SPRING 2004 Put Er Science Education (SIG- SCE) Stu Dent Com Pe Ti Tion in March

Kudos Xinyuan Wang, doctoral student advised by Dr. Dou glas Reeves, ad vanced to the na tion al Grand Finals of the As so ci a tion of Computing Ma chin ery (ACM) Student Re- CONNECTED search Competition. He had placed second in A NEWSLETTER FROM THE the graduate division of ACM’s DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTER SCIENCE Special Interest Group Com- SPRING 2004 put er Science Education (SIG- SCE) stu dent com pe ti tion in March. New data transfer protocol Neha Jain, in the Ac cel er at ed Bachelor’s/Master’s program, may boost bandwidth effi ciency was selected to receive a The new Binary Increase Congestion Google Anita Borg Schol- Trans mis sion Control Protocol (BIC-TCP), ar ship. developed by NC State computer scientists, Matthew Vail, senior, received will be particularly useful for fi nancial insti- the Fall 2004 Cisco Sys tems tutions, scientists, and others who need to Un der grad u ate In for mation As sur ance Schol ar ship. get volumes of real time data every day. While high-speed Internet has plenty of Martin Davidsson and Ryan bandwidth available, managing traffi c re- Sturmer are student winners of the In ter na tion al Chal lenge quires balancing the needs of high volume for Eclipse (ICE) con test. Dr. data pushers against individuals down- Dr. Injong Rhee, associate professor Laurie Williams won in the load ing music and other low-volume users. teach er category based on her tor al student Dr. Lisong Xu. In creasing the window to allow more data students’ entries. “Basically, we view congestion control as through may help the high-end users but a search problem where congestion control Dr. George Rouskas was can crowd out the others. needs to fi nd the fair and effi cient trans- named to NC State’s Acad emy BIC resolves this “by scaling its window of Out stand ing Teach ers and mis sion rate (or target rate) for the end-to- increase function to be more aggressive received the Alcoa Foun- end path” on which the current connection without diminishing the fairness properties da tion En gi neer ing Re search is running. Achieve ment Award. of TCP too much,” says Dr. Injong Rhee, He explains BIC: Using bi na ry search – a assistant professor, who developed the new Chris Franklin won the fi rst protocol along with colleagues Dr. Khaled Continued on page 8 Game Boy Ad van tage com pe - Harfoush, assistant professor, and post-doc- ti tion held by NC State’s Game De vel op ers’ Club. With post-doctoral research Machon Gregory received NC Barnes continues working toward her goals State’s Brotherhood Award. Sometimes it just works out that what you Kevin Vaughan and Micha el Daly received hon or able men- like to do is also what you’re good at. tion in Epic Games’ Make That’s what Dr. Tiffany Barnes (‘03) Some thing Unreal Contest in dis cov ered as she advanced through high April 2004. school and later college at North Carolina State Uni ver si ty, earning her bachelor’s and mas ter’s degrees in math and computer sci- Dr. Donald Bitzer, Distinguished University Research ence and a doctorate in comput er science. Inside this issue Professor, has been inspiring students, from un der - Now a postdoctoral researcher, Barnes • Co-ops, work abroad, p. 4 grad u ates through postdocs, for over 50 years. He is continuing her research while helping to • Senior Design Center, p. 5, 9 cur rent ly has 10 students work ing with him, includ ing share both her knowl edge and ex citement • Bitzer on creativity, p. 6, 7 Dr. Tiffany Barnes (above). Read about his views on about the possi bil i ties in comput er science, • JIT signaling protocol, p. 8 creativity in education on page 7. • Alumni: on digital imaging, especially for other wom en. teamwork, p. 10, 11 With Dr. Donald Bitzer, DisContinuedContintin guishedued on pagepag e 7 1 THE DEPARTMENTAL CONNECTION Technical papers Computer science faculty Personnel notes tra tor, retired February 2004 mem-bers’ technical papers are posted online at http: Faculty appointments, changes John Stone, electrical technician IV, started //www.csc.ncsu.edu/research/ October 2003 Dr. Dennis Bahler, associate professor, Injong Rhee, Jangwon Lee: named interim undergraduate program Distributed Scalable TDMA Sched- director, effective February 2004 ul ing Algorithm NSF CAREER Awardees Dr. Karl Branting is leaving academia for a Injong Rhee, Jangwon Lee: Energy-effi cient Route-aware MAC full time position in the artifi cial intelligence Dr. Khaleed Harfoush, assistant pro- protocols for Diffusion-based Sen- lab of BAE Systems in Columbus MD. fessor, and Dr. Laurie Wil l iams, assistant sor Networks pro fessor, both re ceived NSF Early CA- joins the department as Laurie Williams, William Krebs, Dr. Richard Mayr REER Awards this spring. Lucas Layman: Ex treme Pro- as sistant professor, begin ning Au gust 1. They bring the total NSF CAREER gram ming Eval u a tion Framework Mayr received his Ph.D. from TU- for Ob ject-Oriented Languages Award recipients in the computer science Ver. 1.3 Munchen in Ger ma ny. His research in for- department to 12, an unprec edent ed de- Laura E. Jackson, Matthias F. mal methods focuses on model check ing, partmen tal total for the college. seman tic equiv a lences, term re writing, the- Stallmann: Di rec tion al p-Median in The CAREER Awards are the highest Two Dimensions is NP-Complete o rem provers, and tableau methods. He has hon or bestowed on young faculty mem- pub lished eight papers in refer eed jour nals Anita Nagarajan, Jaydeep Marathe, bers. Awardees are selected on the basis Frank Mueller: De tailed Cache Co- and 23 oth er ref er eed papers. of creative, career-development plans that her ence Char ac ter iza tion for Open MP Bench marks Mladen Vouk, professor, named interim de- effec tive ly integrate research and ed u ca tion within the context of the mission of their Neha Jain, Annie Antón, Wil l iam partment head, effective July 1, 2004 H. Stuffl ebeam, Qing-feng He: in stitu tion. Se cu ri ty and Privacy Re quire ments Staff appointments, changes Harfoush and Wil l iams join the fol lowing Anal y sis Tool Soft ware Re quire - Jennifer Anderson, faculty secretary, Cen- in the de part ment’s list of CA REER award ments Spec i fi ca tion Ver. 1.06 tenni al Campus, Venture I and III re cip i ents: Jie Su, Douglas S. Reeves: Annie Antón George Rouskas Rep li ca Place ment with La ten cy Jennifer Craddock, advanced to research Con straints in Content Dis tri bu tion Vincent Freeh Munindar Singh facilitator. Net works Christopher Healey Peter Wurman Nachiappan Nagappan, Laurie Missy Seate, accounting clerk, de partment James Lester R. Michael Young Wil l iams, Mladen Vouk, Jason offi ce. Frank Mueller Osborne: Ini tial Results of Using In-Process Testing Metrics to Es- Injon Rhee Gary Stelling, systems program ad min is - ti mate Software Reliability Qinglin Jiang, Douglas S. Reeves, Bitzer honored by his alma mat er Peng Ning: Cer tifi cate Rec om - Dr. Donald Bitzer, professor, received the cathode ray tubes in comput er display mon i tors. men da tions to Improve Ro bust ness Alum ni Award for Dis tin guished Service from his This invention enabled the development of Webs of Trust alma mat er, the Uni ver si ty of Illinois at Ur ba na- of today’s large-screen fl at-panel tele vi sions Laurie Williams, Lucas Lay man, Champaign. and earned for Bitzer the 2002 Scien tifi c and William Krebs, Annie Antón: Ex- The award rec og niz es his signifi cant con tri bu - Tech nol o gy Emmy Award from the Na tion al plor ing the Use of a Safe Subset of Extreme Pro gram ming: An In dus - tions to the fi eld of computer sci ence, in clud ing Acad emy of Televi sion Arts and Sciences. [Ab- tri al Case Study his pi o neer ing work in com puter-as sist ed edu - stracted from a University of Illinois Urbana- Aravindh Anantaraman, Kiran Seth, ca tion that helped to make the PLATO system Champaign publication.] Kaustubh Patil, Eric Rotenberg, Frank Mueller: Exploiting VISA for known worldwide. Higher Concurrency in Safe Real- Bitzer real ized early in its development that a Time Systems display with memo ry was needed to make the sys- Tharp named to tem success ful. He and his colleagues devel oped accreditation commission an electron ic display in which each pixel on the Dr. Alan Tharp, professor, has been named screen glowed like a little neon sign. The plas ma to the Computing Accreditation Com- pan el served as both a dis play and a stor age de- mis sion of ABET, the Accreditation Board vice, accepting digital infor ma tion di rectly from Read about Computer Science for Engineering and Technology, Inc. Ac- Achievers online at the comput er and stor ing it on the panel, solving cred i ta tion is a voluntary, non-govern men tal the scalability prob lem that plagued the use of http://epartners.ncsu.edu/alumni_ pro cess of peer review for academic programs. spotlight.html

2 THE DEPARTMENTAL CONNECTION

Building project ‘on schedule’ Construction for the new Comput er Science-Computer and Electri cal En gi neer ing building is un der way on Cen tenni al Campus, with comple tion an tici pat ed by summer 2005, ac- cord ing to David Lombardi, building con struction and management spe- cialist for the College of Engineering. “Structural steel will be going up shortly,” he said in early May. The build ing will provide 210,000 gross square feet of space for classrooms, re search areas and of fi c es, says Ron Construction site photo May 11, 2004. More photos and details online at http:// www.csc.ncsu.edu/department/facilities/newbldg_info.php. Hartis, director of operations for the computer science department. and is the second phase in the relo - building are outlined in the Cor po rate The $35 million facility is funded ca tion of the College of En gi neer ing to Relations section of the comput er by the University of North Carolina Centennial Campus. science department’s Website, http:// Higher Education Bond Refer en dum, Naming opportunities for the new epartners.ncsu.edu/.

Faculty study expanding role for Communications notes laptops in the class room Visitors to the computer science depart- site by e-mail to Benavente at Five computer science faculty mem- ment’s Website will fi nd a few changes [email protected]. Submit news bers are participating in the College of under way. and fea ture suggestions to Rzewnicki En gi neer ing’s Laptops for Enhancing The site is being re freshed by Web- at [email protected]. While Teach ing program, a part of the COE’s master Carlos Benevente to conform checking out the Website – http:// student owned comput ing ini tia tive. with accessibility guidelines and to im- www.csc.ncsu.edu/ – don’t for get to Each faculty member received a lap- prove navigation with the addition of up date your alumni information. top com puter for use in devel op ing links by user group and other features. mean ing ful ways to incor po rate laptops Anna Rzewnicki, associate director of Information kiosk coming in classroom in struction. external relations, has been adding news Visitors to the computer science de- Dr. James Lester, associate professor, and features stories, pro vid ing Web vis- partment’s With ers Hall of fi c es on main says “it will be great to take ad van tage i tors in sight about the department. New cam pus will soon fi nd a new desk top of the laptop to do inclass inter ac tive Alumni and Cor po rate Rela tions links kiosk providing cal en dar notes, maps demon stra tions of the algo rithm and have been created, and those pages are and oth er useful infor ma tion. data structures” that his students are be ing updated. The Cor po rate Rela tions The in terface for the kiosk is being learning. link in cludes infor ma tion about ePart- creat ed by Computer Service Partners, Dr. David McAllister, professor, says ners and other cor po rate partner ship the compa ny formed by alumnus and the laptop will enable him to run his opportunities. com puter science Strategic Advi so ry “Mathematica notebooks without hav- This summer, a new e-newsletter will Board mem ber Bill Riddick. ing to constantly worry about Mac to be launched, with a related Web page PC con versions and to be able to do providing links to alumni and news sites Research brochure online realtime” mul time dia illustrations. not only within the department, but on The latest edition of the De partment of Also participating are Drs. George the college’s and university’s Websites as Computer Science’s Research Brochure Rouskas, Munindar Singh and Ting Yu. well. is available online at Read more about this project online at Your feedback is welcome. Please http://www.csc.ncsu.edu/research/ www.csc.ncsu.edu/news/ sub mit comments about the Web- brochure/2003/brochure.pdf. 3 THE STUDENT CONNECTION

Applied learning Co-ops, international ex chang es provide prac ti cal experience Nearly 70 computer science stu- pro fession al network, another valu able dents this academic year are gain- asset for launch ing her career. “Even if ing real-world experience through I don’t get selected (for a posi tion with North Caro li na State Uni ver si ty’s her cur rent agency) I now have people I Co op er a tive (Co-op) Education can con tact.” Pro gram. Marker is returning to IBM in the Two others are heading over seas Research Triangle Park, where he has through NC State’s chap ter of worked four semesters in per va sive IAESTE, the In ter na tion al As- software testing. so cia tion for the Ex change of Stu- “Testing is a great way to gain ex pe - dents for Technical Ex pe ri ence. ri ence with a wide variety of tech nol o- gies,” he says. “I’m working with many Three of the Co-op Program Stephanie Lynch, left; Neha Jain; Vickie Williams, co-op students – Stephanie Lynch and assistant director; and Michael Ramirez dif fer ent server hardware and software Micha el Ramirez, both juniors, and plat forms and testing many cutting Ken Marker, a senior – are con tinu ing team leader for a sensor in tegra tion sys- edge software ap pli ca tions.” their ongoing co-op as sign ments, while tems design project, working in Charles- Jain, who now is in the computer sci- Neha Jain, also a se nior, has moved into ton, SC. He began work ing on the proj- ence department’s combined bach elors/ a computer science de partment research ect in the summer after his freshman mas ters degree program, has com pleted sup port position. year. her co-op experience. Lauren Wellborn and Keith Crawford, When asked how he manages as a She worked last summer and fall with both juniors, opted for an in ter na tion al student leading three full-time staff Sony Ericsson’s mobile commu ni c- ex pe ri ence, which will al low them to members, he acknowledged some initial a tions unit, setting up fl ashing stations trav el as well as put their knowledge to skep ticism on the part of his team. “But where new software was put in the work. I have a love for this type of work and I GSM phones. SIM (Subscriber Identity Wellborn will be think I’m a fair ly decent leader, so with Mod ule) cards were used to sim u late work ing with DHI a com bi na tion of the two, we’ve now en vi ron ments for testing purposes. She Wa ter and En vi - meshed,” he says. also trained the new co-op students to ron ment in Co- Lynch is heading back for a third se- use new phones and equipment and penhagen, devel - mester with the Department of Defense worked with a di verse group of people. op ing al go rithms (DOD) at Ft. Mead, MD. She met a Jain is now complet ing research that and soft ware for Lauren Wellborn and re cruiter for the agency while serv ing as she’s been working on with Dr. Annie wa ter resourc es Keith Crawford an ambassador during a minority ca reer Antón, associate professor of software al lo ca tion and res- fair at NC State. en gi neer ing, regarding the Health In- ervoir op er a tion, in volv ing sto chas tic Her assignments have varied with sur ance Porta bil i ty and Account abil i ty analysis and op timi za tion methods. each stint, Lynch says. “The fi rst time, Act (HIPPA). Later this summer, she Crawford is headed for Lima, Peru, I worked on a database for de ployment will begin work ing as Antón’s re search where he will be working with Pacifi c ser vices, devel op ing a system for match- as sistant. Con sulting Network, doing Web ap pli - ing needs and wants of the person nel. Related links ca tion development using Java. In her second as sign ment, she served Computer science news & features: http:// Ramirez will again be work ing as on a help desk for a DOD da ta base that www.csc.ncsu.edu/news/. team leader for an on go ing project with provided information about different NC State’s Cooperative Education Program: the Space and Naval Warfare Sys tems coun tries. She’ll learn about her as sign - http://www.ncsu.edu/co-op_ed/ (SPAWAR) Com mand. Based in San ment for this summer when she arrives. Di ego, SPAWAR is the U.S. Navy’s chief Lynch says the Co-op Program is en gi neer for com mand, con trol, com- pro vid ing her valuable work experience mu ni ca tions, comput er and in telli gence that will help as she begins her fulltime systems. Ramirez, a scientifi c aide, is job search. She’s also begun building her 4 THE STUDENT CONNECTION

24 Senior De sign team projects pre sent ed at Post ers & Pies For over 10 years, computer science under grad u ates have been pulling to gether all they’ve learned to complete projects posed to them through the capstone CSC 492 course. They’re led in their efforts by Dr. Rob ert Fornaro, pro fessor and di rector of the Senior Design Center. “The center was creat ed to help students develop the teamwork, lead er ship, Lauren Shupp explains the Table PC and com mu ni ca tion skills that are essen - project, sponsored by Network Appli- tial for today’s increasingly compet i tive ance, to Posters & Pies visitors. global workforce,” Fornaro says. “As the tech nol o gy in dustry contin ues to grow and ad vance, the anal ysis and Three of the Tavve Software Voice prob lem solving skills that our students Activated Wi-Fi Alarm Clock team members talk with mentor James C. master will be increas ing ly valu able, and Tetterton (B.S., ’00) second from left. they will help set our students apart as Team members are Kristina Honeycutt, they meet poten tial employers,” he says. Greg Cymbalski and Derek Osterhoudt. “The projects and mentorship sup- Tetterton is completing his master’s in computer science. Student team mem- port of our spon sors are a very impor - ber Charles Hart was not available for tant part of the total edu ca tion that we the photo. pro vide here at NC State.” Sponsoring companies or units within about 300 par ents, students, spon sors At earlier demon stra tions, sev er al NC State provide a software prob lem or and oth er guests, in cluding several Ra- school prin ci pals were in terest ed in the project-in-pro cess for the student teams leigh televi sion re porters. project, says Katherine Raynor, one of to an a lyze and resolve, working with This spring, the lineup in cluded com- the team members. Also on her team a com pa ny mentor. Duke En er gy and puter science students pro vid ing soft- are Robert Hopkins, Luke Lenzen and Fujitsu are among the fi rst spon sor ing ware sup port for three multidisciplinary Stephen Maddox. com pa nies. [Read more about spon- teams devel oped through the Col lege of Last year, a Senior De sign team ad- sor ship in volvement on page 9.] En gi neer ing’s new Engi neer ing En tre- vanced to third place worldwide in the During the 2003-04 aca demic year, pre neurs Pro gram. fi nals for its Diet Down load project. a total of 165 students worked on 42 Other projects this semester ranged On the SDC staff are Mar g a ret Heil, spon sored projects through this course. from soft ware for a new voice-activated as so ciate direc tor; Car ol Mill er, facul ty alarm clock being devel oped by Tavve ad vi sor; Kelly Pot ter, tech ni cal commu - Software to software link ing tablet PCs ni ca tion ad vi sor; Ben Tilley, lab o ra to ry for in terac tive classroom use. man ag er; Steve Bento, facul ty advisor; One Senior De sign team was formed and John Stone, tech ni cal support. to enter the Fifth Annu al Com puter So- For information about spon sor ing ciety Inter na tion al De sign Com pe tition. a project, contact Ken Tate, ePartners The theme for this year’s compe tition is pro gram di rector, [email protected]; ‘Mak ing the World a Saf er Place.’ phone: 919-513-4292. The NC State team advanced to the semifi nals with its project, SafeSPACES. Katherine Raynor explains her team’s SafeSPAC- Their software will enable schools to ES project to a Posters & Pies guest. track their students, in cluding what Student projects were pre sented at school bus they are on and who picked the April 27 Posters & Pies, attended by them up from school.

5 THE ACADEMIC CONNECTION

Nearly 400 attending annual ACM/AITP Pig Pickin’ A roasted pig, platters of fried chick en, a selection of veg etar i an options and plenty of beverages ... those were the fi xin’s for a re lax ing spring evening at Pullen Park, marking the end of NC State’s Dead Week. The pie was actually for the pie toss, so only a select few got a taste of the ba nana cream, but ev ery one else enjoyed the laughter, sun shine and a chance to unwind. The 10th annual pic nic was pre sented again by ACM/AITP, with vegetarian food added this year by members of Women in Computer Science. ePartner Cisco re turned as corporate sponsor, joined by the College of Engineer- ing’s E-Coun cil, and Microsoft pro vid ed prizes.

Faculty, staff honored Students did more than toss pies at willing faculty members. Following a bit of vol leyball, water balloon tossing and lots of dining, they recognized the follow ing faculty and staff members for their service to comput er science students in the past year. Joyce Hatch, CSC coordinator of ad vising and lecturer – and long-time chef for the annual pig pickin’ – was select ed as the Most Helpful Staff Mem ber in rec og - ni tion of her outreach to all students. Her re sponse on re ceiv ing the award: “You are the awesome people.” Receiving the 2004 Best Lecturer Award was Carla Savage, professor. The 2004 Most Helpful Faculty Member Out side of Class award went to Dana Lasher, di rector of student services and EPA faculty member. Michael Young, assistant professor, and Rocky McMahan, adjunct instructor, above, were Dr. Alan Tharp received a plaque in recognition of his 11 years of service as among the willing pie toss targets. head of the computer science de partment. Two receive Bitzer Creativity Awards The 2004 Bitzer Creativity Awards, course taught by Dana Lasher. His cre- coming up with ideas for new software presented to two com puter science ative thinking shown in oth er courses to write.” Examples of his work in clude students at the Pig Pickin,’ recognized landed him a spot on an NSF-funded the NNIM Messenger, which is now those students for their ability to ‘think research project on cluster anal ysis led the GNU Messen ger, a secure mes- outside the box’. by his nominator Dr. Robert Funderlic, sag ing system; Crafty, a TCP/IP packet David Schlorff showed his creativity pro fessor of computer science, and Dr. creation tool; and such open source by beating the record for the fewest Moody Chu, pro fessor of math emat ics. projects as MString, Vir tual Turn ta ble ma chine in structions in cod ing a so- Jesse Lovelace was nominated by Julie and Hashish, a pow er ful cross-platform lu tion for the CSC 236 pro gram ming Starr, instructor, “because he’s always hash cal cula tion tool.

6 THE ACADEMIC CONNECTION

Barnes From magic tricks to searching for magic medical bullets continued from page 1 Bitzer keeps cre ativi ty at the fore front Uni ver si ty Research Professor, she’s en- If you stop in to see Dr. Donald gaged in cutting-edge research applying Bitzer in his Daniels Hall offi ce, her computer science skills in the fi eld chanc es are you’ll fi nd him in an of genet ics. an i mat ed discus sion with one or more of his students. Advancing bioinformatics You may also get treated to a Barnes recently presented a poster at card trick, as Bitzer is a member the Biomedical Engi neer ing Research of the Or der of Merlin and uses Review held at UNC Chapel Hill, re- magic to help explain some of the porting on her work with Lalit Ponnala, complex prin ciples covered in his an NC State electrical engineering doc- courses. He’s even taught pro fes- Madhup Mishra, right, makes a last-minute review tor al student, in signal processing and sion al magicians a trick or two over of pre senta tion charts with his research ad vi sor, Dr. its applications in genetics. Donald Bitzer, prior to his master’s thesis defense. the years at Inter na tion al Broth- This is one aspect of bioinformat- er hood of Ma gi cians’ meetings. ics being explored by the collaborative “Creativity,” Bitzer says, “is thinking out of the box.” That applies whether Sta tisti cal Genet ics and Bioinformatics you’re creating new magic tricks or de velop ing techniques that may lead to a re search group which includes Bitzer, mag ic bullet for fi ghting cancer. re search ers in various de partments at Madhup Mishra (M.S. ‘04) is one of his students who ‘gets’ the creativity that NC State and in dustry partners. Bitzer is promoting. He had no trou ble shifting gears during his recent thesis de- Bioinformatics involves analyzing fense: instead of simply review ing his research and fi ndings on coding se quence ex tremely large data sets gath ered from detection and free ener gy periodicity in prokaryotes, Mishra was chal lenged to genetics research, in cluding DNA se- dis cuss how they might be used in future research. It’s that kind of creativ i ty that quences and ex pres sions from DNA Bitzer says he hopes to encour age in students through the endowed Bitzer Cre- microassays. ativ i ty Award that he estab lished at NC State sev er al years ago. In addition to Bitzer, other par tici - pat ing computer science facul ty are Dr. Jon Doyle, SAS In stitute Profes sor of to explore en gi neer ing to deter mine if pro grams such as Girls Com puter Science; Dr. Steffen Heber, Barnes also is working on an on go ing on Track help encour age more young as sistant professor, and Dr. Mladen project with Vouk, aimed at encour - wom en to stay in math and technology. Vouk, pro fessor of com puter science. ag ing more young wom en to contin ue In addition to her work with this studies in math and tech ni cal fi elds. COE Computer Science group, Barnes is teach ing a course in The core of that project, initially Summer Camp applied discrete math – “the math you fund ed by the National Science Foun- This summer, Barnes is also assisting need to do comput er science.” She da tion, is a Girls on Track summer with a computer science camp – one teach es one oncampus session with camp for girls in grades sev en to nine. It of sev er al COE camps of fered for high Bitzer and an oth er through the college’s is of fered in the last two weeks of June school juniors and se niors in terest ed dis tance edu ca tion pro gram. at Meredith College in Raleigh. in technology. She’s working with Mike In that class, she’s using what she Barnes and Vouk are col lecting data Etheridge to devel op sessions that will learned through her doc tor al research, about the camp par tici pants, track ing give pro spective under grad u ates a sense in which she was developing statistical the choices they make in their courses of what comput er scien tists do and methods to make online tuto ri als adap- of study and, ultimately, their ca- help them understand what they might tive for the learner, enabling them to reers. They’ve collected data ex pe ri ence as comput er science majors au to mat i cal ly adjust to the learn er. for four years now and will be following at NC State. their fi rst group of camp par tic i pants as Encouraging girls they enter college. One of their goals is Related links Girls on Track: http://ontrack.ncsu.edu/ Computer Science Summer Camp: http://www.engr.ncsu.edu/summerprograms/csc.html. 7 THE RESEARCH CONNECTION

Professor, former student col lab o rat ing again ...Part of team developing new JIT signaling protocol A new Just-in-Time (JIT) signal ing pro- a tions Commission (FCC). to col, which will yield ultra-fast network Baldine, who is responsible for the con nections, was devel oped joint ly by project’s protocol design documents the MCNC Research & De vel op ment and oversees the software side of im- In stitute (MCNC-RDI) and sev er al ple men ta tion, says he found it easy to members of NC State’s comput er sci- transition from his graduate student- ence and other engi neer ing fac ul ty. pro fessor re la tion ship with Rouskas to a At a recent demonstration, their work peer re la tion ship. drew the praise of the FCC’s tech- “From the be gin ning, I found ours to nol o gy chief for its po tential to enhance be a very friendly, productive and goal to day’s network infrastructure. ori ented relationship ... we contin ue to On the JIT team with Dr. George Dr. Ilia Baldine (with MCNC) and Dr. George be pro ductive,” Baldine says. Rouskas and Dr. Harry Perros, pro fes- Rouskas, associate professor The fruits of their efforts were ev- sors of com puter science, and Dr. Paul ments the proto col,” he says. “Un for tu- i dent at a demonstration that Baldine Franzon, professor of computer and nately, doing this at the software side is arranged at the Advanced Tech no log i cal electri cal engi neer ing, is Dr. Ilia Baldine very slow compared to moving it to the Demon stra tion Network (ATDNet) in (Ph.D. ‘98), who was Rouska’s doctor al hard ware.” Wash ing ton, D.C., an op tical network student. The scientists have stripped down the designed to allow devel op ers to demon - The pro to col they are developing to- signal ing and control protocol so that strate their protocol devic es. gether “works to speed up the controls it can be imple mented at the hardware JIT signaling, embedded in the hard- and con nections” required by the In- level. They expect it would be ap plied at ware, enabled connections at fi ve mi cro - ternet’s “millions and bil lions of users,” the router lev el by major Internet ser- seconds, com pared to a few seconds for Rouskas says. vice providers. software-based signaling. “The typical approach is to in cor - The JIT protocol is now in the proof “So we are talking about a million po rate this in the software that im ple - of concept stage, and was recently dem- times faster than any compa ra ble pro- BIC-TCP on strated for the Federal Com mu ni c- to col in software,” Rouskas says. Continued from page 1 Edmond J. Thomas, FCC chief of the tech nique used to search for an item in ity, scalability and fair ness. Vig or ous Of fi ce of Engineering and Tech nol o gy, a database – al lows the window in crease third-party testing contin ues. says, “JIT not only has the po tential to to be logarithmic; it increas es faster BIC is currently implemented in the en hance today’s network in fra structure when the target rate is far away from latest version of Linux, Rhee says, not- but the tech nol o gy also could po ten- the cur rent trans mis sion rate, but slows ing that the code is available upon re- tial ly improve effi cien cy for ap pli ca tions down as the current rate gets closer to quest. bound by limited resourc es, such as the the target. This en sures the stability of “We are continuing to improve the wireless spectrum. control while al lowing the protocol to protocol,” he says. “This is still in the “This pro to col is yet another example become friendli er to ex isting TCP traf- very early stages and needs a lot of im- of tech no log i cal innovation which fi c. Combining this search tech nique provement, like any protocol out there, could result in more effi cient use of with additive increase allows the pro- but seems to be very promising. the radio spectrum and hopefully lead tocol to increase its window (or rate) “Time and peer review will deter mine to new and affordable services for the faster when there is a lot of avail able whether this is the one to use. Every Amer i can public,” Thomas says. band width. protocol has its good and bad points. “We are still working on enhancing BIC, one of many TCP variants un- Eventually, I think all of this will con- the pro to col,” Rouskas says, “adding der development, received considerable verge to a standard, taking the good function al ity and enhancing quality of media attention worldwide when initial points from all and con verg ing into a ser vice.” test results were released earlier this nice, effective and lasting so lu tion to year. Those results from testing at the using the high band width that’s avail able Stanford Lin ear Ac celer a tor Cen ter gave to us.” it top rank ing in all cat e go ries of stabil- 8 THE ePARTNERS CONNECTION

Companies fi nd value in Named corporate partnership opportunities available Senior Design Project sponsorship ... to fi t all needs & budgets Red Hat sponsored four this year. Fu- Senecal says he has found his years Companies wanting to estab lish a jitsu came back for its seventh year, as of in volvement with the program to be stron ger cor po rate alignment with did Duke Energy. per son al ly as well as professionally re- the comput er science department – Over a dozen other companies, all ward ing. without breaking their budget – have computer science ePartners, enjoyed the “From the very beginning, the pro- a growing list of affordable ‘named’ ben efi ts of be ing in volved in the com- gram presented by Dr. (Robert) For- partner ship op por tuni ties available to puter science de part ment’s Senior De- naro and Ms. (Margaret) Heil showed consider, says Ken Tate, di rector of sign Cen ter which man ag es the Senior tremendous poten tial and prom ise. the ePartners Program Design Project capstone software class. “Working together with them over the “With a department of our size, In fact, in the 10 years since Dr. Rob- past several years, helping to shape the there are many pro grams, events, and ert Fornaro launched the class, over 500 pro gram to what it looks like today, see- in i tia tives that take place each year students have worked with more than ing the effects the program has had on which touch and impact thousands 70 compa nies on spon sored projects. the students, and witnessing the pride of lives,” he says. “Whether a com- Red Hat sponsored four teams work- of the mentors with every success ful pa ny provides $250 to help sponsor ing on various aspects of current com- class that goes through this pro gram is a student group meeting or $5,000 to pa ny projects, including the launch of reward in and of itself,” he says. sponsor a se nior design project, they the Red Hat Network. “We truly believe the efforts, like can be assured that they are helping At Fujitsu, Vice President and CIO those made by Fujitsu Transaction So lu - to enhance the edu ca tion al ex pe - Gene Senecal says the sponsored pro- tions and the other sponsors, are an in- ri ence of our students.” ject program “is truly a win, win, win vestment in our community, our fu ture. What do companies receive for for ev ery one. “Given the economic and resource their support? Tate says the val ue “Students get a glimpse of the real pres sures faced by our universities to- of such sponsorships can go deeper world, work ing on real problems with day, the private sector and citizenry have than the ‘named’ recog ni tion. Many real busi ness meaning. They get to ex- an ever increasing responsibility to ‘step sponsors identify top talent for fu- pe ri ence the same pressures and chal- up to the plate’ and to invest in pro- ture hiring needs and estab lish stron- leng es they will soon encounter when grams such as this wherever and when- ger re la tion ships with key facul ty. they grad u ate,” Senecal says. ever they can. We need to support our “Many named spon sor ships may “Those who have participated in this institutions of higher learning to help qual i fy cor po rate af fi l i ates for rec og - pro gram have universally said that (it) position them to meet the needs of the ni tion under our ePartners Program, af ford ed them the best oppor tuni ty dur- students – needs that are required for which provides an exten sive porting their academic life to prepare them- success in an increas ing ly compet i tive fo lio of benefi ts,” he adds. selves for the future,” he says. global mar ketplace.” A sampling of named spon sor - Senecal adds that the benefi ts of such Welcome to new ePartners ships at various levels: cor porate involvement accrue to the New computer science’s ePartners are - $250, student organization meet ings uni ver si ty as a whole as well. Insurance Systems Group, ePartner, - $500, recruiting events or print com mu - “NCSU ben efi ts from hav ing a strong and Corporate Friends Expert Process ni ca tions projects and ef fective compo nent as part of So lu tions, Bowe Bell and Howell, NC - $1,000, annual spon sor ship of the its cur ric u lum. The commu ni ty and Wom en in Com puter Science organization or Zoo log i cal Society and Tekelec. a year-end student organization dinner in dustry benefi t in that the stu dents There currently are seven Super eP- - $2,500, diploma cere mo nies, Posters & com ing out of this pro gram are bet ter artners, 10 ePartners, and 35 Cor po rate Pies, or the departmental newsletter pre pared to meet the chal leng es of the Friends in the ePartners program. - $5,000, senior design projects, the e- newslet ter, speakers series, etc. real world. In the past academic year, such For a complete list of partner ship “The spon sors and men tors receive a friends of the de partment have helped opportunities, call Tate at 919-513- tremen dous sense of satis fac tion know- sup port comput er science research and 4292 or visit the ePartners Website, ing that they have been instru men tal in teach ing with over $250,000 in unre - http://epartners.ncsu.edu/. shap ing to day’s program, and helping to stricted cash gifts and over $8 million in fur ther someone’s edu ca tion. total contributions. 9 THE ALUMNI CONNECTION

From Raleigh to Singapore and back, Krueger builds ca reer – and busi ness es – with digital imaging If you use Macromedia’s Fireworks for Krueger’s professional career. It began as a hobby,” he says. For the fi rst three creating Web graphics, you’re benefi t- in Raleigh, where he took positions at years, he had no customers and simply ing from the digital imaging talents IBM and then SAS after graduating wrote software, working mostly by him- of Ri ch ard Krueger (MS ‘89) and his in 1984 with an undergraduate degree self, although he did have investors call- broth-er, Fred Krueger. in mathematics and computer science ing to be part of his new venture. from Cornell University. He earned his By 2000, though, following the Inter- master’s in computer science at NC net crash, investor sources dried up and State while working in Raleigh. he realized that he “had to start making In 1990, he and his wife Joy, an artist, a living,” he says. “Being in tech nol o gy, went to the University of Singapore, I was heavily invested in it. I think ev- where he had a position teaching and ery one got burned. It had reached such doing research in 3-D graphics vi sual - a level of craziness.” iza tion and medical graph ics. When Krueger incorporated Skinux The Asian economy “was taking off, in 2000, he “had a business plan and and they got into making com puter one other guy” working with him. He com po nents, memo ry chips,” Krueger also had lots of people calling and send- says. “It was a dynamic place, but the ing him their resumes, people who had Richard Krueger, at his new compa ny, Skinux uni ver si ty was wanting.” With gov- been ‘burned’ when the tech bub ble Together, they formed Fauve Soft- ern ment funding, the uni ver si ty drew burst at the turn of the century. ware in 1992, about the time when facul ty and researchers from through out He’s taking a different tact with dig i tal im ag ing was “just opening up,” the world, creating “a high-tech em- Skinux. “I decid ed that I did not want Ri ch ard Krueger says. bas sy” environment. to run this on the ‘90s tech com pa ny He was always inter est ed in digital Krueger and his wife came back to mod el,” Krueger says. In stead, he’s photography, “but there were not many the States in 1992, and he started Fauve vowed not to go after ven ture capi tal programs that did dig i tal art” back in Software in Raleigh with his brother. At and “not spend beyond what I take in.” the early ‘90s, Krueger says. the time, digital imaging was changing Many have told him, “you’re not A lot has happened in the dozen years from be ing a high end specialty and be- go ing to grow, not take it to the next since launching Fauve. One is that soft- com ing more accessible. lev el,” he says. His response: “I saw so ware and hardware prices have dropped “A whole new era of digital imag ing many take it to the next level, to bank- signifi cantly, making them more ac- was open ing up,” he says. “We decid ed ruptcy court. It’s not a pretty picture.” cessi ble to more users. Another is the to come up with a natural media paint Now, with two full time and three evo lu tion of mark-up languages for the pro gram that worked like water colors part-time employees, he has a growing Web, allowing for better ‘discus sions’ on the (comput er) screen.” list of clients, including major cor po - between software modules. They released their product, Matisse, ra tions. A third is that computers are no for $99 per package in 1993. “It was “Our customers are people who want long er simply work stations; they are very successful; the right product at the to upgrade an existing interface, such as in creasing ly becoming the base of in di - right time,” he says. vid u als’ entertainment centers. They then developed xRes, a second Using his experience in digital graph- dig i tal graph ics product that they sold ics, Krueger aims to help businesses to San Fran cisco-based Macromedia in cap i tal ize on these changes by creating 1995, where it evolved into Fireworks. graph i cal computer-user interfaces – or Both remained with Macromedia in skins – with a unique look and feel that San Fran cisco a few years, Ri ch ard as di- refl ect the company’s branding or mar- rector of en gi neer ing-imag ing and Fred keting messages. Individuals can also as vice presi dent of im ag ing. In the use products be ing devel oped at his new late 1990’s, the compa ny was sold and com pa ny, Skinux, to personalize their Ri ch ard Krueger decid ed to move on. com puter-user inter fac es. In 1997, he returned to Raleigh. “I This screen shot shows a sampling of the Skinux Getting to this point requires tracing built a house and started this company ‘skins,’ including a zoom and music player. 10 THE ALUMNI CONNECTION Krueger continued from page 10 Teamwork, on going education on this x3D, which decided to ‘spruce up’ its CSC entrepreneur’s career path interface. We gave it a new look.” With a back- He also stresses the value of team- Krueger began forming the idea for ground in math work, not ing that the patents that Skinux while still at Macromedia. and sci ence, in clude his name were the “product “I fi gured the next big thing in im- Bill McKinnon of the work of several people,” for ag ing would be to use image editing (Ph.D., ‘97) was whom he served as team leader. tech niques to construct user interfaces drawn fi rst to en- Other people were also integral in – skins – which are much more de- gi neer ing, then, his decision to start his own business, signed than existing interfaces,” he says. after ‘a chance ChanneLogics – a data-over-cable Bill McKinnon He envisions companies could incorpo- en coun ter’ with network man agement prod ucts com- rate marketing and branding messages an un der grad u ate professor, to tele- pany. He started it after seeing friends in the stylized skins. communications. launch their own businesses. “We can build different interfaces The career-focusing impact of that The concept evolved from work he very quickly and they are fully scalable,” one pro fessor has been rep li cated by did while at the Georgia Tech, where he says. many in di vid u als on McKinnon’s pro- he helped man age an in terdis ci pli nary Also, as computers have advanced be- fession al work teams. center focused on ‘last mile’ net- yond merely being tools for doing a job “People are the most important work ing issues. to multimedia entertainment centers, thing in a com pa ny,” he says. And to “In the late ‘90’s, data-over-cable “customers and software com pa nies remain valu able, McKinnon stresses tech nol o gies were emerging as viable that sell to them are demanding user the role of continued learning and en- options,” he says. “In a cable network, interfaces that transcend the tradi tion al thusiasm. though, the bandwidth must be shared Graphical User Interface,” he states in The corporate culture at his fi rst job be tween doz ens or hun dreds of sub- an online white paper. in research and de vel op ment “quick ly scrib ers, leading me to the question of He compares this to the auto in- helped me to under stand how skills how to insure the via bil i ty of the end dustry, which expanded from the initial can be come stale and obso lete. This user’s ex pe ri ence.” black Model T’s to today’s plethora of con vinced me to pursue my grad u ate His ex plo ra tion of that question colors, shapes, sizes, and options de- degrees and, gen er al ly, to con tin ue to led to the launch of ChanneLogics in signed to provide unique driving ex pe ri - lever age my skills and expe ri ences into 2000. Within a few years, the board of ences. Krueger sees the same desire for new op por tuni ties. di rectors decided it was time to sell. in di vid u al i ty growing among com puter “These days, we see a lot of the “Based on the vision of the board, users. low er level positions being moved off and where the technology was head ed, They “want a designed appearance shore,” he says. “It’s a natural pro- we felt that having a banner like ‘Sci- that distinguishes the consumer or the gres sion and evolution for skills to be en tifi c-Atlanta’ on the prod uct would ven dor, rather than the native computer deval ued over time. With the global be the best way to promote the tech- operating system.” Just as indi vid u als econo my, you have to be concerned nol o gy to its fullest and also gar ner create a ‘look’ for themselves through about that.” the greatest return on the in vestments their style of clothing, “con sumers want But McKinnon cautions against that were made in the compa ny.” the ‘look and feel’ of their software to “getting too wrapped up in it, espe - The compa ny was sold to Scientifi c refl ect their age group, tastes and even cial ly for those coming out in their At lan ta in 2003, and McKinnon is their cultural outlook on life.” 20’s. As long as they have skills, they now evaluating new opportunities. Skinux’s Skin User Interface aims to will be marketable. fi ll this need using techniques and features avail able through digital imaging software, in cluding transparency and cluding control panels for scanners and factur er. “Skinux is the fi rst truly cross scalability. Such interfaces can be made point of sale terminals; games; and in plat form skinning solution for Micro- interactive and are more intuitive for emulation and simulation software. soft Windows and Linux systems,” he the user, Krueger says. Skinux skins, written in C++, are not states. His technology can also be used to dependent on any particular window- create control panels and launchers, in- ing system or operating system man u - Related link: http://www.skinux.com/ 11 NONPROFIT ORG. News clips U.S. POSTAGE Read news clippings online North Carolina State University PAID at http://www.engr.ncsu.edu/ Department of Computer Science RALEIGH, NC news/homepage/innews.htm Campus Box 8206 PERMIT No. 2353 Raleigh, NC 27695-8206 Jeff Leinbach (B.S. ‘04) was featured in a News & Ob serv er Q&A on technology grad u ates. The JIT signaling protocol, devel oped by Dr. George Rouskas, pro fes sor, and MCNC, has been cov ered by Light Read ing and other pub li cations. The Triangle Tech Journal re- port ed on work by Chris to pher Healey, associate pro fes sor, and Laura Tateosian, Ph.D. stu dent, incorporating Im pres sion ist paint- ing techniques human per cep tion and psy chol o gy to develop a comput er visualization system for large com plex data sets. The work by Dr. Injong Rhee, as- so ci ate professor, and colleagues on BIC-TCP has been covered by technology media worldwide. Dr. Carla Savage’s work with former student Chip Killian, on solving a mathematical problem with Venn di a grams, was featured in a front page article in the journal Science and in SIAM News. Staying Connected ... win a new mini-iPod! A lot is happening at NC State’s Department of Computer Science – exciting research, Dr. Michael Young, assistant pro fes sor, was featured in a News new courses, a new building, and faculty, student and alumni accomplishments. and Ob serv er Q&A about his sto- We want to get our news out to our alumni and friends as effectively as possible, and are rytelling and gaming research. in the process of making improvements to our communication vehicles. Dr. Dennis Rodman, professor, To help us better connect with youyou, we invite you to take part in a brief online survey, was quoted in a March 21 New York Times article about the au- which you will fi ndon the computer science department’s Website at www.csc.ncsu.edu/ then tic i ty of a Hussein tape. news-survey/. Raleigh’s WNCN TV and News Participants will have a chance to win one of four Mini iPods, provided in part by 14 covered the Spring Posters & Apple Computer. Those who complete the survey by June 30, 2004, will be eligible for the prize drawings. Anna Rzewnicki In the meantime, we are moving ahead with enhancing the department’s monthly e- Associate Director, External Relations Department of Computer newslet ter and expanding its distribution to all computer science alumni as well as our Science ePartners, faculty, staff and students. This effort is supported by a $5,000 grant from SAS North Carolina State University In stitute’s Publi ca tion Mar keting Group. The e-newslet ter, in cluding an online edition, will [email protected] http://www.csc.ncsu.edu/ be gin dis tri bu tion this summer. To reach you, we need your cur rent email ad dress. Please 5,000 copies of this public docu ment were printed at a cost of 4 cents each. take a minute to update your con tact infor ma tion online at http://www.csc.ncsu.edu/ alum ni/alumni_update.php. Updating your contact information will also assure that you The newsletter was printed with the fi - continue to receive the Connected bi an nu al print news letter and oth er department com- nancial support of Network Appliance, a De part ment of Computer Science mu ni ca tions. Super ePartners company.