My Computer Science and Engineering Department

Dr. Pooyan Jamshidi has received an NSF research award for his project on "Causal Performance Debugging for Highly-Configurable Systems" and another NSF research award for a joint project with colleagues in the Math department on "Mathematical Foundation of Data Science at University of South Carolina."

Abstract (Casual Debugging)

Software performance is critical for most software systems to achieve scale and limit operating costs and energy consumption. As modern software systems, such as big data and machine-learning systems, are increasingly built by composing many reusable infrastructure components and deployed on distributed and heterogeneous hardware, developers have powerful tools and abstractions at their fingertips, and as a result face immense configuration complexity... The project is intended to initiate a paradigm shift in today's testing and debugging methodology for complex, highly configurable systems, thereby positively impacting a broad range of industrial sectors relying on complex, highly configurable systems. Specifically, the project contributes to substantial energy savings and reduced carbon emissions, especially for the many big-data and machine-learning systems that operate at a massive scale. Finally, the research is providing valuable training for involved students from diverse backgrounds in research and generating high-quality researchers and practitioners for society.

Abstract (Data Science at UofSC)

This Research Training Group (RTG) project is a joint effort of Mathematics, Statistics, Computer Science and Engineering. It aims to develop a multi-tier Research Training Program at the University of South Carolina (UofSC) designed to prepare the future workforce in a multidisciplinary paradigm of modern data science. The education and training models will leverage knowledge and experience already existing among the faculty and bring in new talent to foster mathematical data science expertise and research portfolios through a vertical integration of post-doctoral research associates, graduate students, undergraduate students, and advanced high school students.

Dr. Amit Sheth has received an NSF research award for his project titled  "Advancing Neuro-symbolic AI with Deep Knowledge-infused Learning."

Abstract

The first wave of AI termed symbolic AI, focused on explicit knowledge. The current second wave of AI is termed statistical AI. The deep learning techniques have been able to exploit large amounts of data and massive computational power to improve upon human levels of performance in narrowly defined tasks. Separately, knowledge graphs emerged as a powerful tool to capture and exploit an extensive amount and variety of explicit knowledge to make algorithms better understand the content, and enable the next generation of data processing, such as in semantic search. Now, we herald towards the third wave of AI built on what is termed as the neuro-symbolic approach that combines the strengths of statistical and symbolic AI. Combining the respective powers and benefits of using knowledge graphs and deep learning is particularly attractive. This has led to the development of an approach we have called knowledge-infused (deep) learning. This project will advance the currently limited forms of combining the knowledge graphs and deep learning, called shallow and semi-diffusion, with a more advanced form called deep-infusion, that will support stronger interleaving of more variety of knowledge at different levels of abstraction with layers in a deep learning architecture.
 

Dr. Yan Tong, along with Dr. Chen Li from Mechanical Engineering, has received a research award from the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS)/NSF for "Understanding the Gravity Effect on Flow Boiling Through High-Solution Experiments and Machine Learning."

Abstract

The challenging objective of developing the deep models of flow boiling will be achieved by three major research tasks... A generative adversarial network (GAN)-based model will be developed to create images of two-phase flow patterns so as to establish a framework to understand and even quantify the effects of major forces on extremely complex two-phase flow patterns.
 

Dr. Hu has received a research award from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)/NIH for his project on "Patterns and predictors of viral suppression: A Big Data approach."

Dr. Tang has received a research award from the SC Space Grant Consortium/NASA EPSCoR for his project "Adventures in Computer Gaming: Programming Outreach through Game Design" with William Hobbs.

Pooyan Jamshidi, an assistant professor of computer science and engineering, is a principal investigator on a three-year $500,000 NSF collaborative grant to develop the intelligence and computing capabilities for a smart device dubbed SmartSight. The platform will enable on-device artificial intelligence to improve real-time perception for blind and visually impaired users. Read the full story at A new way to 'see'.

We would like to congratulate Dr. Qiang Zeng for acquiring a National Science Foundation (NSF) research award for his project titled "Towards Understanding and Handling Problems Due to Coexistence of Multiple IoT Platforms."

This year the students in the Senior Capstone course developed 40 apps either for industrial clients, for USC members, or for themselves. There were:

• 11 web applications using technologies such as Django, node, express, Angular, react, Vue, firebase, AWS.
• 21 mobile apps using Android, XCode, iOnic, react native, firebase.
• 8 desktop apps using technologies such as Unity and .NET C#.

You can watch video demos and see screenshots of all the apps right now! If you are interested in having students build an app for you, note that we are looking for clients for next year.

Dr. Jason O’Kane (PI) and Dr. Yiannis Rekleitis (Co-PI) have received a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to host an REU Site on "Applied Computational Robotics".

Dr. Chin-Tser Huang has been selected as a recipient of the 2021 Distinguished Research Service Award. The Office of the Vice President for Research created this award in 2018 to recognize faculty throughout the UofSC system who have demonstrated exceptional commitment to UofSC’s research community through service as a reviewer and committee member for UofSC’s internal funding and awards programs.

We are excited to announce that our own Hunter Damron has received the prestigious NSF GRFP fellowship award. He is one of 6 UofSC students that received the award this year.

We are proud to announce that several students in Dr. Sanjib Sur's research lab won the Best Poster Awards at ACM HotMobile 2021. Namely:

• Timothy Dayne Hooks and Hem Regmi won the Best Poster Award for their research on "VisualMM: Visual Data & Learning Aided 5G Picocell Placement".
• Hem Regmi and Moh Sabbir Saadat won the Best Poster Runner-up Award for their work on "ZigZagCam: Pushing the Limits of Hand-held Millimeter-Wave Imaging.

Congratulations!

Each year the Faculty of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) award four Outstanding Senior Awards. This process is never easy given the many excellent and accomplished students in our program. This year, we have decided that the 2021 Computer Science and Engineering Outstanding Senior Awards go to:

• Hunter Damron: Computer Science Outstanding Senior Award.
• Warren Beagle: Computer Information Systems Outstanding Senior Award.
• James Johnson: Computer Engineering Outstanding Senior Award.
• Niharika Pandala. Computer Engineering SCSPE Award.

All awardees will be honored at the University Awards Day ceremony. In addition, Pandala will be honored at a special awards banquet of the South Carolina Society of Professional Engineers .

We congratulate the following Computer Science undergraduate students for receiving a Magellan Scholar Award for Spring 2021.

• Griffin Carter : Investigating the Effects of Nanoparticle Delivery to Myoblasts on Differentiation into Myotubes
• Praful Chunchu : Real-time Patient Monitoring on Wearable Devices Using Neuromorphic Computing
• Hunter Damron : Enumerating Symmetrical Domino Tilings
• Matthew Duggan : Concluding Successful Nesting of Limosa limosa with Geolocation Data
• Timothy Hooks: Visual Data Augmented 5G Millimeter-Wave Picocell Placement
• Anne Tumlin : Information Routing with Ocean Sensor Nodes

"AI researchers like me are now turning our efforts toward developing AI algorithms that can explain themselves in a manner that humans can understand. If we can do this, I believe that AI will be able to uncover and teach people new facts about the world that have not yet been discovered, leading to new innovations." Read the full article at The Conversation, written by Dr. Agostinelli.

Dr. Amit Sheth has been named one of the 2020 ACM Fellows. The ACM Fellows program recognizes the top 1% of ACM Members for their outstanding accomplishments in computing and information technology and/or outstanding service to ACM and the larger computing community. Fellows are nominated by their peers, with nominations reviewed by a distinguished selection committee.

More information at the ACM Fellows website. See also Sheth named a Fellow by the Association for Computing Machinery.