Discrete Event Simulator for Mobile Agents with Queuing
Wednesday, May 1, 2013 at 11:00 a.m. Manchester 017
Mobile agents can provide a strong approach for managing, monitoring and securing electrical distribution networks. However engineering such a system can be a daunting task when no similar system has ever been implemented. The creation and use of simulators that try to model aspects of the final product can help answer questions regarding implementation and may give a glimpse at expected results when the system is tested...
Abstract: In modern operating systems, we can often forget the lower-level complexity that is involved in running multiple programs on a computer. A particularly important procedure that operating systems perform is to execute many different instances of programs and operating system functions, called processes, using a limited number of processors and other resources currently available to the device. SimProcessScheduler is an iPad application that visually...
Hybrid Neighbor/Cell List Algorithm for GPU-Optimized Coarse-Grained Molecular Dynamics Simulations
THURSDAY, MAY 2, 2013, 3:00 P.M., MANCHESTER 244
Molecular Dynamics (MD) simulations provide a molecular-resolution picture of the folding and assembly processes, however the size and timescales of MD simulations are limited by the computational demands of the underlying numerical integrators and algorithms. Recently, GPUs, specialized devices that were originally designed for rendering images, have been repurposed for high performance computing with...
Using Digital Pheromone to Improve the Performance of Mobile Agent-Based Systems
A flexible and lightweight approach is needed to address security concerns on large networks with little computational resources to spare. A digital ant framework is one possible solution, modeled on the movement and interactions amongst ants of an ant colony using pheromone. However, the movement patterns of digital ants and the deposition rate of digital pheromone within this framework have a profound effect on the performance of...
An important part of securing any computing resource (e.g. computer, network route, or application) is to ensure the system is correctly configured. Unfortunately, finding a secure and feasible configuration is extremely difficult due to the sheer amount of settings to test. Fragile interdependencies across settings may also exist that are not readily apparent to an administrator. Using an Evolutionary-Inspired approach (Genetic Algorithm) in...
Efficient Information Extraction Using Statistical Relational Learning
Thesis defense: Tuesday, 4/30/13 at 2pm in Manchester 244.
Information extraction has gained significant importance due to the dramatic increase of information stored in the form of natural language text. In this thesis we explore a learning-based approach to support a natural language processing (NLP) algorithm, and an application of information extraction. One of the challenges of learning-based approaches is the requirement of human annotated examples. Current...
Careers in Computing: How to Prepare and What to Expect
Many college students concentrate on getting a job instead of preparing for a career. In a rapidly changing field like computing, this can lead to frequent job changes, burnout and dissatisfaction. Furthermore, today we hear a lot about outsourcing and some wonder whether there will be computing careers in the future. This talk is based on the premise that the jobs will certainly change over time but there will be...
Third Place Prize: Year Long Subscription to a 100GB SpiderOak backup service ($100 value!!)
Second Place Prize: iFrogz Speakers
First Place Prize: IPod Shuffle
Teams are made up of 3 students, one at each level of Computer Science classes (100, 200, 300/600 levels). Sign up individually or as a team, we will match up individuals into groups.
An Exposition of Agent Movement Models Over Graphs
Multi-agent systems have become popular recently with application ranging from computer science to biology. Many of these systems utilize autonomous agents that move and interact with each other. Therefore, agent movement, i.e. selecting the next node to visit, will have an effect on the overall performance of the agent system. This thesis investigates different agent movement models/approaches and the impact they have on system performance. In particular, movement models including unbiased and biased random walks,...
HARDWARE INVENTORY TRACKING SYSTEM (HITS)
The Networking and High Performance Computing (HPC) teams in the Wake Forest Information Systems department (IS) are responsible for the reliability and accessibility of the components on which Wake Forest’s technology operates. These components number on the order of ten thousand. The goal of the Hardware Inventory Tracking System (HITS) project is to develop a system, HITS, to assist the HPC and Networking teams in maintaining an accurate inventory of these hardware components.
FRIDAY, APRIL 26, 2013, 3:00 P.M., MANCHESTER...
Tim Persons (MS ’00, PhD ’01) investigates weapons parts, homeland security, fracking and more as the GAO’s chief scientist. As chief scientist of the U.S. Government...
A CUSTOM CASE TOOLKIT FOR MOBILE APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT
Noel Hunter is lead developer at OnceUponAnApp, a creator of educational and entertainment apps for children. He will demonstrate a custom toolkit-based development environment, with a WYSIWYG browser-based editor, and realtime preview of apps on iOs and Android devices. Topics covered include PHP, HTML5, CSS3, Javascript, and box2djs. Information on six week summer internships will be available.
Bob Plemmons (’61), Z. Smith Reynolds professor of mathematics and computer science, has been selected as a Fellow of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM). The fellowship honors SIAM members who have made outstanding contributions to the fields served by the organization.
“Being selected as a Fellow of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics means a lot to me in terms of accomplishments as I retire from teaching at Wake Forest, although my research activities will continue for a few more years,” Plemmons said...
Ron Parr, PhD, Associate Professor -- Department of Computer Science, Duke University
Monday, April 15, 2013
Reception 3:00—3:30 p.m., Manchester Hall, Room 017 Seminar – 3:30 – 4:30 p.m. Manchester Hall, Room 024
Reinforcement Learning for Non-experts
Talk Abstract: How can an intelligent agent (robot/OS component/game player/etc.) in a dynamic environment improve its performance on a task as it acquires more experience? In machine learning, we address this question within the framework of reinforcement learning, which generalizes regression or supervised...
Each summer the Executive Council of Upsilon Pi Epsilon (UPE), the international honor society of the computing sciences, evaluates a number of outstanding scholarship applicants at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. All scholarship applicants must be members of UPE. All are required to complete a comprehensive application form, which requires each applicant to attach all college-level...
Computer Science Majors and Minors
Advising Tuesdays
March 19th & 26th
10:00 – 11:30 a.m.
Stop by the department reception area for refreshments and a chance to get acquainted with faculty and staff.
Congratulations to Errin W. Fulp, associate professor of computer science, whose proposal entitled “Modeling Mobile Agent Populations and Movement for CEDS” has been funded by the US Department of Energy and the Battelle Memorial Institute (WFU funding agency).
We will be kicking off our semester with a meeting this coming
Wednesday, January 30th at 5pm in Manchester 241. Topics for the
meeting will include the events we want to put on this semester (game
nights, workshops, etc.) interest in Web Development/Programming, and
upcoming talks that we will be hosting.
A new salary survey from the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) has some good news for 2012 college graduates. The overall median salary for new grads has risen to $43,000, up 4.5% from the median for the class of 2011 (I’ve rounded NACE’s numbers to the nearest $1,000). A Bethlemen, Pa. non-profit, NACE links college placement offices with employers. Its employer members tend to be large companies, but for its salary survey it went beyond its members and combed through data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Census Bureau and a...
Tuesday, January 22, 2013 11:00—12:00 noon, Manchester Hall, Room 016 (Reception to following in the third floor lounge)
Avoiding Communication in Linear Algebra
Abstract: The running time of an algorithm depends not only on the amount of computation it performs, but also on its communication requirements (i.e., how much data it moves up and down the memory hierarchy and between processors). In many cases, we can significantly decrease the running times of numerical computations by reformulating...
Digital "ants" will protect the U.S. power grid from cyber attacks. Programmed to wander networks in search of threats, the high-tech sleuths in this software, developed by Wake Forest University security expert Errin Fulp, leave behind a digital trail modeled after the scent streams of their real-life cousins. When a digital ant designed to perform a task spots a problem, others rush to the location to do their own analysis. If operators see a swarm, they know there's trouble.
Read more:...
Thursday, November 8, 2012. 12:30—1:30 p.m., Manchester Hall, Room 241
Rethinking Genetic Algorithm File Fuzzing
Security researchers uncover software defects through a variety of methods, and fuzzing is arguably the most popular. Since the 1980's, this technique has found numerous, severe vulnerabilities in operating systems, file viewers, office applications, and especially web browsers. Testing an application with randomly generated data has proven to be an efficient, effective strategy. However, as applications mature and companies adopt secure software...
A Panel Discussion: Careers in Computer Science: What can I do with a CS Degree?
Who should attend? Computer Science majors, minors, graduate students. All students interested in computer science or IT careers who want to know about the “real world” of computer science and technology careers. Talk with technology professionals from Inmar to learn about working in a technology company.
The ACM Student Chapter will be hosting a game night on this coming Wednesday, October 17th! It will begin around 6pm in Manchester 241, at which point there will be free pizza and drinks available. If you are planning on coming, please send an RSVP to Gavin Borg at borggd9@wfu.edu so we have a general idea of how many people are coming. In addition, if you have a game system you're willing to bring, please shoot an email to Cody Stevens at stevca9@wfu.edu. Hope to see everyone there!
There’s a Wake Forest app for that: As more and more students bring smartphones and tablets to class, mobile apps developed at Wake Forest can help them with things like finding a parking spot and...
In Fall 2012, WFU Computer Science is holding its first ever photo contest. WFU Computer Science is hungry for pictures of current events and happenings in the Department. Help us satisfy our appetite for high quality images by submitting yours!
You can expect to see your image displayed on our departmental webpage, posted on social media outlets like Facebook and Google+, and included in departmental brochures and handouts. Two gift certificate prizes will be awarded for the two best...
Teaching Spotlight: Brian Kell, Computer Science
“Computer Science 101 is such a different class then the rest of the department because it’s not part of the major, it’s not part of the minor; it is intended for people that will major in other things. It has a very different audience,” Brian Kell, a lecturer in the Computer Science department who teaches this introductory-level course, said. […]
Computers are an important part of our lives. We log on in the morning, use them at work and check our email on them at home. However, believe it or not, there’s little use of them in everyday work in many middle schools.
Therefore, the Computer Science Department at Wake Forest University worked together with teachers from the Winston-Salem / Forsyth County School System and to find out how they could...
Dr. Paul Pauca, co-developer of Verbal Victor, is one of the 20 National Hispanic-American Innovators on NBC Latino!! The NBC Latino Innovators series features 20 Hispanic-Americans pioneering change in the country and in the community. For Hispanic Heritage Month, NBC is featuring men and women who have not only made incredible strides in their careers but...
U.S. News and World Report’s 2013 Best Colleges guide ranked Wake Forest University 13th among national universities with the best undergraduate teaching. The list highlights “schools where the faculty has an unusually strong commitment to undergraduate teaching.” [ more ]
Graduate School In Computer Science - Is It For Me?
This talk is intended to introduce students to the possibilities for graduate-level education in Computer Science. Topics to be covered, and tailored to the field of CS, will include: benefits of going to graduate school, an explanation of graduate school options (Masters, PhD), the graduate school application process, and the how-to's of financing graduate school. Open to everyone, and particularly suitable for current juniors, seniors, and graduate students. ...
Departmental Reception, Friday, September 21, 3 p.m. Manchester Hall.
Back to the Classroom Event. Friday, September 21, 4 p.m. Manchester Hall. Welcome from the Computer Science Chair, Dr. Pete Santago, followed by "A Socially Relevant Approach to Computer Science Education" by Computer Science Associate Professor Paul Pauca.
Wake Forest computer science professors and students teach middle school teachers how to add computer science to almost any class.
When Wake Forest computer science professors and students introduce new ways to teach computer science to middle school students, the teachers at Hanes Magnet School can't wait to experiment with technology. [...
Wake Forest has come a long way since the days it was known as "Wake Forest Manual Labor Institute." It's computer to student ratio is 1.08 to 1, which is more than twice as high a ratio as any other college on this list.
Students, faculty, and even parents stay connected to what's going on on campus via the “Wake Forest Campus Life” app. It updates 24 hours a day with info on events and important contacts. Students can access the app using the extensive Wi-Fi coverage throughout the campus.
Wake Forest is helping to serve the needs of it's community as well...
Prior knowledge, in the form of simple advice rules, can greatly speed up convergence in learning algorithms. Knowledge-based support vector machines (KBSVMs) incorporate advice from domain experts, which can improve generalization significantly. This talk explores recent developments in KBSVMS: online learning and advice refinement.
Online learning methods predict the label of the current point and then receive the correct label (and learn from that information). The goal is to update the hypothesis taking into account not...
Profs. Cho and Pauca organized a computational thinking workshop for teachers at Hanes Middle School. The workshop was generously supported by Google, Wake Forest University Depts. of Computer Science and Physics, The Center of Excellence for Research, Teaching, and Learning at Wake Forest School of Medicine, and Cengage Learning.
Their focus was to incorporate computational thinking...
Programming Team Interest Meeting! Wednesday, 9/5/2012 from 4-5pm in Manchester Hall, Room 017
Students at all levels in Computer Science are welcome to participate.
If you have any questions, or can't make this meeting because of prior engagements but are interested in participating, please email torgerse@wfu.edu or turketwh@wfu.edu
Congratulations to Paul Pauca, associate professor of computer science, whose proposal entitled “Implicit Geometry and Linear and Nonlinear Tensor Based Compression and Restructuring of High Dimensional Multimodality Data sets” has been funded by the US Department of Defense and the Boeing Company (WFU funding agency).
The Computer Science Department cordially invites you and your guests to our Graduation Reception Sunday, May 20th at 4:15 p.m. Manchester Hall, 2nd floor Lobby Area.
We look forward to meeting your family and friends and wishing you well in your future endeavors.
Please r.s.v.p. via e-mail to Mrs. Joan Habib, habibjm@wfu.edu by May 11th. Please include...
Improving Error Correction in Compilers Using Natural Language Processing Techniques
Thursday, MAY 3, 2012 at 10:00 a.m. Manchester 244
Compilers are programs that convert higher-level program code into executable binary machine code. However, the compiler cannot perform this task if there is a typographical error in the programmer's code. In order to handle such situations and still find additional errors in the code, compilers are often programmed with error repair algorithms which provide a temporary fix in the code. However,...
Thursday, April 26, 2012. 12:00 noon., Manchester Hall, Room 244
GPU-Optimized Molecular Dynamics Simulations
Protein and RNA biomolecular folding and assembly problems have important applications because misfolding events are associated with diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. However, simulating biologically relevant sized biomolecules on timescales that correspond to biological functions is an extraordinary challenge due to computational bottlenecks that are mainly involved in force calculations. We briefly...
Abstract: The University Calendar app is an attempt to make the Wake Forest University Calendar more accessible to students, faculty, staff, and the Winston-Salem community. The content is accessed through an API, and then displayed in an iPhone friendly user interface. The home screen is designed so that users can filter through the calendar content based on their specific needs. Category and date filters can be applied for this purpose. Detail views for each event make time, date, location,...
Abstract: The Wake Forest Parking mobile application provides all members of the Wake Forest community will real-time data on where they can park on-campus and how available the parking may be. By employing extensive GPS, mapping, and iOS functionality, the Wake Forest parking application provides a much needed service in a very sophisticated way.
Wednesday, April 25, 2012 at 10:00 a.m.Manchester 017
Wednesday, April 25, 2012. 2:00 p.m., Manchester Hall, Room 244
Implementing a Moving Target Environment for Computer Configurations Within the Digital Ant Framework
Quite often computer configurations are only updated manually or with a system update. This means that the security of the system remains static for extended periods of time, giving attackers a chance to use known exploit. This project continues development on a prototype implementation of a moving target model which attempts to provide a diverse set of...
Wednesday, April 25, 2012. 3:30 p.m., Manchester Hall, Room 244
Managing Agent Sampling Probabilities in Irregular Networks
Agent-based security can provide a good distributed solution to issues surrounding large real-world networks. Such networks are often modeled by small-world, scale-free, minimum-distance, or random (SFMR) graphs. If agents randomly wander nodes, then the irregularity found in these types of graphs gives rise to some nodes being visited more often than others. Assuming the system requires agents to uniformly...
Wednesday, April 25, 2012. 8:00 a.m., Manchester Hall, Room 244
Voice Extensible Markup Software to Collect Data from Study Participants over the Telephone
The Department of Family and Community Medicine at Wake Forest School of medicine is conducting a research to understand the potential value of Interactive Voice Response (IVR) technology for conducting daily diary study focused on work-related stressors and safety behavior in the workplace among immigrant Latino residential construction workers. To achieve this...
Monday, April 23, 2012. 5:00 p.m., Manchester Hall, Room 024
Discovering User Intent through Flow-level Statistics and Network Motifs
The general trend towards browser based applications routed through the HTTP protocol has made more traditional network and security strategies less effective. Additionally, the various kinds of browsers used for these applications adds another layer of complexity. New approaches need to be developed to differentiate these new network applications. Many packet-based...
Monday, April 23, 2012. 3:30 p.m., Manchester Hall, Room 024
Identifying Application Level Protocols by Analyzing Communication Patterns over Multiple Ports
Discovering the specific applications running on a computer network is of utmost importance for quality of service and other resource management, network planning, network security, and usage policy enforcement. Unfortunately, the evolution of application protocols has rendered traditional network application methods such as the ubiquitous transport...
Congratulations to Rick Freedman, the recipient of the 2012 Sawyer Prize in Computer Science, our award for Outstanding Undergraduate Student in the senior class. Rick, a double major in CS and Math, is planning to attend graduate school in CS, focusing in AI, and has been involved in a number of research projects during his career. Dr. Turkett presented the award to Rick - an award letter, a monetary prize, and his name being inscribed on a plaque in the department. The award was presented after Rick demonstrated the Roomba robot API he had developed as part of an independent...
Robotics Demo Day. Monday, April 16, 2012. 2:30-4:00pm in Manchester 244.
In honor of National Robotics Week, come check out and play with the iRobot Create Robots owned by the Department of Computer Science!
Senior CS major Rick Freedman and faculty member William Turkett will be on hand to discuss how the iRobot Create Robots can be programmed. This can be done at a low level or through Java.
Performance Analysis of Cyber Deception using Probabilistic Models
Michael B. Crouse, Master’s Thesis Defense
Wednesday, April 11, 2012. 3:30 p.m., Manchester Hall, Room 024
With the recent development of cyber-crime and cyber-warefare, new techniques for thwarting cyber attackers are required. Deception is a defense mechanism that attempts to distort or misled an adversary. Deception is a proved tactic used in traditional warfare with a long history of success; however, it has seen little use within the cyber realm. Furthermore, very little modeling and...
Title: An Ecosystem for Heterogeneous Parallel Computing
CS Colloquium - Thursday, April 5 @ 12:30-1:30pm in Manchester 241
Speaker: Wuchun Feng (Virginia Tech, Departments of Computer Science and Electrical & Computer Engineering)
Abstract: Virginia Tech crashed the supercomputing arena in 2003 with System X, a machine that placed the university among the world’s top computational research facilities. Now comes HokieSpeed, a new supercomputer that is up to 22 times faster and yet a quarter of the size of X, boasting a single-precision peak of 455 teraflops,...
Interested in cyber-security? The Department is hosting a cyber-security seminar next week and you are invited to the following events.
On Tuesday 3/27, from 10:00am until 2:30pm, Wake students will talk about their research projects. Many of these projects will need help in the near future, so if you’re a student and interested in security research then these are great projects to join.
Also, on Tuesday 3/27, from 5:00pm until 6:00pm, Dr. Glenn Fink and Dr. David McKinnon, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) Research Scientists, will give a...
PNNL Seminar. Tuesday, March 27, 2012, 5:00-6:00 pm. Manchester 024
Digital Ants Research and Applications
Dr. David McKinnon, Senior Research Scientist, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and Dr. Glenn Fink, Senior Software R&D Scientist, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Abstract: Increasingly traditional information sciences are unable to keep pace with the volume and velocity of cyber security information. Furthermore the complexity of many systems will necessitate solutions that are more scalable, robust, and flexible than...
Graduate student Tyson Lipscomb and his research with Prof. Sam Cho are profiled on Fox 8 News. They are using graphics processor units (GPUs) that were originally designed for calculating images to instead perform computationally intensive biophysical simulations of molecular machines.
"We're using common, every-day technology that could be used by anyone off the street and repurposing them to perform...
Title: Cognitive Apprenticeship Learning Programming Tutors and Automatic Hint Generation
Abstract: This talk consists of two parts. In the first part, I will describe our approach in addressing learning challenges students experience in introductory programming courses. We combine two effective instructional methodologies to help students learn to plan programs prior to writing code: Cognitive Apprenticeship Learning (CAL) and Cognitive Tutors (CT). In the CAL component, the instructor models program planning in class and paper handouts are used to...
Video games assist biology research
Posted on February 24, 2012 by Madeline Price, Staff writer
What is a graphic processing unit to you? An avid gamer may know that it is the equipment behind realistic graphics on a Playstation or an Xbox. However, that is not all a graphic processing unit (GPU) can be used for. In fact, the university’s own Samuel Cho, assistant professor of physics and computer science, is using GPUs to aid him in research. More -->
William Turkett, assistant professor of computer science, received his bachelor’s degree in computer science from the College of Charleston and his Ph.D. in computer science from the University of South Carolina. An avid sports fan, Turkett has done extensive work on mobile apps for the university. While Turkett is known for his extensive work in computer science, students might not be aware that he also leads the yearly EuroTour. More -->
Anqi Zou (’12) never thought she would thank video gamers for showing her the way to exciting discoveries in molecular biology. But here she is, acknowledging that the technology she uses to show the inner workings of cells was originally perfected to create realistic images on gaming screens worldwide. More »
Computer Science Student Activities Organizational Meeting
Wednesday, February 15th, 5:30 pm, Reynolda Hall 230 (Innovation Station).
Please mark this on you calendars. We have much to talk about and want to get activities moving. We have ideas and are also looking for student feedback, participation, and excitement (we are all about the students, so help us go where you want).
Bring your friends. Bring strangers if they are interested.
Computers are everywhere --- we want to lead the way.
If you know you will be there, please rsvp to Ms. Joan Habib (...
This week's Colloquium speaker is our own Michael Zalimeni.
Title: Mobile Device Security and Research
Abstract: Mobile security is becoming increasingly important as mobile technology becomes more integrated into personal and business life. With new technology and capabilities come new risks, and constant evaluation is needed in order to make consumers and companies aware of the concerns and opportunities associated with different mobile computing platforms. I will give an overview of some of the basic issues surrounding mobile security, as well as two...
TEDxWakeForestU, coming to Wake Forest’s Wait Chapel on February 25th 2012 will be a debut TEDx event for both Wake Forest University and the larger NC Triad region. You’re probably wondering “What is TEDx?! What an odd name! What is all this excitement about? -a man named Ted?” TED is a prestigious conference held annually in Silicon Valley, designed to bring together world-class leaders and experts from all walks of life to share their passion for innovation and cool ideas in medicine, technology, music, social welfare, education, practically all...
A recent paper by Prof. Sam Cho and his collaborators at University of Maryland and Zhejiang University (China) was highlighted by the Journal of the American Chemical Society. In their study, they performed a novel ion-concentration coarse-grained MD simulation of the human telomerase RNA pseudoknot.
"Web Application Development in the Wild" by Mason Matthews (SciMed Solutions) on February 2, 2012
Abstract: Using some examples from his own career path, more from his observations in the industry, and even more which he's stolen from greater thinkers than he, Mason Matthews will be talking about the current state of web application development in industry. What are the current trends? How are different companies doing web app development in different ways? When job hunting, what are companies looking for in you, and what should you be looking for in them...
If you are interested in staying at Wake Forest and doing research this summer, at 5:00 on Monday, Jan. 23rd, URECA will be sponsoring a Summer Fellowship Workshop to introduce students to the funding opportunities available for summer undergraduate research at WFU. The meeting will be held in in the Annenberg Forum in Carswell Hall. Experienced faculty will lead workgroups discussing the purpose of each funding mechanism offered in the summer, as well as provide helpful information on writing a successful proposal and answer any questions you have about the process.
Wednesday, January 18, 2012 - 14:48 - Thursday, January 19, 2012 - 12:30
Manchester 241
The Department will host its first Brown Bag of the semester on Thursday, 1/19. It will be led by Dr. John and Dr. Thomas and will discuss "Accreditation of Computing Programs". As a student, come find out what it means for a departments programs to be accredited and what changes to curriculum are required.
Tuesday, 1/3/2012 was our administrative assistant, Mrs. Rita Johnson's, last day at Wake Forest as she has retired! Mrs. Joan Habib, who currently is in the Sociology Department, will start in Computer Science on 1/9/2012. Please welcome her to the Department!
Congratulations to Bob Plemmons, Reynolds Professor of Computer Science and Mathematics, whose proposal entitled “Comprehensive Space-Object Characterization Using Spectrally Compressive Polarimetric Imaging” has been funded by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) and the University of New Mexico.
Congratulations to Paul Pauca, associate professor of computer science, whose proposal entitled “Analysis of Ultrasound Signal Reconstruction” has been funded by the Boeing Company.
CSC 781 (thesis research course) will meet this Thursday, December 8, from 9:30-10:30am in Manchester 17. Dr. Santago will give a presentation titled "Information from data: What I have done, what I know, what I don’t know, and what I would like to do." Again, the seminar course is an opportunity for you to learn about possible thesis (graduate and undergraduate-honors) and project topics. Note, the seminar series does not require any preliminary work or prerequisite courses. All CS grads and majors are welcome!
CSC 781 (thesis research course) will meet this Thursday, December 1, from 9:30-10:30am in Manchester 17. Fulp will discuss the different options available for completing a master's degree, associated deadlines, and LaTeX (which is better than pizza, just ask Crouse).
Again, the seminar course is an opportunity for you to learn about possible thesis (graduate and undergraduate-honors) and project topics. Note, the seminar series does not require any preliminary work or prerequisite courses. All CS grads and majors are welcome!
This Friday December 2 at 11am, Noel Hunter, the leading developer at Once upon an app, will come talk to us about their work on multi-platform app development for education and the many cool products being developed at this local company, for iPhone, iPad, Smart Tables, etc. This is a great opportunity to talk to an experienced developer. Please mark your calendars and bring a friend! We meet in Manchester 244 from 11am - noon.
The challenges of the modern city are well-known - how to counter urbanization, congestion and pollution and make urban areas more livable by meeting residents’ needs for a safe, clean, healthy urban environment and a high quality of life while investing in sustainable, long-term strategies. If we are to fully address these problems, few people will point to a single solution, and no one will likely look to one that has been around for over 100 years. Yet, the bicycle and the culture that it supports, surprisingly can achieve that. Some cultures have explored the wide-ranging...
CSC 781 (thesis research course) will meet this Thursday, November 17, from 9:30-10:30am in Manchester 17. Prof. Sam Cho will discuss research challenges and opportunities in a presentation titled "Gamers FundamentallyRevolutionize Science; Still Living In Their Parents' Basements"
This research talk will discuss current work on simulations of protein and RNAfolding. Free food will be provided. Really.
Again, the seminar course is an opportunity for you to learn about possible thesis (graduate and undergraduate-honors) and project topics. Note, the seminar series does...
This talk will cover the recent IT industry growth in the Triad, the current types of job opportunities available, and what we might be seeing in the years to come. Denise Hiller, Resource Specialist with ettain group, a technical recruiting and staffing firm, will also provide insight into how the IT recruiting process works. Learn how to prepare a dynamic resume that will land you in front of a hiring manager and how to impress in your interviews.
Although ants are not the most menacing of animals, “digital ants” are a force to be reckoned with in the computer world. Through his work with these “digital ants,” Michael Crouse (’10), who graduated with a major in computer science and a minor in mathematics, was recently named one of the six “Nation’s Top New [Read More]
CSC 781 (thesis research course) will meet today, November 10, from 9:30-10:30am in Manchester 17. Dr. Natarajan will discuss research challenges and opportunities in a presentation titled "Practical Machine Learning".
Again, the seminar course is an opportunity for you to learn about possible thesis (graduate and undergraduate-honors) and project topics. Note, the seminar series does not require any preliminary work or prerequisite courses. All CS grads and majors are welcome!
The ACM programming contest regionals were Saturday, and our Wake Forest teams did well, and more importantly enjoyed the experience. There were over 160 teams competing in our region, with rankings determined by number of problems solved and time taken. There were 27 teams competing at our site (Duke), with two of our teams coming in 11th and 12th place.
The EuroTour version of CSC 101 will offer each student the chance to use the European setting and the student's role as an independent traveler as a framework in which to enhance their learning of the core concepts and skills behind advanced computer and technology use. The primary focuses of the class will be to understand the rich history of Europe in the development of Computer Science, to examine the differences in Europe and US attitudes, laws, and policies on social, legal, and ethical technical issues, to examine the role of mobile computing in Europe and the US, and to...
Congratulations to Errin Fulp, associate professor of Computer Science, whose proposal entitled “Modeling Mobile Agent Populations and Movement for CEDS” has been funded by the U.S. Department of Energy and the Battelle Memorial Institute.
The field of Decision Theoretic Planning (DTP) has been highly successful in providing solutions for problems of planning under uncertainty. This success is largely due to the ability of DTP algorithms to exploit structure and regularities in planning domains. Markov decision process (MDP) have provided the conceptual framework for these algorithms. However, the combinatorial nature of the state spaces often makes the use of classical dynamic programming solutions for MDPs, infeasible. This talk will summarize some of the landmark developments in DTP. Particular focus will be on...
Who should attend? Computer Science majors, minors, graduate students, and all students interested in computer science, computer science with business, computational biology, biomedical informatics, network security, digital media, machine learning, mobile apps, socially relevant computing, and more.
When and where? Office of Personal and Career Development, Room 230 Reynolda Hall. Thursday, November 10th, 5:00-6:30pm
Winston-Salem, NC -- A graduate student at Wake Forest University has gained national recognition.
Inventors Digest named Michael Crouse one of the nation's top new inventors.
The 23-year-old from Lexington received his undergraduate degree from Wake Forest in 2010 and is currently completing his Masters Degree in Computer Science. Continue Reading and watch the coverage ....
This talk is intended to introduce students to the possibilities for graduate-level education in Computer Science. Topics to be covered, and tailored to the field of CS, will include: benefits of going to graduate school, an explanation of graduate school options (Masters, PhD) , the graduate school application process, and the how-to's of financing graduate school. Open to everyone, and particularly suitable for current juniors, seniors, and graduate students. Dr. Turkett's presentation.
CSC 781 (thesis research course) will meet this Thursday, October 20, from 9:30-10:30am in Manchester 17. Dr. Miller will discuss research challenges and opportunities in a presentation titled "Projects! Projects! Get your fresh hot projects here!"
The WFU DEAC Cluster is a 200+ node Linux HPC cluster. We support several computational research groups on the Reynolda and Medical School campuses. While it may seem like these systems just run themselves and (of course) right out of the box, operationally they take several pieces of software to hold it all together. In addition,...
Apps and more Apps - Protection and Commercialization of Intellectual Property at Wake Forest University
Verbal Victor was the first of many apps that we expect to be developed by students in the Computer Science Department and commercialized through the Office of Technology Asset Management. The history of that project will be discussed as a framework for future app-related innovations. This seminar is designed to provide...
Brown Bag Seminar in Manchester 241: Nick Venditti (Wake Forest Alum; Ernst and Young)
About the talk: Alternative career paths for CS majors and minors, especially those interested in business. Specifically Mr. Venditti will be talking about experiences meshing IT and business skills as well as experiences and opportunities at Ernst & Young. EY recently formed an Enterprise Intelligence practice composed of Enterprise Performance Management, Business Intelligence, Information Strategy & Management, and Risk & Performance Analytics. It's a high-growth practice...
CSC 781 (thesis research course) will meet this Thursday, October 6,from 9:30-10:30am in Manchester 17. Dr. John will discuss research challenges and opportunities in a presentation titled "Application ofMetropolis Hastings Algorithm in Computational Biology"
For the past decade computational methods have been developed for thecreation of protein (gene) interaction models based on sparse and variable experimental measurements. These computational methods have the potential to provide scientists valuable insights that could be used to direct their research. As...
CSC 781 (thesis research course) will meet this Thursday, September 29, from 9:30-10:30am in Manchester 17. Fulp will discuss research challenges and opportunities in a presentation titled "Dnetta Siht Klat Ro Ruoy Retupmoc Lliw Eb Dekcah (tsuj ksa Evad, ro sih Retupmoc)"
This research talk will discuss current work in the department in the areas of computer and network security. Currently this research is largely bio-inspired, using swarm intelligence and evolutionary computing techniques to better address security issues, we hope...
Again, the seminar course is an...
Wake Forest University has been named a CUDA Teaching Center by NVIDIA Corporation. Dr. Sam Cho, assistant professor of the Computer Science and Physics departments, will coordinate the Teaching Center activities, which include teaching, research, and training.
CUDA is NVIDIA’s parallel computing architecture that enables dramatic increases in computing performance by harnessing the power of the graphics processing unit (GPU). CUDA Teaching Centers have integrated GPU computing techniques into their mainstream computer programming curriculum, and are dedicated to training the...
Student: Rachel Black
Advisor: Daniel A. Cañas
Title: Cardio View: Equipment use in Miller Center
Abstract: As the population of students at our campus grows with each year the facilities that students use on a daily basis are starting to feel overcrowded. Our campus gym, the Miller Center, is no exception especially during certain hours of the day. In an attempt to lighten the frustration of students, the Cardio View iPhone application was developed. This application models a currently popular website, Laundry View, which gives students the ability to view the status of...
Student: Michael Moore
Advisor: Daniel A. Cañas
Title: iOS + LaundryView API: an iPhone App
Abstract: Many companies are turning to the mobile market in order to increase their appeal and ease of access; the key factor in the formation of WFU LaundryView. This iPhone application development project implements the LaundryView API in the iOS environment to retrieve the XML laundry room data and present the current state of the laundry rooms on the iPhone.
Student: Stewart Warther
Advisor: Daniel A. Cañas
Title: Foreign Exchange Markets: An Algorithmic Approach to Intra-Day Scalping Strategies
Abstract: The global Foreign Exchange market accounts for approximately $4 trillion in transactions daily. In recent years, this market has become dominated by high-frequency and algorithmic traders who profit from intra-day transactions and short-term price fluctuations. This paper will examine topics and strategies employed by modern currency traders, focusing particularly on the use of Statistical Arbitrage. These...
‘Star Wars’ stardom
The force was with computer junkies Chad (’02) and Casey (’06) Pugh, who turned a classic film into an Emmy-winning Webcast. More »
Dr. Paul Pauca was recently awarded the 2010-2011 Excellence in Entrepreneurship Award for Program Development by The Wake Forest University Center for Innovation, Creativity & Entrepreneurship and The Entrepreneurship Society.
Not surprisingly many student ventures focus on computers and digital media...things like I-phone apps and Droid apps. We were delighted when a faculty member in the Computer Science Department came forward with a program to help students develop those applications. As a component of the program this...
Micheal J. Forkin, Master’s Thesis Defense, Ocular Biometrics: Human Recognition in Challenging Conditions
The iris is the most reliable human biometric known to date. The iris texture has been shown to be effectively unique under ideal imaging conditions. However, as imaging constraints are relaxed, the iris becomes increasingly difficult to image, dramatically decreasing its usability as an accurate biometric. Ocular recognition has been recently proposed as a way to complement iris recognition in less constrained imaging conditions. Ocular recognition...
Rachel A. Black, Senior Honors Thesis Defense, Cardio View: Equipment Use in Miller Center
Cardio View is an iPhone app designed for students to be able to view the status of the cardio equipment in the Miller Center, similar to the Laundry- View system currently employed on campus. We use motion and vibration sensors on the equipment. The sensors broadcast their data over radio frequency to our server located in the Miller Center. The app displays a map layout of the Miller Center with the associated information for each individual machine such as status...
The Tx Project is the culmination of a few years work learning, tinkering and engineering. The end product is a portable device that allows end users to make use of the wide plethora of USB HID devices for realistic telepresence. The talk will focus on the various components that were necessary to create this device and the engineering / programming obstacles that were overcome. A live demonstration will be available after the talk. Come and drive a remote control car, complete with steering wheel, pedals, and head tracking virtual reality headset.
We are inviting all students interested in mobile application development to join the Computer Science Department's App Development Research Group.
Objective: The objective of this group is to provide a forum where knowledge regarding iOS and Android application development can be shared. We are also interested in related research areas such technology for education, imaging, machine learning, and human computer interaction. This is a good opportunity for undergraduate research and honors projects as well as for MS Theses or Projects. If you are interested please send an...
BK Shepard received his BS degree in Computer Science from West Virginia University and his MBA from Waynesburg College. Prior to joining B/E Aerospace in 2010, BK was the CIO for Endicott Interconnect Technologies (EI) in Endicott, New York. EI is the former microelectronic division of IBM. They supply advanced electronic packaging solutions including printed circuit board fabrication, semi- conductor packaging and assembly services for both commercial and government agencies. BK has also served as the VP of Global Technical Services for Mylan Inc., the third...
The City of Winston-Salem is taking a leading role in the development of mobile applications (both Android and Apple) for support of services such as water service, construction and maintenance, administration, and public access safety. Come and listen to real-life project coordinators and developers talk about theirs efforts and work to make Winston-Salem a better place.
2010-2011 Gentry Lectures Presenting Dr. Ravi Vakil, Stanford University.
Tuesday, April 5, 2011. Carswell Hall, Annenberg Forum, Room 111, at 4:30pm"Murphy's Law in Geometry"When mathematicians consider their favorite kind of object, the set of such objects often has a richer structure than just a set --- often some sort of geometric structure. For example, it may make sense to say that one object is "close to" another. As another example, solutions to equations (or differential equations) may form manifolds. These "moduli spaces" often are hoped to behave well (...
2010-2011 Gentry Lectures Presenting Dr. Ravi Vakil, Stanford University. Monday, April 4, 2011. Carswell Hall, Annenberg Forum, Room 111, at 4:30pm.General Audience Talk:"The Mathematics of Doodling".
Doodling has many mathematical aspects: patterns, shapes, numbers, and more. Not surprisingly, there is often some sophisticated and fun mathematics buried inside common doodles. I will begin by doodling, And see where it takes us. This talk will assume nothing, and is intended to be suitable for everyone from sophisticated high school students to...
You and a Valentine's Day friend are invited to an evening of dessert, Jeopardy and frivolity on Monday, February 14, 2011, 7-8:30pm. We will be gathering in glamorous Manchester 016. A door prize will be awarded during the evening. IBM Watson will be playing two human Jeopardy champions starting at 7:30pm.http://www-03.ibm.com/innovation/us/watson/what-is-watson/index.html
CS Professor and students create App: To help his son, Victor, and others with disabilities, professor Paul Pauca and some of his students created an application for the iPhone and iPad that turns their touch screens into communications tools. [ More from the WS Journal ]
Statistical Relational Learning (SRL) Models combine the powerful formalisms of probability theory and first-order logic to handle uncertainty in large, complex problems. While they provide a very effective learning paradigm due to their succinctness and parameter sharing, tractable inference is a significant problem in these models. Earlier approaches focused on grounding the model to a propositional network to use existing inference algorithms. Other popular techniques include sampling and lifted inference, with a lot of interest in the latter recently.
Business Intelligence (BI) is a term used to explain the vast amount of background and on-going work performed by the business community in order to initiate, sustain and lead in their businesses. With the advent of computers, the Internet and other technologies, the process of seeking, sourcing, managing and exploiting business intelligence has changed by leaps and bounds. In this seminar, I shall explore the concept of business intelligence of various types, their application to various fields, domains and disciplines, and the impact of technology of various...
CS Professor and students create App: To help his son, Victor, and others with disabilities, professor Paul Pauca and some of his students created an application for the iPhone and iPad that turns their touch screens into communications tools. [ More from the WS Journal ]
The search for disease-predisposing genetic variants is among the fastest evolving and productive areas of medical science. In collaboration with scientists from Wake Forest University and from around the world, we have been fortunate to play leading roles in identifying genetic variation that predisposes to hypertensive end-stage renal disease (Science 2010; 329(5993):841-5), cystic fibrosis (Nature 2009; 458(7241):1039-42), lupus (Nat Genet 2008; 40(2):204-10) and others. We have developed novel analytic methods using classical likelihood-based approaches and machine learning...
Dr. Scott McElfresh, Visiting Assistant Professor, has been awarded a 2010-11 ACE Fellowship (Academic and Community Engagement). As part of this fellowship, he will be engaged in developing curriculum components for community engagement.
Dr. Glenn Fink will present a portfolio of cyber security research being conducted at PNNL. The talk will be an introduction to the pressing cyber security needs of the U. S. Department of Energy and how PNNL’s cyber security research is helping to address them. Dr. Fink will also talk about ways to become involved in this exciting field of basic and applied computer science research.
Dr. Fink has been a Senior Research Scientist at PNNL in Richland, Washington, since 2006. He specializes in computer security, visualization, and human-centric computing, centering...
Our nation's electric grid and oil and gas pipelines have worked reliably for decades; however, as we go forward these critical infrastructures are being increasingly exposed to cyber security vulnerabilities. This presentation will overview a bio-inspired cyber security technology that will enhance cyber security in the nation's energy sector. Digital Ants technology, which was created by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and its research partners, is based on metaphors from social insect species and has previously been shown to be an effective, lightweight...
Open Cobalt Alpha is the first step in a long term project to make available to all people a free and open source platform for constructing, accessing, and sharing virtual workspaces for research and education. This 3D multimedia wiki technology makes it easy to create deeply collaborative and hyperlinked multi-user virtual workspaces, virtual exhibit spaces, and game-based learning and raining environments that run on all major software operating systems.
By using a peer-based messaging protocol to reduce reliance on server...
Errin W. Fulp, associate professor of computer science, has received funding from the U.S. Department of Energy and the Battelle Memorial Institute for his proposal "Information and Infrastructure Integrity Initiative Research Collaboration at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory."
Two undergraduate computer science majors, Swayze Smartt and Rachel Black, have been awarded Wake Forest Research Fellowships for this summer. Rachel will be working on a project which focuses on variation in biological modeling algorithms. Swayze will investigate Wii remote-based virtual reality environments to enhance physical and occupational therapy on children with disabilities. Their mentors are Professors John and Pauca, respectively.
Department of Computer Science Wake Forest University, 233 Manchester Hall, Box 7311 Winston-Salem, NC 27109 Phone:336.758.4982 Fax:336.758.4106 Campus Map -- All extensions 336.758.x
Tim Persons investigates weapons systems, homeland security and more
Each summer the Executive Council of Upsilon Pi Epsilon (UPE), the international honor society of the computing sciences, evaluates a number of outstanding scholarship applicants at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. All scholarship applicants must be members of UPE. All are required to complete a comprehensive application form, which requires each applicant to attach all college-level...
Dr. Paul Pauca, co-developer of Verbal Victor, is one of the 20 National Hispanic-American Innovators on NBC Latino!! The NBC Latino Innovators series features 20 Hispanic-Americans pioneering change in the country and in the community. 
Wake Forest computer science professors and students teach middle school teachers how to add computer science to almost any class. 
l thinking workshop for teachers at Hanes Middle School. The workshop was generously supported by Google, Wake Forest University Depts. of Computer Science and Physics, The Center of Excellence for Research, Teaching, and Learning at Wake Forest School of Medicine, and Cengage Learning.
The Computer Science Department cordially invites you and your guests to our Graduation Reception Sunday, May 20th at 4:15 p.m. Manchester Hall, 2nd floor Lobby Area.
Robotics Demo Day. Monday, April 16, 2012. 2:30-4:00pm in Manchester 244.
Graduate Student Tyson Lipscomb in the News
The ACM programming contest regionals were Saturday, and our Wake Forest teams did well, and more importantly enjoyed the experience. There were over 160 teams competing in our region, with rankings determined by number of problems solved and time taken. There were 27 teams competing at our site (Duke), with two of our teams coming in 11th and 12th place.
Congratulations to Errin Fulp, associate professor of Computer Science, whose proposal entitled “Modeling Mobile Agent Populations and Movement for CEDS” has been funded by the U.S. Department of Energy and the Battelle Memorial Institute.