The Triangle Computer Science Distinguished Lecturer Series was started in 1995 based on a grant from ARO and is jointly administered by the Computer Science departments at Duke University, North Carolina State University and UNC Chapel Hill. The original motivation for the lecture series was to educate and inform the students at the three universities and local computer professionals about exciting new research being conducted across all areas of computer science. In the second phase of the series (during the years 1998-2001) we propose to continue with the momentum in building a truly superb educational experience for our students and faculty, and to computer professionals in the Triangle area.

It is by now a well accepted fact that checking designs for errors early in the software development cycle could lead to early identifcation of errors, and their correction. However, once designs have been verified there is no guarentee that software implementations implement what has been designed. In this project, we have been investigating how abstract interpretation techniques (developed in the context of compilers) can be used to abstract programs and how the ensuing abstractions can be checked against designs. The technical questions we have been dealing with are: (a) how reasonable approximations can be derived from distributed programs, and (b) what approximation techniques guarentee that results about abstractions hold of original programs.

The Center for Advanced Computing and Communication (CACC) is a membership-based industry/university cooperative research center co-located at North Carolina State University and Duke University. North Carolina State University was selected by the National Science Foundation in 1981 as a site for an industry/university cooperative research center in communications and signal processing. The center was named the Center for Communications and Signal Processing until 1994 when a second center site at Duke University was added. The CACC research goal is to create concepts, methods and tools for use in the analysis, design and implementation of advanced computer and communication systems.

It provides support for a graduate student for one year and the project will study whether and how information gathered by a to improve the detection accuracy. The main tasks of the project include network management system can be utilized by an intrusion detection system developing algorithms for anomaly detection and early sensing of intrusions.

This project has three major thrusts: (1) developing a computational model of real-time multimedia explanation planning that can be employed to construct pedagogical customized, multimedia explanation plans, (2) developing a computational model of animated pedagogical agents that actively participate in a multimedia explanation, and (3) conducting formal empirical evaluations of the pedagogical effectiveness of the model of explanation generation.

Constructivist learning environments facilitate discovery-based learning through creative problem-solving experiences. The twin objectives of this work is to create a framework for animated pedagogical agents, and (2) provide a comprehensive account of the cognitive processes of students interacting with animated pedagogical agents in constructivist learning environments.

Given the centrality of explanation in science, one of the most intriguing forms of intelligent multimedia learning environments revolves around explanation. Self-explaining learning environments will enable learners to pose questions to objects and processes in 3D worlds that can dynamically generate clear cinematic and narrative explanations of their own structure, function, and causality.

The quality of service (QoS) of an application is determined by the amount of resources it receives. We are developing a method of resource allocation which is dynamic, distributed, and which considers the relative importance or priority of different applications. This method is based on competitive pricing of resources. It has been applied to congestion control, server access, and bandwidth allocation in broadcast networks. We propose to extend our theory to support reserved resources. We will investigate economic decisions about which resource provider to choose, and when to expand the resource capacity.

The next generation Internet will have mechanisms for providing Quality of Service (QoS). The standard mechanisms do not address the issues of security, or prevention of misuse. In this project, we address three new vulnerability questions with regard to QoS: (1) how to prevent "killer reservation" denial-of-service (DoS) attacks; (2) how to detect and respond to DoS attacks that are directed at the data flow; (3) how to reduce the vulnerability of resource reservation and allocation mechanisms. Our objective is to improve the survivability of the QoS mechanisms.

We propose to study a new class of error recovery techniques that focuses on eliminating error propagation. The approach is to isolate errors when they occur by preventing them from propagating. The delays in repairing data losses affect only the duration of error propagation. Our Recovery from Error Spread using Continuous Updates (RESCU) does not introduce any delay in video playout, and has potential to achieve good error resilience. Our proposed techniques, in contrast, have potential to work well with or without feedback channels, and to be scalable for multicast. Encouraging preliminary results indicate that such potential is highly realizable.

The research focuses on programming-language support for the behavioral characterization of observable components in terms of logical finite-state machines. The objective is to develop practical language mechanisms, rigorous formal foundations, and efficient implementation techniques to support observable components and to exploit the enforceable state machines to improve the safety of component reuse. An essential technology in developing and using these components is a notion of safe substitutability that would account for the state machine and its implied two-way protocols. The research plan includes formal foundations for safe substitutability of components, and robust, efficient implementation technology in sequential and concurrent contexts.

The career development plan outlined in this proposal focuses on the integration of the research and teaching objectives of the principal investigator. The research project addresses a number of important issues in the design and interconnection of optical networks. The ultimate goal of the proposed work is to develop viable solutions for a seamless nationwide all-optical network infrastructure. The educational component includes development of graduate-level courses on all-optical networking and on internetwork architectures and protocols, integration of topics on lightwave technology in existing graduate and undergraduate introductory network courses, and active involvement of undergraduate students in network projects.

Wavelength routed wide area networks will be an integral part of the future all-optical network infrastructure. It is envisioned that these networks will act as the backbone that provides the interconnection for local area lightwave sub-networks attached to them.. However, the deployment of an infrastructure that will enable large scale interconnection of optical networks raises a number of fundamental and challenging problems that require novel and innovative solutions. The research plan outlined in this proposal identifies a number of significant but open problems arising in wavelength routed environments, and presents a comprehensive and novel approach to address them.

The key objective of this research project is to uncover principles that underlie the specification and verification of intelligent cooperative information systems (CISs). The proposed research project will address this challenge in the context of two major categories of applications: information search and enterprise integration. It will innovate search plan models, develop exemplar such models and define generic techniques to specify and schedule them. It will also innovate workflow coordination models, including representations for resource semantics and workflows, and develop techniques to enact coordinated workflows so that interrsource constraints are met. This project will implement design tools that incorporate the above theoretical advances.

This project examines mixed-initiative planning issues in an interactive simulation of abstract physical agents. Agents generally behave in a goal-directed manner: they plan their movements, exert force on one another, cooperate in their interactions. Various scenarios establish overall goals for teams of agents, such as the destruction or containment of opposing teams, the occupation of territory, or the capture of specific targets. The problem is integrating the user's activities with those of automated planning tools, treating the whole as a joint cognitive system. Our approach relies on novel AI planning techniques and their application through a physical schema theory.

The theory and application of Markov chain techniques constitute a unifying theme in the application of mathematics to many problems in engineering, economics, physical science, and social science, and the numerical computation of stationary probabilities associated with large scale applications is a fundamental concern. This is particularly true in applications such as the modeling of flexible manufacturing systems, telecommunication systems, computer performance evaluation, biological systems, economic modeling and forecasting, and more generally, in applications where discrete models are used to understand and analyze the dynamics of large systems comprised of a collection of loosely coupled subsystems. This project emphasizes both the practical and theoretical aspects surrounding the application and implementation of algorithms for computing stationary probabilities.

Due to the popularity of object-oriented technology and network applications, the use of concurrent object-oriented programs is increasing significantly. The goal of the project is to develop efficient and effective techniques for analyzing and testing concurrent object-oriented programs. This project will investigate the following problems: (a) How to efficiently and effectively analyze and test a class that defines data to be shared by multiple processes? (b) How to efficiently and effectively analyze and test a set of classes that define processes communicating with each other? (c) How to perform incremental analysis and testing of a concurrent object-oriented program according to the relationships between classes in the program?

NCSU graduate student will develop a machine learning approach to linking extreme atmospheric ridging events with extreme surface temperatures, employing a Gaussian Process (GP)-based predictive analysis tool that leverages the predictive value of spatial and temporal correlations and builds on ORNL’s past success in spatial classification, temporal change prediction, and parallelizing GP for large spatiotemporal extents.

The purpose of the Girls on Track (GoT) project is to increase Middle Grade Girls' interest in math-related careers by engaging them in computer-based mathematical explorations of urban problems in their communities. It is a joint project between North Carolina State University (Center for Research in Mathematics and Science Education and Department of Computer Science), Meredith College, Wake County Public Schools, and North Carolina Department of Public Instruction.