Center for Advanced Technology and Education
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Florida International University
Center for Engineering and Applied Sciences
10555 W Flagler St. Miami, Florida
adjouadi@eng.fiu.edu
http://www.cate.fiu.edu
Abstract
The NSF funded Center for Advanced Technology and Education (NSF-CATE) at Florida International University (FIU) was established in the fall of 1993 with initially a three-year grant. The objectives sought were (1) to create a state-of-the-art computing environment that engages both educational and research avenues; (2) address several critical technology areas with emphasis placed on real-time imaging under a parallel and distributed platform; (3) enhance our curriculum; and (4) attract and retain students, especially in the under-represented groups (African Americans and Women) in pursuit of their graduate studies. These efforts have been complemented by a NSF Academic Research Infrastructure (ARI) grant, significant matching from our institution, and small grants from our local industry, and most recently with a two-year renewal grant from the NSF CISE-CDA II-MI.
Introduction to Florida International University
Florida International University (FIU) is an urban doctoral-granting institution located in Miami with campuses at University Park and North Miami. Chartered by the Florida Legislature in 1965, the University opened its doors in 1972. FIU now offers more than 200 baccalaureate, master and doctoral degree programs through its many Colleges and Schools. This year, as FIU celebrates its 25th anniversary, enrollment is nearing the 30,000 mark, which is a significant increase from the 16,400 enrollment a decade ago. The number of faculty has reached 1,200, and sponsored research totaled close to 30 million dollars this past year. Close to 60% of FIU's students is drawn from the minority student population, which is comprised of 46% Hispanic, 11% African-American, and 3% Asian. Women constitute, remarkably, 58% of the total student population. FIU is recognized as having the largest contingent of Hispanic students of any doctoral-granting institution. FIU currently ranks first in the total of bachelor degrees issued to Hispanics in engineering, and third in the total of bachelor degrees issued to minorities in engineering. It ranks first in the total of bachelor degrees issued to Hispanics in computer engineering and computer science, and second in the total of bachelor degrees issued to Hispanics in electrical engineering.
Introduction to the Project:
The NSF-CATE infrastructure provides a computing environment capable of engaging researchers as well as facilitating classroom and laboratory-based instruction. Critical technology areas in image processing and computer vision, neural networks, distributed and parallel processing, 3-D modeling, and the important issue of real-time processing are explored. Additional funding from NSF, local industry, and significant matching from our institution allowed us to expand our research efforts into the areas of 3-D visualization and simulation, Dynamic 3-D modeling through confocal microscopy, real-time signal processing in flow cytometry, and biomedical applications related to hematology and diagnostics.
Goals, Objectives, and Targeted Activities for the Past Year
This past year, we have supported 12 female students and 10 male students. The ethnic make up of these students consists of 14 Hispanics, 4 African Americans, and 4 White non-minority students. Of these students, 3 received MS degrees; and 8 received a BS degree this past year
Strengthening of the Networking of Research Groups
Faculty and students from diverse disciplines and departments, and research colleagues from local industry are given access to both our ONYX parallel machine where 65 computer accounts are currently active, and to the confocal microscope for 3-D analysis. These are but few examples of how the NSF-CATE center is providing the means to bring us faculty and students from different research areas together, thus creating the synergy for exploring new research avenues.
Targeted Activities
Research Projects: Funded research spawning from the creation of the NSF-CATE facility have led to the study of several research avenues as indicated by the title of these grants and fellowships:
Malek
Adjouadi as PI or Supervisor:
National
Science Foundation CISE/CDA: Integrated Sensing Towards Real-Time Vision,
Cognition, and 3-D Modeling, September 1995-August 1997. Amount $ 267,000.
National
Science Foundation CISE/CDA (IIMI): Multidimensional and Multispectral
Information Processing and Computational Aspects, September 1996 - August
1999. Amount $ 201,000.
National
Science Foundation: Research Experience for Undergraduates, September
1995-August 1997. Amount $ 80,000.
National
Science Foundation - Minority Graduate Fellowship for Ms. Sonia
Duranza, "Time Varying Images Using Confocal Microscopy ", September
1996 - August 1999. Amount $ 69,000
National
Science Foundation Minority Graduate Fellowship for Ms. Annette
Taberner, Study of Spatio-Temporal EEG Signals Towards the Development
of a Man-Machine Interface, September 1997-August 2000. Amount $ 69,000.
Coulter
Corporation; Research and Instrumentation Division: Imaging Algorithms
for Enhanced Pattern Classification of Blood Cells; April 1995 - March
1998. Amount $ 54,000.
Coulter
Corporation, Molecular Biology Division: The Cell Probe Project. Amount
$ 5,000.
Malek Adjouadi
as Co. PI:
USAF-Wright
Peterson Laboratory; Time Frequency Analysis and Noise Filtering of
Non- Stationary Signals; May 1996 - Apr 1999 [PI: Jean Andrian]. Amount
$ 210,000.
Summer Programs: Some of our students participated in these 1996 summer programs:
The following
laboratories have been established since the creation of the NSF-CATE facility:
Laboratory
for Confocal Microscopy and Integrated Sensing - Funded by NSF CISE/CDA
(ARI).
Laboratory
for Flow Cytometry - Funded by Coulter Corporation.
Outreach Programs
The outreach programs with the department of electrical and computer engineering (ECE) are headed by Dr. Gustavo Roig, a Co.-PI of the NSF-IIMI grant, but also our associate Dean for external programs. These programs are NASA Sharp Plus, Florida/Georgia Alliance for Minority Participation (FGAMP), Junior Engineering Technical Society (Jets)/United, and Florida Action For Minorities in Engineering (FLAME). Students from these programs visit our NSF-CATE facility and are encouraged to join FIU and pursue a career in engineering or computer science.
Curriculum Development
The following courses have been added to our curriculum in support of our NSF-CATE facility: EEL 6821: Computer Vision; EEL 6990: High-Speed Tele-Networks; EEL 6081: Advanced Medical Imaging; EEL 6812: Advances in Neural Network. Furthermore, we are hiring a new faculty to start this coming fall semester in the area of Computer Engineering so as to expand in the areas of computer architecture and parallel processing.
Component and Materials Required
The Human Capital
The people
involved with the NSF-CATE this past year include:
Staff: Director:
Malek Adjouadi; Laboratory Manager: Noemi Fernandez; Support Staff: Sonia
Duranza, Patricio Vidal, and Pat Brammer.
Faculty: James
Story, Gustavo Roig, Wunnava Subbarao, Jean Andrian, Ana Pasztor, and Naphtali
Rishe
Graduates:
Noemi Fernandez, Sonia Duranza, Annette Taberner, Nydia Ruiz, Elise Jackubjick,
Mildred Saenz, John Riley, Patricio Vidal, Carlos Reyes, Chris Godefroy,
and Marcos Zini.
Undergraduates:
Geydi Lorenzo, Susan Danner, Erica Suarez, Marco Midon, Marlin Brinson,
Dorian Hernandez, Richard Lopez, and Jesus Lebena.
The Physical Capital
The main equipment of the NSF-CATE facility include: the Onyx machine with four R-8000 processors, an RCM-8000 real-time Confocal Microscope; a Nomad-200 integrated mobile robot system; a Coulter EPICS Profile II flow cytometer; 20 SGI Indy workstations; 1 Challenge-M server, a studio set-up for 3-D visualization; and 12 personnel computers, 5 of which are Pentium 200Mhz-based with MMX Technology.
Our institution this year provided matching funds in the amount of $ 103,312 (equipment $ 86,030, student support $17, 280). Next year, we are to honor $170,000 of matching funds. These matching funds do not include any release time.
Indications of Success
Description of the Infrastructure Developed
The NSF-CATE center with its ONYX supercomputer, its 22 networked SGI systems, a roving robot, and a confocal microscope constitutes an infrastructure that is most viable for cutting-edge research and educational activities. Since our move to a newer and larger facility, a more efficient reconfiguration of the NSF-CATE local area network was set-up in the newly purchased Engineering and Applied Sciences building. This infrastructure currently provides an environment that supports: (1) software development under both parallel and distributed processing platforms, (2) high performance 3-D rendering and modeling, (3) real-time processing capability, (4) robotics applications, and (5) high-speed data acquisition, playback, and analysis. Additional funding from NSF, local industry, together with substantial matching from our institution allowed us to acquire a flow cytometer, a studio set-up, and real-time digital signal processing boards. This growth is allowing us to branch out in the areas of biomedical engineering, and real-time signal processing.
Students Support
The number of degrees conferred to the students directly supported by NSF include:
1 Ph.D. student (a female Hispanic); 12 MS students (7 Male Hispanics, 1 male African American, 2 female Hispanics, 1 male White, and 1 male Asian); and 8 BS students (5 female Hispanics, 1 female African American, 1 male African American who is a blind person, and 1 female White).
Through the NSF-REU grants, we have supported 7 Female Undergraduates (5 Hispanics, 1 African American and 1 White) and 7 male undergraduates (3 African American and 4 Hispanics). We have currently in the pipeline 6 Ph.D. students (2 female Hispanics, 2 male Hispanics, 1 male Asian and 1 male White); 7 MS students (5 female Hispanics, 1 male Hispanic and 1 male White). Master theses supported this past year include 3 MS degrees that were directly supported, and 3 others that were supported indirectly through the use of the NSF-CATE facility. Also, 22 publications this year recognize the support of NSF.
Unmet Goals
We had hoped that our impact on attracting African American students would be more significant. We do take solace however in the fact that the cited FLAME and FGAMP programs have contributed in placing several African Americans students in institution of higher learning such as Georgia Tech., UF, Penn State, Howard University, and others. Also, we have not as yet embarked in the research areas of high-speed motion analysis and integrated sensor arrays.
Outcome
The most significant contribution this project made is in the attraction and support of 11 female students. The success here is total (100%), that is either these female students went on to pursue their graduate studies, or have taken high-paying jobs with local and national industry. The number of graduate female students supported by the NSF-CATE center constitute this year 50 % of all the female graduate students in the ECE department. Two of these female students are recipients of the prestigious NSF minority graduate fellowships, and another is a Co.-PI of two local industry grants.
New research concepts become possible with the advent of the NSF-CATE infrastructure. For example, we did not expect to branch out in the biomedical field with respect to diagnostics and hematology studies. Also, with the acquisition of the confocal microscope, we now perform dynamic 3-D image visualization, modeling, and analysis. The ONYX parallel machine has allowed us to research the issues of parallel and real-time processing. In terms of educational techniques, the NSF-CATE infrastructure allows all of its users to put theory to practice, whether in imaging technology, robotics, or in software/hardware development. This has allowed students to explore new research ideas and technological breakthroughs as they pursue their graduate studies.
Impact
Major contributions since the advent of the NSF-CATE center include: (1) The collaboration with SGI with the prospect of creating an SGI/FIU Technology Research Center funded at 4 Million dollars with 2M from SGI and 2M from the State University System. (2) The collaboration with Coulter and Baptist to create a biomedical engineering program within the college of engineering with funding prospects from Whitaker. (3) The FIU membership application in the Internet2 organization, and we are now working on several initiatives to fund our connection to this important new instruction and research support facility. The first of these initiatives involves partnering with the NSF, Board of regents, and other members of the SUS Florida gigaPoP which include UF, FSU, UCF, USF, FAU, FAMU, and FIU.
Publications
[1] M. Adjouadi F. Candocia, X. Zhang and John Riley " Exploiting Walsh-Based Attributes in Stereo Vision", IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing, Vol. 44, No. 2, Feb. 1996.
[2] M. Adjouadi, R. Schwartz " Vision, Knowledge and Perception", Journal for the Art of Teaching, Vol. 5, No. 1, August 1996.
[3] N. Rishe, ``A Universal Model for Non-procedural Database Languages,'' Fundamenta Informaticae, April 1996, pp. 31-57.
[4] G. Cao, and N. Rishe. "A Nonblocking Consistent Checkpointing Algorithm for Distributed Systems", Proceedings of the IASTED Eighth International Conference Parallel and Distributed Computing and Systems October 16-19, 1996 - Chicago, Ill., pp. 302-307.
[5] N. Rishe, A. Shaposhnikov, S. Graham, "Load Balancing in a Massively Parallel Semantic Database'', Computer Systems Science and Engineering (Special issue on massively parallel processing), 11, July 1996, pp. 195-199.
[6] C. Reyes, and M. Adjouadi "A Directional Clustering Technique for Random Data Classification", Cytometry, Vol. 27, No. 1, January 1997.
[7] F. Candocia and M. Adjouadi, "Stereo Feature Matching Using a New Similarity Measure", IEEE Transactions on Image Processing, to appear in the June 1997 issue.
[8] M. Midon, M. Adjouadi, N. Fernandez, and G. Roig "Computer Application Techniques and Technological Access to the Visually Impaired", 5th International Conf. on Computers Helping People with Special Needs, Johannes Kepler University, Linz, Austria, July 1996.
[9] L. M. Vicente, A. B. Barreto, and A. M. Taberner, "Adaptive Pre-Processing of Photoplethysmographic Blood Volume Pulse Signals for Exercise Evaluation", 15th Southern Biomedical Engineering Conference, Dayton, Ohio, March 1996.
[10] A. M. Taberner and A. B. Barreto " Real-time Signal Processing Towards an EEG-Based Human-Computer Interface", Florida Conf. on Recent Advances in Robotics, Miami, Florida, April 1997.
[11] N. Fernandez and M. Adjouadi, "An Orientation-Independent Imaging Technique for the Recognition and Classification of Objects", Florida Conf. on Recent Advances in Robotics, Miami, Florida, April 1997.
[12] A. B. Barreto, C. D. Aguilar, and E. Jakubzick "Adaptive LMS Delay Measurement in Dual Blood Volume Pulse Signals for Non-Invasive Monitoring", 16th IEEE Southern Biomedical Engineering Conference, Biloxi, Mississippi, April 1997.
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