Bioinformatics and Computational Biology Laboratory

421 Smith Hall, Professor Li Liao.

205 Delaware Biotechnology Institute, Professor Cathy Wu and research team: Professors Cecilia Arighi, Chuming Chen, Hongzhan Huang, Mihailo Kaplarevic, and Natalia Petrova.

Bioinformatics and Computational Biology is an emerging field where biological and computational disciplines converge.

Dr. Liao's lab is developing algorithms and models that offer computational solutions to important biological problems, which include: annotating biochemical functions for proteins, predicting structure of transmembrane proteins, identifying elements that regulate gene expression, and predicting protein-protein interactions. One of the projects in the lab, funded by an NSF grant, is to develop assembly algorithms for de novo genome sequencing using two next-generation sequencing technologies which have been said to revolutionize genomic research - decoding a human being's genome at cost less than $1000.

Dr. Wu's team conducts research encompassing protein structure-function-network analysis, biological text mining, biological ontology, computational systems biology, and bioinformatics cyberinfrastructure. The Protein Information Resource (PIR, http://ProteinInformationResource.org) directed by Dr. Wu provides integrated databases and bioinformatics tools to support genomics, proteomics and systems biology research and is accessible by researchers worldwide with 4 million+ web hits/month from 100,000+ unique sites. Her team is developing a research infrastructure for integrating, mining, analyzing, visualizing and modeling high-throughput biological data in the systems biology context to help basic understanding of biology and facilitate drug discovery, disease diagnosis, and energy and environment studies.

Computational Learning Laboratory

429 Smith Hall, Professor John Case.

We mostly do theoretical, mathematical work regarding abstract machine models of, among other things, learning. We also are involved in occasional, applied, empirical machine learning projects.

Computer Graphics Laboratory

208 Smith Hall, Professor Jingyi Yu.

The 10 megapixel digital camera is not the be-all and end-all of image capture. Cameras which capture images in unusual ways and combinations of cameras can deliver useful display of 3 dimensional information. Our lab focuses on designing new generations of cameras that can capture more useful information as such. We also conduct research in a broad range of topics in computer graphics and vision, including image-based modeling and rendering, night-time surveillance, and real-time rendering.

Degas Networking Laboratory

214 Smith Hall, Professor Chien-Chung Shen.

The DEGAS (Distributed, EnerGy conscious, Ad hoc and Sensor/Space) Networking Lab pursues advanced research in mobile wireless networks. In particular, we design efficient networking protocols for mobile ad hoc networks, wireless sensor networks, wireless mesh networks, and underwater acoustic networks.

Distributed And Meta-Systems Laboratory

204 Smith Hall, Professor Martin Swany.

DAMSL focuses on various aspects of high-performance computing and networking. Our current efforts meld Cluster and Grid computing with high-performance, dynamic wide-area optical networks to form a compelling vision for the future of scientific computing.

Dynamic Vision Laboratory

211 Smith Hall, Professor Christopher Rasmussen.

We study problems at the juncture of computer vision and robotics. From following roads and cars in a robot race to creating models of buildings from handheld video to tracking people, we work on efficient algorithms for navigation, scene understanding, and interaction.

Global Computing Laboratory

203 Smith Hall, Professor Michela Taufer.

The GCLab targets large-scale, heterogeneous computer systems and their application to the sciences. We are engaged in the exploration, design, and implementation of alternative, more efficient computational paradigms, adaptive methods, and user-friendly tools for large-scale simulations on grid and volunteer computing platforms.

LinBox Laboratory

429 Smith Hall, Professor David Saunders.

Exact linear algebra with matrices of integers is harder than the more widely used approximate linear algebra. We do the harder thing. LinBox is a software library for solving exact systems exactly. It is developed by a team of researchers in the US, France, and Canada.

Multi Agent Systems Laboratory

447 Smith Hall, Professor Keith Decker.

An Agent is a computer system capable of flexible, autonomous action in dynamic multi-agent environments. The success of the Internet has shown that computing is no longer just about numerical calculation, or information processing, it is now about interaction and coordination amongst machines and between machines and people. The MAS lab focusses on the science of coordination in applications ranging from emergency response support to scientific information gathering.

Natural Language Processing Laboratory

77/79 East Delaware Ave., Professors Sandra Carberry, Kathy McCoy, Vijay Shanker.

The NLP Lab is an umbrella for three language-related labs: disabilities technology, text mining, and discourse.

The Disabilities Technology Lab, directed by Kathy McCoy, develops intelligent interfaces for people with disabilities that affect their ability to communicate. The ICICLE System is an intelligent English grammar checker and tutor for people who are deaf. Other projects assist people who have special communication needs. We make "talking with" a computer faster and more natural. Another project is to help a person who has visual impairments "scan" a text to find the area relevant to answering a question.

The Text Mining Lab , directed by Vijay Shanker, is concerned with the development of language technology algorithms to assist scientists to rapidly access relevant information from research literature. Projects include the extraction of targeted information, retrieval of relevant textual passages, and assistance in the knowledge discovery process. A related project involves rapid adaptation of language processing tools that were developed for a general domain to be used in a specific domain. A third project involves multi-disciplinary effort that integrates natural language cues found in large software programs and program analysis for multiple software development and maintanence tasks.

The Discourse Lab, under the direction of Sandra Carberry, addresses problems related to discourse and dialogue. The Graphs project treats information graphics (bar charts, line graphs, etc.) as a form of discourse with a communicative goal. We are applying language understanding and generation techniques to index, store, and retrieve graphics from a digital library, to develop an interactive dialogue system that conveys the content of graphics via speech to individuals with sight impairments, and to develop an interactive graph design assistant that will critique graphs with the objective of improving them so that they achieve their communicative goal. Current collaborators include Stephanie Elzer (Millersville University), Dan Chester, and graduate students.

Network Management and Optimization Laboratory

342 Smith Hall, Professors Adarsh Sethi and Errol Lloyd.

Network management involves the design of techniques for the monitoring and control of computer networks to ensure optimal performance and resource utilization. We focus on fault management whose aim is to detect, diagnose, localize, and recover from hardware and software failures and performance bottlenecks that may plague a network. We are also interested in the management of wireless networks including methods for managing mobility to provide seamless operation of network services.

In network optimization we aim to provide provably optimal or near optimal solutions to a range of power specification and control problems arising in wireless ad hoc and sensor networks. The primary focus is on topology control (assigning power levels to network nodes so as to achieve a specified network topology) in both stationary and mobile networks. Additional work includes the study of relay node placement and of power backoff as a collision resolution mechanism.

Protocol Engineering Laboratory

28 West Delaware Ave, Professor Paul Amer.

The PEL is dedicated to the research, development, and improvement of new and existing computer network protocols. PEL researchers are investigating innovative transport protocol alternatives to TCP and UDP (such as SCTP), emphasizing their use within army networks to provide efficient communications under mobile, ad-hoc network conditions.

SMART Laboratory

409 Smith Hall, Professor John Cavazos.

The SMART (Statistical Machine learning approaches to ARchitectures and compilaTion) Lab conducts research on the application of machine learning techniques to build intelligent systems. We employ innovative approaches to compiler and architecuture design that scale both with advances in underlying technology and with future application domains.

Software Analysis and Compilation Laboratory

213 Smith Hall, Professor Lori Pollock.

Our research addresses various aspects of program analysis and transformation for code optimization and software tools, targeted toward software engineering and high performance computing architectures. Current research projects focus on mobile code validation through static program analysis, analysis and testing of web-based software systems, online impact analysis for software maintenance, testing program-based security mechanisms, applying natural language processing to programs for improving software tools, and developing an integrated approach to improve communication performance in high performance clusters.

Statistical Information Retrieval Laboratory

77/79 East Delaware Ave, Professor Ben Carterette.

We pursue novel models of information organization, storage, access, retrieval, and integration using statistical and information-theoretic approaches. One of the key problems in developing such models is that optimizing and evaluating their utility requires human input. We aim to minimize the human cost, or to accomplish much more with an allotted cost, thereby allowing research and development to proceed much faster.

Verified Software Laboratory

204 Smith Hall, Professor Stephen Siegel.

The VSL conducts research into the most important unsolved problem in Computer Science: how to develop verifiably correct complex software systems. Currently, the VSL is focusing on parallel programs used for scientific computation and is developing tools that can find defects in these programs or establish their correctness. Techniques from logic, compiler theory, symbolic computation, and model checking are brought to bear..

VIMS Vision Laboratory

212 Smith Hall, Professor Chandra Kambhametu.

VIMS (Video/Image Modeling and Synthesis) Lab encompasses research in the areas of Computer vision, Graphics, Medical image analysis and Remote sensing. We study several important problems such as GGO lung tumors extraction and classification from High-res CT Data, Arctic sea ice motion analysis and reconstruction  from satellite and camera imagery, and Bioinformatics problems.