News

For events in the Department of Computer Science, click here.

Spring 2008 Newsletter Now Available
The Spring 2008 edition of the department newsletter has been published. A PDF version is available for download. (Posted 8/14/08)

Department Gains Space in One Park Tower
The Department of Computer Science recently acquired seven rooms on the 21st floor of the One Park Tower building at 34 Peachtree Street. (The main offices of the department are on the 14th floor.) One of the rooms will be a teaching lab, one will be a research lab, and five will be used as offices.
     The teaching lab, which is approximately 500 square feet, will have 20 student workstations, purchased with funds from the Dean of Arts and Sciences. The lab will be available for use by any faculty member in the department, although it is expected to be used primarily for courses in networks and security taught by Dr. Raheem Beyah, Dr. Anu Bourgeois, Dr. Xiaojun (Matt) Cao, Dr. Robert Harrison, and Dr. Yingshu Li. The 200-square-foot research lab will be used by Dr. Cao for his work in computer networking.
     Three of the offices will house the department's lecturers, two of whom will move from their current offices in the 10 Park Place building. The remaining offices will provide space for Ph.D. students studying with Dr. Sushil Prasad and Dr. Yan-Qing Zhang.
     The teaching lab should be completed in time for fall classes. The other six rooms are ready for occupancy. (Posted 7/30/08)

Weeks Visits Côte d'Ivoire
In January, Dr. Michael Weeks was one of five GSU representatives to visit the International University of Grand-Bassam (IUGB) in the West African nation of Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast). IUGB is located on the island of Grand-Bassam, a short drive from the country's largest city, Abidjan.
     IUGB is currently setting up a four-year American-style educational program, with content delivery in English. (French is the official language of Côte d'Ivoire.) GSU and IUGB established an official partnership last year and plan to set up a student exchange in the near future. Currently, students from IUGB transfer to GSU for their final two years of study. Some IUGB students are already enrolled at GSU, with thirteen more arriving this fall.
     The trip was organized by the Office of International Affairs under the leadership of John Hicks. Photos taken during the trip are available here. (Posted 7/30/08)

Pan Named to Editorial Board of IEEE/ACM TCBB
Dr. Yi Pan was recently chosen to serve as an associate editor of IEEE/ACM Transactions on Computational Biology and Bioinformatics. IEEE/ACM TCBB is a quarterly journal that publishes research related to algorithmic, mathematical, statistical, and computational methods in bioinformatics and computational biology; the development and testing of software for bioinformatics; the development and optimization of biological databases; and important biological results obtained by using these methods, software, and databases. IEEE/ACM TCBB began publication in 2004 with support from several IEEE societies and the Association for Computing Machinery; it is now regarded as one of the top journals in the field of bioinformatics. (Posted 7/24/08)

Ph.D. Student Receives Travel Grant
Ph.D. student Zejin (Jason) Ding has been awarded a $400 travel grant from the 2008 IEEE Symposium on Computational Intelligence in Bioinformatics and Computational Biology (CIBCB 2008). Grants were awarded to four students who will be presenting papers at the conference; Mr. Ding was the only student at a U.S. college to win one. CIBCB 2008 will focus on the latest advances in computational-intelligence-based methods for bioinformatics, computational biology, and bioengineering problems. The conference will be held at the Sun Valley Resort in Sun Valley, Idaho, on September 15–17. Mr. Ding's Ph.D. advisor is Dr. Yan-Qing Zhang. (Posted 7/16/08)

Department Hosts International Bioinformatics Symposium
In May, the Department of Computer Science hosted the Fourth International Symposium on Bioinformatics Research and Applications (ISBRA 2008), drawing researchers, developers, and practitioners working on all aspects of bioinformatics and computational biology and their applications. Attendees came from 11 countries and 20 U.S. states. A group photograph (high-resolution version) is available showing some of the participants.
     The symposium featured 35 papers (selected by the program committee from 94 submissions) and 24 posters. Six distinguished scientists were invited to give keynote addresses: Dr. Andrew Scott Allen (Duke University), Dr. Kenneth Buetow (National Cancer Institute), Dr. Andrey Gorin (Oak Ridge National Laboratory), Dr. Yury Khudyakov (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), Dr. Dan Nicolae (University of Chicago), and Dr. Kwok Tsui (Georgia Tech). Tutorials were presented by Dr. Giri Narasimhan (Florida International University) and Dr. Sanguthevar Rajasekaran (University of Connecticut).
     The proceedings of ISBRA 2008 were published as volume 4983 of the Springer Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics series, and it is anticipated that a special issue of a major bioinformatics journal will be devoted to expanded versions of the best symposium papers.
     The following awards were presented at the conference banquet:

     The general chairs of ISBRA 2008 were Dr. Dan Gusfield (University of California, Davis) and  Dr. Yi Pan. The program chairs were Dr. Ion Mandoiu (University of Connecticut), Dr. Raj Sunderraman, and Dr. Alex Zelikovsky. Dr. Robert Harrison and Dr. Yan-Qing Zhang were the organizing chairs, Dr. Anu Bourgeois was the finance chair, and Dr. Dumitru Brinza (University of California, San Diego) and Dr. Yingshu Li were publicity chairs. Ph.D. students Gulsah Altun and Stefan Gremalschi served as poster chairs.
     ISBRA 2008 was sponsored by the Department of Computer Science, the Biomedical Computational Center, and the Molecular Basis of Disease Program. (Posted 6/26/08)

Ph.D. Student Wins Awards
Ph.D. student Navin Viswanath recently won awards from two conferences. His paper on "Handling Disjunctions in Open World Relational Databases" was named one of the six best student papers at the Annual Conference of the North American Fuzzy Information Processing Society (NAFIPS 2008), winning a cash prize of $100. The paper, which was co-authored by his Ph.D. advisor, Dr. Raj Sunderraman, was presented at a special session. The conference was held in New York City on May 19–22.
     Mr. Viswanath also won a grant from the European Society for Fuzzy Logic and Technology (EUSFLAT) for his paper entitled "Defaults in Open World Relational Databases," which was also co-authored by Dr. Sunderraman. The paper has been accepted at the 12th International Conference on Information Processing and Management of Uncertainty in Knowledge-Based Systems (IPMU 2008), to be held in Malaga, Spain on June 22–27. The grant was for 250 euros, the amount of the conference registration fee. Grants were awarded to five student members of EUSFLAT who co-authored a paper accepted by the conference. (Posted 6/19/08)

Department Awards Two Ph.D. Degrees in May
The Department of Computer Science awarded two Ph.D. degrees in May. The recipients of the degrees were:

(Posted 6/19/08)

Owen Reelected SIGGRAPH President
Dr. Scott Owen was recently reelected to a second three-year term as president of ACM SIGGRAPH. His second term will begin on July 1, 2008, and end on June 30, 2011. SIGGRAPH (Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics), which has over 8,000 members, is the world's leading organization for researchers, artists, developers, filmmakers, scientists, and other professionals who share an interest in computer graphics and interactive techniques. It is best known for the annual SIGGRAPH conference, which last year was attended by over 24,000 people. SIGGRAPH's parent organization is the Association for Computing Machinery, the world’s first and largest computing society. (Posted 6/12/08)

Belkasim Awarded RPG Grant
Dr. Saeid Belkasim has been awarded an internal grant for $25,000 from Georgia State's Retention, Progression, and Graduation (RPG) program. The RPG program is funded by the University System of Georgia as part of an effort to improve rates of undergraduate student retention, progression toward a degree, and graduation.
     For the past three years, the Provost's office has solicited faculty proposals for innovative projects that will raise RPG rates. Each year, approximately a dozen departments receive funding. Dr. Belkasim's RPG proposal is the first from the Department of Computer Science to be funded. Proposals were evaluated by a committee of faculty members serving in the University Senate, with the final decision made by the Provost.
     Dr. Belkasim's proposal was titled "Match Our Needs At Learning Interactively: Stepwise Approach (MONALISA)." The project, which will be done in collaboration with Dr. Raj Sunderraman, involves implementing an interactive online educational system for the department's CSc 1010 and 2010 courses. This system will match student needs with a dynamically expanding resource library, using an interactive expert-system database that compares a student's background with the level of a posed question before providing an answer. The system can also be used as a student advisement tool by creating a study plan that helps students gradually improve their level of knowledge. (Posted 6/12/08)

Pan Book Is Best-Seller
A book co-authored by Dr. Yi Pan was on the March Bestsellers list at the World Scientific Publishing Company web site. The book, Trust and Security in Collaborative Computing, discusses the latest efforts to develop a trusted environment with the high security and reliability needed for collaborative computing. Topics covered in the book include secure group communication, access control, dependability, grid computing, key management, intrusion detection, and trace back. The book also describes a project for developing a nationwide medical information system with high dependability and security.
     Trust and Security in Collaborative Computing (ISBN-10: 9812703683) is a 248-page hardcover book aimed at graduate students, academics, and researchers. The book, which is co-authored by Xukai Zou (Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis) and Yuan-Shun Dai (University of Tennessee), was published earlier this year. Copies are available at Amazon.com.
     Dr. Pan is the author or editor of 34 books, including four published in 2008 and four in 2007. (Posted 6/6/08)

King Updates C Programming Book
The second edition of C Programming: A Modern Approach, written by Dr. K. N. King, was published in April. The first edition, published in 1996, was used at over 225 colleges, making it one of the leading C textbooks of the last ten years. The new edition features complete coverage of both the C89 standard and the C99 standard, with a quick reference to all C89 and C99 library functions provided as an appendix. Other highlights include expanded coverage of GCC, new coverage of abstract data types, and expanded coverage of international features. The new edition provides 60% more exercises and programming projects, with solutions to one-third available at the book's web site. Instructors have access to a password-protected instructor resource site containing solutions to the remaining exercises and projects as well as PowerPoint presentations for most chapters.
     Published by W. W. Norton, C Programming: A Modern Approach (ISBN-10: 0393979504) is an 832-page paperback book. It is now available at major Internet bookstores, including Amazon.com. Dr. King also the author of Java Programming: From the Beginning and Modula-2: A Complete Guide. (Posted 5/27/08)

Internal Grants Awarded to Computer Science Faculty
Three Computer Science faculty members were among 52 Georgia State professors who recently won internal grants from the university. The awards were competitive, with applications reviewed by an Internal Grant Peer Review Committee consisting of 24 senior faculty members. Two CS faculty members received Research Initiation Grants, which promote the scholarly and artistic activity of the faculty and foster academic excellence within the university:

Another faculty member was a co-recipient of a Research Team Award, which provides funding for an interdisciplinary research team to prepare a competitive proposal for external research funding:

(Posted 5/19/08)

Pan Gives Keynote Talk at PDSEC-08
Dr. Yi Pan delivered the keynote talk at the 9th IEEE International Workshop on Parallel and Distributed Scientific and Engineering Computing (PDSEC-08), which was held in Miami on April 18. The title of his talk was "Scientific Computing on Public Computing Platforms – Practices and Experiences." The purpose of the workshop was to bring together computer scientists, applied mathematicians, and other researchers to discuss using parallel and distributed computing to solve problems in science and engineering. PDSEC-08 was held in conjunction with the 22nd IEEE International Parallel and Distributed Processing Symposium (IPDPS 2008). (Posted 5/15/08)

Ph.D. Student Wins N^2 Women Student Fellowship
Ph.D. student Chunyu Ai has been awarded an N^2 Women Student Fellowship, which partially covers a student's travel cost to a meeting where an N^2 Women event will be held. In exchange, the student must help organize the N^2 Women meeting. Ms. Ai is one of only seven students to win the N^2 Women Student Fellowship this year. She will use her award to help pay for the cost of attending the 28th International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems (ICDCS 2008), which will be held in Beijing on June 17–20.
     The fellowship was awarded by Networking Networking Women (N^2 Women), an organization for women who work as researchers in the fields of communications and computer networking. N^2 Women is supported by ACM's Special Interest Group on Mobility of Systems, Users, Data, and Computing (SIGMOBILE) and by the IEEE Communications Society.
     Ms. Ai's Ph.D. advisor is Dr. Yingshu Li. Support for N^2 Women Student Fellowship awards is provided by Microsoft Research. (Posted 5/15/08)

Pan Interview Published in Ubiquity
An interview with Dr. Yi Pan, the chair of the Department of Computer Science, was published in Volume 9, Issue 11 of Ubiquity, a web-based publication of the Association for Computing Machinery. The editor's introduction to the interview notes that "Ubiquity is proud to publish the inspirational remarks of Yi Pan ... Besides talking about computing, he talks about what it takes to have a happy, productive, worthwhile and successful life." Ubiquity combines the features of a well-edited magazine of opinion and a town hall forum, offering essays by IT leaders and interactive feedback from site visitors. (Posted 4/21/08)

Computer Science Students Receive Awards at Honors Day
The following computer science students were presented with departmental awards at the annual Arts and Sciences Honors Day ceremony:

Outstanding Senior Award

Outstanding Graduate Research Award

Outstanding Teaching by a Graduate Student Award

The ceremony was held on April 14 at Georgia State's Rialto Center for the Arts. (Posted 4/16/08)

Beyah Gives Distinguished Lecture at UCF
Dr. Raheem Beyah gave a talk at the University of Central Florida on March 20 as part of the Distinguished EECS Seminar Series. The talk, which was sponsored by UCF's School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, was titled "Authentic Delay Bounded Event Detection in Heterogeneous Wireless Sensor Networks." (Posted 4/16/08)

Owen Nominated for ACM Council Position
Professor Emeritus G. Scott Owen has been nominated for a two-year position as a SIG Governing Board Council Representative to the ACM Council. The ACM Council is the volunteer governing body for ACM, the leading organization for computing professionals. Dr. Owen is the president of ACM SIGGRAPH. (Posted 4/9/08)

Beyah Receives Cisco Grant
Dr. Raheem Beyah was awarded a grant for $11,500 through a subcontract with the Georgia Institute of Technology. Funding for the grant comes from Cisco's Service Provider Video Technology Group (formerly Scientific Atlanta). The grant will be used to study error characteristics of video streams over different MAC and physical layers. (Posted 4/9/08)

Zelikovsky Is Co-Editor of Bioinformatics Book
Dr. Alex Zelikovsky is a co-editor of the recently published book Bioinformatics Algorithms: Techniques and Applications (ISBN 978-0-470-09773-1), along with Dr. Ion Mandoiu of the University of Connecticut. The book, which is part of the Wiley Series in Bioinformatics, introduces algorithmic techniques in bioinformatics, emphasizing their application to solving novel problems in post-genomic molecular biology. Topics include general algorithmic techniques, genome and sequence analysis, microarray design and data analysis, analysis of genetic variation across human population, and structural and systems biology. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Bioinformatics Algorithms: Techniques and Applications is a 500-page hardcover book. The list price is $125; Amazon.com sells the book for $110. (Posted 4/3/08)

Ph.D. Student Awarded Travel Grant
Ph.D. student Chunyu Ai has been awarded a travel grant to attend the 28th International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems (ICDCS 2008). At the conference, she will present the paper "Data Estimation in Sensor Networks Using Physical and Statistical Methodologies," which is co-authored with Dr. Yingshu Li (her Ph.D. advisor), Wiwek Deshmukh, and Yiwei Wu. Of the 638 papers submitted to the conference, only 102 were accepted (an acceptance rate of less than 16%).
     ICDCS 2008 provides a forum for engineers and scientists in academia, industry, and government to present their latest research in all areas of distributed and parallel computing. The conference, which is sponsored by the IEEE Computer Society, will be held in Beijing on June 17–20. (Posted 3/26/08)

Beyah Joins Editorial Board
Dr. Raheem Beyah has joined the editorial board of Wireless Communications and Mobile Computing, a journal published by John Wiley & Sons. Wireless Communications and Mobile Computing is aimed at academics and researchers in the telecommunications and networking industries. The journal publishes papers related to the convergence of wireless communications and mobile computing, two areas of immense growth and innovation. (Posted 3/26/08)

Prasad Gives Invited Talk at ICDCN
Dr. Sushil Prasad gave an invited talk at the 9th International Conference on Distributed Computing and Networking (ICDCN 2008), held in Kolkata, India, on January 5–8. The conference, which is organized by Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Jadavpur University, is a leading forum for disseminating the latest research results in distributed computing and networks. Dr. Prasad is the chair of the IEEE Computer Society Technical Committee on Parallel Processing. (Posted 2/29/08)

Prasad Presents Keynote Address at MUBICA
Dr. Sushil Prasad presented the keynote address at the First International Workshop on Mobile and Ubiquitous Context Aware Systems and Applications (MUBICA 2007). The title of the address was "SyD: A Middleware for Collaborative Applications over Heterogeneous Mobile Devices and for Distributed Scientific Workflows over Web Services." MUBICA 2007 was held on August 6, 2007 in Philadelphia in conjunction with the 4th Annual International Conference on Mobile and Ubiquitous Systems: Computing, Networking and Services (MOBIQUITOUS 2007). The MUBICA workshop focused on the continuous connectivity of devices used by today’s geographically mobile workforce. (Posted 2/29/08)

Fall 2007 Newsletter Now Available
The Fall 2007 edition of the department newsletter has been published. A PDF version is available for download. (Posted 2/4/08)

Hu Featured in Georgia State Magazine
Dr. Xiaolin Hu is featured in the Winter 2007 issue of Georgia State Magazine. An article on page 13, titled "Sound the Alarm: Fighting Wildfires with Keystrokes," discusses software named DEVS-FIRE that Dr. Hu is helping to develop. According to the article, DEVS-FIRE will allow firefighters "to compute the optimal use of manpower, equipment, and funds for suppressing a wildfire." The project was inspired by a 2003 wildfire that Dr. Hu witnessed as a graduate student at the University of Arizona. The National Science Foundation provided a $120,000 grant to fund the project. Dr. Hu is the principal investigator for the grant; the work is being done in collaboration with Lewis Ntaimo of Texas A&M and James Nutaro of Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Georgia State Magazine is a quarterly publication distributed to more than 120,000 alumni, donors, and other friends of the university. (Posted 2/4/08)

Strong Growth in Math and Computer Jobs Expected
According to the Computing Research Association, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics is predicting a strong job market for math and computer science majors over the next decade. BLS projections show that the number of math and computer science jobs will grow by nearly 25% from 2006 to 2016, outstripping growth in other "professional and related occupations." The number of new jobs created, 822,000, is expected to be exceeded only by the number in healthcare and education. (Posted 2/4/08)

Major Matters Workshop to Be Held on February 19
The Department of Computer Science encourages all undergraduate majors to attend the Major Matters Workshop for Natural and Computational Sciences on Tuesday, February 19, in the Court Salon of the Student Center. Students are invited to drop in between 11:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. to meet with faculty and pick up new departmental maps that illustrat
e milestones throughout the major. Pizza and other light refreshments will be served. (Posted 1/16/08)

Department Awards Five Ph.D. Degrees in December
The Department of Computer Science awarded five Ph.D. degrees in December 2007. The recipients of the degrees were:

(Posted 1/16/08)

Weeks Co-Authors Book on MATLAB and Simulink
Dr. Michael Weeks is the co-author of the recently published book Introduction to MATLAB & Simulink: A Project Approach, Third Edition (ISBN 978-1-934015-04-9). The book covers both MATLAB (a numerical computing environment and programming language) and Simulink (a tool for modeling, simulating, and analyzing multidomain dynamic systems). It includes 20 projects and over 80 exercises, and comes with a CD-ROM containing MATLAB examples, source code, third-party simulations, and projects. The book, which is 386 pages long, is available from Amazon.com for $44.07.
     Dr. Weeks is also the author of Digital Signal Processing Using MATLAB and Wavelets, which was published in 2006. Both books are published by Infinity Science Press. (Posted 1/14/08)

Want more news?
Visit the News & Events Archives for
2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, and 2007.