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--- projects [2017/08/10 19:17] – jenkin
+++ projects [2018/09/18 15:44] (current) – lesperan
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 ~~NOTOC~~
 ====== Proposed Projects   ======
+====== Heart and Voice Signal Processing For Sleep Apnea Detection ======
+**Supervisor:** Hossein Kassiri
+Sleep apnea is a neurological condition where the patient’s breathing is interrupted during sleep, which can lead to excessive daytime sleepiness, irritability, and morning headaches. Left untreated, it increases the risk of numerous serious health issues, including high blood pressure, irregular heartbeat, and stroke. An estimated 860,000 Canadians reported being told by a health professional that they have sleep apnea, but many more people likely remain undiagnosed.
+This project will be done in collaboration with a Toronto-based medical device company that is working on the development of a miniature wearable device for sleep monitoring and apnea detection. The project will be conducted in two phases. In the first phase, the goal is to study and evaluate the efficacy of using various sensory signal (i.e., biomarker) in sleep apnea detection. A short list of candidate biomarkers are selected as a result of literature review, and their importance in apnea detection is evaluated using pre-recorded labelled online datasets. In the second phase, a signal processing algorithm for sleep apnea detection is developed that uses the selected biomarkers from Phase I as its inputs. In addition to detection, the algorithm is intended to evaluate the episode’s severity, frequency, and patient-specific pattern.
+The collaborating company will develop the hardware that contains the biosensors identified by the students and will be responsible for firmware development to control and extract data from the sensors. The company will also develop a mobile app that displays the data obtained, and produces test units that can be used by real human testers.
+**Required skills:** General CSE408x prerequisites, good programming skills, good math skills, knowledge of C or MATLAB programming languages.
+====== Patient-specific epilepsy seizure detection using machine learning ======
+**Supervisor:** Hossein Kassiri
+Accurate detection of neurological disorders such as epilepsy seizures using brain signals requires algorithms that can adjust themselves from patient to patient and from time to time. Data-driven algorithms using machine learning provide us with such patient-specific tools that allow for processing the data recorded from the brain and decide whether or not it can be classified as an abnormal activity for a specific patient.
+This project is aimed at development and optimization of such a machine learning algorithm for early detection of epilepsy seizures. The student will use pre-recorded labeled data from an online standard dataset to train, cross-validate, and test the algorithm. The algorithm is later optimized for computational resource consumption.
+**Required skills:** General CSE408x prerequisites, good programming and math skills, knowledge of C or MATLAB programming languages, basic knowledge of machine learning and pattern recognition (EECS 4404 or similar).
+====== Mobile app development for interfacing with a brain implant ======
+**Supervisor:** Hossein Kassiri
+Our group of researchers in ICSL are working towards implementation of an implantable closed-loop microelectronic system-on-chip (SoC) for recording and processing of EEG signals to be able to detect and treat various neurological disorder patients.
+Online monitoring and control of brain signals is one of the key features that can help the clinician significantly. Currently an electrical engineer has to be on-site to setup the system and adjust it upon clinician’s request. Therefore, a simple GUI that can be operated by a non-engineer enables the clinician to control the process entirely. The project’s goal is to develop a mobile application that is capable of receiving signals and sending commands through a Bluetooth link. Also the app should be capable of displaying the recorded signal.
+The student is expected to have experience with mobile app development (iOS or Android).
+**Required skills:** General CSE408x prerequisites, mobile app development (iOS or Android) experience.
+====== Biometric access control ======
+**Supervisor:** Amir H. Chinaei
+Biometrics as a means of access control has been previously studied and
+found to be a popular choice for guaranteeing authentication and
+authorization. This includes: iris, voice, face, fingerprint, and hand
+geometry recognition. Biometric features possess an if-and-only-if
+relationship. `
+This project investigates a solution that enables emergency medical
+technicians to have simple and fast, remote and token-free, as well as
+privacy-preserved and reliable access to patients’ medical information. The
+idea is to provide the technicians with a mobile system including a
+biometric reader device, through which they gain access to necessary
+attributes of patients’ electronic health record using the patient’s
+biometrics, such as fingerprint. Reliability is employed by exploiting the
+uniqueness of a person’s fingerprint as a means of access control as well as
+by precision of biometric reader devices, such as fingerprint scanners.
+Privacy of patients is preserved by enforcing an arbitrary privacy policy.
+In such system, the only required tokens are some biometric information;
+patients need not to carry with them an additional token—such as a health
+card, driving license, etc., to receive the service.
+**Required skills:** General CSE408x prerequisites, passion for reading and
+writing critiques, experience with embedded devices and programming.
+====== Decentralized access control using ABAC and application plugins ======
+**Supervisor:** Amir H. Chinaei
+This project aims at designing and developing software prototype that helps
+to advance security of information and privacy of users in web
+applications--with the means of decentralized administration. The project
+focuses on data security and user privacy in popular application domains
+such as health information systems and social media. The goal is to devise
+and integrate comprehensive mechanisms towards decentralized
+privacy-preserved administration models, with web-based and user-friendly
+interfaces and implemented by application plug-ins. The methodology is to
+first analyze the privacy risks that exist in current web applications such
+as in social media applications. A role-based only approach to data privacy
+is not sufficient because role-assignment must be managed centrally to be
+efficiently implemented. Thus, the assignment of a role to a particular
+object for a particular subject is administrated by the system so there is
+no way for a user to assign access rights beyond those defined by some
+central authority. If no matching role is defined a priori, the user is left
+with the difficult task of (1) attempting to create a new role (leading to
+role explosion); (2) being overly restrictive in selecting a “close” role
+(reducing system utility and limiting access below what is actually needed);
+or (3) selecting a role that is too general, leading to potential breaches
+in security or privacy violations. Instead, the proposed approach lies in an
+attribute-based solution in which users can create objects, modify the
+content, and control the access. It is obvious that a minimal set of
+application-dependent corporation policies, to which all users comply, is
+needed to avoid anarchy.
+**Required skills:** General CSE408x prerequisites, passion for reading and
+writing critiques, experience with web developer tools and plugin
+development.
+====== Privacy preserving constructs for programming languages ======
+**Supervisor:** Amir H. Chinaei
+Programming languages suffer from the lack of sufficient features that serve
+privacy preservation and ensure data security in cyber spaces. Consequently,
+many applications that have been developed by these languages are vulnerable
+with respect to data security and/or user privacy. For instance, XML, a
+popular underlying language for many web based applications, needs
+enhancements onto its access control component, XACML, by adding features to
+support privacy preservation. Developing extensions for data presentation
+formats such as XML, XAML, JSON, etc. to make them more suitable for a
+secure and trustworthy cyber space is an ongoing problem. Obviously, any
+mechanism to define privacy policies in such documents needs to be supported
+by the query languages too. One approach is to study XACML and XQuery and
+investigate minimal modifications such that they support ad-hoc attributes
+of privacy preservation. To measure feasibility and effectiveness of the
+modifications, one may need to develop prototypes to the proposed solutions
+and conduct experiments.
+**Required skills:** General CSE408x prerequisites, passion for reading and
+writing critiques in the areas related to SQL engine and data exchange
+formats such as XML and JSON.
+====== Building healthcare question answering systems ======
+**Supervisor:** Amir H. Chinaei
+In this project, the prospective student(s) will get the opportunity to
+build question answering systems for healthcare or education applications.
+The project involves simpler and more complex tasks: data collection using
+open source search engines, data annotation, building machine learning
+models, evaluation of the built system, etc. The students will involve in
+one or several tasks depending their interests and skills.
+**Required skills:** General CSE408x prerequisites, programming (preferably in
+Python and Java) to interact with large datasets for experiments and
+analyses.
+====== Machine learning for real time access control ======
+**Supervisor:** Amir H. Chinaei
+As artificial intelligence methods continue to improve, so do the
+opportunities of their applications on different industries. Finance and
+healthcare databases include sensitive data that certain people should
+access in a certain time and location. For example, health information (such
+vulnerability to certain diseases) are information that only a healthcare
+practitioner should access in a given time and location. Consider when a
+practitioner needs to access an attribute of a patient during a surgery, or
+when an employee tries to access to a particular data remotely, or when
+employees change their positions over time in a company. In these and many
+situations, granting and revoking data access needs to be updated online and
+real time. To this end, there is a demand for intelligent systems for online
+and real time access control. In this project, the prospective students will
+get the opportunity to apply machine learning techniques on access control
+data to learn patterns of users accessing data and to automatically learn
+access control rules.
+**Required skills:** General CSE408x prerequisites, programming (preferably in
+Python and Java), passion for reading and writing critiques in the area of
+data security and machine learning.
+====== Detecting and Visualizing anomalies in dynamic networks ======
+**Supervisor:** Aijun An
+In this project, the goal is to detect and visualize anomalies in dynamic graphs. Graphs are powerful tools to model networks and relationships between their entities. Many of the real-world graphs are dynamic in which nodes and edges are being added and deleted over time. Some of the dynamic network examples include social networks and computer networks. Anomalies are any deviation from the normal. For example, in a computer network, communications are normal over time until a single machine is attacked by a large number of other machines at a specific time point. We work on finding time points that an anomaly occurs and nodes, edges or subgraphs that are responsible for this anomalous behavior. This project focuses on finding and visualizing anomalies in a stream of graphs. The student will first use a visualization tool to visualize the network over time. This helps in better understanding the changes in the structure of the network. There are various visualization tools available to use for this purpose. In the second phase, the student will implement a graph anomaly detection method and combine it with the visualzation program so that the graph stream can be monitored through visualization and anomalies can be detected and illustrated in an online fashion. This project is a part of a collaborative project with IBM and the student will work closedly with a PhD student in the project.
+**Required skills:** Good programming skills in Python and Java.
+**Recommended skills:** Experience with visualization tools is very helpful, Interest in algorithms for graphs.
+====== Graphical User Interface for Power System Simulator ======
+**Supervisor:** Afshin Rezaei
+The project is to develop a user-friendly Graphical User Interface (GUI) for a power system simulator program. Similar to all circuit simulation programs, the GUI should provide a library of the system components. These elements include not only the basic circuit elements such as resistor, capacitor, and inductor but also more complex equipment models such as transformers, generators, etc. The library elements can be dragged and dropped on the design page. The user would be also able to add new elements to the library. Each element has its own dialog box for entering the parameters which is displayed by double-clicking on that element. The elements will be connected by the user. The GUI should provide the common tasks for drawing, removing, grouping, and construction of a circuit. The GUI can write an output data file of the system element parameters and connections and call an available executable program to run. After, the GUI will display the simulation results.
+**Required background:** General CSE408x prerequisites, good programming skill, good knowledge of GUI design tools
+====== Development of a Standalone Power System Optimization Toolbox ======
+**Supervisor:** Afshin Rezaei
+Finding the optimum system condition and maximum/minimum of analytical or numerical functions are of fundamental needs and widely used in various fields of Engineering. This project is to develop a standalone optimization toolbox based on Intel Visual FORTRAN for power system applications. FORTRAN language with its highly developed math library is a powerful tool to solve complicated mathematical problems. A group of such mathematical problems are those dealing with the optimization algorithms particularly the curve fitting and global optimization methods such as genetic algorithm.
+In this project, the developer is expected to explore Intel FORTRAN Math Kernel Library (MKL) and Intel Mathematics and Statistics Library (IMSL) and develop a program code in FORTRAN to call built-in functions and perform the requested optimizations specified by the user. Due to compatibility of the MS Visual Studio with both FORTRAN and C++, some parts of the code can also be developed in C++.
+**Required background:** General CSE408x prerequisites, good programming skill, good math skill, good knowledge of Intel FORTRAN and C++
+====== Palpation Task Trainer ======
+**Supervisors:** Petros Faloutsos (EECS) and Iris Epstein (School of Nursing)
+Palpation of head and neck region is an integral part of a complete physical health assessment performed by both physicians (e.g., physician assistant; family doctor; Ear Nose and throat specialist and surgeon) and Nurses (Nurse practitioners, registered nurses). During palpation practitioners use their sense of touch with knowledge of anatomy of the head and neck to feel, differentiate and characterize the masses within their anatomical landmark (e.g.,lymph nodes; fat; size; texture; movements). With increase prevalence of cancer in head and neck early detection and appropriate referral and treatments are paramount. In 2016, George Brown College Capstone Engineering program together with the help of the nursing lab simulation specialist constructed a head and neck normal task trainer (prototype 1) with 32 touch sensors (see image bellow). During a multidiscipline conference in May 2017 we tested the task trainer with over 47 experts’ practitioners (Doctors and Nurses). Two important themes emerged from the survey. First, the need to render the task trainer more realistic (e.g., the touch of the skin and bonny structure). The second, focus on making the task trainer more interactive. The purpose of this project is to create a second prototype with an interactive gaming capabilities during a head to neck palpation.  Perhaps creating an algorithm gaming from simple to complex palpation assessment skills (e.g., to create a game around not only palpating to locate the mass but also to characterizing it.). Possible directions:
+. Head to neck anatomical structure - Making the task trainer more "real" with anatomical / bone/ cartilage/ glands structures.
+. Head and neck skin - Because we are focusing on palpation touching the skin and making the skin respond to touch is important.
+. Head to neck engaging and interactive - Several health care providers perform palpation. In fact there is a hierarchy among them (nurse vs doctor; family doctor vs Ear Nose and throat). Creating some kind of interactive game to find and characterize the gland with multidiscipline.
+**Required Background:** Standard prerequisites,some knowledge of C++.
+**Other experience:** Knowledge of computer graphics (e.g. EECS3431)  and  familiarity with programming computer games would be useful for the gaming aspect, while familiarity with making and 3D printing  might be useful for developing the prototype system.
+**Resources and readings:** Here are two links to articles we published. The reference list has more resources
+http://www.ijocs.org/clinical-journal/head-to-neck-task-trainer-to-teach-palpation-skills-back-to-basic-12036.html
+http://www.sciedu.ca/journal/index.php/jnep/article/view/11461
+====== Custom Camera App using the Andriod Camera 2 API ======
+**Supervisor:** Michael S. Brown
+Cameras have a number of processing steps that convert the incoming sensor image to the final sRGB-JPEG image.  These steps are collectively referred to as the "camera processing pipeline".  The camera processing pipeline has traditionally been fixed in a camera's onboard hardware. This made changing it difficult to develop a custom camera application. The new Camera 2 API for Android, however, allows developers significant more control over the entire imaging pipeline.
+The primary goal of this project is to develop custom camera applications that manipulate individual components of the imaging pipeline (e.g., custom white-balance, custom colour mapping, custom tone-manipulation, etc.).   These applications will all be built on top of the Camera 2 API for Android phones.
+**Required Background:** General EECS 408x prerequisites, knowledgeable with photography, experience with Java programming for Android platforms.
 ====== Ultrasound simulation/trainer ======
@@ Line 53: / Line 257: @@
-====== Design and development of a low‐power backend PCB for brain neural signal processing and wireless data transmission ======
-**Supervisor:** Hossein Kassiri
-The student will be responsible for the design and testing of a printed circuit board (PCB) that receives brain electrophysiological signals from multiple recording sites; analyze, decode, and organizes them; and transmit them through a wireless link to a handheld (e.g., cellphone) or stationary (e.g. a laptop) device. The board must be designed while the strict power and area budgets of a medical device taken into account.
-Once developed, the prototype along with the currently‐available wearable brain monitoring device will form a complete wireless wearable solution for point‐of‐care brain monitoring and diagnosis applications.
-**Required Background:** Solid knowledge of electrical and electronic circuits, proficiency in Verilog and MATLAB, previous PCB design experience is not a must but definitely is a plus.
@@ Line 186: / Line 383: @@
 **Supervisor:** Natalija Vlajic
 Not long ago, botnets - networks of compromised computers - were seen as the most effective (if not the only) means of conducting Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks. However, with the growing popularity and prevalence of application-layer over other types of DDoS attacks, the DDoS execution landscape is becoming increasingly more diverse. An especially interesting new trend is the execution of application-layer DDoS attacks by means of skillfully manipulated Web-crawlers, such as Google-bots. The goal of this project is to design, implement and test a real-world framework consisting of the following: a) the attacker's web-accessible domain specially designed to attract Google-bots and then manipulate them into generating attack traffic towards the target/victim site; b) the victim's Web site set up in Amazon S3 cloud. In addition to the hands-on component, the project will also look into the statistical/numerical estimation of the framework's anticipated 'attack potential' relative to an actual (real-world) target/victim site.
@@ Line 194: / Line 389: @@
-Attentive Sensing for Better Two-Way Communication in Remote Learning Environments
+====== Attentive Sensing for Better Two-Way Communication in Remote Learning Environments ======
-Supervisor: James Elder
+**Supervisor:** James Elder
-Required Background: General CSE408x prerequisites, good programming skills, good math skills, knowledge of C and MATLAB programming languages
 One of the challenges in remote learning is to allow students to communicate effectively with the lecturer. For example, when a student asks a question, communication will be more effective if the instructor has a zoomed view of the student’s face, so that s/he can interpret expressions etc. The goal of this project is to apply attentive sensing technology (www.elderlab.yorku.ca) to this problem. This technology is able to monitor a large environment such as a classroom and direct a high-resolution ‘attentive’ sensor to events of interest. In particular, working with a senior graduate student or postdoctoral fellow, the successful applicant will:
@@ Line 205: / Line 398: @@
 Implement algorithms for detecting hand-raises based upon this investigation
 Evaluate these algorithms in a real-classroom setting, using proprietary attentive sensing technology
-Attentive Sensing for Sport Video Recording Markets
-Supervisor: James Elder
+**Required Background:** General CSE408x prerequisites, good programming skills, good math skills, knowledge of C and MATLAB programming languages
-Required Background: Good programming skills; Good math skills; Knowledge of C and MATLAB programming languages
+====== Attentive Sensing for Sport Video Recording Markets ======
-The goal of this project is to modify York University’s patented attentive sensor technology to the sport video recording market. Specific application domains under investigation include skiing, indoor BMX parks, and horse tracks. The general problem is to use attentive sensing technology (www.elderlab.yorku.ca) to visually detect and track multiple moving agents (e.g., skiers, riders, horses) and to select specific agents for active high-resolution smooth pursuit. The student will work with senior graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and research scientists to help modify the attentive sensing technology to operate in these domains. Specific tasks include: 1. Ground-truth available datasets 2. Evaluate current attentive algorithms on these datasets 3. Modify these algorithms to improve performance on these datasets
+**Supervisor**: James Elder
+The goal of this project is to modify York University’s patented attentive sensor technology to the sport video recording market. Specific application domains under investigation include skiing, indoor BMX parks, and horse tracks. The general problem is to use attentive sensing technology (www.elderlab.yorku.ca) to visually detect and track multiple moving agents (e.g., skiers, riders, horses) and to select specific agents for active high-resolution smooth pursuit. The student will work with senior graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and research scientists to help modify the attentive sensing technology to operate in these domains. Specific tasks include: 1. Ground-truth available datasets 2. Evaluate current attentive algorithms on these datasets 3. Modify these algorithms to improve performance on these datasets.
-JPF in a Jar
+**Required Background:** Good programming skills; Good math skills; Knowledge of C and MATLAB programming languages
-Supervisor: Franck van Breugel
+====== JPF in a Jar ======
-Description: JPF, which is short for Java PathFinder, is an open source tool that has been developed at NASA's Ames Research Center. The aim of JPF is to find bugs in Java code. Instead of 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.
+**Supervisor:** Franck van Breugel
+JPF, which is short for Java PathFinder, is an open source tool that has been developed at NASA's Ames Research Center. The aim of JPF is to find bugs in Java code. Instead of 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.
@@ Line 228: / Line 423: @@
 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
+**Required Background:** General CSE408x prerequisites
-Model-based Design and Development of Embedded Systems with Code Generation Tools
-Supervisor: Jia Xu
-Required Background: At least a B+ in Embedded Systems (CSE3215), MATLAB, C programming skills, solid experience in using a microcontroller such as Arduino.
+====== Model-based Design and Development of Embedded Systems with Code Generation Tools ======
-Project Description:
+**Supervisor:** Jia Xu
 Model-based design with code generation tools can be used for simulation, rapid prototyping, and hardware-in-the-loop testing of embedded systems. This project explores model-based design and development of embedded systems on various hardware platforms with code generation tools. The selected student will develop and test embedded systems using model-based design and code generation tools such as MathWorks MATLAB /Simulink Coder.
+**Required Background:** At least a B+ in Embedded Systems (EECS 3215), MATLAB, C programming skills, solid experience in using a microcontroller such as Arduino.
+====== C2000 Concerto Microcontrollers ======
-C2000 Concerto Microcontrollers
+**Supervisor:** Jia Xu
-Supervisor: Jia Xu
-Required Background: At least a B+ in Embedded Systems (CSE3215), strong C programming skills, solid knowledge of microcontrollers
+The C2000 Concerto family of microcontrollers combines two cores on a single-chip with on-chip low latency interprocessor communication between the two cores: a C28x 32-bit control core for real-time control with faster/more loops and small sampling window; and an ARM 32-bit Cortex-M3 host core for communications and general purpose. The selected student will evaluate the capabilities of the C2000 Concerto family of microcontrollers through testing and investigating open source software for real-time control applications that runs on C2000 Concerto Microcontrollers.
-Description: The C2000 Concerto family of microcontrollers combines two cores on a single-chip with on-chip low latency interprocessor communication between the two cores: a C28x 32-bit control core for real-time control with faster/more loops and small sampling window; and an ARM 32-bit Cortex-M3 host core for communications and general purpose. The selected student will evaluate the capabilities of the C2000 Concerto family of microcontrollers through testing and investigating open source software for real-time control applications that runs on C2000 Concerto Microcontrollers.
+**Required Background:** At least a B+ in Embedded Systems (EECS3215), strong C programming skills, solid knowledge of microcontrollers
+====== Real-Time Bidding Platform ======
-Real-Time Bidding Platform
+**Supervisor:** Jia Xu
-Supervisor: Jia Xu
-Required Background: At least a B+ in Operating System Fundamentals (CSE3221), strong Ubuntu/Linux, C++ programming, GCC, TCP/IP skills
 Description: Real-time bidding (RTB) is a new method of selling and buying online display advertising in real-time one ad impression at a time. Once a bid request has been sent out, all bids must be received within a strict deadline - generally under 100 milliseconds, including network latency. This project explores RTBkit, an open source SDK allowing developers to create customized real time ad bidding systems (for Media Buyers/Bidders).
+**Required Background:** At least a B+ in Operating System Fundamentals (EECS3221), strong Ubuntu/Linux, C++ programming, GCC, TCP/IP skills
-Circuit and Board Design for a Pulsed Ground Penetrating Radar
+====== Circuit and Board Design for a Pulsed Ground Penetrating Radar ======
-Supervisor:Sebastian Magierowski
-Description: The project requires the construction of components for a ground penetrating radar. The students would have to design microwave boards for the high-frequency components of this unit, on both the transmitter and the receiver. On the transmitter side the board would take a 5-MHz input clock, run it through a series of off-the-shelf amplifiers and then through a shaping circuit that would convert the input into an outgoing series of pulses (still at 5-MHz repetition rate) less than 400-ps in duration each. The bandwidth of the signal is roughly 2-8 GHz and hence requires very careful board layout. The receiver would be a time-shifted sampler, used to sample the returning pulses in progressive periods. This radar circuit is ultimately intended to be positioned on a rover doing ground analysis.
+**Supervisor:** Sebastian Magierowski
-Required Background A background in undergraduate-level electronics is very important. Experience with board level implementations and knowledge of microstrip lines would be helpful, otherwise the basics would have to be picked up during the project.
+The project requires the construction of components for a ground penetrating radar. The students would have to design microwave boards for the high-frequency components of this unit, on both the transmitter and the receiver. On the transmitter side the board would take a 5-MHz input clock, run it through a series of off-the-shelf amplifiers and then through a shaping circuit that would convert the input into an outgoing series of pulses (still at 5-MHz repetition rate) less than 400-ps in duration each. The bandwidth of the signal is roughly 2-8 GHz and hence requires very careful board layout. The receiver would be a time-shifted sampler, used to sample the returning pulses in progressive periods. This radar circuit is ultimately intended to be positioned on a rover doing ground analysis.
+**Required Background:** A background in undergraduate-level electronics is very important. Experience with board level implementations and knowledge of microstrip lines would be helpful, otherwise the basics would have to be picked up during the project.
+====== Tilt Target Selection on Touchscreen Phones ======
-Proposed Projects from Previous Years
+**Supervisor:** Scott MacKenzie
-Tilt Target Selection on Touchscreen Phones
-Supervisor: Scott MacKenzie
-Required Background: General 4080 prerequisites, CSE3461, and (preferably) CSE4441. Interest in user interfaces and human-computer interaction (HCI). Students can use their own Android phone for the project or one supplied by the course supervisor.
 Touchscreen mobile devices commonly use a built-in accelerometer to sense movement or tilting actions of the device. Tilt is commonly used the change the orientation of the display between portrait and landscape. Gaming is another common use for tilting actions. However, tilt may also be used for target selection, as a replacement for touch. This research project will evaluate tilt as an input primitive for target selection on touchscreen mobile devices.
@@ Line 288: / Line 472: @@
 Readings: MacKenzie, I. S., & Teather, R. J. (2012). FittsTilt: The application of Fitts’ law to tilt-based interaction. Proceedings of the Seventh Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction – NordiCHI 2012, pp. 568-577. New York: ACM.
-Attentive Sensing for Better Two-Way Communication in Remote Learning Environments
+**Required Background:** General 4080 prerequisites, EECS 3461, and (preferably) EECS 4441. Interest in user interfaces and human-computer interaction (HCI). Students can use their own Android phone for the project or one supplied by the course supervisor.
-Supervisor: James Elder
+====== Enabling SaaS access to an experimental AI planner ======
-Required Background: General CSE408x prerequisites, good programming skills, good math skills, knowledge of C and MATLAB programming languages
+**Supervisor:** Sotirios Liaskos
-One of the challenges in remote learning is to allow students to communicate effectively with the lecturer. For example, when a student asks a question, communication will be more effective if the instructor has a zoomed view of the student’s face, so that s/he can interpret expressions etc. The goal of this project is to apply attentive sensing technology (www.elderlab.yorku.ca) to this problem. This technology is able to monitor a large environment such as a classroom and direct a high-resolution ‘attentive’ sensor to events of interest. In particular, working with a senior graduate student or postdoctoral fellow, the successful applicant will:
+This project involves enriching and integrating a set of fairly complex scripts, which are components of an Artificial Intelligence (AI) planner, and exporting them to the public in a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) fashion.
-Study the problem of detecting hand-raises in the preattentive sensor stream
+The components are various Unix executables and LISP programs that need to interact in complex ways. The components may be residing in different servers in different universities. Currently integration is performed manually, at the expense of usability. Thus, we aim at constructing a module that: (a) integrates involved components to deliver output in one call, (b) exports a unique web interface (preferably following WSDL/SOAP) to be easily accessed by custom front-end tools by anyone, anywhere, (c ) offers a simple front-end for human users.
-Implement algorithms for detecting hand-raises based upon this investigation
-Evaluate these algorithms in a real-classroom setting, using proprietary attentive sensing technology
-Attentive Sensing for Sport Video Recording Markets
-Supervisor: James Elder
-Required Background: Good programming skills; Good math skills; Knowledge of C and MATLAB programming languages
+**Required Background:** Good knowledge of Unix tools / Python, Perl or Awk. Comfort with algorithms and programming. Essential: 2031 – Software Tools. Desired: 3402 – Functional & Logic Programming, 3101 – Design and Analysis of Algorithms, 4302 – Compilers and Interpreters.
-The goal of this project is to modify York University’s patented attentive sensor technology to the sport video recording market. Specific application domains under investigation include skiing, indoor BMX parks, and horse tracks. The general problem is to use attentive sensing technology (www.elderlab.yorku.ca) to visually detect and track multiple moving agents (e.g., skiers, riders, horses) and to select specific agents for active high-resolution smooth pursuit. The student will work with senior graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and research scientists to help modify the attentive sensing technology to operate in these domains. Specific tasks include: 1. Ground-truth available datasets 2. Evaluate current attentive algorithms on these datasets 3. Modify these algorithms to improve performance on these datasets
-Continuation of a Path Diagram to Syntax Application
+====== Predicting Angular Error in Rigid Registration ======
-Supervisor: Jeff Edmonds
-Required Background: General CSE408x prerequisites
+**Supervisor:** Burton Ma
-Recommended Background: Java software development
+Registration is a fundamental step in image-based surgical navigation. Several (seemingly) different approaches for predicting distance errors in registration are known, but for some surgical procedures, the angular error in registration is more important. This project will validate an approach for predicting angular error in registration; the student will use a combination of simulated and actual registration data for testing purposes.
-Structural equation modeling (SEM) is a statistical technique that is becoming increasingly popular in the educational and behavioral sciences. SEM allows researchers to test the validity of hypothesized models involving complex relationships among multiple variables. Collected data is used to estimate the parameters of the equations and assessing the fit of the model.
+====== Calibration of a Tracked Pointer ======
-The software required is an application that allows researchers to define their hypothesized models visually and will output the correct syntax for the analytical software of their choosing.
+**Supervisor:** Burton Ma
-To date a promising functional application has been developed in JAVA by a Computer Science student as a 4080 project. The existing software allows the user to draw a path diagram and outputs code for the R package sem. There are a number of improvements to be made (refinements and additions to graphical user interface) and then the application needs to be extended to output syntax appropriate for additional software applications (openMX, MPlus and EQS). Though this project may not begin at “the first stages” of the software lifecycle, this scenario is likely common in the software development market. In addition, the student will be working with a primary “client” who is far less technically advanced, which is also reflective of real-world situations.
-More details here.
-Enabling SaaS access to an experimental AI planner
-Supervisor: Sotirios Liaskos (liaskos at yorku dot ca)
-Required Background: Good knowledge of Unix tools / Python, Perl or Awk. Comfort with algorithms and programming. Essential: 2031 – Software Tools. Desired: 3402 – Functional & Logic Programming, 3101 – Design and Analysis of Algorithms, 4302 – Compilers and Interpreters.
-Description: This project involves enriching and integrating a set of fairly complex scripts, which are components of an Artificial Intelligence (AI) planner, and exporting them to the public in a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) fashion.
-The components are various Unix executables and LISP programs that need to interact in complex ways. The components may be residing in different servers in different universities. Currently integration is performed manually, at the expense of usability. Thus, we aim at constructing a module that: (a) integrates involved components to deliver output in one call, (b) exports a unique web interface (preferably following WSDL/SOAP) to be easily accessed by custom front-end tools by anyone, anywhere, (c ) offers a simple front-end for human users.
-Learning objectives:
-Understand the technologies and process involved in turning native code into a web-service (“servicizing”).
-Study a state-of-the-art AI planner and understand its workings.
-Exercise scripting skills.
-Predicting Angular Error in Rigid Registration
-Supervisor: Burton Ma
-Description: Registration is a fundamental step in image-based surgical navigation. Several (seemingly) different approaches for predicting distance errors in registration are known, but for some surgical procedures, the angular error in registration is more important. This project will validate an approach for predicting angular error in registration; the student will use a combination of simulated and actual registration data for testing purposes.
-Calibration of a Tracked Pointer
-Supervisor: Burton Ma
 Description: Tracked pointers are the most common tools used in surgical navigation systems. A typical pointer has a tracked target on one end and a sharp or ball tip on the other end. Finding the location of the tip relative to the target is a calibration problem. One solution to the calibration problem involves pivoting the pointer about the tip while tracking the target; if the tip is kept stationary, then the target moves on the surface of a sphere. Fitting the tracking data to the surface of a sphere yields the location of the tip as the sphere center. Unfortunately, the calibrated tip position obtained using such a spherical calibration has high variance. This project will investigate how much variance there is in the calibrated tip position, and methods for reducing the variance of the calibrated tip position.
-A privacy safeguard framework for sharing photos on Facebook
+====== Simulation for Forest Fire Detection ======
-Supervisor: Uyen Trang Nguyen
+**Supervisor:** Rob Allison
-Description: One of the major privacy concerns in Online Social Networks is photo sharing. A user may post his/her friends’ photos without their consent. The friends have no control over the user’s Facebook activities, namely photo sharing. In this project, we design and implement a third-party Facebook application that allows people to protect their identities in photos uploaded by another user without their consent.
+Detection of forest fires is a challenging activity that requires considerable training. The objective of this project is to implement a virtual reality simulation to incorporate key aspects of this task and then to perform an evaluation with a small user study.
-Required prerequisite background: Proficiency in programming, especially in Java and Web application programming.
-Desired prerequisite: Knowledge of image processing, Facebook API, JavaScript Object Notation (JSON)
+**Required Background:** General EECS408x prerequisites
-Simulation for Forest Fire Detection
-Supervisor: Rob Allison
-Required Background: General CSE408x prerequisites
-Recommended Background: CSE3431 or CSE4471 or equivalent
-Description
-Detection of forest fires is a challenging activity that requires considerable training. The objective of this project is to implement a virtual reality simulation to incorporate key aspects of this task and then to perform an evaluation with a small user study.
-Study of self-motion perception in microgravity
-Supervisor: Rob Allison
+**Recommended Background:** EECS3431 or EECS4471 or equivalent
-Required Background: General CSE408x prerequisites
+====== Study of self-motion perception in microgravity ======
-Recommended Background: CSE3431 or CSE4471 or equivalent
-Description
+**Supervisor:** Rob Allison
 This is a computer graphics project to present visual motion stimuli to an observer. The software will experimentally control scene content, collect user responses and control the camera trajectory to simulate the desired self-motion profile.
-Stereoscopic cinema calculator
+**Required Background:** General EECS408x prerequisites
-Supervisor: Rob Allison
-Required Background: General CSE408x prerequisites
+**Recommended Background:** EECS3431 or EECS4471 or equivalent
-Recommended Background: CSE3431 or CSE4471 or equivalent
+====== Stereoscopic cinema calculator ======
-Description
+**Supervisor:** Rob Allison
 Directors of three-dimensional movies sometimes use 'stereo calculators' to compute the simulated depth of objects in the film show to the viewer in order to maximize the stereoscopic effects and maintain comfortable viewing. However current calculators have limited ability to visualize the results of the calculations. This project will combine stereo calculations with visualization software to assist the director in artistic and technical decisions.
-Computer pointing devices and the speed-accuracy tradeoff
+**Required Background:** General EECS408x prerequisites
-Supervisor: Scott MacKenzie
+**Recommended Background:** EECS3431 or EECS4471 or equivalent
-Required Background: General 4080 prerequisites, CSE3461, and (preferably) CSE4441
+====== Computer pointing devices and the speed-accuracy tradeoff ======
-Recommended Background: Interest in user interfaces and human-computer interaction (HCI). Understanding of experiment design. Experience in doing user studies.
+**Supervisor:** Scott MacKenzie
-One key text entry
+**Required Background:** General 4080 prerequisites, EECS3461, and (preferably) EECS4441
-Supervisor: Scott MacKenzie
+**Recommended Background:** Interest in user interfaces and human-computer interaction (HCI). Understanding of experiment design. Experience in doing user studies.
-Required Background: General 4080 prerequisites, CSE3461, and (preferably) CSE4441
+====== One key text entry ======
-Recommended Background: Interest in user interfaces and human-computer interaction (HCI). Understanding of experiment design. Experience in doing user studies.
-The Algorithmics Animation Workshop
+**Supervisor:** Scott MacKenzie
-Supervisor: Andy Mirzaian
+**Required Background:** General 4080 prerequisites, EECS3461, and (preferably) EECS4441
-Required background: General prerequisites
+Recommended Background: Interest in user interfaces and human-computer interaction (HCI). Understanding of experiment design. Experience in doing user studies.
-Recommended background: CSE 3101
+====== The Algorithmics Animation Workshop ======
-Description
+**Supervisor:** Andy Mirzaian
 The URL for Algorithmics Animation Workshop (AAW) is http://www.cs.yorku.ca/~aaw. The main purpose of AAW is to be a pedagogical tool by providing animation of important algorithms and data structures in computer science, especially those studied in courses CSE 3101, 4101, 5101, 6114, 6111. This is an open ended project in the sense that more animations can be added to this site over time.
-Automated Reasoning System for Quantified Propositional Logic
+**Required background:** General prerequisites
-Supervisor: Zbigniew Stachniak
+**Recommended background:** EECS 3101
-Required background: General prerequisites
-Recommended background: Passion for programming and experimentation; Some knowledge of propositional and predicate logic
+====== Automated Reasoning System for Quantified Propositional Logic ======
-Description
+**Supervisor:** Zbigniew Stachniak
 Quantified Propositional Logics (QPL) plays an important role in a number of computer science disciplines from the theoretical computer science to knowledge representation and verification. There are also a number of open problems concerning this logic, and formulated more than 70 years ago, that can be finally solved (or at least approached) using automated reasoning techniques. The first step in such investigations has to be the design and implementation of a theorem prover, or automated reasoning system, for QPL. Such a system should, in principle, be able to determine whether or not a given formula of QPL is a theorem (or a tautology) in this logic.
@@ Line 440: / Line 571: @@
 Background: Various variants of QPL have been formally formulated for the first time in the 1920s by a number of logicians and mathematicians. In modern computer science, QPL plays a significant role in theoretical computer science (proof complexity, satisfiability) as well as in verification and AI.
-NABU Network Emulator
+**Required background:** General prerequisites
-Supervisor: Zbigniew Stachniak
+**Recommended background:** Passion for programming and experimentation; Some knowledge of propositional and predicate logic
-Required background: General prerequisites
+====== NABU Network Emulator ======
-Recommended background: Java (including 2D graphics); Some knowledge of PC hardware architecture; Some knowledge of (any) assembler language is an asset.
+**Supervisor:** Zbigniew Stachniak
-Description
 Have you ever considered writing your own emulator of an interesting system? There has been a substantial activity in building software emulators of historically significant computers, game consoles, and, recently, smart communication devices. As a result, there is at least one emulator of almost every significant system. This activity contributes, in the first place, to the preservation and dissemination of significant hardware and software technologies. It also allows for cost-effective development of contemporary software and hardware. The project's objective is to design and implement an emulator of the NABU Network – one of the earliest “proto-Internet” networks. The emulator is to be implemented in Java.
 Background : The NABU Network was designed and implemented by a Canadian company NABU Manufacturing between 1981 and 1983. The underlying idea behind the network was to link home personal computers to cable television networks which would supply a continuous, high speed stream of computer programs and information (at the rate of 6.5 Mbits per second) to almost an unlimited number of users. Cable television was a uniquely ideal technology for NABU to deliver software and data to home computers because of its high bandwidth and networking capabilities. After the official launch on Ottawa Cablevision in October of 1983, the NABU Network was introduced by Ottawa's Skyline Cablevision in 1984 and a year later in Sowa, Japan, via a collaboration between NABU and ASCII Corp. NABU Network subscribers could rent or buy a NABU PC and dedicated network adaptor, and use an ordinary television set as a display monitor. Once connected to the network, a user could choose from various application programs and services in categories including entertainment, information and guides, education, and professional programs. Dedicated NABU magazines, newsletters, programming guides, and user groups provided subscribers with supplementary information and support. To learn more, visit here.
+**Required background:** General prerequisites
+**Recommended background:** Java (including 2D graphics); Some knowledge of PC hardware architecture; Some knowledge of (any) assembler language is an asset.