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--- projects [2015/08/11 21:02] – jarek
+++ projects [2016/01/13 20:05] (current) – stevenc
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-====== Proposed Projects for Fall 2015 ======
+====== Proposed Projects for Winter 2016 ======
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-=====Data visualization in Skydive=====
-**Supervisor: Jarek Gryz**
+======Immersive Virtual Worlds======
+**Supervisor**: Robert Allison
+**Required Background**: General CSE408x prerequisites, good programming skills, previous work with computer graphics would be helpful
+We have a new and unique fully immersive virtual environment at York. The student would develop interactive 3D virtual worlds to study self motion perception and human computer interaction in a virtual world.  In particular, working with a senior graduate student or postdoctoral fellow, the successful applicant would model 3D environments, render them in a virtual reality display and develop/implement interaction methods to control and interact with the simulation. Artistic background or skill would be an asset but is not required.
+\\
+======Virtual Walking Devices======
+**Supervisor**: Robert Allison
+**Required Background**: General CSE408x prerequisites, good programming and mechanical skills
+Simulating effective walking in an immersive virtual environment is challenging. Working with a senior graduate student, the successful applicant would help to develop a circular treadmill interface to support virtual walking metaphors.
+\\
+======Adapting a 3D Printer for Paste Extrusion======
+**Supervisor:** James Smith
+D printers are an enabling technology for engineering design.  However most low- to medium-end printers can only extrude plastics through a hot-end extrusion system.  A local company has developed a nozzle and pump system for pastes that can be integrated with existing printers.  A student group is sought to design a mounting bracket for an existing TAZ 4 printer that can be used to augment its ABS extruder with a Discov3ry paste extruder.  The bracket is to be printed with the TAZ and the design is to be released publicly to the open-source community.  Sample prints, calibration routines and possible modifications to the printer's software may be required.  Experience with programming and hardware are important prerequisites.
+For more information, please send email to drsmith@yorku.ca.
+Required Background: General CSE408x prerequisites
+\\
+======Peer-to-Peer agent based applications in smart power grids======
+**Supervisor:** Hany Farag
+Multi-agent systems have been mentioned recently as a potential technology for several operational control objectives in smart power grids. The multi-agents technology allows the rapid and detailed creation of a system model and creates a robust framework for distributed control. The distributed control structure consists of components called control agents. These control agents try, through communication and negotiation with other control agents, to: 1) determine the current state of the system and/or subsystems and 2) make decisions (set their local actuators or communicate with other agents) in such a way that their own objectives are met as closely as possible and any constraints are satisfied.
+This project aims to implement formulated distributed constraint optimization (DCOP) in a multi-agent platform for two objectives in smart grids: 1) voltage regulation and 2) electricity market,.  There are several Java-based open source platforms for peer-to-peer agent based applications e.g. (JADE,  Jadex, Jason,..etc). With the help of the supervisor, the student will choose the platform that suits the required applications. Also, the student will implement the formulated DCOP in the suitable multi-agent platform to test its effectiveness and robustness. Toward that end, an interface between the multi-agent platform in Java environment and the power grid simulator in MATLAB environment is required to transfer the measurements from MATLAB to the multi-agent platform and then transfer the actions from the multi-agent platform to MATLAB in real-time.
+The student should be a strong Java and MATLAB programmer. He should have prior knowledge about multi-agent platforms such as JADE. The work involves reading and understanding the formulated DCOP in smart grids and working with the supervisor and master/PhD student(s) to implement the developed algorithms and to measure the performance of the developed algorithm(s) in the multi-agent platform.
+For more information, please send email to hefarag@cse.yorku.ca.
+Required Background: General CSE408x prerequisites
+\\
+======Clustering High-Dimensional Data Sets======
+**Supervisor:** Suprakash Datta
+Clustering is a basic technique for analyzing data sets. Clustering is the process of grouping data points in a way that points within a group are
+more similar to each other than points in other clusters. Many clustering algorithms have been developed over the years. However no single algorithm works well for all data sets. Further, most clustering algorithms have running times of the order of n^2 or n^3, so that they are not feasible for data sets with hundreds of thousands of points. In this project we will design good clustering algorithms for large real data sets. In particular we are interested in
+Biological data sets.
+Our data sets will include those obtained from Flow Cytometry data. Flow Cytometry is a common technique in many areas of Biology, particularly Immunology. Typical usage involves testing a blood sample for 25 attributes on a per-cell basis, and thus typical data sets are arrays of 500,000 points in a 25 dimensional space. The aim is to identify clusters that correspond to a biologist's notion of a cell "population". In addition to the size of the data, the factors that make this problem difficult are heterogeneity of population sizes and densities and overlapping populations. With the help of collaborators we proposed an accurate algorithm called SWIFT (Cytometry A. 2014 May;85(5):408-33) that successfully finds small cell populations of interest to Immunologists. This project attempts to design and implement algorithms that are faster than SWIFT but at least as accurate. The supervisor has collaborators in Immunology who are experts in interpreting and analyzing Flow Cytometry data. Their expertise will be used to design and validate effective clustering algorithms that can run on large data sets.
+No Biology knowledge is required. The student should be a strong programmer. Knowledge of C/C++ is desirable but not essential. The work involves reading and understanding existing algorithms and working with the supervisor to design and implement improved algorithms and to measure the performance of the proposed algorithm(s).
+For more information, please send email to datta@cse.yorku.ca.
+Required Background: General CSE408x prerequisites
+\\
+======Metaheuristic-based Optimization techniques======
+**Supervisor:** Suprakash Datta
+Optimization is a crucial step in many computational problems. For computational problems that seem (or are known to be) intractable, metaheuristic-based techniques often work well in practice. These are typically randomized algorithms, often inspired by physical or biological systems. Examples of such algorithms include simulated annealing, genetic algorithms and ant colony optimization. In this project we will focus on particle swarm optimization (PSO), a technique inspired by the search for food by flocks of birds or schools of fish. Briefly, a set (or population) of candidate solutions (called particles) are maintained at all times by the algorithm. These particles move in the search-space using simple rules that make use of the best solutions found so far by the particle as well as by the swarm. Movement of particles result in new particles being generated. The process is repeated until some termination criteria are met and the best solution found is output by the algorithm. While there is no guarantee of optimality, PSO has been shown to produce good or very good solutions for many practical problems. Many variants of PSO's have been proposed. In this problem we will study the performance of some PSO variants on both artificial and real optimization problems.
+The student should be a strong programmer. A good grasp of algorithms and knowledge of C/C++ are desirable but not essential. The work involves reading and understanding existing algorithms and working with the supervisor to design and implement improved algorithms and to measure the performance of the proposed algorithm(s).
+For more information, please send email to datta@cse.yorku.ca.
+Required Background: General CSE408x prerequisites
+\\
+======Data visualization in Skydive======
+**Supervisor:** Jarek Gryz
 Skydive is a prototype system designed for database visualization using a concept of the so called
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-=====Genome-wide identification of plant micro RNAs=====
+======Genome-wide identification of plant micro RNAs======
-**Supervisor: Katalin Hudak**
+**Supervisor:** Katalin Hudak
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-=====Dynamic Interface Detection and Control Project=====
-**Supervisor: Michael Jenkin**
+======Dynamic Interface Detection and Control Project======
+**Supervisor:** Michael Jenkin
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 ====== DDoS Attack using Google-bots ======
-**Supervisor**: Ntalija Vlajic
+**Supervisor:** Natalija Vlajic
 **Recommended Background**: CSE 3213 or CSE 3214, CSE 3482
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 ====== Attentive Sensing for Better Two-Way Communication in Remote Learning Environments ======
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-====== Hunting for Bugs in Logging: applying JPF to log4j ======
+====== JPF in a Jar ======
 **Supervisor:** Franck van Breugel
 Description:
-Java PathFinder (JPF) is a tool that can detect bugs in Java code.
+JPF, which is short for Java PathFinder, is an open source
-The Java library Apache log4j allows developers to control which log
+tool that has been developed at NASA's Ames Research Center.
-statements are output.  In the past, Dickey et al. [1] have attempted
+The aim of JPF is to find bugs in Java code.  Instead of
-to detect bugs in log4j by means of JPF with very limited succes.
+using testing to find those bugs, JPF uses model checking.
+The facts that JPF is downloaded hundreds of times per month
+and that some of the key papers on JPF have been cited more
+than a thousand times reflect the popularity of JPF. In
+fact it is the most popular model checker for Java.
+A study done by Cambridge University in 2014 found that the
+global cost of debugging code has risen to $312 billion annually.
+Furthermore, on average software developers spend 50% of their
+programming time with finding and fixing bugs.  As a consequence,
+advocating the use tools, such as JPF, may have significant impact.
+Installing JPF is far from trivial.  The tool itself has been
+implemented in Java.  Therefore, it should, in theory, be
+feasible to encapsulate JPF in a Java archive (jar) file.
+This would make it significantly simplifying the installation
+process of JPF and, therefore, make the tool more easily
+accessible to its potential users.
-Recently, in collaboration with Shafiei (NASA) we have developed
+The aim of this project is to attempt to put JPF in a jar.
-an extension of JPF called jpf-nhandler.  The aim of this project
+Since JPF relies on a number of configuration files, so-called
-is to apply this extension to log4j.
+Java properties files, incorporating these properly into the
+jar is one of the challenges.  Setting JPF's classpath is
+another challenge.  Since JPF changes almost on a daily basis,
+our modifications to JPF should ideally be limited to only a
+few classes, yet another challenge.
-[1] David A. Dickey, B. Sinem Dorter, J. Michael German, Benjamin D. Madore, Mark W. Piper, Gabriel L. Zenarosa. "Evaluating Java PathFinder on Log4J."  2011.
+In this project you may collaborate with graduate students
+of the DisCoVeri group (discoveri.eecs.yorku.ca) and
+computer scientists of NASA.  For more information, feel
+free to send email to franck@cse.yorku.ca.
 **Required Background:** General CSE408x prerequisites