Jie Liang, Ph.D. Bioengineering Primary Grant Support: National Science Foundation Career Award, National Institutes of Health R01, Office of Naval Research, and the Whitaker Foundation Protein surface matching
Problem Statement and Motivation •
The structure of proteins provide rich information about how cells work. With the success of structural genomics, soon we will have all human proteins mapped to structures.
•
However, we need to develop computational tools to extract information from these structures to understand how cell works and how new diseases can be treated.
•
Therefore, the development of computational tools for surface matching and for function prediction will open the door for many new development for health improvement.
Evolution of function
Key Achievements and Future Goals
Technical Approach • • •
•
We use geometric models and fast algorithm to characterize surface properties of over thirty protein structures. We develop evolutionary models to understand how proteins overall evolve to acquire different functions using different combination of surface textures. Efficient search methods and statistical models allow us to identify very similar surfaces on totally different proteins Probablistc models and sampling techniques help us to understand how protein works to perform their functions.
• • •
• •
We have developed a web server CASTP (cast.engr.uic.edu) that identify and measures protein surfaces. It has been used by thousands of scientists world wide. We have built a protein surface library for >10,000 proteins, and have developed models to characterize cross reactivities of enzymes. We also developed methods for designing phage library for discovery of peptide drugs. We have developed methods for predicting structures of beta-barrel membrane proteins. Future: Understand how protein fold and assemble, and designing method for engineering better proteins and drugs.
Prof. Andreas A. Linninger Funding by: NSF CBET 1010621, NSF RET EEC 1132694
Problem Statement and Motivation • Problem: Drug delivery in the Central Nervous System (CNS) is especially challenging due to the Blood Brain Barrier (BBB) and ranging cell types • IT-nanoparticle based drug delivery can circumvent the BBB • MDT reduces systemic toxicity by localizing drug concentration
• Improve patient outcomes and efficacy of therapeutics due to reduced drug dosages
Technical Approach • Develop gold coated magnetite nanovehicle for conjugated delivery • •
Targeted drug treatment; doxorubicin Secondary imagining modality; quantum dots
• In vitro cell culture studies: • •
Analyze nanovehicle uptake, efficacy, and toxicity Develop 3D live cell model of spinal cord tumor
• In silico human subject model: • •
Predict distribution of IT drug infusion Optimize magnet position and strength for guided localization of nanovehicle to a priori target regions
• In vivo model: • •
Use optimized parameters for MDT of specific tumor cell region Prove tumor cell death by reduced tumor size in the animal model using imaging techniques such as MRI
Key Achievements and Future Goals • Synthesis and characterization of nanoparticle-drug complex • Predict IT drug dispersion using CFD models with varying magnetic field configurations • Design live 3D spine tumor cell model for in vitro analysis MDT treatment using the drug delivery vehicle • Localized targeting of spinal cord tumors in the animal model to prove feasibility of in vivo MDT.
Hui Lu, Bioengineering Primary Grant Support: NIH, DOL
Problem Statement and Motivation Protein-DNA complex: gene regulation DNA repair cancer treatment drug design gene therapy
•
Protein interacts with other biomolecules to perform a function: DNA/RNA, ligands, drugs, membranes, and other proteins.
•
A high accuracy prediction of the protein interaction network will provide a global understanding of gene regulation, protein function annotation, and the signaling process.
•
The understanding and computation of protein-ligand binding have direct impact on drug design.
Key Achievements and Future Goals
Technical Approach •
Data mining protein structures
•
•
Molecular Dynamics and Monte Carlo simulations
• •
•
Machine learning
•
Phylogenetic analysis of interaction networks
•
Gene expression data analysis using clustering
•
Binding affinity calculation using statistical physics
• • •
Developed the DNA binding protein and binding site prediction protocols that have the best accuracy available. Developed transcription factor binding site prediction. Developed the only protocol that predicts the protein membrane binding behavior. Will work on drug design based on structural binding. Will work on the signaling protein binding mechanism. Will build complete protein-DNA interaction prediction package and a Web server.
Hui Lu, Ph.D., Bioengineering Primary Grant Support: Chicago Biomedical Consortium, NIH
Problem Statement and Motivation •
To efficiently function, cells need to respond properly to external physical and physical and chemical signals in their environment.
•
Identifying disease states and designing drugs require a detailed understanding of the internal signaling networks that are activated in responses to external stimuli.
•
In the center of these process is a particular group of protein that translocate to the cell membrane upon external activation.
Key Achievements and Future Goals
Technical Approach •
Combine machine learning techniques with characterization of the protein surface to identify unknown membrane binding proteins.
• •
•
Developed highly accurate prediction protocols for identifying novel cases of membrane binding proteins, based on properties calculated from molecular surface of the protein structure.
Atomic scale molecular dynamics simulation of the interactions between proteins and membranes
•
Mathematical modeling is used for studying the spatial and dynamic evolution of the signal transduction networks within the cell when changes in the external environment occurs.
Determining membrane binding of properties of C2 domains in response to changes in ion placements and membrane lipid composition.
•
Goal: To model the network dynamics to understand how changes in membrane binding properties of certain domains changes the efficiency of signal transduction in the cell.
Hui Lu, Ph.D., Robert Ezra Langlois, Ph.D.,Bioengineering; Primary Grant Support: NIH, Bioinformatics online
Problem Statement and Motivation •
Massive amount of biomedical data are available from high-throughput measurement, such as genome sequence, proteomics, biological pathway, networks, and disease data.
•
Data processing become the bottleneck of biological discovery and medical analysis
•
Problem: Protein function prediction, protein functional sites prediction, protein interaction prediction, disease network prediction, biomarker discovery.
Key Achievements and Future Goals
Technical Approach •
Formulate the problem in classification problem
•
Developed machine learning algorithms for protein-DNA, proteinmembrane, protein structure prediction, disease causing SNP prediction, mass-spec data processing, DNA methylation prediction.
•
Derive features to represent biological objects
•
Develop various classification algorithms
•
Developed an open-source machine learning software MALIBU
•
Develop multiple-instance boosting algorithms
•
Goal: Biological network analysis and prediction.
Andreas A. Linninger Department of Bioengineering
Problem Statement and Motivation Pressure (mmHg)
Flow (uL/min)
16
6
15
5
14
5
13
4
12
3
11
2
10
1
•
Cerebrovascular disease (CVD) occurs in 40% of the U.S. population costing over $8.5 billion per year and is the 4th leading cause of death
•
Analysis of perfusion maps obtained from MRI and CT do not reliably assess patient health
•
Oxygen perfusion of tissue at microvasculature scale is uncertain due to limited resolution of imaging modalities
•
May help physicians in surgery planning
Key Achievements and Future Goals
Technical Approach •
Centerline extraction from high-resolution medical images for apparent vessel modeling
•
Arterial networks automatically reconstructed from medical MR angiography images
•
Constrained constructive optimization creates morphologically consistent microvasculature
•
Microvasculature model of for oxygen perfusion
• •
Modeling of the cerebrovasculature provides simulation results down to capillary level and can be used as a diagnostic and surgery planning tool
Artificial angiography from simulated dye convection and registration of dye projection to voxel matrix
•
Acquiring high-resolution images for better reconstruction for both arterial and venous network
•
Oxygen perfusion from capillaries to brain cells
Andreas A. Linninger Department of Bioengineering NSF CBET Process & Reactions Engineering Pressure, mmHg
pO2, mmHg
66
80
56
70
47
60
37
50
28
40
18
30
Problem Statement and Motivation •
Cerebrovascular Disease (CVD) occurs in 40% of the U.S. population costing over $8.5 billion per year and is the 4th leading cause of death
•
Analysis of MR and CT images do not reliably capture the dynamics of tissue oxygen perfusion in response to vasomodulating factors
•
Oxygen perfusion of tissue at microvasculature scale is uncertain due to limited resolution of imaging modality and difficulty of obtaining in vivo human measurements
•
Modeling of the cerebrovasculature on the tissue scale provides missing meso-scale simulations between large cerebral vessels and capillary perfusion of brain cells
Key Achievements and Future Goals
Technical Approach •
Centerline extraction from high-resolution medical images for apparent vessel modeling coupled with constrained constructive optimization (CCO) to create morphologically consistent microvasculature
•
Arterial and venous networks automatically reconstructed from medical MR angiography images and enhanced with space filling CCO algorithm to create morphologically accurate networks
•
Biphasic blood rheology computed using novel kinetic plasmaskimming model to accurately predict oxygen distribution to deep cortical layers
•
Microvasculature model of RBC distribution shows network-level hemoconcentration due to plasma skimming, increasing oxygen perfusion predictions over one phase models
•
3D anisotropic oxygen perfusion from capillaries to neural and glial brain cells computed as a function of red blood cell distribution, vessel tone, and extracellular space geometry
•
High-resolution images of arteriole, venule, capillary vessels as well as the spatial distribution of neurons and glial cells will be used to build more realistic tissue-level simulations
Andreas Linninger Prime Grant Support: NSF CBET EAGER
Problem Statement and Motivation • Cerebral vascular disease is the 4th leading cause of death in the U.S. • Mostly treated through digital subtraction angiography (DSA) • Currently, no method exists for quantifying blood flow in DSA
Technical Approach
Key Achievements and Future Goals
• Anatomical reconstruction of cerebral vasculature through image processing
• Pipelining of the image processing procedure for anatomical features
• Contrast agent convection simulation using computational modeling
• Development of optimization algorithm based on flow principle algorithms
• Optimization algorithm for blood flow measurement
• Artificial DSA projections for objective function in the optimization algorithm
Sohail Murad, Chemical Engineering Department Primary Grant Support: US Department of Energy Semi-permeable Membranes
S O L U T I O N
S O L V E N T
Recycling Regions
S O L U T I O N
Problem Statement and Motivation •
Understand The Molecular Basis For Membrane Based Separations
•
Explain At The Fundamental Molecular Level Why Membranes Allow Certain Solvents To Permeate, While Others Are Stopped
•
Use This Information To Develop Strategies For Better Design Of Membrane Based Separation Processes For New Applications.
Solvated Ion Clusters Prevent Ions from Permeating the Membrane
Key Achievements and Future Goals
Technical Approach •
Determine The Key Parameters/Properties Of The Membrane That Influence The Separation Efficiency
•
Explained The Molecular Basis Of Reverse Osmosis in a Desalination Process (Formation of Solvated Ionic Clusters).
•
Use Molecular Simulations To Model The Transport Of Solvents And Solutes Across The Membrane?
•
Used This Improved Understanding To Predict The Zeolite Membranes Would Be Effective In Removing A Wide Range Of Impurities From Water.
•
Focus All Design Efforts On These Key Specifications To Improve The Design Of Membranes.
•
This Prediction Was Recently Confirmed By Experimental Studies Carried Out In New Mexico.
•
Showed That Ion Exchange Is Energetically Driven Rather Than Entropic. Explains The More Efficient Exchange Between Ca And Na In Zeolites.
•
Use Molecular Simulations As A Quick Screening Tool For Determining The Suitability Of A Membrane For A Proposed New Separation Problem
Craig Foster, Civil and Materials Engineering and Sandeep Jain and Dimitri Azar, Ophthalmology and Visual Science, Philip Iannoccone, Children’s Memorial Hospital Primary Grant Support: NIH, UIC
Problem Statement and Motivation • • • Collagen cross-linking stiffens corneas weakened by keratoconus
Finite element modeling can help optimize procedure
We are developing models of normal, keratoconic, and and collagen crosslink treated corneas to determine quantities such as strain, stress, stiffness, and and shape under intraocular pressure. One major goal is to examine how the mechanical state of stress and strain influences patterns observed in cell formation and migration, including spiral formation in the epithelium. A second goal is to develop a model that can be used to predict the outcome of a specific treatment regimen of collagen cross-linking on a specific patient.
Cross-linking increases number of bonds between collagen fibers
Key Achievements and Future Goals
Technical Approach •
Multiscale models are developed using the stiffness curves of collagen fibrils oriented in different directions in the cornea (see below) and implemented in a finite element code.
•
Once the traction-free geometry is determined, the intraocular pressure is added, and displace, strain, stress and other quantities of interest are determined.
• • •
Development of anisotropic models based fibril orientation completed Parameter fitting and experimental validation under way Future work includes extending models to keratoconicc corneas and determining effect on cell pattern formation
Shear stress in a preliminary cornea model
Approximate orientations of collagen in the cornea
Sheng-Wei Chi, Department of Civil and Materials Engineering, UIC Primary Grant Support: UIC
Problem Statement and Motivation Initial trial
Construction of muscle model from a stack of images
Characterization of material properties of tendon from in vivo MRI
Isometric study on the mechanics of passive materials in muscle
•
The patient-specific computational modeling requires tremendous efforts to convert medical images to a 3D geometric representation and to a finite element mesh.
•
The study aims to develop an image-based computational framework for modeling biological systems, such as, the musculoskeletal system.
•
Seamlessly integrate CAD geometric representation with numerical simulation.
•
Develop effective and accurate computational methods for modeling problems that exhibit fundamental difficulties, such as, incompressible, contact, and extremely large deformation problem.
•
Understand better how muscles function and predict muscle force output.
Key Achievements and Future Goals
Technical Approach • • • •
Finite element analysis with mixed formulation Levelset based autonomous image segmentation 3D muscle morphology using levelset methods Anisotropic hyperelastic model for muscle 2
“3D Modeling of Complex Muscle Architecture and Geometry”, Dissertation, S.S.Blemker
W I1 , I 2 , I 4 , I 5 W I 3
total fiber
I1 I1 I 31/ 3 ,
I 2 I 2 I 32 / 3 ,
I 4 I 4 I 31/ 3 ,
I 5 I 5 I 32 / 3
a0
3
act pass iso t f fiber * f fiber *
Anisotropic hyperelastic constitutive model for muscle
1
Levelset based image segmentation
•
Develop an image-based computational framework.
•
Develop a levelset based method to autonomously construct the 3D geometry of muscle from images.
•
Reveal and explain complex strain mechanics in the aponeuroses of contracting skeletal muscle.
•
Study the passive material influence on the deformation and force output of skeletal muscle.
•
The future work is to develop a multiscale constitutive model for muscle active contraction.
Kouros Mohammadian, PhD, S. Yagi, J. Auld, and T.H. Rashidi (PhD Candidates), CME, UIC Primary Grant Support: NIPC/CMAP, FACID, and IGERT (NSF) Synthetic Population
Activity Generation Model
Problem Statement and Motivation
Synthetic City
•
Traditional four step travel demand models are widely criticized for their limitations and theoretical deficiencies
•
These problems lead the model to be less policy sensitive than desired
•
Travel is derived from participation in activities. This fact is not accounted for in 4-step models. Therefore, there is a need for a better modeling approach
•
An activity-based microsimulation travel demand model is considered that simulates activity schedules for all individuals
Activity Scheduling Model
ADS/HTS Surveys
Synthesized Population
Policy scenarios
Executed Schedules Activity-Based Modeling
Activity/Travel Microsimulation
Activities/ Tours/Trips
Travel Demand
Highway/Transit Network Assignment Policy Analysis
Vehicle/Fuel Condition
Emission Model
Key Achievements and Future Goals
Technical Approach • • •
• •
The modeling framework utilizes both econometric and heuristic (rulebased) approaches All human activities are related to broad project categories which have a common goal (e.g., Work, School, Entertainment, etc.) and tasks and activity episodes that are required to reach that goal are modeled Activity participation is modeled at household/individual level (microsimulation) Explicit representation of time/space of occurrence for all travel episodes, linked to associated activities Activity scheduling model is linked to a population synthesizer, rescheduling and resource allocation models, and a regional network microsimulation and emission models
• • • •
• •
A comprehensive multi-tier activity-based microsimulation modeling system is developed. A new population synthesizer is developed. Activity scheduling/rescheduling decision rules are developed and applied to adjust the simulated daily activity patterns. Intra-household interaction rules are developed and applied to account for joint activity generation and household maintenance activity allocation problems. Transferability of activity scheduling/rescheduling decision rules across different spatial and temporal contexts are evaluated. The microsimulation model is applied to evaluate future transportation policy scenarios.
Sheng-Wei Chi, Department of Civil and Materials Engineering, UIC Primary Grant Support: UIC
Problem Statement and Motivation
Progressive penetration processes and predicted damage and contact surfaces
•
Increasing demands are placed on materials and structures to withstand complex phenomena due to extreme loads such as impact and penetration.
•
Key issues needed to be addressed in penetration simulation include high strain rate, extreme large deformation, material fracture, and fragment impact.
•
The study aims to develop a multiscale meshfree approach for modeling fragment penetration into concrete.
•
The ultimate goal is to understand better the phenomena in the penetration process and to predict the structure response under extreme loads.
Comparison of experimental and numerical damage patterns
Key Achievements and Future Goals
Technical Approach • • • •
Semi-Lagrangian Reproducing Kernel Particle formulation in which the point discretization follows the material while the radius of interaction of a point is fixed in Euler coordinates. Levelset enhanced kernel contact algorithm Image-based meso-scale concrete fracture simulation Microstructure informed damage model Meshfree discretization
p
0
Schematic of image-based meso-scale concrete fracture simulation
•
Develop a levelset enhanced kernel contact algorithm that does not require a predefined contact surface.
•
Develop an image-based computational approach to effectively construct a computer model based on cross sectional images.
•
Develop a concrete constitutive model based on the damage evolution in the meso-scale via the energy bridge theory.
•
The future Goal of this study is to take into consideration multi-physics phenomena in penetration simulations, including: • • •
Thermo effects Rate effects on concrete and projectiles Shock wave
Sybil Derrible, Assistant Professor, Department of Civil and Materials Engineering Primary Grant Support: University of Illinois at Chicago
Problem Statement and Motivation •
With increasing urbanization and growing environmental concerns, public transportation systems will expand in cities all over the world.
•
Current planning practices have limitations, and in particular they omit the topological network feature of transit.
•
Inspired from complex systems thinking, the first step is to identify any inherent patterns, common to all transit systems.
•
The second step is then to explain any differences in metro network topologies.
•
Eventually, we should aim to “steer” relevant metrics in desirable directions for more sustainable and livable cities.
Key Achievements and Future Goals
Technical Approach •
Characterized metro systems according to their State, Form and Structure
•
Developed a methodology to analyze metros as complex systems
•
Observed hidden yet relevant patterns common to all metro systems
•
Studied the relationship between ridership in network properties.
•
Future goals: apply a similar methodology to all transportation modes.
•
For more information, visit our webpage: http://www.uic.edu/~derrible/
•
Translate a metro system into a network with a set of nodes (transfer stations and termini) and links (rails). • Calculate relevant topological metrics such as degree of connectivity, cyclomatic number, scaling factor, betweenness centrality. • Plot and observe the evolution of these metrics with network size. • This figure shows one metric (quad. coeff. of cumulative distribution of betweenness centrality) as a function of size, clearly depicting two regimes in metro network topologies.
Farideddin Peiravian, PhD Candidate, and Sybil Derrible, Assistant Professor Department of Civil and Materials Engineering Primary Grant Support: University of Illinois at Chicago
Problem Statement and Motivation
Population
Buildings
Roads
Intersections
City of Chicago Feature Pop+Empl Density Floor Area Density Road Length Density Intersection Density
Radius (km)
Fractal Dimension
R2
tstat
Significant?
1 to 10 11 to 21 1 to 10 11 to 21 3 to 10 11 to 21 3 to 10 11 to 21
1.36 0.73 1.20 0.70 0.21 0.09 0.39 0.19
0.99 0.98 0.99 0.99 0.98 0.95 0.98 0.95
-77 -22 -66 -45 -13 -11 -15 -13
Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
The characteristics of an urban system is the aggregated outcome of numerous individual and collective choices during its history. The idea is that no matter how a system has evolved, from a larger perspective it has an inherent order, a characteristic of complex systems. The spatial spread of various elements of an urban system exhibit selfrepeating patterns. Although such elements are not directly comparable, using a fractal approach to analyze them offers the provision of a measurable metric, i.e. fractal dimension, enabling one to gage how they co-exist and interact within the built environment. Objectives • Analyze the characteristics of different elements of an urban system • Determine and compare the fractal representations of those elements • Explore the reasons behind such similarities and differences
Key Achievements and Future Goals
Technical Approach • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Selected Chicago for case study, and the “Loop” (CBD) as its center Chose Population+Employment, Gross Floor Area, Road Length, and Number of Intersections as representative elements of the city Obtained the data and removed uninhabited areas (water bodies, etc.) Created 1 km equi-distance rings around the center Clipped the data according to the intersecting ring Calculated the amount of each feature within each ring Created buffers around the center with radial increments of 1 km Calculated the density of each feature within the buffers Plotted the densities versus radius and observed the “Power Law” trend, which is a manifestation of fractal property Plotted log-log diagram of density of each feature versus radius Performed piecewise linear fitting of data based on trend changes Calculated the fractal dimension of each linear segment Performed statistical significance tests to validate the results
• • •
• •
Showed that cities (example: Chicago) are complex systems in which dissimilar features indeed possess inherent order and fractal characteristics which can be captured, quantified, and compared Showed that the spreads of Population+Employment as well as Gross Floor Area in a same city are directly correlated and in fact have very similar fractal dimensions Showed that the distributions of the road network as well as the intersections within a city are directly correlated and in fact have very similar fractal dimensions Used fractal properties to identify the hidden changes in the topology of the urban system, which was otherwise hard to identify. Presented a fractal approach to the characterization of complex urban systems, which can be used in future to identify system deficiencies.
Craig Foster, Civil and Materials Engineering, B.V. Venkatarama Reddy, IISc., Bangalore, India Primary Grant Support: NSF
Problem Statement and Motivation • • •
Though they have been used for millennia, the structural behavior of earthen materials such as rammed earth and stabilized mud block is not well understood. Such materials may fail by diffuse plasticity, fracture along weak interfaces, and fracture through the bulk material. Advanced finite element modeling can help elucidate structural failure modes, limit states, and help design safer, more economical structures.
Stabilized mud block (top, left) and rammed earth (right) buildings
Key Achievements and Future Goals
Technical Approach • • •
Using enhanced finite elements with embedded discontinuities, we can simulate the changing stress and strain as walls are loaded, and model fractures passing through the bodies. The complex material behavior will be fit to bulk and interface constitutive models. Experiments for parameter determination and validation performed with the help of Professor BVV Reddy’s group at IISc, Bangalore.
• • • •
Development of material models and implementation to finite element codes Experimental determination of material properties Validation of large-scale bending and shear experiments Examination of shear behavior of earthen walls Fracture of a stabilized mud block wall in bending
Yield surface of continuum plasticity model
Yield surface for fracture model
Investigators: Kouros Mohammadian, J. Auld, and B. Karimi, CME; and K. Kawamura, CUPPA Primary Grant Support: Illinois Department of Transportation
Problem Statement and Motivation
Legend HSR station HSR line
•
Currently, there are four statewide long-distance travel modes competing across Illinois and its neighboring states: Car, Amtrak, Bus, and Airplane. Each of these travel modes, depending on their attributes such as fare and travel time, attract a specific share of passenger ridership.
•
High-speed (up to 220mph) train is studied as a new alternative travel mode to estimate what percentage of travelers would choose it as their travel mode and how it would affect other modes.
Model Region
Key Achievements and Future Goals
Technical Approach •
A micro-simulation approach was employed to simulate all long distance trips across the study area at person level for the base year and future target year.
Census
Land Use
Synthetic Population
Long Distance Trip Generation
•
Total annual ridership of high-speed train was estimated for the base year and for a target year.
•
High-speed train mostly attracts travelers from car and airplane modes.
•
An economic model to maximize revenue while maintaining high ridership was also developed and various fare structures were examined.
•
The simulation tool is used to examine various policy scenarios.
HH Survey Trip Distribution Intercept Surveys
Mode Choice
Ridership
Investigators: Kouros Mohammadian and Zahra Pourabdollahi, CME Primary Grant Support: Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT) & National Center for Freight and Infrastructure Research and Education (CFIRE)
Problem Statement and Motivation •
An efficient freight transportation system could have considerable positive impacts on the economy
•
Freight models and related public policy tools are far behind the logistics and technological advances
•
Freight transport modeling frameworks should be revised in a way that captures the basis of decision making process across the supply chain
Key Achievements and Future Goals
Technical Approach •
•
Develop activity based microsimulation freight transportation framework which simulates decision making process in freight market at a very disaggregate level
•
Incorporate behavioral logistics choice models (supplier selection, shipment size choice, mode choice, shipping chain choice) into the framework
•
•
Simulate the commodity flow between each pair of firms and determines characteristics of each individual shipment
•
Internet-based establishment survey is used to gain insight into decision making process and model logistics choices
•
• • •
Behavioral logistics choice models are developed in the design process to improve freight movement analysis A detailed dataset is collected through the internet-based establishment survey and is used to develop logistics choice models A traffic simulation module will be incorporated directly in the microsimulation model Data simulation techniques are also being improved Simulation results should be validated with the real observed data Policy scenarios should be developed and examined
Nabin Kafle, PhD student and Bo Zou, Assistant Professor Department of Civil and Materials Engineering
Problem Statement and Motivation • Flight delay is a serious problem in the US and causes airlines and passengers tens of billion dollars each year • A significant portion of flight delay stems from delay propagation from earlier flights, but the formation mechanism and the influencing factors are not well understood
DFW
12:50
86
2 14:03
20:40 20:42
21:30
22:56
13:04
14
DCA 16:25 16:42 17:10 17
8
17:18
LAX
00:30
01:35
65
Technical Approach • Formulation and application of a flight-level analytical model to trace the formation of initial delay and how initial delay of an early flight propagates into the subsequent flights throughout a day • Development of flight propagation performance metrics based on the initial delay and delay propagation results from the analytical model • Estimation of truncated regression models to quantify the impacts on delay propagation of an aircraft of system –wide operational performance and buffer times on the ground and in flight schedules
• This research contributes to enhancing the research community’s modeling capability for flight delay propagation and enriching the understanding of spatial-temporal characteristics of the formation and propagation of flight delays in the US
Key Achievements and Future Goals • A new framework for analyzing flight delay propagation is established • The framework is successfully applied to the US domestic network to identify the delay propagation patterns
0
23 13:40
600000
11:10
Minutes 400000
DEN
200000
20 10:50
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 Hours of day
New Departure Delay
• Important policy implications are derived from the modeling outputs
Propagated Arrival Delay
Ahmadreza Talebian, PhD Student and Bo Zou, Assistant Professor Department of Civil and Materials Engineering Grant Support: Illinois Department of Transportation (through Urban Transportation Center)
Problem Statement and Motivation • The state of Illinois has launched the High Speed Rail project connecting Chicago and St Louis using track infrastructure shared by passenger and freight rail • It is important to understand the costs and benefits of different stakeholders (travelers, shippers, passenger rail agency, freight railroads) on the shared corridor • This research aims to develop an integrated planning model for optimal rail service to enhance stakeholders’ and policy makers’ understanding of the costs and benefits and engagement in HSR development
Technical Approach • Formulate hyper-graph based binary integer programs to determine optimal train schedules that minimize: 1) System total cost encompassing both passenger and freight side costs 2) Passenger- and freight-side cost sequentially given that HSR has higher priority • Develop efficient solution procedures to solve the optimal trains schedules
One of the optimal train schedules
Key Achievements and Future Goals • Optimal train schedules for the future Chicago-St Louis HSR corridor are generated under a variety of service conditions • Evaluation of the impact of speed heterogeneity and service frequency on system overall performance, and welfare distribution among different parties • Exploration of best options for future infrastructure investment to accommodate future demand growth
Tanya Berger-Wolf, Computer Science, UIC; Daniel Rubenstein, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton; Jared Saia, Computer Science, U New Mexico
Problem Statement and Motivation Recent breakthroughs in data collection technology, such as GPS and other mobile sensors, are giving biologists access to data about social interactions of wild populations on a scale never seen before. Such data offer the promise of answering some of the big questions in population biology. Unfortunately, in this domain, our ability to analyze data lags substantially behind our ability to collect it. Particularly, current methods for analysis of social interactions are mostly static. Our goal is to design a computational framework for analysis of dynamic social networks and validate it by applying to equid populations (zebras, horses, onagers).
Technical Approach •
Collect explicitly dynamic social data: sensor collars on animals, synthetic population simulations, cellphone and email communications, …
•
Represent a time series of observation snapshots as a series of networks. Use machine learning, data mining, and algorithm design techniques to identify critical individuals, communities, and patterns in dynamic networks.
•
Validate theoretical predictions derived from the abstract graph representation by simulations on collected data and controlled and quazi-experiments on real populations
Key Achievements and Future Goals Done: • Formal computational framework for analysis of dynamic social networks • Scalable methods for • dentifying dynamic communities • identifying periodic patterns • predicting part of network structure • identifying individuals critical for initiating and blocking spreading processes Future: • Validate methods on biological data • Extend methods from networks of unique individuals to classes of individuals
Tanya Berger-Wolf and Bhaskar DasGupta, Computer Science, UIC; Mary Ashley, Biology, UIC; Wanpracha Chaovalitwongse, Industrial Engineering, Rutgers
Problem Statement and Motivation
Microsatellites Genotypes Alleles #1
5’
CACACACA
#2
CACACACACACA
#3
CACACACACACACA
1/1 2/2 3/3 1/2 1/3 2/3
•
Falcons and other birds of prey are extremely secretive about their lives. Sharks are hard to catch in the open ocean. Cowbirds leave eggs in other birds’ nests and let them raise the cowbird chicks. One of the things common to all these species is that it is difficult to study their mating system. It is even difficult to identify which animals are siblings. Yet, this simple fact is necessary for conservation, animal management, and understanding of evolutionary mechanisms.
•
New technologies for collecting genotypic data from natural populations open the possibilities of investigating many fundamental biological phenomena. Yet full utilization of the genotypic data is only possible if statistical and computational approaches keep pace with our ability to sample organisms and obtain their genotypes.
•
Our goal is to develop robust computational methods for reconstructing kinship relationships from microsatellite data.
CACACACA
Reconstruct
Young Lemon sharks (Negaprion brevirostris) during sampling in Bimini, Bahamas Cowbird (Molothrus ater) nestling with a song sparrow nestmate
Key Achievements and Future Goals
Technical Approach •
Use Mendelian constraints to form potential feasible family groups
•
Use the combinatorial optimization of the covering problem with various parsimony objectives to find the best sets of family groups containing all individuals. Typically there is more than one optimal or near optimal solution.
•
Use consensus techniques to combine solutions that are optimal, coming from different methods, or resulting from perturbations allowing for errors in data into one robust error-tolerant solution.
•
All resulting optimization problems are NP-hard and provably hard to approximate. We use commercial optimization package CPLEX to find optimal solutions.
http://kinalyzer.cs.uic.edu •
The following methods are or becoming available as a web-based service: • Reconstruction of sibling groups + error identification • Reconstruction of parental genotype • Reconstruction of half-sibling relationships
•
Future: • Incorporation of partial information • Multi generation pedigree reconstruction • Non-diploid species
Investigator: Bhaskar DasGupta, Computer Science Prime Grant Support: NSF
Problem Statement and Motivation We investigate fundamental graph-theoretic problems with significant applications in analyzing biological, social and financial networks. Some example categories of such problems include: • graph partitioning and community detection in social networks, • graph sparsification to address degeneracy and redundancy issues in biological networks, and • stability of financial network models.
Technical Approach
Key Achievements and Future Goals
• We formulate precise computational problems, study their properties, use novel algorithmic tools to design efficient algorithms, and implement the resulting algorithms to test their accuracy and efficiency.
Some examples of key achievements include:
• A primary focus of our technical approach is to involve combinatorial algorithmic techniques.
• analyzing stabilities of shock propagation models in financial networks, and
• analysis of computational complexities of Newman's modularity maximization approach for biological and social networks,
• development of methodologies for synthesis, inference and simplification of biological signal transduction networks. For further information, see www.cs.uic.edu/~dasgupta
Philip S. Yu, Computer Science, UIC with other researchers outside UIC Primary Grant Support : NSF IIS-0905215, DBI-0960443 Chemical Compound
Graph Object H
H
Anti-cancer activity
Problem Statement and Motivation • Graph/network mining is an emerging technology, but has not yet been applied to drug discovery data.
N H C
C H
C
C
• Drug discovery is a time consuming and costly process.
H
C
label
C
H
• Graph mining has the potential to drastically reduce the cost and time needed by identifying the highly likely chemical compounds
C
O
N
H
H
Technical Approach
Key Achievements and Future Goals
• Adopt subgraphs based features to characterize graph objects, i.e. the chemical compounds
• Devised new subgraph-based feature construction techniques for chemical compounds
• Mine discriminative subgraph features that can distinguish the class labels
• Made good prediction on the effectiveness of chemical compounds to treat disease
• Introduce scoring functions to rank the features effectiveness
• Developed novel approaches to reduce the training examples needed which have to be obtained via costly experiments
• Explore anti-monotonic property to speed up the mining process
Philip S. Yu, Computer Science, UIC with other researchers outside UIC Primary Grant Support: DBI-0960443
Problem Statement and Motivation •
Early detection of brain diseases is critical for medical treatment - Alzheimers Disease, ADHD and HIV
•
Brain diseases generally result in anomalies in brain connectivity
•
Functional connectivity derived from fMRI image is noisy
Key Achievements and Future Goals
Technical Approach •
Explore novel graph mining techniques instead of traditional image classification approaches
•
Developed novel feature selection and classification algorithm for uncertain graphs
•
Represent fMRI brain images as uncertain graphs
•
Captured temporal dimension of fMRI
•
Identify the relationship between uncertain graph structures and labels
•
Demonstrated the effectiveness of the network/graph based approach to detect anomaly in brain connectivity based on patient records
•
Use graph classification to identify anomalous brain networks
Lenore D Zuck (contract with U of Pittsburgh– DARPA funded)
Problem Statement and Motivation • •
Key Achievements and Future Goals
Technical Approach • • •
•
Construction of robust, privacy preserving, fully verified, protocols that are fault tolerant, consume little power and memory, and are highly efficient and privacy preserving Use step-wise refinement to guarantee that implementation follows specification and preserves all properties of protocols Expand basic protocols to more sophisticated situations (that are anticipated in such a satellite cluster) and repeat the above steps UIC’s role is to provide for the formal framework to allow for the verification: • Automatic verification of systems with arbitrary nodes connected in arbitrary topologies • Development of methods of verification for fault tolerance, power, memory, and privacy properties
DARPA’s System F6 program aims at developing new space architecture where clusters of small, cheap, wirelessly connected satellites replace current satellite architecture The project will design, evaluate, develop, and fully verify asynchronous distributed system protocols to create a secure, robust, real-time, and reliable protocol suite capable of facilitating applicationlevel communication within DARPA’s F6 project.
• • • • •
•
The project started in May 2011 A protocol was developed for attaining secure aggregation of data in networks that are the topic of the project The protocol was formally modeled Its properties were formally specified. The properties were formally verified using the (real-time) modelchecker UPPAAL using small, realistic, network topologies In the near future we expect to expand the methodologies to apply to arbitrary topologies
Maxine Brown, UIC Computer Science; Thomas DeFanti and Tajana Rosing, University of California, San Diego; Joe Mambretti, Northwestern University Primary Grant Support: National Science Foundation
Problem Statement and Motivation •
•
The TransLight/StarLight team focuses on experimentation with nextgeneration network infrastructure technologies to better understand the emerging requirements of e-Science and other advanced applications that have yet to be supported in production environments with today's international research networks. The team expands upon and enhances innovative communication services in support of global science research and education as they relate to specific applications: GreenLight International, Science Cloud Communication Services, CineGrid, High-Performance Digital Media Network, the international Global Environment for Network Innovations (iGENI), and SAGE™ (Scalable Adaptive Graphics Environment).
GLIF, the Global Lambda Integrated Facility, is an international virtual organization supporting persistent data-intensive scientific research and middleware development on advanced optical networks. (GLIF map 2011 – www.glif.is)
Key Achievements and Future Goals
Technical Approach •
•
The goal is to continue to expand upon experimental networking technologies through the development of several international communication services and advanced applications, leveraging existing collaborations to make significant scientific impact. To accomplish this, we use regional, national and international optical networking infrastructure, as available, to: • Integrate applications, middleware and new technologies across geographically distributed sites. • Focus on end-to-end connections and services of leading-edge sites and facilities. • Focus on experimentation to meet the emerging requirements of e-Science and other advanced application domains.
•
•
•
TransLight/StarLight leadership has established international partnerships, communication channels, forums, and processes to ensure ongoing successful interactions among its constituents. The management team continually works with domain scientists to better understand application requirements and the need for customized services. All science is not well served by one protocol at one network layer. Through its aggressive use of networks to conduct end-to-end experiments, TransLight/StarLight will discover new methods and technologies that motivate services and capabilities to be customized for individual science disciplines. www.startap.net/translight
Maxine Brown, Andrew Johnson, Luc Renambot, UIC Computer Science; Jason Leigh, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa; Primary Grant Support: National Science Foundation Problem Statement and Motivation •
• The UIC Cyber-Commons 3D wall runs SAGE, which enables users to simultaneously display 3D as well as 2D windows
Key Achievements and Future Goals
Technical Approach •
•
•
SAGE is cross-platform, open-source middleware that provides a common operating environment, or framework, to access, stream and juxtapose 2D and 3D data objects – whether digital cinema animations, high-resolution images, video-teleconferencing, presentation slides, documents, spreadsheets or laptop screens – on one or more tiled display walls. SAGE’s network-centered architecture allows collaborators to simultaneously run various applications (such as 3D rendering, remote desktop, video streams and 2D maps) on local and/or remote computers and clusters, and share them by streaming the pixels of each application over ultra-high-speed networks to large tiled displays. Users manipulate content in real time using a keyboard, laptop, Gyromouse, joystick, trackball, 6 degree-of-freedom magnetic tracker, Nintendo Wiimote, touch screen, and/or MS Kinect.
SAGE is a trademark of the University of Illinois Board of Trustees.
SAGE and tiled display walls create global collaborative visualization environments that enable virtual teams of researchers to manage the scale and complexity of 2D and 3D data and work with one another. • Scientists can view ultra-resolution images and create “cybermashups,” or juxtapositions of information – a critical component of data analysis – to make informed observations and discoveries. • Technology-enhanced classrooms, such as UIC’s Cyber-Commons, teach students to collaborate within a university and among universities, and to solve problems within a discipline and among multiple disciplines. Current funding is helping transition SAGE from a research prototype to a hardened technology, to nurture the growth of the SAGE User Community, and to create new open services for visualization and collaboration utilizing shared cyberinfrastructure.
•
•
• •
SAGE is having a profound and transformative effect on data visualization, data exploration and collaboration, and is making cyberinfrastructure more accessible to end systems and to end users, both in the laboratory and in the classroom. Currently, users at over 90 sites worldwide rely on SAGE and tiled display walls to provide them with a globally integrated collaborative work environment to facilitate data analysis and high productivity, in such diverse fields as geoscience, homeland security, bioscience, cosmology, atmospheric science, chemistry, computer science, medicine, and cultural heritage. SAGE is used to support several classes and seminars taught in the UIC Computer Science, Art and Design, and Physics departments. www.sagecommons.org
Ugo Buy, Computer Science Primary Grant Support: NIST
Problem Statement and Motivation
GUI
Constraints
SFCs
Plant spec
Translator
•
Control programs are hard to write and maintain
•
Flexible manufacturing demands rapid reconfiguration
•
Possibility of deadlock, mutex violations, deadline violations
TPNs
Supervisor generator Refined TPNs
Code generator
Control code
Key Achievements and Future Goals
Technical Approach •
Avoid verification complexity with supervisory control
•
System for enforcing deadlines on transition firing in time Petri nets
•
Petri nets vs. finite state automata
•
Framework for compositional control
•
Synthesis of deadline-enforcing supervisors using net unfolding
•
Integration of methods for enforcing mutual exclusion and freedom from deadlock
•
Compositional methods (e.g., hierarchical control)
•
Generation of target code
Isabel F. Cruz, Ouri Wolfson (Computer Science) and Aris Ouksel (Information and Decision Sciences). In collaboration with Roberto Tamassia (Brown U.) and Peter Scheuermann (Northwestern U.) service layer
biological and chemical sensors
web services, on-line libraries, emergency info
CASSIS application layer
4
Context and Profile Manager
1
3
user layer
7 8
7 8
city maps, floor plans of buildings
police profile db
police station
hospital, clinic
Architecture of a new system, CASSIS, to provide comprehensive support for context-aware applications in the Health Domain as provided by the Alliance of Chicago
•
Testing on operational scenarios of public health management applications:
6
dynamic info e.g. operating at full capacity
database layer
• Application Server
5
2
environmental db (hospital states, sensor states, etc.)
Problem Statement and Motivation
on-line cameras with recording device
GIS data
fire house
firemen profile db
subway control center
aggregated user profiles
healthcare profile db
• • •
FBI profile db
police officer
dy n e.g amic . G in PS fo
fireman
doctor
Daily operations of health care providers Epidemic occurrences (e.g., meningitis) Crisis situations (e.g., terrorist attacks, natural disasters)
travelling businessman
Key Achievements and Future Goals
Technical Approach •
Peer-to-peer and mediated semantic data integration
•
•
Dynamic data as collected by sensor networks
•
•
Matching of user profiles to services
•
Competitive environment management
•
Security and privacy
•
Performance and scalability (e.g., caching and data aggregation)
•
• •
Peer to Peer Semantic Integration of XML and RDF Data Sources [Cruz, Xiao, Hsu, AP2PC 2004] Opportunistic Resource Exchange in Inter-Vehicle Ad-Hoc Networks (Best paper award) [Xu, Ouksel, Wolfson, MDM 2004, Best Paper Award] An Economic Model for Resource Exchange in Mobile Peer-to-Peer Networks [Wolfson, Xu, Sistla, SSDBM, 2004]. Multicast Authentication in Fully Adversarial Networks [Lysyanskaya, Tamassia, Triandopoulos, IEEE Security and Privacy, 2004] Personal Service Areas for Location-Based Wireless Web Applications [Pashtan, Heusser, Scheuermann, IEEE Internet Computing, 2004]
Isabel F. Cruz, Computer Science, in collaboration with Nancy Wiegand, U. Wisconsin-Madison Primary Grant Support: NSF
Problem Statement and Motivation •
Geospatial data are complex and highly heterogeneous, having been developed independently by various levels of government and the private sector
•
Portals created by the geospatial community disseminate data but lack the capability to support complex queries on heterogeneous data
•
Complex queries on heterogeneous data will support information discovery, decision, or emergency response
Key Achievements and Future Goals
Technical Approach •
Data integration using ontologies
•
Ontology representation
•
Algorithms for the alignment and merging of ontologies
•
Semantic operators and indexing for geospatial queries
•
User interfaces for • Ontology alignment • Display of geospatial data
•
Create a geospatial cyberinfrastructure for the web to • Automatically locate data • Match data semantically to other relevant data sources using automatic methods
•
Provide an environment for exploring, and querying heterogeneous data for emergency managers and government officials
•
Develop a robust and scalable framework that encompasses techniques and algorithms for integrating heterogeneous data sources using an ontology-based approach
Piotr Gmytrasiewicz, Computer Science Primary Grant Support: National Science Foundation
Problem Statement and Motivation observation Beliefs Environment State
Problem: Allow artificial agents to make optimal decisions while interacting with the world and possibly other agents •
Artificial agents: Robots, softbots, unmanned systems
•
Hard-coding control actions is impractical
•
Let’s design agents that can decide what to do
•
One approach: Decision theory, not applicable when other agents are present
•
Another approach: Game theory, not applicable when agent is action alone
Agent(s) actions
Key Achievements and Future Goals
Technical Approach •
Combine decision-theoretic framework with elements of game theory
•
Use decision-theoretic solution concept
•
Agent’s beliefs encompass other agents present
•
Solutions tell the agent what to do, given its beliefs
•
Computing solutions is hard (intractable), but approximate solutions possible
•
Solution algorithms are variations of known decision-theoretic exact and approximate solutions
•
Convergence results and other properties are analogous to decisiontheoretic ones
•
A single approach to controlling autonomous agents is applicable in single-and multi-agent settings
•
Unites decision-theoretic control with game theory
•
Gives rise to a family of exact and approximate control algorithms with anytime properties
•
Applications: Autonomous control, agents, human-machine interactions
•
Future work: Provide further formal properties; improve on approximation algorithms; develop a number of solutions to dynamic interactive decision-making settings
Andrew Johnson, Jason Leigh, Maxine Brown, Tom Peterka, Computer Science Primary Grant Support: National Science Foundation and Department of Energy
Problem Statement and Motivation •
• The NASA-funded ENDURANCE project uses CAVE2 and SAGE to further planetary science research. (UIC Electronic Visualization Lab, UIC Earth & Environmental Sciences Dept., Stone Aerospace, NASA Ames and Montana State University.
Key Achievements and Future Goals
Technical Approach •
•
CAVE2 is built with polarized stereo LCD displays with ultra-thin bezels. UIC partnered with U.S. company Planar Systems, Inc., to design and build the desired display screens. CAVE2 is programmable with a variety of application programming tools; notably: • UIC’s OmegaLib middleware enables the development of applications on scalable virtual-reality and hybrid systems, and can be integrated with third-party toolkits. It also supports Omicron, a library that handles input from a number of novel input devices – such as multi-touch, 3D hand/body gesturing, head tracking, and mobile and tablet devices. • UIC’s SAGE™ (Scalable Adaptive Graphics Environment) enables CAVE2’s wall to be partitioned into “windows” – enabling one or many 2D and 3D windows of information to simultaneously be displayed.
CAVE2 and SAGE are trademarks of University of Illinois’ Board of Trustees.
CAVE2, the next-generation virtual-reality environment, is a hybrid system that merges the benefits of both scalable-resolution display walls and virtual-reality systems to create a single unified environment. • Virtual environments immerse people in worlds too large, too small, too dangerous, too remote, or too complex to be viewed otherwise. • Tiled display walls create virtual “project rooms” in which people can display very-large images and/or simultaneously juxtapose more information, and better spatially organize, see and infer relationships among the data. The seamless 2D/3D CAVE2 environment supports information-rich analysis as well as 3D simulation exploration at a resolution matching human visual acuity.
•
•
• •
CAVE2 is the world’s first flat-panel-based, high-resolution CAVE (Cave Automatic Virtual Environment, which UIC built and successfully commercialized in the 1990s). It provides users with a 320-degree panoramic environment for displaying information at 37 Megapixels in 3D or 74 Megapixels in 2D with a horizontal visual acuity of 20/20 – almost 10 times the 3D resolution of the original CAVE. CAVE2 enables computer scientists to study a wide range of new problems at the intersection of human-computer interaction, virtual reality, computer graphics, high-performance computing, high-speed networking, and computer-supported cooperative work. CAVE2 transforms scientific workflows by providing researchers with new and more intuitive ways of interacting with their data. http://www.evl.uic.edu/cave2
Robert Kenyon, Steve Jones, Stellan Ohlsson, Andrew Johnson, Eulalia Abril, UIC Computer Science, Communications, and Psychology Depts; Jason Leigh, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa; Giselle Giselle Mosnaim, Rush University Medical Center – Primary Grant Support: UIC CCTS Fall 2011 Pilot Grant Program UIC students are designing a computer-enhanced asthma doser device based on commercial platforms such as Arduino to gather and wirelessly transmit data from the embedded sensors to a prototype Health Cloud data server. This Cloud anonymously stores the information and then presents personalized Persuasive Visualizations to individuals in the targeted user group.
Problem Statement and Motivation •
•
•
Key Achievements and Future Goals
Technical Approach • •
• •
UIC exploits emerging trends in computing technologies (sensors, cloud computing, mobile computing and visualization) to transform healthcare. UIC is prototyping a healthcare ecosystem that consists of handheld asthma devices, Health Cloud computing to monitor and capture data, and avatar-based Persuasive Visualization feedback delivered via social networking services to motivate recipients to adhere to daily medication schedules. The technologies being developed must be generalizable to other healthcare areas, and to individuals with or without health risks. Small clinical studies will quantitatively assess if these technologies improve this group’s asthma outcomes, and qualitatively evaluate the social and psychological benefits of applying Human Augmentics to asthma self-management.
The overarching goal of this project is to apply emerging trends in computing technologies to transform healthcare. Basic principles of computer modeling, health communications, and behavior change theory are translated into actionable strategies and practices to help individuals change health behaviors and improve health outcomes. The hypothesis is that if individuals are able to easily monitor their health status 24/7 and receive personally tailored, persuasive, and actionable feedback and suggestions at the right times, they can be continuously coached towards healthier living; e.g., reducing unhealthy practices such as sedentary living or cigarette use, or reminded to take daily medications. Specifically, this research aims to help reduce emergency room visits and hospitalizations for acute exacerbations of asthma in inner-city African American adolescents who fail to take their preventive medications.
•
•
• • •
The vision is to create the infrastructure for a “lifelong coach” that monitors an individual’s health status, makes predictions of their health future, and provides tailored, persuasive and actionable recommendations and encouragement to help them remain healthy long into their old age. This “coach” will dramatically affect their health and potentially reduce the costs of medical care and insurance. Can human behavior be impacted? Can healthcare be transformed from reactive and hospital-centered to preventive, proactive, evidence-based, person-centered wellbeing? Human Augmentics refers to the field of study that employs information technologies to amplify human capabilities. www.uic.edu/depts/mcam/CCTS/about/pilotgrantfundedfall-2011.shtml# www.augmentics.org
Ajay Kshemkalyani, Computer Science Primary Grant Support: none
Problem Statement and Motivation •
Advance theoretical foundations of • Distributed computing, and • Network design
•
Understand inherent limitations on • upper and lower bonds, and solvability
•
Subareas: sensor networks, peer-to-peer networks, mobile, ad-hoc, and wireless networks
Key Achievements and Future Goals
Technical Approach •
Design of distributed algorithms
•
Design of routing and multicast algorithms
•
Prove upper and lower bounds
•
•
Advance understanding of: • Causality and time; Temporal modalities
Experimental evaluation, where necessary
•
•
Synchronization and monitoring mechanisms
More info: see publications at http://www.cs.uic.edu/~ajayk/int/dsnl.html
•
Predicate detection algorithms for distributed systems
•
Web and internet performance
John Lillis, Computer Science Primary Grant Support: NSF, IBM
Problem Statement and Motivation A
B
A
B
•
Today, circuit performance determined by wiring more than logic
CR
•
Optimizations made by traditional logic synthesis tools correlate poorly with post-layout performance
•
Need for functionality preserving circuit perturbations at physical level
•
Candidate: Logic Replication
C C D
E
D
Inherently non-monotone paths
E All paths near-monotone after replication
Key Achievements and Future Goals
Technical Approach •
Extract timing-critical sub-circuit
•
Induce equivalent logic tree by replication
•
Optimally embed tree in context of current placement by Dynamic Programming
•
Embedding objective includes replication cost to prevent excessive replication
•
Mechanism applied iteratively
•
Very large reductions in clock period (up to 40%) observed in FPGA domain with minimal overhead [DAC 2004]
•
Adapts easily to graph-based architectures common in modern FPGAs. Many conventional placers ill-suited to this environment.
•
Generalizations deal with limitations resulting from reconvergence [IWLS2004]
•
Ongoing work includes: application to commercial FPGAs; simultaneous remapping of logic; study of lower-bounds on achievable clock period; integrated timing optimization based on Shannon factorization.
Bing Liu, Computer Science Primary Grant Support: National Science Foundation
Problem Statement and Motivation Positive training data
Unlabeled data
Learning algorithm
•
Given a set of positive examples P and a set of unlabeled examples U, we want to build a classifier.
•
The key feature of this problem is that we do not have labeled negative examples. This makes traditional classification learning algorithms not directly applicable.
•
The main motivation for studying this learning model is to solve many practical problems where it is needed. Labeling of negative examples can be very time consuming.
Classifier
Key Achievements and Future Goals
Technical Approach We have proposed three approaches. •
Two-step approach: The first step finds some reliable negative data from U. The second step uses an iterative algorithm based on naïve Bayesian classification and support vector machines (SVM) to build the final classifier.
•
Biased SVM: This method models the problem with a biased SVM formulation and solves it directly. A new evaluation method is also given, which allows us to tune biased SVM parameters.
•
Weighted logistic regression: The problem can be regarded as an oneside error problem and thus a weighted logistic regress method is proposed.
•
In (Liu et al. ICML-2002), it was shown theoretically that P and U provide sufficient information for learning, and the problem can be posed as a constrained optimization problem.
•
Some of our algorithms are reported in (Liu et al. ICML-2002; Liu et al. ICDM-2003; Lee and Liu ICML-2003; Li and Liu IJCAI-2003).
•
Our future work will focus on two aspects: • Deal with the problem when P is very small • Apply it to the bio-informatics domain. There are many problems there requiring this type of learning.
Tom Moher, Computer Science Primary Grant Support: National Science Foundation
Problem Statement and Motivation •
K-12 learners have insufficient opportunity to engage in “patient science” involving extended observation, manipulation of variables, and aggregation of evidence.
•
“Ubiquitous computing” often associated with personal computational devices; embedded phenomena explore the “other side” of ubiquitous computing: ambient media embedded in the physical environment.
•
Use of conventional classroom computers running standard browsers creates opportunities for widespread adoption on installed school technology base.
Key Achievements and Future Goals
Technical Approach •
Simulated phenomena are “mapped” onto the physical space of the classroom.
•
Four applications: RoomQuake (seismology), HelioRoom (astronomy), RoomBugs and WallCology (population ecologies).
•
The state of the simulation is represented through conventional computers located around the classroom serving as “portals” into that phenomenon.
•
“Phenomenon Server” allows teachers to configure and schedule phenomena for delivery to their classrooms.
•
•
Students conduct investigations of the phenomenon by monitoring and manipulating of the state of the simulation through those portals.
Field trials and investigation of student learning in over two dozen classrooms.
• •
The simulations are persistent, running concurrently with the regular instructional flow for periods of days and weeks.
Best paper, ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2006): “Embedded Phenomena: Supporting Science Learning with. Classroom-sized Distributed Simulations.”
Peter Nelson, CS; Xin Li, CS; Chi Zhou, Motorola Inc. Primary Grant Support: Physical Realization Research Center of Motorola Labs Genotype:
Phenotype :
Problem Statement and Motivation
sqrt.*.+.*.a.*.sqrt.a.b.c./.1.-.c.d •
Real world data mining tasks: large data set, high dimensional feature set, non-linear form of hidden knowledge; in need of effective algorithms.
•
Gene Expression Programming (GEP): a new evolutionary computation technique for the creation of computer programs; capable of producing solutions of any possible form.
•
Research goal: applying and enhancing GEP algorithm to fulfill complex data mining tasks.
Mathematical form:
1 (a bc) a cd
Figure 1. Representations of solutions in GEP
Key Achievements and Future Goals
Technical Approach •
Overview: improving the problem solving ability of the GEP algorithm by preserving and utilizing the self-emergence of structures during its evolutionary process.
•
Constant Creation Methods for GEP: local optimization of constant coefficients given the evolved solution structures to speed up the learning process.
•
A new hierarchical genotype representation: natural hierarchy in forming the solution and more protective genetic operation for functional components.
•
Dynamic substructure library: defining and reusing self-emergent substructures in the evolutionary process.
•
Have finished the initial implementation of the proposed approaches.
•
Preliminary testing has demonstrated the feasibility and effectiveness of the implemented methods: constant creation methods have achieved significant improvement in the fitness of the best solutions; dynamic substructure library helps identify meaningful building blocks to incrementally form the final solution following a faster fitness convergence curve.
•
Future work include investigation for parametric constants, exploration of higher level emergent structures, and comprehensive benchmark studies.
John Dillenburg, Pete Nelson, Ouri Wolfson, Computer Science Primary Grant Support: NSF, Chicago Area Transportation Study, Illinois Department of Transportation
Problem Statement and Motivation
Global Positioni ng System
•
US Highw ay Miles
Vehicles increase, roads do not
180
Travel Assitant
Transi t
Internet
•
Travel Assitant Ride Share Partners
170
Congestion costs U.S. economy over $100 billion/year Vehicle occupancy has dropped 7% in last two decades
Index 1980 = 100
•
160 150 140 130 120 110 100 1980
1985
Travel Assitant
Travelers
VMT (1980=100)
1990
1997
Year Central Travel Information Computer
Key Achievements and Future Goals
Technical Approach •
We envision a convenient mobile device capable of planning multi-modal (car, bus, train, ferry, taxi, etc.) travel itineraries for its user
•
Partnered with Regional Transportation Authority on multi-modal trip planner system project sponsored by FTA
•
The devices communicate with each other and with a central database of travel information via a peer-to-peer ad-hoc network
•
Prime developer of Gateway traveler information system sponsored by IDOT
•
Trips with other users could be shared via dynamic ride sharing
•
•
Fares and payment are negotiated electronically
Prime developer of Ride Match System 21 car and van pooling system sponsored by CATS
•
Traffic prediction is used to determine the best route
•
Realistic, full scale micro simulation of ITA system
•
Persistent location management is used to track device locations
•
Test bed deployment for Chicago metro area
•
Trajectory management is used to predict the future location of a device for planning purposes
A.Prasad Sistla, Computer Science Primary Grant Support: NSF
Problem Statement and Motivation Concurrent System Spec
Yes/No
Model Checker Correctness
Counter example
•
The project develops tools for debugging and verification hardware/software systems.
•
Errors in hardware/software analysis occur frequently
•
Can have enormous economic and social impact
•
Can cause serious security breaches
•
Such errors need to be detected and corrected
Spec
Key Achievements and Future Goals
Technical Approach •
Model Checking based approach
•
Developed SMC ( Symmetry Based Model Checker )
•
Correctness specified in a suitable logical frame work
•
Employed to find bugs in Fire Wire Protocol
•
Employs State Space Exploration
•
Also employed in analysis of security protocols
•
Different techniques for containing state space explosion are used
•
Need to extend to embedded systems and general software systems
•
Need to combine static analysis methods with model checking
Robert H. Sloan (Computer Science) and György Turán (Mathematics—MSCS) Primary Grant Support: National Science Foundation
Problem Statement and Motivation •
•
•
Key Achievements and Future Goals
Technical Approach • • • •
Key mathematical tools for most of the research are complexity theory and combinatorics. Undergraduate students helping explore current capabilities of the largest implemented knowledge base systems. Use of large network analysis to understand large knowledge bases as very large directed graphs. Developing new algorithms for knowledge revision.
All areas of Artificial Intelligence (AI) relay on large bodies of knowledge, large parts of which change over time. As opposed to a database containing facts that can be queried, a knowledge base contains general statements that can be used to derive further implications. Developing a knowledge base, in particular, a knowledge base containing commonsense knowledge that can be used for commonsense reasoning, is a fundamental task of AI. We study the key problems of reasoning, updating (revising), and learning for such knowledge bases, especially those in the computationally efficient Horn form.
•
• •
Analysis of the standard framework for knowledge revision for the important (because computationally efficient) case of Horn knowledge bases. Published papers including the first, in flurry of ~20 papers in this area in past few years. Analysis of the properties, especially inference, of random collections of Horn formulas, treating them a random hyper graphs. Empirical work measuring actual verbal IQ of a commonsense knowledge base (MIT’s Concept Net 4). Result: VIQ 100—Average Verbal IQ of 4 year 0 month child. See figure opposite corner • Gathered significant press attention
Robert H. Sloan, Computer Science (In collaboration with Richard Warner, Chicago–Kent College of Law) Primary grant support: National Science Foundation
Problem Statement and Motivation •
To develop technologically realistic and sophisticated privacy policies to bind private companies in the 21st century, very much including rules concerning threats to security from data loss.
•
Most interactions among people and companies are governed in part by long-standing social norms, in addition to formal rules, but in this area social norms are lacking. • One major goal is to contribute to the development of social norms concerning privacy that will simultaneously shape and inform both the development of appropriate technologies and appropriate business practices and laws.
Key Achievements and Future Goals
Technical Approach •
•
This project is inherently interdisciplinary. The interdisciplinary approach is surprisingly unusual: There are remarkably few interdisciplinary examinations of privacy that effectively combine legal and computer science expertise.
•
First compilation of all 50 states, state-by-state, of major privacy and data security statutes, and analysis of technical cost and efficacy
•
Proposal for new legal liability regime, intermediate between negligence and strict product liability, for producers of mass-market software software containing security vulnerabilities, and gametheoretic analysis of the effects of this on the market.
•
Analysis of the ability of major ISPs to reduce spread of malware and bots.
•
Short-term goal: Extend our analysis to cover at least US government action.
Traditional technical Computer Science analysis, legal analysis, economic analysis, and occasionally philosophy play a role.
V.N. Venkatakrishnan, Computer Science Primary Grant Support: NSF
Problem Statement and Motivation • •
•
•
Technical Approach • •
•
ESP-IGERT is an interdisciplinary PhD training program that includes faculty from the CS, ECE, Communication, IDS, and Public Health Departments at UIC. The program combines technological, human, enterprise, and legal expertise from the faculty members in those departments to develop interdisciplinary research tackling information privacy using multiple considerations. ESP-IGERT will support approximately 30 PhD students and engage them in six interdisciplinary classes, team-taught by faculty from different departments and two international research summer internships, as well as in multidisciplinary groups contributing to and enriching to each other’s perspectives.
Electronic security and information privacy are central issues in today’s digital age The ecosystem where private and sensitive information resides is composed of many IT subsystems belonging to individuals, organizations, and governments, who are driven by different, and often conflicting, motivations, policies, and practices. Thus, effective solutions for privacy protection must take into consideration all these aspects. They must be easily usable by end users, easily adoptable by businesses, not conflicting with their business goals, and in line with current legislation. To produce such solutions and derive general principles and best practices for individuals, businesses, and public policy makers, an interdisciplinary approach is needed.
Key Achievements and Future Goals • Future Goals A set of broad scientific principles that constitutes a systemic, deeper understanding of fundamental issues in Electronic Security and Privacy A set of usable methods, tools, and policies that can be employed by end users, technologists, and policy makers
Ouri Wolfson and Bo Xu, Computer Science Primary Grant Support: NSF
Problem Statement and Motivation resource-query D resource 8
A
D
resource-query C resource 6 resource 7
resource-query A resource 1 resource 2 resource 3
B
•
Currently, while on the move, people cannot efficiently search for local resources, particularly if the resources have a short life, e.g. an available parking slot, or an available workstation in a large convention hall.
•
Applications in matchmaking and resource discovery in many domains, including • social networks • transportation and emergency response • mobile electronic commerce.
C
resource-query B resource 4 resource 5
Key Achievements and Future Goals
Technical Approach •
Use Database and Publish/Subscribe technology to specify profiles of interest and resource information
•
Peer-to-Peer information exchange among mobile devices such as cell phones and pda’s, that form ad hoc network
• •
•
Exchange uses short-range, unlicensed wireless communication spectrum including 802.11 and Bluetooth.
•
Exchanged information is prioritized according to a spatial-temporal relevance function to reduce bandwidth consumption and cope with unreliable wireless connections.
•
Adaptive push/pull of resource information
• •
• •
Developed and analyzed search algorithms for different mobility environments and communication technologies. Designed a comprehensive simulation system that enables selection of a search algorithm. Built a prototype system Published 6 papers, received $250k in NSF support, delivered two keynote addresses on the subject. Submitted provisional patent application Future goals: design complete local search system, combine with cellular communication to central server, test technology in real environment, transfer to industry.
Clement Yu, Computer Science Primary Grant Support: NSF
Problem Statement and Motivation
Users Queries Metasearch Engine
•
Retrieve, on behalf of each user request, the most accurate and most up-to-date information from the Web.
•
The Web is estimated to contain 500 billion pages. Google indexed 8 billion pages. A search engine, based on crawling technology, cannot access the Deep Web and may not get most up-to-date information.
Results Queries Search Engine 1
………
Search Engine N
Key Achievements and Future Goals
Technical Approach •
A metasearch engine connects to numerous search engines and can retrieve any information which is retrievable by any of these search engines.
•
On receiving a user request, automatically selects just a few search engines that are most suitable to answer the query.
•
Connects to search engines automatically and maintains the connections automatically.
•
Extracts results returned from search engines automatically.
•
Merges results from multiple search engines automatically.
• • • • • • •
Optimal selection of search engines to answer accurately a user’s request. Automatic connection to search engines to reduce labor cost. Automatic extraction of query results to reduce labor cost. Has a prototype to retrieve news from 50 news search engines. Has received 2 regular NSF grants and 1 phase 1 NSF SBIR grant. Has just submitted a phase 2 NSF SBIR grant proposal to connect to at least 10,000 news search engines. Plans to extend to do cross language (English-Chinese) retrieval.
Clement Yu, Computer Science Primary Grant Support: National Science Foundation Query appropriate query interface
rn Retu rface te In y r Que
Formulate Query
Query
Repository Query Interfaces Airline Reservation Rent a Car Real Estate
Problem Statement and Motivation •
Many companies sell the same type of products ( eg. computers) or services ( eg. life insurance) via the Web.
•
Looking for the best product or service (eg. lowest price and meeting specifications) requires excessive checking of many Web search engines. • This imposes too much burden on a user.
•
The aim is to allow a user seeking a product or a service to submit a single query and to receive the results ranked in descending order of desirability.
METASEARCH ENGINE subquery 1
Search Engine 1
subquery n
Search Engine 2
Search Engine n
Merge Results
Web Database Final Ranked Results
Key Achievements and Future Goals
Technical Approach •
Companies selling products or services via the Web have different user interfaces.
•
Most steps in the construction of the integrated user interface have been automated.
•
Create an user interface that integrates the features of each individual user interface and organize them such that the integrated interface is easily understood.
•
The same technique can be applied in other areas (e.g. construct generalized forms): • For selling a car online multiple forms need to be filled in • Create a generalized form applicable to multiple sellers.
•
A user query submitted against the integrated interface is translated into subqueries against individual interfaces.
•
Preliminary results have also been obtained to determine the proper search engines to invoke for each given user query.
•
Will produce metasearch engines for various products and services.
•
It is possible to determine for each user query, which search engines should be invoked: • based on the previously processed queries
Clement Yu, Computer Science Primary Grant Support: National Science Foundation
Problem Statement and Motivation •
Given a collection of documents and a query, the proposed system finds documents which are relevant to the query and are opinionated
•
The proposed system can advise consumers about the sentiments of a given product or service. It can suggest hints for advertisements.
•
The system can also analyze political opinions as well as comparing the political viewpoints of different parties.
Key Achievements and Future Goals
Technical Approach •
Accurate retrieval by identifying concepts in queries and documents
•
Identifying opinionated features
•
Classifying sentences into opinionative sentences
•
Determine whether opinions are relevant to the query topic
•
Determine whether the opinion is positive, negative or mixed (positive and negative)
•
Achieve the highest effectiveness scores for title queries in the Blog Track of TREC (Text Retrieval Conference) in 2006 and 2007. The tasks include retrieving relevant opinionated documents as well as classify them into positive, negative or mixed categories.
•
Plan to build various systems to have higher effectiveness, higher efficiency and satisfy different needs.
Philip S. Yu, Computer Science
Problem Statement and Motivation
Co-author network
•
Data accumulated at exponential rate across all organizations , all domains, and all geographies
•
These data often not in structured record format - we focus on graphs and networks
•
Need to be able to mine the vast amount of data to get useful information and knowledge
Yeast protein interaction network
Key Achievements and Future Goals
Technical Approach •
Identify distinctive or discriminative substructures in the graph as features
•
Devise new similarity measures on graphs
•
Explore graph compression to reduce a huge graph into a smaller one for further analysis
•
Conduct community mining from multi-relational networks
•
Capture dynamic and evolutional behavior of networks
•
Develop real-time processing capability to address monitoring type applications
•
Graph indexing methods
•
Similarity search methods for graphs
•
Data Integration, cleaning and validation techniques in Information Networks
•
Online Analytical Processing paradigms for Information Networks
•
Algorithms for mining Information Networks, including social networks
•
Real-time stream mining algorithms
Philip S. Yu, Computer Science, UIC Primary Grant Support : DBI-0960443, CNS-1115234, OISE-1129076, Army Grant W911NF-12-1-0066
Problem Statement and Motivation • Data being generated at every high rate • Needs for instance response • Many applications: surveillance, ad placement, highfrequency trading, outbreak control, etc.
Real-time monitoring & mining of multiple steams
• The challenge on real-time stream processing • One-pass • Resource constraint • Evolving nature with concept drift • Noisy data
Key Achievements and Future Goals
Technical Approach • Adapt OLAP type approach to separate on-line and off-line operations • Develop summarization approaches to reduce on-line storage and processing
•
Devised real-time scalable mining algorithms on clustering, classification, frequent patterns, outliers, spams, community detection, etc.
•
Developed new approaches to fuse data streams from multiple heterogeneous sources
•
Handled concept drift, and noise and incomplete data
•
Received IEEE ICDM 2013 10-Year Highest-Impact Paper Award
• Capture evolving patterns and abnormality • Introduce resource adaptive computation to match the depth of the computation with the rate of the data stream which can be bursty • Address data uncertainty in designing mining algorithms
Philip S. Yu, Computer Science, UIC with other researchers outside UIC Primary Grant Support: DBI-0960443, CNS-1115234, OISE-1129076
Problem Statement and Motivation •
Many social networks with different focuses - Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare
•
Many people participate in multiple social networks
•
By fusing the information scattered in different networks, prediction power can be greatly improved.
Key Achievements and Future Goals
Technical Approach •
Identify some corresponding accounts across networks referred to as anchor points
•
Developed effective anchor link predict algorithms to link up the corresponding accounts across networks
•
Use anchor points as a base to transfer knowledge across networks
•
Developed novel algorithms to transfer knowledge across networks to help predict user behavior, including social links and location links
•
Address heterogeneous node and link types, including social, spatial, temporal and text information
Philip S. Yu, Computer Science, UIC with other researchers outside UIC Primary Grant Support : NSF IIS-0905215
Problem Statement and Motivation • Information networks are ubiquitous • Chemical compounds, biological networks, social networks, world wide webs, cyber physical networks • Each node and link may have attributes, labels, and weights
HIN of Movie Data Technical Approach • Recognize the path semantics of HIN • Author-Paper-Conference-Paper-Author (authors with papers in the same conference) is different from Author-Paper-Author (co-authorship)
• HIN allows multiple object and link types • E.g., Medical network: patients, doctors, disease, contacts, treatments
Key Achievements and Future Goals • Developed path based mining algorithms for HIN • Clustering, classification, similarity search, recommendation, etc. • Developed network based OLAP to handle large networks
• Introduce the concept of meta path based similarity measure to guide knowledge discovery • Integrate linkage and node information for more effective mining
• Applied HIN to solve various application problems from bioinformatics to social networks
Philip S. Yu, Computer Science, UIC with other researchers outside UIC Primary Grant Support : NSF IIS-0905215, Google, MITRE
Problem Statement and Motivation • Social network gains ever increasing popularity • Abundant of information is captured • How to effectively take advantage of these information remains a challenge • The information is noisy, with spam and malicious postings • How to utilize the wisdom of the crowd is unclear
Technical Approach • Devise scalable algorithms to handle large social networks • Develop novel models to capture insights from social science research
Key Achievements and Future Goals • Devised novel influence propagation models • Develop new models to detect magnet community to understand the talent flow • Developed new approaches to detect review spam
• Find innovative ways to utilize the wisdom of the crowds in the social network • Address noisy and incomplete information • Utilize the heterogeneous information network approach
• Devised novel models to detect network shakers to handle the cascading effect of “too big to fail” entities as in the financial network
Philip S. Yu, Computer Science Primary Grant Support : NSF IIS-0914934, CNS-1115234
Problem Statement and Motivation • The large amount of data being captured, and digitized has made privacy an important issue
Anonymization
• In many cases, users are not willing to divulge personal information unless privacy is assured • Many industries need to access vast amount of personal data to advance the products or services, e.g. from personalized medicine to product recommendation
k2-degree anonymization (k=2) Technical Approach • To preserve privacy on network/graph data • Not only node attributes, but also connection information need to be anonymized or perturbed
Key Achievements and Future Goals • Identified the friendship attack in a network, where the degrees of two vertices connected by an edge is utilized to reidentify related victims in a published network and devise the k2-degree anonymization technique.
• Identify weakness of current privacy protection methods
• Devise new privacy attack models
• Proposed the concept of structural diversity to protect the anonymity of the network community identities and develop the k-SDA technique
• Develop novel privacy protection methods accordingly • Received EDBT 2014 Test of time award
Philip S. Yu, Computer Science, UIC with other researchers outside UIC Primary Grant Support : DBI-0960443, OISE-1129076, OIA-0963278, Army grant W911NF-12-1-0066
Problem Statement and Motivation
Data Stream with Concept Drift • High Dimensional Data • Heterogeneous Data Sources • Unconventional Data Types • Uncertain Data
• The ever increasing amount of data being captured, and digitized creates the big data challenge
Velocity
Variety
BIG R Data
• Big data is being recognized as a valuable asset Volume
Scalable Mining Algorithm
Technical Approach
• Getting the value out of the big data remains a challenge • Volume • Velocity • Variety
Key Achievements and Future Goals
• Adapt OLAP type approach to separate on-line and off-line operations
• Devised real-time data stream mining algorithms to handle concept drift
• Develop summarization approaches to reduce on-line storage and processing
• Developed new approaches to handle novel data types, such as graphs/networks
• Use matrix factorization approaches to achieve dimensional reduction
• Developed new approaches to integrate data from heterogeneous data sources
• Consider data uncertainty in designing mining algorithms
• Received IEEE Computer Society 2013 Technical Achievement Award on Big Data
Philip S. Yu, Computer Science Primary Grant Support : DBI-0960443, OISE-1129076, Army Grant W911NF-12-1-0066
Problem Statement and Motivation •
Difficulties for new ventures to get funding
•
Crowdfunding emerges as new way to raise funding via the web technology
•
Need to understand the impact of social media on crowdfunding
•
Success of crowdfunding will help create more new ventures and jobs to grow the economy
Key Achievements and Future Goals
Technical Approach •
Develop prediction models on the number of backers and the success of the fund raising
•
Studied the effect of early promotion on social media to the success rate on fund raising
•
Identify key factors that will affect the success rate of the fund raising
•
Identified strategies to improve the success rate
•
Improved understanding on how to participate in crowdfunding
•
Collect Twitter data regarding Kickstarter to develop and evaluate the models
Lenore Zuck, Computer Science Primary Grant Support: NSF, ONR, and SRC
Problem Statement and Motivation •
Translation Validation • Backward Compatibility of successive generations of software • Formal proofs that optimizing compilers maintain semantics of programs
•
Termination proofs of Pointer programs
•
Property Verification of parameterized systems (bus protocols, cache coherence, &c)
Key Achievements and Future Goals
Technical Approach •
Translation validation verifies each go of the system. Verification conditions that are automatically created are send to theorem provers
•
Combination of model checking and deductive methods allows to push the envelope of automatic verification of infinite-state systems (for both pointer programs and protocols)
•
Based on methodology developed, Intel is using MicroFomal to verify backward compatibility of micropgrams (between RISC & CISC) • (Need to develop better methodologies to prove theories that have bit vectors)
•
IIV is a new tool that allows automatic verification of safety properties of parameterized systems (nothing bad will ever happen)
•
Researchers at MSR have expressed interest to integrate pointer analysis in their verification tool
Miloš Žefran, ECE; Matteo Corno, ECE; Maxim Kolesnikov, ECE Primary Grant Support: NSF; UIC College of Dentistry
Problem Statement and Motivation •
New surgical procedures are introduced at a high rate. Each requires costly training.
•
Haptic simulators provide a cost-effective alternative to traditional training: no need to travel, 24/7 availability, easy to create additional units as needed.
•
Existing paradigm for haptics is not suitable for teaching sensorimotor skills. Lack of good models and of realistic haptic rendering are main obstacles to creating useful simulators.
Key Achievements and Future Goals
Technical Approach Position and force information are simultaneously displayed to facilitate motor skill acquisition. The user is modeled as a three-input, single-output system.
•
Developed a new paradigm for teaching of sensorimotor skills with haptics.
•
Proposed a new model for a user responding to haptic and visual stimuli. The model experimentally verified.
•
The model of the human enables stability analysis through the Lyapunov second method; traditional passivity techniques can not be used. Time delays are critical for stability and are explicitly modeled.
•
Stability analysis of the system performed. Stability boundaries explicitly identified.
•
•
Implemented a new method for haptic rendering.
The Euclidean group SE(3) used to develop haptic rendering algorithms that properly account for translations and rotations. Kinetic energy provides an intrinsic way to define the penetration which is in turn used to compute the reaction force.
•
Future work: applications in medical training, rehabili-tation; faster implementation of the haptic rendering; implementation on cheap haptic displays; extensions of the new paradigm for collaborative haptics.
•
Primary Investigator: Hulya Seferoglu
Energy Efficiency in Cooperating Mobile Devices
Problem Statement and Motivation • Increasing popularity of applications such as video streaming in mobile devices introduces: • Higher demand for throughput; • Strain on cellular links. • Cooperation among mobile devices by exploiting both cellular and local area connections (WiFi, Bluetooth) is promising. • Popularity of applications exponential increase in data rates. • The energy per delivered bit needs to be reduced in cooperating mobile devices.
Technical Approach • Goal: Develop energy efficient cooperation schemes for mobile devices by taking into account energy consumption cost of mobile devices while maximizing throughput. • Approach: • Develop stochastic network control algorithms that take into account practical requirements of cooperating mobile devices. • Investigate energy consumption cost of mobile devices and its impact on the control algorithms. • Investigate energy storage (battery) levels of mobile devices. • Develop energy efficient stochastic network control algorithms for cooperating mobile devices.
Key Achievements and Future Goals • The PI has published several conference and journal papers in the broader area. • The PI is planning to submit a proposal on this topic.
Investigators: M. Dutta, ECE, M. Stroscio, ECE and BioE Primary Grant Support: AFOSR, ARO, NSF, SRC, DARPA, DHS Quantum Dots in MEH-PPV Polymer
Problem Statement and Motivation
Gold contacts •
Design, fabrication, characterization of QD-based photon-absorbing media embedded in conductive polymers for optoelectronic devices
•
For underlying concepts see group’s paper on “Applications of Colloidal Quantum Dots,” Microelectronics Journal, 40, 644-649 (2009).
ITO Glass
Top view MEH-PPV Polymer / CdSe Quantum Dot Composite
Key Achievements and Future Goals
Technical Approach •
Design of quantum-dot (QD) ensembles in conductive polymers
•
Fabricating quantum-dot (QD) ensembles in conductive polymers
•
Modeling electrical and optical properties including robustness and sensitivity to QD-QD separation
•
Experimental characterization of integrated structures
•
Multi-wavelength optoelectronics
•
Numerous simulations of electrical and optical properties including robustness and sensitivity to QD-QD separation
•
Numerous simulations for a variety of QD—conductive-polymer systems
•
Current sensing AFM measurements of I-V curves for a variety of QDs embedded in conducting polymers
•
Ultimate goal is realization of multi-wavelength photodetectors
P.I. Igor Paprotny Funding: new faculty startup, California Energy Commission
Problem Statement and Motivation • • •
•
•
Integrating discrete components on flexible substrates Using ultra low-power wireless radios and microcontrollers to implement low-power wireless networks Algorithms reconstruct system parameters from sparse (distributed) sensory data
Energy harvesting enables potentially perpetual operation of the sensor nodes
Key Achievements and Future Goals
Technical Approach • •
Low-power radios and ancillary electronics introduce the possibility of ubiquitous low-cost wireless sensor networks. Distributed sensors are predicted to be an integral part of our every day life Enable many important applications: • Energy systems sensing • Body sensor networks • Environment systems
• • •
Created a 4 mm x 4 mm sized low-power sensor node using discrete components Developed a self-calibrating current sensor system Future goals: • Develop a co-location system for 1 mm3 wireless sensor node • Integrate a wireless sensor network in underground coal mines • Create a smart bandaid body sensor node
Wenjing Rao, ECE department
Problem Statement and Motivation
Post-manufacturing defect-tolerant logic implementation on nano-crossbars • Models, algorithms, yield analysis
•
Exploiting time / hardware / information redundancy at multiple design hierarchical levels and granularities • Logic gate level: nano-PLAs • Arithmetic level: fault tolerant adders • Processor architecture level: speculative computation based fault tolerance paradigm
•
Redundancy sharing on a locally connected network • Flexible, dynamic assignment schemes • Network analysis
Future electronic systems on nanoscale devices
•
Promises • Boosts of computational power • Wide application domains
•
Challenges • Severe unreliability (manufacturing defects + run time faults) • Localized interconnect
•
Need: • New system design and computational paradigms for constructing future reliable nanoelectronic systems.
Key Achievements and Future Goals
Technical Approach •
•
•
Low-cost defect / fault tolerance approaches exploiting • Reconfigurability • Multiple hierarchical levels and granularities • Regularity
•
Decentralized resource allocation protocol on locally connected network • Low communication overhead • Scalable • Generalizable framework for self-adaptive systems
Rashid Ansari, ECE; Ashfaq Khokhar, ECE/CS Primary Grant Support: NSF, U.S. Army
Problem Statement and Motivation •
Real-time visual tracking is important in automated video scene understanding for applications such as surveillance, compression, and vision-based user interfaces
•
Visual Tracking: Locate moving objects from visual cues.
•
Low computation complexity (Real-time requirement)
•
Tracking rapid motion, in presence of occlusion (self and foreign-body)
•
Tracking multiple objects using multiple cues
•
High dimensionality (articulated human body tracking)
Key Achievements and Future Goals
Technical Approach •
Combine particle filtering with efficiency of mean shift tracker.
•
New formulation of visual tracking in a set theoretic framework.
•
Graphical models (Markov Random Field and Bayesian Network) provide high-level modeling for single object and multiple object tracking in high-dimensional spaces.
•
Real-time tracking with improved efficiency compared with the standard particle filter-based tracker by 20-40%.
•
Improved performance with robust tracking under rapid motion
•
Handles partial occlusion and short-time full-occlusion
•
Naturally extends from single to multiple object tracking
•
Convenient fusion of multiple cues (no pre-adjustment of tracker needed). Easy incorporation of additional cues.
•
Application in foveated video compression and event recognition in scenes will be investigated
Jezekiel Ben-Arie, ECE Primary Grant Support: NSF
Problem Statement and Motivation This project is focused on the development of methods and interactive tools that enable efficient querying, recognition and retrieval of video clips in a video database of human motion. Natural and symbolic languages are not suited to accurately describe human motion.
An Example of a query composition of human activity along a trajectory. The humanoid then animates it for visual feedback.
Key Achievements and Future Goals
Technical Approach Our Approach: is to represent human motion by novel temporal scripts that define the 3D pose and velocity of important body parts. The human body is represented by an hierarchic structure. This enables not only efficient representation but also robust recognition from any viewpoint. The user is also allowed to interactively compose practically any desired motion query and to view it.
•
An innovative method for human motion Recognition by Indexing and Sequencing (RISq) was developed. The RISq requires only few video samples. An interactive GUI based tool for composing articulated human motion was also established.
•
This project has also broader Impacts. Since our interactive-graphic approach does not require reading or writing, it could be also applied to enhance the creativity and educational participation of groups such as children in authoring animated plays and movies.
•
Our future goals is to extend the range of activities and the number of persons that can be composed. We are also extending our activity recognition system –RISq (which is currently patent pending) to include speech and object recognition.
Jezekiel Ben-Arie
Problem Statement and Motivation •
Key Achievements and Future Goals
Technical Approach •
The recognizer uses a novel approach called RISq (Recognition by Indexing and Sequencing) which requires for training only few stored exemplars for each word class. User can train the recognizer to user's personal speech in any language and accent simply by recording their vocabularies.
Developing a robust method for continuous speech recognition which can be easily trained to any speaker with any accent at any language and even several languages.
•
Achieved Recognition rates which are better than prevalent methods based on HMM. Currently improving training and recognition rates by developing additional phoneme classification.
Jezekiel Ben-Arie
Problem Statement and Motivation •
Key Achievements and Future Goals
Technical Approach •
Developed a novel approach Employing Tensor Recognition with additional improvements by a new Exemplar Compounding which enables to represent much larger variety of stored models with few exemplars
Developing a detection and recognition methods of various object and animal classes in a very large image database which includes a variety of these classes from different views, poses and partial occlusions.
•
Much better detection and recognition rates than the best known state of the art methods
Jezekiel Ben-Arie
Problem Statement and Motivation •
Key Achievements and Future Goals
Technical Approach •
Developing a novel method named RISq (Recognition by Indexing and Sequencing). RISq is recognizing sequences of vectors derived from the 3D skeletal joints of the humans tracked.
Recognize in Real time a large variety of Human Activities using 3D Video acquired by 3D Kinect Cameras.
•
Achieved Robust human activity recognition invariant to view points and action speeds. Recognition rates are much better than the prevalent HMM based approaches.
Matthew L. Bolton, Mechanical and Industrial Engineering
… Step 23 … DisplayedValue = Incorrect PrescribedDelay = Correct ChangeDelay = Done Count = 1 …
Environmental Conditions
Mission Goals
Human Actions
Human Task Behavior
Device
Interface State
DisplayedValue ≠ PrescribedDose DisplayedValue ≠ Change DisplayedValue = PrescribedDose Dose PrescribedDose
System Model
or_seq
Press Left
Press Right
Problem Statement and Motivation
Proof or counterexample:
Environment
Human Mission
Normative Task Behavior Model
InterfaceState = SetDelay
Set Delay
•
• • •
•
Breakdowns in complex systems often occur as a result of system elements interacting in unanticipated ways DisplayedValue ≠ PrescribedDelay• Unanticipated normative and erroneous human-system interactions DisplayedValue ≠ Change DisplayedValue = Accept PrescribedDelay Delay PrescribedDelay are often associated with these failures • Formal verification analyses (like those supported by model checking) or_seq ord allow analysts to prove whether or not a model of a system satisfies Change Select Press Clear Digit Next Enter safety properties ord ord xor • Human factors engineers have models capable of representing Verification Press Press Press Press Model Up Report Left Right Clear normative human task behavior and erroneous acts Checker • This work is focused on synthesizing these technologies into novel tools capable of predicting when normative and erroneous human behavior can Erroneous Behavior contribute to system failure ord
59
Generator and Translator
Specification
Technical Approach • • •
InterfaceState ≠ SetDelay
Normative human behavior is represented using a task modeling notation A translator automatically converts this into formal modeling notation As part of this translation, erroneous human behavior can be generated in the formal representation of the human behavior model The formal human behavior model is integrated with a larger formal system model that includes human mission goals, device behavior, and the operational environment A specification asserts desirable properties about the operation of the system using a temporal logic A model checker is used to prove whether or not the system model adheres to the specification The model checker produces a verification report that contains a confirmation or a counterexample (counter proof)
Key Achievements and Future Goals Key Achievements: • A novel, formal, task analytic modeling notation • A task-model-to-formal-model translator • Two novel methods for generating erroneous human behavior • A counterexample visualization tool • Successful application of the method to the design of aircraft checklist procedures, an automobile cruise control system, and a patient controlled analgesia pump Future Goals • Improve method scalability • Model human-human interaction and communication error • Integrate method with other analysis approaches
Natasha Devroye (ECE) NSF CAREER Award 1053933: Foundations of Two-way Communication Networks NSF CIF 1216825: Wireless Relay Networks: Coding Above Capacity and Exploiting Structure
Problem Statement and Motivation • • • •
•
Key Achievements and Future Goals
Technical Approach • •
We have devised a key technical tool: a lattice list decoder We tailor and devise new technical approaches to mimic random coding proofs using nested lattice codes
Random codes have traditionally been used to demonstrate the information theoretic achievability of rates in networks Structured codes such as lattice codes for Gaussian channels are more practical, and have linearity properties which classical random codes lack We know lattice codes may mimic random codes in certain single-hop scenarios (point-to-point, broadcast, multiple access channels) We know lattice codes surpass the known performance of random codes in certain scenarios (two-way relay channels, N>2 user interference channels) Question: can structured codes replace random codes in general networks, and furthermore achieve better rates?
•
• •
•
We have used this, and other careful manipulations to show that lattices may achieve the same rate as random codes as • The Decode-and-Forward rate of the relay channel • The Compress-and-Forward rate of the relay channel We have used the lattice list decoder to generalize two-way relaying schemes to two-way relaying scenarios with direct links Long-term goal: demonstrate that lattice codes may replace and improve upon random codes in Gaussian networks Y. Song and N. Devroye, ``Lattice codes for the Gaussian relay channel: Decode-and-Forward and Compress-and-Forward,’’ submitted to IEEE Trans. Information Theory, October 2011.
Natasha Devroye (ECE) NSF CAREER Award 1053933: Foundations of Two-way Communication Networks
Problem Statement and Motivation •
Classical information theory is suited to one-way communication
•
In recent years much progress has been made in bounding the theoretical limits of one-way communication networks
• •
Communication is inherently two-way We ask: what is the fundamental performance of two-way networks?
Key Achievements and Future Goals
Technical Approach • • •
We approach two-way networks from an information theoretic perspective We seek the capacity region, or inner and outer bound to the capacity region of two-way networks We start by considering three simple two-way networks, and initially seek to characterize when the ability of nodes to adapt future transmissions (channel inputs) to past channel outputs does not increase capacity:
• • •
• • •
For certain deterministic two-way networks, were able to obtain capacity: showed that equal to two one=way channels in parallel Future goal: what is the most general class of network for which this holds? Future goal: When does adaptation (exploiting previously received outputs in two-way networks) help, when is it useless?
Z. Cheng, N. Devroye ``Two-way Networks: When Adaptation is Useless,’’ submitted to IEEE Trans. On Information Theory, June 2012. Z. Cheng, N. Devroye, ``On Constant Gaps for the Two-way Gaussian Interference Channel,’’ Allerton 2012. Z. Cheng, N. Devroye, ``On the Capacity of Mult-user Two-way Linear Deterministic Channels,’’ ISIT 2012.
Natasha Devroye (ECE) AFOSR FA9550-10-1-0239: ``Fundamental bounds on information fusion with focus on waveform-based intent detection and avoidance’’
Problem Statement and Motivation • •
•
•
Key Achievements and Future Goals
Technical Approach •
We use Directed Information (DI) as waveform scheduling metric
Numerous defense applications rely on closed-loop, or adaptive, information gathering systems As radar waveform generators and processing abilities become more capable, the question is how one should design waveforms in an adaptive fashion (cognitive radar) to extract maximal information from an imaged scene Waveform adaptation, sensor scheduling and waveform library design have all been approached from classical statistical signal processing perspectives We ask: • Can information theory provide bounds on the performance of closed loop information gathering systems such as cognitive radar?
• •
• •
Proposed a new information theoretic framework for obtaining fundamental bounds on the distortion in the radar scene reconstruction for closed loop adaptive waveform scheduling systems Future goals: • demonstrating the utility of this framework in tangible channels which accurately model radar situations of interest • tightening the theoretical results P. Setlur, N. Devroye, ``Waveform Scheduling via Directed Information in Cogntiive Radar,’’ IEEE SSP workshop, August 2012. P. Setlur, N. Devroye, ``Adaptive waveform scheduling in radar: an information theoretic approach’’, SPIE, April 2012.
Stefano Rini, Alex Dytso, Daniela Tuninetti, Natasha Devroye (ECE) NSF CCF, CIF Small Award 1017436: Fundamental Limits of Layered Wireless Networks
Problem Statement and Motivation • • •
• •
Key Achievements and Future Goals
Technical Approach • •
We first consider a symmetric Gaussian interference channel with a cognitive relay to reduce the complexity We obtain general inner and outer bounds which we are able to tighten for certain classes of channels such as the linear high SNR deterministic channel model
Cognition is a rapidly emerging new paradigm in wireless communication whereby a node changes its communication scheme to efficiently share the spectrum with other users in the network One way of modeling cognition is through non-causal message knowledge at certain nodes in a networks The interference channel with a cognitive relay consists of a two user interference channel where a third node, a cognitive relay knows the messages of both source nodes and aids in their transmission This channel generalizes numerous multi-user information theoretic channels including the interference channel, broadcast channel and cognitive interference channel We seek the capacity region of this channel to characterize its fundamental limits
• • • • • •
We have characterized the capacity region of the linear high SNR deterministic and symmetric channel model for many, but not yet all subsets of parameters We have characterized the capacity in the strong interference regime We will address these remaining cases before using the intuition gained to determine capacity to within a constant gap for the Gaussian channel S. Rini, D. Tuninetti, N. Devroye ``Capacity to within 3 bits for a class of interference channels with a cognitive relay,’’ ISIT 2011. S. Rini, D. Tuninetti, N. Devroye ``The capacity of an interference channel with a cognitive relay in strong interference,’’ ISIT 2011. A. Dytso, S. Rini, D. Tuninetti, N. Devroye ``On the capacity region of the symmetric, high SNR deterministic interference channel with a cognitive relay,’’’ ICC 2012.
Natasha Devroye, Daniela Tuninetti (ECE) NSF CCF, CIF Small Award 1017436: Fundamental Limits of Layered Wireless Networks
Problem Statement and Motivation • • •
Key Achievements and Future Goals
Technical Approach • •
We take an information theoretic approach to derive both inner and outer bounds to the capacity of such layered wireless networks We consider both centralized and distributed layered networks
Inefficiencies in spectrum usage have led to a interest in alternative secondary spectrum licensing paradigms The underlay secondary spectrum licensing paradigm allows for secondary users to simultaneously access the spectrum licensed to the primary users as long as they do not ``disrupt’’ the primary users We seek to determine the fundamental limits of layered secondary networks which share the spectrum with primary users under the constraints that: • Lower layers remain oblivious to higher layers (seamless layering, backwards compatibility, incentives for primary users) • Higher layers are more ``intelligent’’ and may thus opportunistically access the network and exploit added knowledge such as codebook knowledge
•
•
• •
Our proposed opportunistic interference cancelation scheme and rates has won the Best Paper Award at CROWNCOM 2011 (N. Devroye, P. Popovski `Receiver-side Opportunism in Cognitive Networks,’’ CROWNCOM, June 2011. A. Dytso, N. Devroye, D. Tuninetti, ``The sum-capacity of the symmetric linear deterministic complete K-user Z-interference channel,’’ Allerton 2012. D. Maamari, N. Dvroye and D. Tuninetti, ``The Sum-Capacity of the Linear Deterministic Three-User Cognitive Interference Channel’, ISIT 2012. Future goals: extensions to Gaussian noise and oblivionincorporating outer bounds
Shantanu Dutt, ECE Primary Grant Support: National Science Foundation Partitioning
Floorplanning
Placement
Problem Statement and Motivation
Routing Simulation
Incr. Place
VLSI CAD Flow:
•
Current and future very deep submicron chips are so complex and minute that they need “corrections” or re-optimizations in small parts after initial design & simul.
•
Need to keep the correct parts of the chip as intact as possible – good resource usage, time-to-market req.
•
Need incremental CAD algorithms that re-do the “incorrect” parts fast and w/o significant effect on the correct parts
•
This project focuses on such incremental algorithms at the physical CAD or layout level of chip design – placement & routing
e.g., for timing closure
Key Achievements and Future Goals
Technical Approach •
•
Use of a constraint-satisfying depth-first search (DFS) process that explores the design space for the incremental changes to: • Optimize them (e.g., power, critical path, signal integrity) • Subject to not deteriorating metrics of the larger unchanged chip beyond pre-set bounds (e.g., <= 10% increase in wirelength)
Use of a new network-flow based methodology to explore the design space in a more continuous manner (as opposed to discrete in DFS) for faster solutions: • Some approximations involved for discrete -> continuous optimization mapping
•
Incremental routing for FPGAs: • optimal DFS algorithm wrt # of tracks– if a solution exists will find it; 13 times faster than competitor VPR
•
Incremental routing for VLSI ASICs: • 98% success rate in completing routes – up to 9-12 times fewer failures than Std and R&R routers
•
Timing-driven incremental routing for VLSI ASICs: • 94% succ rate; 5 times fewer timing violations
•
Incremental placement for VLSI ASICs: • Prel results: applied to timing closure – 10% improv
•
Future Work: (1) Apply to timing, power closure via logic & circuit re-synthesis at the physical level + re-placement & re-routing; (2) Integration of incremental routing & placement
Ashfaq Khokhar and Rashid Ansari Multimedia Systems Lab. (http://multimedia.ece.uic.edu) Primary Grant Support: National Science Foundation
Problem Statement and Motivation • •
•
Key Achievements and Future Goals
Technical Approach • •
• •
Develop efficient watermarking techniques that can imperceptibly embed information in the media Embedding capacity (#of bits embedded) of the proposed techniques should be large and embedded information should withstand different types of adversary attacks including re-sampling, compression, noise, desynchronization, etc. – exploit temporal and spatial correlation in the multimedia data. Develop detection algorithms that can detect the embedded information in the face of modifications and other adversary attacks. Develop distributed protocols based on trust metrics to recover modified contents
Emergence of peer to peer networks and increased interest in online sharing poses challenges for preserving and protecting online digital repositories. Existing efforts are mostly focused on text data. Research challenges are amplified when the contents are multimedia – just re-sampling of voice or image data, which is difficult to detect, compromises the authentication and validation. Developing multimedia asset management tools and distributed protocols that embed signatures, evaluate authentication, and help perform recovery using copies at peer nodes, if contents have been compromised.
•
•
• •
Developed novel watermarking techniques that embed information in selective frequency subbands. The embedded information is 10-15 times more than existing techniques and can withstand adversary attacks. Developed an Independent Component Analysis based detector that can detect embedded information in the presence of extreme noise (less than 1% error probability even in the presence of 80% noise). Developing a comprehensive digital asset management system using data hiding for fingerprinting and authentication. Developing a suite of distributed protocols for content validation and recovery in case of compromised data.
Gyungho Lee, ECE Primary Grant Support: NSF
Problem Statement and Motivation
Key Achievements and Future Goals
Technical Approach instruction-level program behavior description with execution path
•
Achievement • program counter encoding for low cost control flow validation • augmented branch predictor for complete control flow validation
•
Future • Data Flow Validation • Industrial Control System - SCADA • mobile devices – 4G cell phone environment
Dan Schonfeld, ECE; Wei Qu, ECE; Nidhal Bouaynaya, ECE Primary Grant Support: Motorola, Inc., NeoMagic Corp.
Problem Statement and Motivation • • • • • •
Key Achievements and Future Goals
Technical Approach • • •
• • •
Particle Filter Motion Proposal Detection Proposal
x11 x
2 2
x
.. .
.. . x2m
m 1
x 1 1
z
z z12 . ..
xt1 xt2
...
..
. xtm
1 t
1 2
z
zt2 . ..
z22 . .
.
z1m
Magnetic-Intertia Model Interactive Distributed Model Mixture Hidden Markov Model
... ...
x12 2 1
z2m
Video Surveillance (Activity Monitoring) Video Communications (Virtual Background) Video Enhancement (Handheld Camera Quality) Video Animation (Virtual Conference Room) Video Steroegraphy (3D from a Single Camera) Video Retrieval (Visual Search Engine)
ztm
• • • • • • • •
Real-Time (No Offline Processing Required) Very Fast (Few Particles Required) Low-Power (Embedded Processors) Complete Occlusion (Hidden Targets) Multiple Camera Tracking (Information Fusion) Video Auto-Focus (Fixed Lens Camera) Video Stabilization (Handheld & Vehicle Vibrations) Randomly Perturbed Active Surfaces (Robust Contour)
Primary Investigator: Hulya Seferoglu
Practical Network Control (NC) for Wireless Networks
Technical Approach • Goal: Develop a new theory for optimal network control that takes into account practical constraints. • Approach: Consider practical issues that arise at multiple levels of the system hierarchy including; • Device-level issues: Investigating the impact of device limitations, • Protocol-level considerations: Investigating the interaction of between legacy protocols and the optimal control framework. • Network-level migration: Developing control algorithms for a network with a mix of controllable and uncontrollable nodes. • Test-bed implementation: Implementing our control algorithms using commodity off-the-shelf devices.
Problem Statement and Motivation • Problem: • Growth in mobile and media rich applications Increasing demand for wireless bandwidth • Dramatic increase in demand poses a challenge for current wireless networks • Existing approaches: • Significant research on the theory of network control • Deployment of theory is rather limited due to the gap between theory and practice • Motivation: • New network control mechanisms are needed • Better use of scarce wireless resources • Taking into account practical constraints
Key Achievements and Future Goals • The PI has published several conference and journal papers in the broader area. • The PI has submitted a proposal about this project to NSF. The proposal submission is currently under review.
Daniela Tuninetti, Natasha Devroye, Stefano Rini, ECE Primary Grant Support: Dr. Tuninetti’s NSF CAREER grant.
Problem Statement and Motivation
+ 2. Bits received at the same power as the noise are `erased’. 3. Approximate the real sum with a bit-wise sum
•
In multi-terminal additive Gaussian noise networks two factors determine the network performance: the noise and user interference.
•
While we understand how to operate networks in the noise limited regime (i.e., the interference power is comparable to the noise power), we still do not have a clear grasp on how to operate networks in the interference limited regime.
•
A promising tool towards this goal is to approximate the (probabilistic) Gaussian network with a deterministic one in which the effect of the noise is neglected and the interference among users is deterministic.
1. Translate the received powers in bit levels
XOR The noise `erases’ some bits. The remaining bits interfere with each other.
Key Achievements and Future Goals
Technical Approach •
The signals and the noise are approximated with binary vectors whose length equals the number of bits that we can be send over a link.
•
We determined the capacity region of the deterministic two-user cognitive interference network.
•
All the bits received below the noise level are considered erased (i.e., unreliable).
•
This result provided some inside on the the capacity of a general Gaussian cognitive network.
•
Real-value summations are approximated by binary XOR operations.
•
Our future goal is to determine the capacity of Gaussian cognitive interference channels within a constant gap.
•
We will extend this framework to more general cooperative networks.
In this simplified framework, the effect of the noise and of the interference becomes deterministic. Determining the optimal network performance is expected to be easier for the deterministic network than for the original probabilistic Gaussian network.
Oliver Yu, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Primary Grant Support: DOE, NSF On-demand Lightpath (10 Gbps) Cluster All-optical LAN
Cluster Chicago StarLight
Amsterdam NetherLight
PIN All-optical MAN UIC
Cluster
PIN
Lambda Grid reserves lightpaths or lambdas of light (10 Gbps transport capacity) among a distributed collection of data, computing, visualization and instrumentation resources that are integrated to provide collaborative capability to end users.
•
To support a Multi-domain Lambda Grid with on-demand lightpath provisioning over multiple optical network domains with heterogeneous control planes.
•
To support e a Multi-purpose Lambda Grid for multidisciplinary collaborative applications.
PIN University of Amsterdam
ISON
•
All-optical LAN ISON
ISON
Problem Statement and Motivation
Chicago OMNInet
Key Achievements and Future Goals
Technical Approach •
•
Photonic Inter-domain Negotiator (PIN) is developed to support the Multi-domain Lambda Grid. It provides an open secure inter-domain control plane to interoperate multiple optical network domains with non-compatible signaling and routing functions. Integrated Services Optical Network (ISON) is developed to support the Multi-purpose Lambda Grid. It provides multiple traffic transport services: Gigabit-rate stream (single lambda per application); Kilo/Megabit-rate stream (multiple applications per lambda); Tera/Petabit-rate stream (multiple lambdas per application); and variable bit rate bursty traffic.
• • • •
• •
Publication O. Yu, “Intercarrier Interdomain Control Plane for Global Optical Networks,” in Proc. IEEE ICC, June 2004. O. Yu, T. DeFanti, “Collaborative User-centric Lambda-Grid over Wavelength-Routed Network,” in Proc. IEEE/ASM SC 2004, Nov. 2004. Three journal papers has been submitted to IEEE/OSA Journal of Lightwave Technology. Demonstration Through collaboration with University of Amsterdam, on-demand lightpath provisioning was demonstrated over Lambda Grid between Chicago & Amsterdam in SC 2003, November 2003. Future Goals Extend multi-domain and multi-purpose Lambda Grid with photonic multicast capability by splitting incoming light into multiple outputs. Demonstrate the new prototype in iGrid 2005 symposium at San Diego.
Zhichun Zhu, ECE Primary Grant Support: NSF
Problem Statement and Motivation •
Multi-core and many-core processors have increasing demands on memory capacity and bandwidth
•
Conventional memory systems are heading to a scalability wall • Memory power consumption becomes a significant part of system power profile • Memory thermal emergency becomes an important design consideration
•
New memory technologies emerge to address the memory scalability issue; but there lack architectural supports for them
Key Achievements and Future Goals
Technical Approach •
Universal memory architecture to support diverse memory modules
•
Thread-aware memory scheduling to improve memory performance
•
Memory management schemes for heterogeneous memory systems
•
Coordinated memory thermal management schemes
•
Processor-memory cooperation to optimize system performance and power-efficiency
•
Decoupled memory organization to optimize memory power-efficiency and performance
•
Memory thermal models and simulators
P.I. Igor Paprotny Funding: new faculty startup
Problem Statement and Motivation • • • •
200 m •
Key Achievements and Future Goals
Technical Approach • • •
• •
Use MEMS techniques to create robotic chassis several micrometers in size A stress-engineering post processing solution adds precisely controlled curvature to planar silicon structures Power is provided externally through a set of underlying interdigitated electrodes to the propulsion component, which is a scratch drive actuator (electrostatic inchworm) Patterned stress-engineering layer defines the out-of-plane deflection of the steering arms Difference in deflection results in different control voltage, which can be used to independently control several microrobots
New, largely unexplored area of robotics Difficult to achieve due to component scaling Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) Components difficult to implement at the microscale: • On-board power • Sensing • On-board control Many application opportunities, such as in: • Medicine, • Manufacturing • Information security
• • • •
Demonstrated independent control of several (four) MEMS microrobots Controlled self-assembly of microscale structures Developed a new stress-engineering process to design the robots that does not require a photo lithography stage Future goals: • Develop designs and algorithms that allow for simultaneous control of large numbers of microrobots • Create new microrobotic systems that operate in liquids • Use 2-photon stereolithography to create new types of microrobotic systems
P. Pat Banerjee, Cristian J. Luciano, Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Primary Grant Support: NIH
Problem Statement and Motivation •
Ultrasound has been the main technique for clinic palpation and procedural guidance, even after the invention of CT/MRI technology.
•
Identification of different anatomical regions is crucial to successfully carry out surgical procedures using real-time ultrasound imaging. It has been proposed and well studied, but it has not been extensively explored and implemented.
•
The computer generated ultrasonic application of the real-time visualization and haptic rendering is able to train the surgeons and residents to properly place the medical instrumental with considerable cost reduction and obtain greater performance outcomes.
Key Achievements and Future Goals
Technical Approach •
Volume models obtained from DICOM data set are used for anatomical structure identification and visualization
•
The performance of the simulation has been benchmarked and demonstrated qualified for the real time use.
•
2-Dimensional raw images are clipped according to the placement of transducer during the palpation.
•
The application has been applied to the multi-discipline training category as a curriculum in the commercialized simulator.
•
Computer generated ultrasound image can illustrate the percutaneous veins and arteries and reflect the deformation under the pressing force.
•
The quality of the ultrasound image is to be improved, while the volume deformation in 3-Dimensional space is to be probed.
•
Haptic rendering on different types of interaction between the instruments and the percutaneous structures as well as the skin surface.
Suresh K. Aggarwal, Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Primary Grant Support: NASA, NSF, Argonne National Laboratory
Y, mm
Problem Statement and Motivation 40
•
Application of the advanced computational fluid dynamics (CFD) methods using detailed chemistry and transport models
30
•
Simulation of flame structure, extinction and fire suppression
•
Multi-scale modeling of combustion and two-phase phenomena
•
Extensive use of computer graphics and animation
20
10
0
-10
-5
0
5
10
X, mm -3 -1
Heat-release, kJm s *10-3 1 5 10 15 20 50 75
Key Achievements and Future Goals
Technical Approach (See flame images above.) The image on the left shows a comparison of simulated and measured triple flames that are important in practical combustion systems, while the five images on the right depict a simulated flame propagating downward in a combustible mixture.
•
“A Numerical Investigation of Particle Deposition on a Square Cylinder Placed in a Channel Flow," Aerosol Sci. Technol. 34: 340, 2001.
•
“On Extension of Heat Line and Mass Line Concepts to Reacting Flows Through Use of Conserved Scalars," J. Heat Transfer 124: 791, 2002.
•
“A Molecular Dynamics Simulation of Droplet Evaporation," Int. J. Heat Mass Transfer 46: 3179, 2003.
•
“Gravity, Radiation and Coflow Effects on Partially Premixed Flames,” Physics of Fluids 16: 2963, 2004.
Professor Sabri Cetinkunt, Mechanical and Indusrial Engineering Primary Grant Support: Caterpillar, NSF, Motorola
Problem Statement and Motivation •
The world needs more affordable, reliable, energy efficient, environmentally friendly construction and agricultural equipment. Energy efficiency improvements can help overcome poverty in developing world.
•
Embedded computer control and information technology applications in construction and agricultural equipment: closed loop controls, GPS, autonomous vehicles.
Key Achievements and Future Goals
Technical Approach •
Developed a new steer-by-wire EH system (for wheel loaders)
•
Developed a new closed center EH hydraulic implement control system
•
Developed semi-active joystick controls
•
Developed payload monitoring systems
•
Closed loop control for graders, site planning with GPS
•
Three US patents awarded (fourth filed)
•
12+ former graduate students employed by CAT
Ahmed A. Shabana, Department of Mechanical Engineering, College of Engineering Primary Grant Support: Federal Railroad Administration (USA)
Problem Statement and Motivation •
Develop new methodologies and computer algorithms for the nonlinear dynamic analysis of detailed multi-body railroad vehicle models.
•
The computer algorithms developed can be used to accurately predict the wheel/rail interaction, derailment, stability and dynamic and vibration characteristics of high speed railroad vehicle models.
•
Develop accurate small and large deformation capabilities in order to be able to study car body flexibility and pantograph/ catenary systems.
Key Achievements and Future Goals
Technical Approach •
Methods of nonlinear mechanics are used to formulate the equations of motion of general multi-body systems; examples of which are complex railroad vehicles.
•
Fully nonlinear computational algorithms were developed and their use in the analysis of complex railroad vehicle systems was demonstrated.
•
Small and large deformation finite element formulations are used to develop the equations of motion of the flexible bodies.
•
The results obtained using the new nonlinear algorithms were validated by comparison with measured data as well as the results obtained using other codes.
•
Numerical methods are used to solve the resulting system of differential and algebraic equations.
•
•
Computer graphics and animation are used for the visualization purpose.
Advanced large deformation problems such as pantograph/catenary systems have been successfully and accurately solved for the first time.
•
The tools developed at UIC are currently being used by federal laboratories and railroad industry.
Investigator: Stefano Galiasso (Energy Resources Center) Primary Grant Support: Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity (DCEO)
Problem Statement and Motivation • • • •
Technical Approach •
ERC supports the Illinois State Energy Office at the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity in multiple ways: • Program analysis and planning • Market Potential Studies • Outreach and Education (market transformation) • Program Implementation (Boiler Tune-Up, Green Nozzle direct install)
Illinois is one of the forefront States in Energy Efficiency The State has set aggressive Energy reduction targets to be achieved every year New technologies are constantly introduced in the market, changing the landscape and requiring constant adaptation The State Energy Office is managing the Public and Low Income sectors, and faces challenges in meeting the targets
Key Achievements and Future Goals Achievements: • Over 2.5 Million Therms/year saved and independently evaluated over 2 years of program administration • IL Public Sector and Low Income market potential study • Filed 3-year plan to ICC Future goals: Introduce new programs and help Illinois achieve higher savings
Investigators: Jennifer Klemundt, Dragan Nikolovski (Energy Resources Center ) Prime Grant Support: Illinois Department of Central Management Services
Problem Statement and Motivation •
• •
• •
Key Achievements and Future Goals
Technical Approach • • •
•
The ERC utilizes proven data management tools and technologies coupled with in-house expertise to provide quality data management service The ERC developed a series of billing, modeling, and analytical tools to store, audit, analyze and summarize supplier’s and utilities’ billing data The ERC has developed a variety of analytical and reporting tools that generate periodic as well as ad-hoc reports for CMS Energy Manager and CMS fiscal office The ERC has designed, developed and implemented a comprehensive billing data repository consisting of consumption and cost data for all state facilities, as well as billing data from participating public utilities.
Since the deregulation of natural gas and electricity markets in Illinois, the Department of Central Management Services implemented a single-buyer market-oriented bulk procurement program for energy commodities and services State of the art data analysis tools and expertise are needed to support decision management and long term strategy development CMS needs a strategic partner to provide data management and analysis for state’s large energy portfolio, as well as in-house data management and analysis tools easily accessible by CMS stakeholders The ERC was selected to manage, monitor and audit deregulated commodity billing data for participating state facilities The ERC was selected to design and develop centralized utility billing data repository for all state facilities.
• • • •
•
The ERC has been providing billing data management and reporting service to CMS for over 15 years The ERC has designed, developed and implemented the State of Illinois Utility Database Management System (SUDMS), a comprehensive utility billing data repository for all state facilities The ERC has been maintaining SUDMS for 4 years The ERC has assisted CMS in the expansion of Natural Gas Bulk Procurement program to incorporate facilities from Ameren territory The ERC has responded to CMS RFP regarding the continuation and expansion of billing auditing and reporting services.
Investigators: Graeme Miller, Henry Kurth (Energy Resources Center) Primary Grant Support: Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity (DCEO)
Problem Statement and Motivation • Due to the recent events over the past decade with natural disasters severely disrupting energy infrastructure the state of Illinois thought it prudent to create and maintain and energy assurance plan. • The ERC works with state officials to gather data on how to prevent future energy supply disruptions and to minimize future outages.
Technical Approach • The ERC is responsible for the implementation of the project. This includes development and maintenance of the geospatial database, monitoring energy supply and potential disruptions and working with state officials during energy emergencies. • Through ArcGIS, Python and other programming skills the ERC is able to follow weather patterns, real time energy pricing, and grid constraint and their effect on current disruptions and potential interruptions to the state energy network.
Key Achievements and Future Goals • Prepare annual update to the State of Illinois Energy Assurance Plan • Update and maintain the geospatial database of state energy assets • Maintain Supply Disruption Tracking Process Plan • Monitor potential disruption in Illinois energy supply and pricing • Map potential sites of micro-grids that would strengthen the overall electric grid and create a more reliable network.