architectures for flight test telemetry --measuring at a distance. By simultaneously allowing multiple tests to take place over hundreds of square miles, the integrated Network Enhanced Telemetry program is a significant upgrade in aircraft testing. He conducts research at KU's Information and Telecommunication Technology Center.

He also helped build a communication system able to transmit large amounts of scientific and operational data while adhering to severe size, weight and power constraints needed for future space missions. Perrins' team developed miniaturized hardware for the NASA project.

Prior to area editor, Perrins served for four years as an editor for the journal.]]> http://www.ittc.ku.edu/view_article.phtml?id=238 http://www.ittc.ku.edu/view_article.phtml?id=238 mward@ittc.ku.edu (Michelle Ward) Tue, 14 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0600