NewsNews&NotesNotes  The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Department of Computer Science from Sitterson Hall

SPRING 2008 • ISSUE FORTY-ONE

In this issue Chairman’s corner Chairman’s CORNER  Welcome to the for example, or you could honor a final edition of former professor who had a positive welcomes and farewells 2 “News & Notes influence on your life and career. Your Congratulations to... 2 from Sitterson donations will help further the goal of Hall.” Starting making UNC Computer Science a truly Family matters 3 with the fall world-class research and teaching grants, contracts & Patents 3 2008 issue, the facility. Contact me if you are department will interested. ALUMNI news 4 no longer be At the start of the spring semester, Recent Publications 5 solely located in Sitterson Hall, so we’ll take the the department welcomed new faculty Research news 6 opportunity to change both the name member Marc Niethammer, assistant and the look of the newsletter. This professor in both the Department of department news 7 redesign will also coincide with the Computer Science and the Biomedical launch of a new and much improved Research Imaging Center (BRIC). Marc www.cs.unc.edu Department of Computer Science Web joins the department from Harvard site. Medical School, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, where he was a research One of the most notable pieces fellow. He holds a Ph.D. from Georgia of news I’d like to share is that the Tech. Frederick P. Brooks Jr. Computer The 2008 Science Building is still on schedule We will also be welcoming computer SIGGRAPH for occupancy starting this fall. As I security researcher Fabian Monrose UNC Reunion is mentioned in the previous newsletter, to the department this summer as an we will be holding a dedication associate professor. Fabian is joining us coming... ceremony for the new building mid- from Johns Hopkins University, where fall, with the final date still under he is an associate professor in the and we want to make discussion. We will let you know as department of computer science and sure you don’t miss the soon as the date is finalized, so that a member of the JHU Information official announcement! you all can plan to join us. We are Security Institute. Fabian works in the excited about the impending opening areas of biometrics, cryptography, Please send an email to of the new building, with its new and network security, and is a terrific addition to the new computer [email protected] classrooms, faculty conference room, laboratories, and research space. security research group. Look for to make sure you are on more information on him in the fall our email list. Speaking of all that space, it is not too newsletter. late to secure naming rights for various areas and rooms in the F.P. Brooks I hope to see you at this fall’s Brooks Building. By making a qualifying Building dedication! Thanks! donation, you could choose to have your name grace a conference room, Jan F. Prins 2 Welcomes and farewells Welcome to... receives a financial stipend of up Symposium VRST 2007. to $7,500 per year for each of the NEW FACULTY two years. The program is a new Xiang Zhang and Feng Pan, Marc Niethammer (Ph.D. 2004, initiative of Carolina Center for who won the best student Georgia Institute of Technology), Public Service and the Office of paper award of the 24th IEEE Assistant Professor in Computer the Vice Chancellor for Public International Conference on Data Science and the Biomedical Service and Engagement to Research Imaging Center (BRIC). advance faculty involvement in the Marc joins the department from scholarship of engagement. At OOPSLA ‘07 in Harvard Medical School, Brigham Montreal, a panel on the and Women’s Hospital, where he Ming Lin, who was recently named 20th Anniversary of Fred was a research fellow in psychiatry the faculty scholar for the spring Brooks’s software paper, and radiology. 2008 semester by the Carolina “No Silver Bullet—Essence Women’s Center. Ming will work and Accident in Software VISITING RESEARCHERS on a project that responds to the Engineering,” featured the Suriayati Chuprat, Visiting disproportionately small presence swift transformation of Scholar working with Sanjoy of women in computing, and panelist Martin Fowler into Baruah. Since 1997, she has been she will design a new course to a werewolf, whose comments a lecturer at the University of integrate cutting-edge research into enlivened and enlightened Technology in Malaysia. the undergraduate classroom and the whole panel. Brooks and include women undergraduates former UNC faculty member Dwight Makaroff, Visiting in research opportunities. Ming David Parnas were among the Scholar working with Ketan will also be working to engage in untransformed (but unharmed) Mayer-Patel. Dwight is an outreach to area middle schools as panelists. The January- associate professr at the University an early recruitment strategy, and February 2008 issue of IEEE of Saskatchewan. to enhance mentoring and advising Software has a description (pp. efforts in her department. The 91-94). Christopher Zach, postdoctoral Faculty Scholars program is funded research associate working with through the Office of the Provost Brooks, on Research Leave Jan-Michael Frahm, who joins and provides course replacement during 2007-2008, has given the department from VRVis money for one course during the lectures or colloquia at Research Center for Virtual award semester. Cambridge and at a sd&m Reality and Visualization, Vienna, Design Conference in Austria, and the Institute for GRADUATE STUDENTS Berlin. During January and Computer Graphics and Vision, Sasa Junuzovic, who was the February, he gave colloquia at Graz University of Technology, recipient of one of the twelve Manchester and Oxford. Austria. Microsoft Research Fellowships Thanks and farewell to... given this year.

FACULTY AND STAFF Avneesh Sud, Fred Jordan, who retired in Russell Gayle, December 2007 with nearly 28 Stephen Guy, years of state service. Erik Andersen, Ming Lin Congratulations to... and Dinesh , who FACULTY AND STAFF Manocha received a Best , who has been Gary Bishop Paper Award named one of the first Faculty for their paper, Engaged Scholars at UNC. In “Real-time this two-year program, Faculty Navigation of Engaged Scholars will apply their Independent skills to make a difference in a In February 2008, Greg Welch and Henry Fuchs attended the Agents Using particular community as they National Academy of Engineering banquet where Rudolph E. Adaptive connect their work with the needs Kalman, for whom the “Kalman filter” is named, received the Roadmaps,” of the community. Each scholar NAE Draper Prize. Above: Greg, who maintains a web site on the at ACM Kalman filter, is pictured with Kalman.

44 RecentAlumni publications news M.S. AND PH.D. ALUMNI management challenges associated the total to five and holding. Rodger Blair, (M.S. 1969), is with ad hoc networks, and provides ([email protected]) a Lead Systems Analyst with an in-depth description of how McKesson Corporation. He is policy-based network management Jaideep Mirchandani (M.S. also a Certified Scrum Master and can be used for increasing 1992) moved to Chennai, India a Certified Six Sigma Black Belt, automation in the management in 2006, to set up and run the and is working towards becoming of mobile ad hoc networks. The India Operations for Relativity a Certified Six SigmaMaster book features a foreword by J. Technologies, a Raleigh-based Black Belt. Rodger says hello to Christopher Ramming, who was a software company. The India Dr. Brooks and reports: “We are program manager at DARPA at the Operations supports the currently planning our annual time, and is also a UNC CS alumnus. deployment, adoption and vacation to Topsail Island -- a ([email protected]) commercial success of Indian 20-year family tradition. Ryan, our Services companies in the use adult son, and his wife have joined Marc Levoy (Ph.D. 1989), of Relativity’s products. In us last summer; we believe they Professor of Computer Science India, Jaideep is in contact with will do so again this year. Lauren, and (jointly) Electrical Engineering Rajaraman Krishnan (M.S. 1993) our daughter and family, moved to at Stanford University, was named as well as Subodh Kumar. (jaideep. Los Angeles in July 2007 and will an ACM Fellow in December 2007. [email protected]) not be joining us at Topsail Island ([email protected]) this summer. Topsail Island is a Yen-Ping Shan (Ph.D. 1990) great North Carolina secret but is Robert Lewis (M.S. 1981), founded a company, iSource becoming well-known up here in professor of mathematics at Technologies, and is serving as Pittsburgh!!” ([email protected]) Fordham University, recently the CEO. The company provides published the following: high quality and low cost IT and Michael Capps, Ph.D. (B.S. “Heuristics to Accelerate the Business Process Outsourcing 1994, M.S. 1996) is still happily Dixon Resultant,” in Mathematics (BPO) services to small and employed as President of Epic and Computers in Simulation (2007); midsize businesses utilizing Games in Cary, NC. After an “Algorithmic Search for Flexibility capacities from China and Asian award-winning year for Gears Using Resultants of Polynomial countries. ([email protected]) of War, has just Systems” (with E. Coutsias), in released 3 on Automated Deduction in Geometry: 6th Josh Steinhurst (Ph.D. 2007) PC and PlayStation 3. It’s the first International Workshop; Lecture Notes published the following paper game to be released on a console in Computer Science, Vol. 4869, with Anselmo Lastra and Greg platform with user modification Springer, Berlin, 2007. (rlewis@ Coombe (Ph.D. 2007): “Reducing tools, so users can make levels fordham.edu) Photon-Mapping Bandwidth by or write gameplay code on PC, Query Reordering,” J. Steinhurst, and then release them to the PS3 Alan Liu (Ph.D. 1998), along with G. Coombe, and A. Lastra, IEEE community. Epic’s game engine his colleague Mark Bowyer, was the Transactions on Visualization and technology, 3, was recipient of the 2008 Satava Award Computer Graphics, 14(1) pp. 13- recently named Game Developer’s at the 2008 Medicine Meets Virtual 24, Jan/Feb, 2008. ([email protected]) Front Line Award winner in the Reality (MMVR) Conference in game engine category for the Long Beach, Calif. The award Kirstin (Williams) Morrison third straight year. (Mike.Capps@ is presented to an individual or (M.S. 2007) has been teaching epicgames.com) research group demonstrating middle and high school math at unique vision and commitment Woods Charter School in Chapel Mike Carr (M.S. 1991) has been to the improvement of medicine Hill as a lateral entry teacher since promoted to Director of Identity through advanced technology. Alan the beginning of the 2007-08 school Services at Amazon.com. (mwc67@ works for the National Capital year, and says she is really loving it! hotmail.com) Area Medical Simulation Center. ([email protected])

Ritu Chadha (Ph.D. 1991) Rob McCauley (B.S.M.Sci. 1999) UNDERGRADUATE ALUMNI published a book entitled Policy- will receive his MBA from Duke’s Aaron Fulkerson (B.S. 2004), Driven Mobile Ad Hoc Network Fuqua School of Business this CEO of MindTouch Inc., reports Management (with co-author year. He reports that there have that the company is now enjoying Latha Kant) in December 2007. been no new babies this year, but 30,000 downloads a month The publisher is John Wiley & there have been four since his of its Deki Wiki open source Sons. The book discusses the graduation from UNC, bringing software, and had more than Recent publications 5 100,000 downloads in 2007. In Bounds under Global EDF ACM Symposium on Solid and Physical addition, MindTouch is providing Scheduling on a Multiprocessor,” Modeling, 2008. To appear. professional support to hundreds of Real-Time Systems, Volume 38, clients, including Mozilla, the City Number 2, pp. 133-189, February Rewaskar, S., J. Kaur, and F.D. of Los Angeles, EMC, Expedia.com 2008. Smith. “A Performance Study of and FedEx. Wiki.mindtouch.com Loss Detection/Recovery in Real- ([email protected]) Gamblin, T., R. J. Fowler, and D. world TCP Implementations,” Proc. A. Reed. “Scalable methods for of the IEEE International Conference on monitoring and detecting behavioral (ICNP’07), Beijing, (B.S.M.Sci 1981) Network Protocols Tom Galloway classes in scientific codes,”Proc. of China, October 2007. left Google after 4.5 years in the International Parallel and Distributed October, and is enjoying time off Processing Symposium (IPDPS), April Sud, A., E. Andersen, S. Curtis, M. including moving to Las Vegas. 14-18, 2008. To appear. Lin, and D. Manocha. “Real-time He’s applied for an Master of Path Planning in Dynamic Virtual Science Writing program at MIT Kwatra, V., P. Mordohai, R. Narain, Environments Using Multi-agent for fall 2008, and will know by S. Kumar Penta, M. Carlson, M. Navigation Graphs,” IEEE Trans. April if he’s been admitted. (tom. Pollefeys, and M. C. Lin. “Fluid in on Visualization and Computer Graphics, [email protected]) Video: Augmenting Real Video with 2008. To appear. Simulated Fluids,” Computer Graphics Mark Snyder (B.S. 2004) recently Forum (Proc. of Eurographics), 10 Tang, M., S. Curtis, S-E. Yoon, received his master’s degree in pages, April 2008. To appear. and D. Manocha. “Interactive computer science with honors at the Continuous Collision Detection University of Kansas, developing a Le, L., J. Aikat, K. Jeffay, and F. between Deformable Models using modular paramorphic type checker D. Smith. “The Effects of Active Connectivity-Based Culling,” ACM for a new language called Rosetta. Queue Management and Explicit Solid and Physical Modeling Symposium, Congestion Notification on Web 2008. ([email protected]) Performance,” IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking, Vol. 15, Van den Berg, J., M. Lin, and No. 6, December 2007, pp. 1217- D. Manocha. “Using Reciprocal Recent publications 1230. Velocity Obstacles for Real-Time Multi-Robot Navigation in Dynamic Allman, M., V. Paxson, and Lifschitz, V., L. Morgenstern, Environments,” Proc. of IEEE Int. J. Terrell. “A Brief History of and D. Plaisted. “Knowledge Conference on Robotics and Automation, Scanning,” Proc. of the 7th ACM Representation and Classical Logic,” 2008. To appear. SIGCOMM Conference on Internet Handbook of Knowledge Representation, Measurement (IMC), October 2007, F. van Harmelen, V. Lifschitz, and Van den Berg, J., S. Patil, J. pp. 77-82. B. Porter, eds., Elsevier-B.V., 2008, Sewall, D. Manocha, and M. Lin. pp. 3-88. “Interactive Navigation of Multiple Anderson, J., V. Bud, and U. Agents in Crowded Environments,” Devi. “An EDF-based Restricted- Niethammer, M., P. A. Vela and Proc. of ACM Symposium on Interactive Migration Scheduling Algorithm A. Tannenbaum. “Geometric 3D Graphics and Games, February for Multiprocessor Soft Real-Time Observers for Dynamically 2008. Systems,” Real-Time Systems , Evolving Curves,” IEEE Transactions Volume 38, Number 2, pp. 85-131, on Pattern Analysis and Machine Zhang, L., and D. Manocha. February 2008. Intelligence, 2008. To appear. “An Efficient Retraction-based RRT Planner,” IEEE International Curtis, S., R. Tamstorf, and D. Nyland, L., M. Harris and J. Conference on Robotics and Automation Manocha. “Fast Collision Detection Prins. “Fast N-Body Simulation (ICRA), 2008. for Deformable Models using with CUDA”, in GPU Gems 3, H. Representative-Triangles,” Symposium Nguyen, ed., Addison Wesley, 2007. Zhang, M., W. Wang and J. Liu. on Interactive 3D Graphics and Games, “Mining approximate order 2008. Pan, F., X. Zhang and W. Wang. preserving clusters in the presence “A general framework for fast co- of noise,” Proc. of the 24th IEEE Devi, U. and J. Anderson. “A clustering on large datasets using International Conference on Data Schedulable Utilization Bound for matrix decomposition,” Proc. of the Engineering (ICDE), 2008. the Multiprocessor EPDF Pfair 24th IEEE International Conference on Algorithm,” Real-Time Systems, Data Engineering (ICDE), 2008. Zhang, Q., J. Liu and W. Wang. Volume 38, Number 3, pp. 237-288, “Approximate clustering on April 2008. Raghuvanshi, N., N. Galoppo, distributed data streams,” Proc. of the and M. C. Lin. “Accelerated Wave- 24th IEEE International Conference on Devi, U. and J. Anderson. “Tardiness based Acoustic Simulation,” Proc. of Data Engineering (ICDE), 2008. 66 Research news Geeks making the world a bit better for visually impaired kids The halls of Sitterson get a little have created, such rowdy on a certain day each as Braille Twister, a year. This year, that day will be game which teaches April 30, when approximately children the Braille 70 visually impaired children, in alphabet while helping grades kindergarten through high them develop upper school, along with their parents body strength, and and teachers, descend upon the SonicZoom, a racing Department of Computer Science game that can be for fun and games created just for played either visually them. or using sounds with varying pitch and The brains behind all this mayhem spatial positions. is Gary Bishop, professor and department alumnus. Calling Maze Day also lets the himself a “geek making the world children experience a bit better,” Bishop, along with several kinds of mazes: his students, is developing free conventional tactile software for people with special mazes, computer- needs. This research focuses on based mazes that utilizing commodity computer combine 3D sound hardware so that the tools and and haptics, and a toys will be accessible to as many room sized real maze people as possible. constructed with large Graduate student Keith Lee helps a Maze Day participant play Braille Twister using a Dance Dance Revolution pad as the Twister foam blocks. Other board. During the Maze Day event, the planned activities children get to sample some of the for this year’s event Dance Dance Revolution (DDR) software Gary and his students include: composing music on a pad; a two player Simon game combined with an upper body workout; Guitar Hero made accessible; virtual tennis; light saber practice; and Carolina Beat, an accessible verison of Dance Dance Revolution for a good exercise workout to music.

For more information about enabling technology research being conducted in the Department of Computer Science, please see: www.cs.unc.edu/Research/ assist. If you would like to become one of the “geeks making the world a bit better” through funding, talent or technology, email the CS Research Support and Communications group (rsac@ David Borland (Ph.D. 2007) shows Maze Day participant Dominik how to use a PHANToM desktop cs.unc.edu) to see how you can get device to experience the Haptic Cell demonstration. involved! Department news 7 Computer Services Update by Brian White There have been a variety of Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), faculty offices; cvs revision control changes in Computer Services mostly version 5. In addition, the system for recording the history since our last newsletter update, Distributed Real-Time research of source code and documents; and there are changes in what we group runs FreeBSD on some digital signage in the Sitterson support and how we do it. William 200 systems in their lab, and we lobby and soon to be in the Jiang took a promotion into the support about 50 Macs, running Brooks lobby; administrative campus Windows server group last OS/X. These numbers don’t database development; backups summer, and Fred Jordan retired include the new BASS (Biomedical for Linux desktops; and, most at the end of 2007. These changes Analysis and Simulation recently, support for the BASS set in motion several shifts in our Supercomputer, pronounced supercomputing cluster. Things group, the most recent of which is “base”) system, which includes we do differently include recording merging our communications and 63 nodes running RHEL and one talks and events to digital media, hardware groups, with Bil Hays running Windows 2003 Server. as well as a recent change of serving as interim manager of that The minimum student desktop our password system to provide group. We still have two positions systems are currently 933 MHz a single location for password to fill, and we currently have two with 512 MB of RAM, but most changing and better security. folks out on medical leave, but we are considerably more powerful; Upcoming changes will include expect to be fully staffed before we continue to provide a better moving department backups summer arrives and we start pool of computers for our students onto the large tape library that is moving into the Brooks Building. each year. part of the BASS system and will provide increased capacity; moving We currently support over 800 We are always looking at new the department’s web space into computers in Sitterson. The services and new ways of a Drupal content management majority of these run Windows, providing ongoing services. Over system; upgrading building access mostly XP, with servers running the last couple of years we have and video security systems; and of Windows 2003 Server. We also taken on support of projectors course taking on support of the have 100+ systems, including throughout the building, including Brooks Building infrastructure. many of our servers, running Red multiple projectors in many

OC Disabilities Awareness Council project by J.M. Walsh A number of students, staff, Act through education, training, The ultimate goal of the DAC and faculty at UNC-Chapel Hill and other efforts. The aspect board is to develop a comfortable have formed a small volunteer of its governance is to observe level of IT fluency so that they, grassroots organization whose the basic principles of the ADA: in turn, may be able to provide main purpose will be to provide that persons with disabilities are other disabled members of our help to members of the Orange persons with abilities, contributing community--including high school County Disabilities Awareness citizens, and potentially valuable students, senior citizens, and more Council (DAC) with their employees. -- with similar training classes and information technology needs. I.T. support services. The group initially hopes to DAC is an all-volunteer, non-profit provide to DAC’s board members If you are interested in organization whose membership a wide range of technical and volunteering, please contact and board is largely composed instructional support services, J.M. Walsh ([email protected]). of persons with disabilities, their which will range from hands-on Participation is not limited to families, and friends. DAC training with popular software UNC -- we hope to involve as serves as an education and applications, to installing enabling many people in our community as advocacy group whose primary technologies such as screen readers, possible. mission is to help to implement to troubleshooting a faulty DSL the Americans with Disabilities connection or hard drive. Non Profit Org US Postage News&Notes PAID from Sitterson Hall Permit 177 Chapel Hill NC department of computer science college of arts & sciences The University of North Carolina cb# 3175, Sitterson Hall Chapel Hill, NC 27599–3175 editor Kelli Gaskill [email protected]

General Information voice: (919) 962-1700 FAX: (919) 962-1799 E-mail: [email protected] web: www.cs.unc.edu

Address corrections, submissions, and for information about our publications: [email protected]

UNC is an Equal Opportunity/ Affirmative Action Institution

Keep in touch! Meet BASS: Let us know where you are and NIH-NCRR and UNC-Chapel Hill Funded what you are doing so that we can include you in our next issue! Biomedical Analysis and Simulation Supercomputer Send us information via e-mail to [email protected]; fax it to (919) 962- 1799; or mail it to the address below, c/o News & Notes. If you fax or mail your information, please include your e-mail address.

Throughout News & Notes, we list de- gree information for all our B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. Computer Science and Math Sciences alumni.

Research professor and alumnus Russell Taylor poses next to the BASS system, which consists of 452 general-purpose processors tightly coupled to each other and to 102 programmable graphics-processor boards that function as image and geometry calculation accelerators (providing the equivalent computing power of over thirteen thousand processors for image-intensive applications) connected by an Infiniband network.