IU School of Informatics and Computing—Bloomington Upcoming Events

Mon, February 15: Make a Difference With IT

Time: 3:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.

Place: Indiana Memorial Union, Alumni Hall

Make a Difference with IT is a unique chance for students to discover the various ways technology can play a role in their future careers through focused discussions with over 40 alumni, engaging keynote speakers, and relevant industry professional panels.

Colloquia: Mon, February 15: Resource Management using Adaptive Sensing for a Body Sensor Network

by Anand Panangadan
Research Specialist, Saban Research Institute, Childrens Hospital, Los Angeles, CA

Time: 2:30 p.m. - 3:30 p.m.

Place: Dogwood Room, Indiana Memorial Union

Abstract: Recent advances in sensor and communication technology combined with better signal processing techniques have made sensor networks suitable for long-term human health monitoring. A Body Sensor Network (BSN) is a wireless network of biomedical sensors attached to a human subject. BSNs have the potential to revolutionize health care by making continuous personal health monitoring a widespread occurrence. Because the sensing system is to be worn by a subject for long durations, the hardware needs to be compact and light. This limits the on-board battery capacity and computational power. These factors have made resource optimization a fundamental problem in BSNs. A solution that extends the system lifetime without unduly compromising the sensing function is necessary before body sensor networks can become useful in real-world scenarios.

In this talk, Anand describes a body sensor network developed at the Saban Research Institute of the Childrens Hospital Los Angeles. The network incorporates a novel minimally invasive metabolite sensor (that samples the interstitial fluid under the skin) and noninvasive physiological sensors (such as pulse oximeters). He will describe the energy conservation algorithms that are implemented at multiple levels of the system. These algorithms adapt the operating parameters of the sensors, such as sampling rate, to both the available system resources and to the criticality of the measured data (Adaptive Sensing). He will describe the use of Markov Decision Processes as a framework for adaptive sensing. This framework enables the calculation of a coordinated sampling policy to be completed before the sensors are deployed – only the final policy is stored within the individual sensors. He will also present results from a clinical trial using this system.

Biography: Anand Panangadan is a research specialist at the Saban Research Institute of the Childrens Hospital Los Angeles and a post-doctoral affiliate at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. His current research is on developing information processing and resource management algorithms for wireless sensor networks. These algorithms have been used in human health monitoring systems (“body sensor networks”) and environmental sensor networks. He received his Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2002 and his B.Tech. degree in Computer Science and Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay. He was a post-doctoral researcher at the USC Robotics Research Labs from 2003 to 2004.

A colloquium poster is available for printing.

Tue, February 16: Spring 2010 IT Career Fair

Time: 11:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m.

Place: Indiana Memorial Union, Alumni Hall

The annual IT Career Fair allows companies to connect with talented Indiana University students interested in technology. Approximately 400 undergraduate and graduate students interested in full-time jobs, internships, and networking will attend.

Students majoring in Informatics, Computer Science, Human-Computer Interaction, Bioinformatics, Chemical Informatics, Computer Information Systems, Instructional Systems Technology, Security, Graphic Arts, Telecommunications, Cognitive Science, Mathematics, and Business will attend. Students majoring in other areas with coursework, skills, and an interest in IT-related careers may also attend.

Wed, February 17: Business of Life Sciences information session and reception

Time: 5:30 p.m. - 7:30 p.m.

Place: Kelley School, CG 0034

Contact: lifesc@indiana.edu

If you are an Indiana University business student or a student in one of the life sciences—graduate or undergraduate—and you possess an excellent academic record along with a passion for life sciences, we invite you to attend a Kelley Center for the Business of Life Sciences (CBLS) information session and reception, generously sponsored by Roche Diagnostics, Wednesday, February 17, 5:30 – 7:30 p.m. in the Kelley school, CG 0034! As we are serving hors d’oeuvres and beverages, please RSVP to lifesc [at] indiana [dot] edu by 5:00 p.m. Friday, February 12, to enable us to plan accordingly.

The Kelley School of Business Center for the Business of Life Sciences (CBLS) is holding an information session and reception for exceptional business and life sciences students at Indiana University who would like to explore applying to our Student Associates program. In attendance will also be our current group of exceptional science and business “Student Associates,” our local corporate and university friends, and some faculty and administrators we may not currently know but we understand to have a keen interest in life sciences.

If you have achieved excellence in your academic career, we invite you to explore what we believe is an extraordinary opportunity to expand your knowledge regarding the business of life sciences by applying to the CBLS Student Associates program, which awards a Certificate in the Business of Life Sciences upon completion. Acceptance into this relatively new, rapidly growing program will afford you many opportunities to jump-start your career in the life sciences industry with unique opportunities to meet, network with, and be taught by leaders in the life sciences industry. In addition, you will work alongside other top-notch business and science students to collaboratively solve real-world problems as we all work together to bring the best of business and life sciences together!

If what you’ve read here is consistent with your preparation and your career goals, come hear what we have to say, get your questions answered, and meet other students and faculty who share your passion!

Here’s what one graduate Student Associate alum, Adam Shahrani, says: “I feel taking courses across department boundaries is a beginning step to address the industry need to communicate. As an informatics student, taking this business course has provided a perspective that scientists often do not experience, which is useful for informatics students in pursuing careers in both academia and life sciences companies.” Undergraduate biology student Alyssa Faughn says, “Combining the perspectives of business students and science students creates a very powerful collaboration.” MBA student Liz Kahling says, “My involvement with CBLS helped me land an internship with Abbott Labs because they saw that I was serious about the life sciences.”

To learn more about us and our Certificate in the Business of Life Sciences through the CBLS Student Associate programs as well as other activities of the CBLS, please visit http://www.kelley.iu.edu/cbls/. (For information on the Student Associates program, select Student Associates from the left column then the selection that pertains to you.)

Colloquia: Fri, February 19: Challenges in the Practical Application of Machine Learning

by Carla Brodley
Tufts University, Dept. of Computer Science

Time: 3:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m.

Place: Informatics East, Rm. 130

Abstract: In this talk I will discuss the factors that impact the successful application of supervised machine learning. Driven by several interdisciplinary collaborations, we are addressing the problem of what to do when your initial accuracy is lower than is acceptable to your domain experts. Low accuracy can be due to three factors: noise in the class labels, insufficient training data, and whether the features describing each training example are able to discriminate the classes. In this talk, I will discuss research efforts at Tufts addressing the second two factors. The first project, introduces a new problem which we have named active class selection (ACS). ACS arises when one can ask the question: given the ability to collect n additional training instances, how should they be distributed with respect to class? The second project examines how one might assess that the class distinctions are not supported by the features and how constraint-based clustering can be used to uncover the true class structure of the data. These two issues and their solutions will be explored in the context of three applications. The first is to create a map of global map of the land cover of the Earth’s surface from remotely sensed data (satellite data). The second is to build a classifier based on data collected from an “artificial nose” to discriminate vapors. The “nose” is a collection of sensors that have different reactions to different vapors. The third is to classify HRCT images of the lung.

Biography: Carla E. Brodley is a professor in the Department of Computer Science at Tufts University. She received her PhD in computer science from the University of Massachusetts, at Amherst in 1994. From 1994-2004, she was on the faculty of the School of Electrical Engineering at Purdue University. Professor Brodley’s research interests include machine learning, knowledge discovery in databases, and computer security. She has worked in the areas of anomaly detection, active learning, classifier formation, unsupervised learning, and applications of machine learning to remote sensing, computer security, digital libraries, astrophysics, content-based image retrieval of medical images, computational biology, saliva diagnostics, evidence-based medicine and chemistry. She was a member of the DSSG in 2004-2005. In 2001 she served as program co-chair for the International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML) and in 2004, she served as the general chair for ICML. Currently she is an associate editor of JMLR and Machine Learning, and she is on the editorial board of DKMD.

She is a member of the AAAI Council and is co-chair of the Computing Research Association’s Committee on the Status of Women in Computing Research (CRA-W).

A poster for the colloquium is available for printing.

Colloquia: Fri, March 5: We are the Web: From Semantic Web to Social Machine

by James Hendler
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Time: 1:30 pm - 2:30 pm

Place: Main Library, E174 (special time and place)

Abstract: Although the read/write world of Web 2.0 is now commonplace - even your parents use Facebook - the promise of massive scale human computing has barely begun to be exploited. New technologies, including the Semantic Web, mobile computing, and open data suggest ways that far more powerful systems than those we have today could be created, empowering humanity to help address some of our key problems. The potential for the sharing of data and knowledge, among willing participants, makes it possible to envision declarative models for creating and evolving new Web technologies that would more open and distributed systems. Further, by explicating the social, not just the technical, protocols, new models of information control that encourage, rather than prohibit, sharing can be explored. In this talk we explore the potential for next-generation social machines, explore some of the challenges, and look at promising technologies for the future.

Biography: Jim Hendler is the Tetherless World Professor of Computer and Cognitive Science, and the Assistant Dean for Information Technology, at Rensselaer. He is also a faculty affiliate of the Experimenal Multimedia Performing Arts Center (EMPAC), serves as a Director of the international Web Science Research Initiative, and is a visiting Professor at the Institute of Creative Technology at DeMontfort University in Leicester, UK. One of the inventors of the “Semantic Web,” Hendler was the recipient of a 1995 Fulbright Foundation Fellowship, is a member of the US Air Force Science Advisory Board, and is a Fellow of the American Association for Artificial Intelligence and the British Computer Society. He is also the former Chief Scientist of the Information Systems Office at the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and was awarded a US Air Force Exceptional Civilian Service Medal in 2002. He is the/ /Editor-in-Chief emeritus of /IEEE Intelligent Systems/ and is the first computer scientist to serve on the Board of Reviewing Editors for /Science.

You may find the E174 in the main library highlighted on this map.

A colloquium poster is available for printing.