Bioinformatics Bioinformatics is a cross-disciplinary field integrating biology and chemistry with statistics and computer science. Through collaborations established with faculty from chemistry and biology through the NSF/NIH CSULA Southern California Bioinformatics Summer Institute [3], research projects will be identified for fellows to develop software tools to help solve problems in chemistry and microbiology. A sample project identified by Dr. Jamil Momand (Chemistry and Biochemistry) examines the buildup of oxidized proteins that can lead to certain diseases including Alzheimer's disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. A software program can be developed to predict which thiol groups on the surface of proteins are susceptible to oxidation. The software can then be used to test all proteins deposited in the Protein Data Bank.
Embedded computing The graduate fellows involved in this research topic will be trained to obtain the knowledge of computer organization, real-time operating systems, real-time architectures, and object-oriented programming. After the basic training, they will participate in the research of hardware/software co-design methodologies, real-time scheduling, video-streaming technologies, video compression algorithms, and network routing algorithms. Windows CE embedded single board computers will serve as the computing platform. With the variety of different applications, the computing platform can be configured accordingly with different CPUs, graphic processing units (GPUs), I/O interfaces, and memory capacities.
Image/Video Processing and Streaming A high quality image/video streaming system over heterogeneous networks has become an essential part of the expected converged services of the next generation Internet. The graduate fellows involved in this research project will receive in-depth training on various image/ video processing techniques, video compression and communication standard such as H.264, and QoS control methods. After the training, the fellows will work on the design and development of a content-based video streaming system over mobile network that aims to maximize the quality of the Region of Interest (ROI). To achieve the design goal, the fellows will conduct research on various open-ended questions such as: The fellows working on this research activity can use their knowledge to develop interesting classroom projects to show the effects of various math functions/calculations on the visual quality of image and video.
Digital data protection through information hiding The protection of digital data has been a great concern since the expanded use of these data over the Internet. Because digital data allow unlimited number of copies of an “original” without any quality loss and can also be easily distributed and forged, this presents problems of copyright protection and tamper detection, creating a pressing need for digital data protection schemes. A new emerging technology, digital watermarking, protects digital data by hiding invisible information directly into the data, thus providing a promising way to protect digital data from illicit copying and manipulation. The embedded information can be used for a wide range of applications including copyright protection, authentication, fingerprinting, copy control, and broadcast monitoring, etc. For different kinds of applications, digital watermarking should have different properties. For example, for copyright protection application, digital watermarking should have properties such as invisibility, robustness, high detection reliability, etc. The purpose of this project is to develop efficient and effective watermarking schemes that protect the content of digital data (image, audio, video, xml etc) in an invisible way. Graduate fellows involved in this research will:
3D computer graphics and computer vision techniques Computer graphics and computer vision technology have significantly contributed to the growth of computer animation and visual effects. For example, new modeling and rendering techniques of 3D computer graphics have pioneered the use of animation techniques such as cutouts, shadows, and abstract painting. Camera stabilization techniques of computer vision have been used for matching live action with computer generated imagery. In this project, graduate fellows will conduct researches about several key techniques of computer graphics and vision used for animation and visual effects and aim to design and implement new algorithms to enhance the explored techniques. The focused research areas include global illumination, procedural description and physical simulations, Image-based modeling and rendering and camera tracking and rotoscoping.
Sensor networks The general purpose of this project is to develop tools and methods for the design and implementation of sensor networks capable of self-configuring and self-healing themselves. Leveraging on recent achievements in Distributed Control Theory and Multi-Agent Systems Engineering we aim at building complex sensor systems that should exhibit learning abilities in order to be able to operate in very noisy environments and under the threat of malicious actions (data tampering, device confiscations, covert channels, etc.).
Other projects In addition to the aforementioned research projects, students from all engineering, science, and math disciplines are encouraged to identify a research project. Students must have commitment from a research mentor. Please note that preference will be given to projects with a computer science and/or computer engineering component.
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