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Judy Franklin
THREE JOB OPENINGS IN MUSIC RETRIEVAL
[please forward this message potential applicants, and apologies for cross-postings]
The Institute of Information and Computing Sciences of Utrecht University has three job openings for the WITCHCRAFT project (http://www.cs.uu.nl/research/projects/witchcraft/). The aim of the project is to a develop content-based retrieval system for folksong melodies stored as audio and notation. The system will be integrated in the Nederlandse Liederenbank ( of Dutch Songsor Dutch language and culture research.
The project team will include a postdoc, a PhD student and a scientific programmer. The closing date for applications is 25 October, 2005. For more information and details about the application procedure please follow the links below.
The postdoc will concentrate on systems design and integration, and evaluation. Specific tasks include:
* designing and implementing the framework
* cognitive modelling of melodies
* designing similarity measures and algorithms
* developing evaluation methods
job description: http://www.cs.uu.nl/vacatures/en/62510.html
The PhD student will concentrate on methods of Music Retrieval. Specific tasks include:
* selection and creation of a test corpus
* cognitive modelling of melodies
* designing similarity measures and algorithms
* user modelling and visualisation
* performing system evaluation
job description: http://www.cs.uu.nl/vacatures/en/62512.html
The programmer will implement system components and integrate them into the Nederlandse Liederenbank. Specific tasks include:
* implementing the framework, the audio transcription module, search algorithms, and the user interface
* providing technical and user documentation
job description: http://www.cs.uu.nl/vacatures/en/62513.html
--
[Posted Tuesday 9/20/2005]
Nick Howe
Interested in working on a hands-on, visually motivated research
project? I seek to hire several students this summer to work on
computer vision research projects, particularly relating to my current
work in video-based motion capture. Programming skills will be very
helpful for this position. Although the project will use the Matlab
environment, no previous experience with Matlab is required.
Up to 10 weeks of employment are available, beginning the week after
graduation. The exact length of emplyment and work schedule are
negotiable: we can plan around vactions, etc. that you wish to take,
and employment for less than ten full weeks is possible.
If you think you might be interested, please contact me by e-mail
(nhowe@cs.smith.edu) for further details. There is no specific cutoff
date, although the number of spots is limited and those applying
earlier will receive preference.
[Posted Monday 3/1/2004]
Joseph O'Rourke
Caltech Summer School
This summer Caltech will host the Computing Beyond Silicon Summer School, an
intensive 4-week introduction to molecular, biomolecular, and quantum
computing. Undergraduates with an interest in computer science, physics,
electrical engineering, chemistry, and materials science are encouraged to
apply.
Here is the url for program details and a list of participating lecturers:
http://www.cs.caltech.edu/cbsss/
The dates for the program are June 14 to July 9, 2004.
The application deadline is February 23, 2004. Extended to 1 March!
Caltech will provide housing, meals, and travel stipend.
[Posted Tuesday 2/24/2004]
Joseph O'Rourke
Peer-to-Peer Databases
The exponential growth in the amount of information has resulted in
the creation of very large databases. Such databases record an
unprecedented amount of data, including scientific, business, personal
and government data. One approach to managing all of this data is to
fully centralize and integrate the data and host it on huge server
farms; this is the prevalent approach today. This approach, however,
suffers from the following drawbacks. First, the centralized approach
offers limited fault-tolerance if the centralized server (or few
central servers) either fail or are disconnected from the network.
Second, the centralized approach requires sophisticated infrastructure
with huge investments, which may not always be available or feasible
in many cases. Finally, even if a centralized approach could be
employed, there are non-technological reasons that limit its
applicability, such as the autonomy of individual sites and privacy
concerns.
As part of the PEPPER project at Cornell University
(http://www.cs.cornell.edu/database/pepper/pepper.htm), we are
pursuing a research agenda that could lead to a different
future. Instead of having all data integrated in one large central
database system, we propose to host the data at the edge in a
distributed peer-to-peer data sharing network. Doing so would provide
increased fault-tolerance by avoiding a single point of failure, would
enable graceful scaling of the system by attaching many cheap PCs to
the Internet, and would enable data providers to ensure the privacy of
their sensitive data.
The specific scope of the summer project would be to develop a P2P
query processing layer that allows users to query the peer-to-peer
system as though it were one huge database system. Note that a
peer-to-peer query processing layer differs from a traditional
distributed database system in terms of scale (hundreds to thousands
of peers, as opposed to five to ten distributed databases), dynamics
(peers could go on and off the network frequently, and without
warning), and fault-tolerance (the system should still be operational
even if many independent peers fail).
What the Internship Will Offer
The internship will be a great opportunity to gain research experience
by working with a leading research group on current, cutting-edge
research problems. It will also be a good opportunity to learn more
about database systems, distributed systems, web technologies, and the
design and implementation of large-scale software systems. All of
this will be valuable if you plan to go on to graduate school or
join the workforce.
Requirements
Programming Languages: C++, Java
Academic Background: Preference will be given to Juniors, even though
outstanding Sophomores will also be considered. Experience with
database systems and web technologies is a plus.
Contact Information
In interested, please email Prof. Jayavel Shanmugasundaram
(jai@cs.cornell.edu) with a copy of your transcript and
resume (including your references).
[Posted Tuesday 2/24/2004]
Judy Franklin
Position advertised for:
Computer/New media Support Administrator
in Contemporary Arts
at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, B.C.
Looks very interesting, resume deadline is March 1
This is a part-time position. Don't forget, the pay scale is
in Canadian dollars.
Go to http://www.sfu.ca/job-details/052.htm for details
[Posted Friday 2/13/2004]
Joseph O'Rourke
Subject: CS Women! This is your big chance!
HEY! YOU!
This is your big chance to make a difference. Get to know the female
graduate students and faculty. Get a mentor who will help you with
interviews, resumes, applications, coursework and general life. Become a
mentor to undecided undergraduate women who could follow in your
footsteps.
Please take some time to read the announcements below. We are forming
matches now, so act soon. The first event is schedule for February 18th,
you will meet your mentor or mentee then, so please reply to this email
by February 13th.
WOMEN! GET A MENTOR!
WHO??
Female undergraduates interested in computer science.
WHAT???
A big/little sister network of CS students. Paired matches with graduate
women. Advice, conversation, and connections from people who
have been where you are. Just a few hours of commitment each month.
WHY???
To make CS women more visible. To get to know people and to get people to
know you. To talk about what cool stuff CS is. To learn more. To get help
with coursework, applications, interviews, and exams. To choose a major,
a minor, a research area. To make the department friendlier.
HOW???
Contact Kim Martin, kmartin@cs.umass.edu for details and to sign up.
Please include your year and interests. Act quickly, matches are forming
soon!
k
[Posted Thursday 2/12/2004]
Judy Franklin
Google is pleased to announce two $10,000 scholarships for female students in the computer sciences during the 2004-2005 academic year. One will be awarded to an undergraduate student and one to a graduate (master’s level) degree candidate. Selection will be based on the strength of academic background, responses to short essay questions, letters of recommendation and financial need. Complete applications must be received by Friday, March 12, 2004. Finalists will be notified on Monday, May 3, 2004 and recipients will be announced on Monday, May 24, 2004.
More details can be found at
www.google.com/anitaborg
[Posted Friday 2/6/2004]
Judy Franklin
I will be hiring several Smith students to do research
with me this summer, starting as early as possible in
May. Students interested in computer music and/or neural networks
and/or calculus and programming
are encouraged to contact me (jfranklin@cs.smith.edu),
by March 1 or sooner if you are interested.
Computer Science, engineering, music, and math majors
especially are encouraged.
We will work with computer music software such as
Max/MSP/Jitter and Sibelius. We also have Matlab and the Neural
Networks Toolbox.
[Posted Tuesday 2/3/2004]
Joseph O'Rourke
I seek to hire 6-8 students to work with me in the Summer of 2004 on my
National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded project on "Folding and Unfolding
in Computational Geometry." The basic parameters of the work situation
are: up to 10 wks, starting sometime from Mon 24 May onwards,
ending sometime before 30 July. The pay is approximately $3600/10wks.
The last year I was able to pay an
additional $1000 lodging stipend, and I try hard to make that work out again.
I am quite flexible on schedules: any number of workdays that fit within
those basic parameters are welcome. In particular, the total work time
can be much less than 10 wks. I will take at least three trips of
various durations, including a full week 11-17 July when I am teaching
a course in California,
and it is perfectly OK if you need to take a trip yourself.
The grant funds various aspects of a project to develop and
integrate my research on folding and unfolding into the school system at
various levels, from grade school through graduate school
(More info). I could use
help from Computer Science, Mathematics, Engineering, or Education majors
to work on different aspects of this project: Web page development, C++
programming, Java programming, research in computational geometry,
development of educational modules, and so on. The more you know, the more
courses you have taken, the better. But I am quite flexible, and will hire
from first-year students to already-graduated seniors to graduate
students.
Two special projects that various subsets of students will work on
is the course on Folding and Unfolding I'll give in July,
and a new Pre-Orientation program on "Robotics Technology and its Impact on Society"
at Smith 29-31 August. I will
be seeking a subgroup of students to return early and act as "peer mentors"
in that program.
So there will be a substantial educational component to the
summer work, as well as the research
component.
Please write to me at orourke@cs.smith.edu expressing interest, by 11
February 2004, and I will be happy to provide more information.
(However, please note I will be out of the country with limited email
access 30Jan-6Feb.)
I have to
make commitment decisions by 13 February. Feel free to
contact any of the students who worked with me last summer to get the
*real* lowdown on the job:
Asten Buckles <abuckles@email.smith.edu>,
Aye Thuzar <athuzar@email.smith.edu>,
Christina Ferreri <cferreri@email.smith.edu>,
Jessica McCartney <jmccartn@email.smith.edu>,
Jinghua Fan <jfan@email.smith.edu>,
Kristin Baldassaro <kbaldass@email.smith.edu>,
Sasha Berkoff <aberkoff@email.smith.edu>,
Shawna King <sking2@email.smith.edu>
I encourage you to
visit the web pages they created on their
summer
work.
[Posted Wednesday 1/21/2004]
Joseph O'Rourke
University of Virginia Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU)
in Nanoscale Materials Design
Jointly sponsored by NSF/DoD
We are seeking college students to participate in a cross discipline
program in Nanoscale Materials Design Research. The program will
focus on applications from biomedical, chemical, computer,
electrical, materials science, and mechanical engineering as well as
applied mathematics and science majors. Students must have completed
their sophomore year of an engineering, pre-engineering or science
based curriculum with a minimum cumulative GPA of 3:0.
This summer program is aligned with an ongoing NSF Materials Research
Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC) at the University of Virginia.
This MRSEC, the Center for Nanoscopic Materials Design
(www.mrsec.virginia.edu), is developing techniques for, fundamental
understanding into, and applications of, guided self-assembly of
materials on patterned semiconductor surfaces. By combining
fundamental understanding and control of short-range self-assembly
phenomena in Ge(Si)/Si structures with long-range pattern definition
techniques, broad applications of diverse materials to
quantum-engineered semiconductor devices can be envisioned, with
possible extensions to nanoscale structuring of gels, biological
templating and control of electrochemical reactions
Students in this NSF/DoD REU will have the opportunity to work
closely with faculty members and graduate students of the Center.
Students will be responsible for a written and oral final report as
well as submitting a poster of research findings. Program
participants will take a 2-credit seminar course examining the
societal and ethical implications of nanotechnology research. They
will also have numerous social opportunities; including Friday
evening outings to Charlottesville's historic downtown mall for
"Fridays After Five" and weekend hiking opportunities in the nearby
Blue Ridge Mountains and Shenandoah National Park.
The program will begin on Sunday, June 1, 2003 and continue until
Saturday, August 9, 2003. All students will receive a $4,000 stipend
and on-campus living accommodations (some meals will also be
provided). Applicants must be U.S. citizens or permanent residents of
the United States. Women, minorities and individuals with
disabilities are encouraged to apply.
Applicants must submit the following information:
1) Application
2) Statement indicating research interest and why you should be
selected.
3) Resume
4) Two letters of reference (current or previous faculty)
5) Official university transcript(s)
Applications must be received by March 15, 2003. Only complete
applications will be reviewed.
For more information:
http://www.mrsec.virginia.edu/sreu/SREU2003.html
[Posted Tuesday 3/4/2003]
Joseph O'Rourke
I received this concerning summer research internships at Cornell.
They are interesting in hiring at least two Smith students for this
summer! :-j
The exponential growth in the amount of information has resulted in
the creation of very large databases. Such databases record an
unprecedented amount of data, including scientific, business, personal
and government data. One approach to managing all of this data is to
fully centralize and integrate the data and host it on huge server
farms; this is the prevalent approach today. This approach, however,
suffers from the following drawbacks. First, the centralized approach
offers limited fault-tolerance if the centralized server (or few
central servers) either fail or are disconnected from the network.
Second, the centralized approach requires sophisticated infrastructure
with huge investments, which may not always be available or feasible
in many cases. Finally, even if a centralized approach could be
employed, there are non-technological reasons that limit its
applicability, such as the autonomy of individual sites and privacy
concerns.
As part of the PEPPER project at Cornell University
(http://www.cs.cornell.edu/people/egs/pepper/), we are pursuing a
research agenda that could lead to a different future. Instead of
having all data integrated in one large central database system, we
propose to host the data at the edge in a distributed peer-to-peer
data sharing network. Doing so would provide increased fault-tolerance
by avoiding a single point of failure, would enable graceful scaling
of the system by attaching many cheap PCs to the Internet, and would
enable data providers to ensure the privacy of their sensitive data.
The specific scope of the summer project would be to develop a P2P
query processing layer that allows users to query the peer-to-peer
system as though it were one huge database system. Note that a
peer-to-peer query processing layer differs from a traditional
distributed database system in terms of scale (hundreds to thousands
of peers, as opposed to five to ten distributed databases), dynamics
(peers could go on and off the network frequently, and without
warning), and fault-tolerance (the system should still be operational
even if many independent peers fail).
What the Internship will Offer
The internship will be a great opportunity to gain research experience
by working with a leading research group on current, cutting-edge
research problems. It will also be a good opportunity to learn more
about database systems, distributed systems, web technologies, and the
design and implementation of large-scale software systems.
Requirements
Programming Languages: C++, Java
Academic Background: Preference will be given to Juniors, even though
outstanding Sophomores will also be considered. Experience with
database systems and web technologies is a plus.
[Posted Wednesday 2/26/2003]
Judy Franklin
Music Plus One: A System for Interactive Musical Accompaniment
Christopher Raphael
Mathematics Department
University of Massachusetts
4:00 March 6, 2003
403a McConnell Hall
Refreshments served.
Abstract
I discuss my ongoing work in creating a computer system that plays the
role of a sensitive musical accompanist in a non-improvisatory composition for soloist and accompaniment.
My accompaniment system synthesizes a number of knowledge sources
including the musical score, on-line analysis of the soloist's performance, and the musical interpretations demonstrated by both the soloist and accompanist in rehearsal. I present a probabilistic model --- a Bayesian Belief Network that represents these disparate knowledge sources in a coherent framework.
During live performance, my accompanist "listens" to the soloist by using a hidden Markov model and makes principled real-time decisions that incorporate all currently available information. I will provide a live demonstration of my system.
[Posted Tuesday 2/25/2003]
Joseph O'Rourke
I'm currently looking to hire your students as top notch Instructors and
Directors for our summer technology camps and thought you might be able
to assist me. We run amazing programs for kids ages 8-17 at top
universities across the country like MIT, Smith, Princeton, Vassar,
Stanford, and Northwestern. Perhaps you would pass along the following
to graduate students, undergrads, and/or educators that might be
interested in this great opportunity. In addition, as faculty of an iD
University, you qualify for additional discounts if you would like to
send your own child or teen to our camps.
We offer great pay -- not to mention a job with iD Tech Camps is a
valuable resume builder. See the Job Description below and/or attached
flyer:
iD Tech Camps provides summer technology camps for students ages 8-17 at
top universities nationwide. Teach students age 8-17 how to produce
digital movies, create video games, design Web sites, animate in stop
motion, compose & mix digital music, master programming & robotics, and
more. Our day and overnight, hands-on, project-based programs offer one
computer per student and an average of 6 students per Instructor. Limited
Camp Director positions are also available.
You'll teach students the latest software while balancing out the day
with swimming, chess, and field trips to the beach or nearby arcade.
Spend a rewarding summer giving back what you've learned. It will be a
summer that you will never forget.
Preferred Job Qualifications (for Instructors)
* An energetic, fun-loving personality
* A flexible summer schedule
Web Design + Graphic Arts, Digital Video + Movie Production, Programming
+ Robotics, Multimedia + Game Creation, Digital Music Editing, and/or
Stop Motion Animation.
Preferred Job Qualifications (for Directors)
* Must be 25 or older
* Experience teaching and/or working with kids
* Ability to lead and motivate
* Strong Organizational skills
* A passion for education
* Flexibility and a good sense of humor
* Familiarity with Web Design & Graphic Arts, Digital Video & Movie
Production, Programming & Robotics, Multimedia & Game Creation, Digital
Music Editing, and/or Stop Motion Animation.
In order to apply, you MUST complete iD's online application. Go to
www.internaldrive.com/staff.htm.
Make a difference with iD this summer!
Regards,
Andrea Ajemian
East Coast Regional Manager
iD Tech Camps
andrea@internaldrive.com
www.internaldrive.com
[Posted Thursday 2/20/2003]
Joseph O'Rourke
The ES&P Program is looking for a computer savvy student to update and
transform its current web page into a more dynamic site. Hours are
flexible.
If you know of any such student, please have them contact Joanne
McMullin by email at: jmcmulli@smith.edu to schedule a time to discuss
the position. Please also feel free to share this announcement with
your classes.
Thank you for your help.
Environmental Science & Policy Program
Bass Hall
x 2387
enviro@smith.edu
[Posted Thursday 2/20/2003]
Joseph O'Rourke
This might be of interest to juniors and seniors in your field:
LINK
Thanks for spreading the word. Jane
Jane Sommer, J.D., Associate Director
Smith College Career Development Office
Northampton, MA 01063 USA
(T)413-585-2582; (F)413-585-2596
[Posted Wednesday 2/12/2003]
Joseph O'Rourke
A Smith alum named Jennifer Donovan will be coming to
Smith next Wednesday, February 12, to present and discuss a new
internship opportunity Welsh Consulting is making available to Smith
students.
We appreciate all the CDO has done to get the word out about the
internship itself, including the E-Access posting and the internship's
inclusion in the CDO's Internships newsletter. We were wondering,
however, if there is any way you could also advertise and get the word
out about the presentation itself.
I'll include our little write-up about the presentation below. Would you
let me know if there's anything else you can do (posters, flyers, etc.)
to let Smith students know about it?
Thanks again for your help.
Regards,
Adele Johnsen '02
Description:
Welsh Consulting is a computer network consulting firm located in
downtown Boston. Come join our informal discussion to learn more about
the exciting internship opportunity we're offering to Smith students
interested in network engineering and administration.
The discussion will be held on Wednesday, February 12, at 4:30 p.m. in
Room 104 of the Engineering Building. There will be a brief presentation
and a Q & A session. If you have any questions, please contact Jennifer
Donovan '00 (jen@welsh.com).
To learn more about Welsh please visit www.welsh.com.
Adele Johnsen
Welsh Consulting, Inc.
31 Milk Street, Suite 805
Boston, MA 02109
617-695-9800 Tel
617-695-0350 Fax
adele@welsh.com
www.welsh.com
[Posted Thursday 2/6/2003]
Joseph O'Rourke
I seek to hire 8-10 students to work with me in the Summer of 2003 on my
National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded project on "Folding and Unfolding
in Computational Geometry." The basic parameters of the work situation
are: up to 10 wks, starting sometime after graduation (18 May), and
ending sometime before 1 Aug 03. The pay is something like $3500/10wks; I
don't know it precisely at this writing. Last year I was able to pay an
additional $1000 lodging stipend, and I presume that will work out again.
I am quite flexible on schedules: any number of workdays that fit within
those basic parameters are welcome. In particular, the total work time
can be much less than 10 wks. I will take a week of vacation in early
July, and will be teaching a course at Smith July 14-25th, but will
otherwise be here. Although I do not have funding for that many students,
last year we were able to parlay Praxis Internships into full summer
stipends; so that is a possibility, if you have not yet cashed your Praxis
chit.
The grant funds various aspects of a project to develop and
integrate my research on folding and unfolding into the school system at
various levels, from grade school through graduate school. I could use
help from Computer Science, Mathematics, Engineering, or Education majors
to work on different aspects of this project: Web page development, C++
programming, Java programming, research in computational geometry,
development of educational modules, and so on. The more you know, the more
courses you have taken, the better. But I am quite flexible, and will hire
from first-year students to already-graduated seniors to graduate
students.
During the last two weeks of July, as mentioned, I will be
teaching a course to high school girls on this topic,
http://www.smith.edu/summerprograms/ssep/ssepabout/courses.html#folding
and those working with me will assist me in this endeavor in various ways.
So there will be an educational component, as well as the research
component.
Please write to me at orourke@cs.smith.edu expressing interest, by 7
February 2003, and I would be happy to provide more information. I have to
make commitment decisions by 14 February (Valentine's Day!). Feel free to
contact any of the students who worked with me last summer to get the
*real* lowdown on the job:
Becky Alexander ,
Beenish Chaudry ,
Emily Zaehring ,
Heather Dyson ,
Melody Donoso ,
Michiko Charley ,
Monta Lertpachin ,
Sonya Nikolova ,
Teodora Nedialkova
[Posted Saturday 2/1/2003]
Joseph O'Rourke
January 15th Deadline:
MICROSOFT: www.microsoft.com
They're back! This will be your last chance to interview on-campus
with Microsoft this school year...and remember they're on the west
coast, so...if you have any interest at all, it would be wise to take
advantage of this! They're recruiting for Software Test Engineer ,
Program Manager, Software Design Engineer, Software Design Engineer in
Test. One simple resume drop puts you in the running for all of these.
You don't even have to write a cover letter for this one! Job
descriptions/etc. on E-access, as is the resume drop.
Smith contact: Deborah Wijnhoven <DWIJNHOV@email.smith.edu>
[Posted Friday 1/10/2003]
Joseph O'Rourke
Dear Engineering Scholarship Office:
Microsoft recognizes the value of a diverse workforce and is committed to
hiring the best and brightest from all backgrounds. We know that having
a
wide range of perspectives will enable us to continue to provide great
software and services in the 21st century. We have a scholarship program
that is designed to encourage students to pursue careers in Computer
Science and other related technical fields.
Microsoft is excited to be offering full tuition scholarships totaling
over a half million dollars for the 2003-2004 academic year. Applications
must be postmarked by Friday, January 31, 2003. Microsoft will contact
finalists by the end of February 2003. Scholarship recipients will be
notified by March 21, 2003. All recipients of the scholarship will be
required to complete a salaried summer internship of 12 weeks or more at
Microsoft Corporation in Redmond, Washington. (Microsoft reserves the
right not to offer a position to the scholarship winner if an appropriate
match cannot be found.)
Undergraduate students from across North America will be selected in
recognition of their passion for software and the ability to make a
difference in the software industry. We request that you forward the
information about the scholarships to students at your school that fit
the
criteria and might be interested in applying. For your convenience, you
can send students to http://www.microsoft.com/college/scholarships
for application information. I've also attached the same information to
this email as a Word document so that you can post it on your bulletin
boards. Please contact scholars@microsoft.com or me directly with
any additional questions you may have.
Sincerely,
Anne Cheng
Sr. Recruiting Coordinator
Microsoft Scholarship Program for 2003-2004 School Year
www.microsoft.com/college/scholarships
Program Overview
Microsoft is committed to building great software and services. To do
that,
we need a wide range of great perspectives. Our scholarships are designed
to encourage students to pursue studies in computer science and related
technical disciplines.
Microsoft is excited to be offering full tuition scholarships totaling
over
a half million dollars for the 2003-2004 academic year. Applications must
be postmarked by January 31, 2003.
At Microsoft, we want to encourage students from groups currently
under-represented in the field of computer science to pursue technical
degrees. While all candidates who meet the criteria for eligibility
described below may apply, a large majority of our scholarships will be
awarded to female students, under-represented minority students or
students
with disabilities. Minority applicants must be a member of one of the
following groups under-represented in the software field: African
American,
Hispanic or Native American.
Microsoft will review all applications and select recipients on the basis
of eligibility, quality of application, interest in the software industry
and financial need. Finalists will be contacted by March 1, 2003.
Scholarship recipients will be notified by March 21, 2003.
What are the provisions of the award?
Scholarships are awarded to recipients for one academic year. The
scholarship will cover 100 percent of the tuition for the 2003-2004
academic year as posted by the financial aid office of the university or
college. The scholarships are made through the designated school and are
not transferable to other academic institutions. The funds are to be used
for tuition only and may not be used for other costs on the recipient's
bursar bill.
All recipients of the scholarship will be required to complete a salaried
summer internship of 12 weeks or more at Microsoft Corporation in
Redmond,
Washington. (Microsoft reserves the right not to offer a position to the
scholarship winner if an appropriate match cannot be found.)
What are the criteria for scholarship eligibility?
Students must be enrolled full-time and making satisfactory progress
toward
an undergraduate degree in computer science, computer engineering, or a
related technical discipline, such as math or physics, with a
demonstrated
interest in computer science. Because the scholarship is merit based, the
student must maintain a 3.0 cumulative grade point average out of a
possible 4.0, or a 4.0 cumulative grade point average out of a possible
5.0.
What is required to apply?
A complete application includes four items: your résumé, transcript,
essay
questions and letter of referral. There is not a separate application
form
to submit in addition to the above materials.
Résumé. Enclose a copy of your résumé that includes your e-mail address,
campus address and phone number, student ID number, permanent address and
phone number, major and expected graduation date.
Transcript. Enclose a copy of your current academic transcript.
Essay Questions. Use one page to answer all four of the following essay
questions (not one page per question).
- Describe how you demonstrate your passion for technology outside
the classroom.
- Describe the toughest technical problem you've worked on, how you
addressed the problem, your role in reaching the outcome, if it was
team-based, and the final outcome.
- Describe a situation which demonstrates initiative and your
willingness to go above and beyond.
- Describe how you are currently funding your college education.
Letter of referral. Enclose a letter of referral from a faculty member or
an academic advisor who knows your work.
Gender/Ethnicity/Disability (optional). Please note your gender ,
ethnicity
or disability on the page with your essay questions if you would like
that
information to be considered with your application.
Please send your completed application to:
Microsoft Scholarship Program
Microsoft Corporation
One Microsoft Way
Redmond, WA 98052-8303
[Posted Thursday 1/9/2003]
Joseph O'Rourke
Time: Tuesday, 19 November, Noon - 1 p.m.
Location: EGR Bldg. Room 201
Pizza Lunch!
Dear Computer Science Students and Faculty,
Tomorrow there will be a talk by Dr. Iris
Bahar on *summer research opportunities* in computer
engineering at Brown University.
She
will also speak about the graduate
program in computer engineering at Brown.
Iris Bahar is an Associate Professor at Brown University's Division of
engineering. Her research interests include computer architecture,
computer-aided design for electronic design automation, and nano-computing.
Her particular emphasis within these areas is on high-performance and
low-power design techniques. Prof. Bahar holds a Ph.D. in Electrical and
Computer Engineering from the University of Colorado at Boulder and B.S.
and M.S. degrees in Computer Engineering from the University of Illinois,
Urbana.
[Posted Monday 11/18/2002]
Joseph O'Rourke
From: Mary Murphy Memurphy@email.smith.edu
Subject: Summer internships, Office of Naval Intelligence
Cheryl Stadel - Bevans, Mathematics, '90 has just sent me information
about a paid sumer internship with the Office of Naval Intelligence in
Washington DC. They're particularly interested in math, computer
science, and engineering students.
The deadline is early, November 4, because a security clearance is
required.
I have posted details and an application form on the bulletin board next
to Burton 302. Please share this information with your department and
ask them to mention the opportunity to any likely candidates.
[Posted Sunday 10/20/2002]
Christie Rice
All students interested in fulltime or internship opportunities with
Microsoft are welcome to attend one of the information sessions below.
There will be plenty of food and giveaways, including a raffle to win an
Xbox.
Microsoft speakers at all sessions will include:
Smith alumna Octavia Petrovici, Software Design Engineer, Mount Holyoke
alunna Sadia Sharmin, Software Test Engineer Amherst alumni Steve
Greenberg, Program Manager, and Ned Friend, Program Manager.
Smith College
Tuesday, 10/22 at 4:30pm
Seelye Hall, Room 207
Amherst College
Tuesday, 10/22 at 8:00pm
Alumni House
Mount Holyoke College
Wednesday, 10/23 at 4:30pm
Career Development Center Workshop Room
Visit http://www.microsoft.com/college for more information about
fulltime and internship opportunities. You can also email your resume
to Julie
Barton at juliebar@microsoft.com.
[Posted Friday 10/18/2002]
Christie Rice
The Computer Science Presentation of the Major will be held on
Wednesday, Oct. 23 in McConnell Foyer from 12-1. All current and
prospective majors are welcome! Come meet the members of the department
and find out about course offerings for next semester and the entire
following year.
Chinese food will be served!
[Posted Friday 10/18/2002]
Joseph O'Rourke
Paid Internships in Computer Science
All internships are October 2002 through April 2003. Pay is $12 per hour
for 15 hours per week with potential for raises. Four hours per week will
be at our offices in Northampton; the remaining hours can be from your
apartment/dorm via the Internet. PC and Internet connection required.
Potential full-time employment upon graduation is possible. Note: The
four hours on-site in Northampton is flexible.
Associate Product Developer: Will develop modules for Version 2.0 upgrade
of our product, Virtual Business – Retailing, a simulation of a
convenience store. Will work closely with staff graphic artist to improve
the realism of the simulation and add new features. Strong Visual Basic
skills are a must. Ability to write clean, well-disciplined, readable,
commented code a must.
Associate Product Developer: Will help develop our first social science
simulation based on an election scenario. Will work our engineers on the
logic and with our graphic artist on the look and feel of the simulation.
Strong Visual Basic skills are a must. Ability to write clean,
well-disciplined, readable, commented code a must.
Contact: Peter Jordan. Send cover letter and resume to
Jordan@KnowledgeMatters.com.
About Knowledge Matters, Inc.
Located in Northampton, Massachusetts, Knowledge Matters is the leading
provider of highly visual simulations for the high school education
market. Our simulations (patterned after games such as SimCity) introduce
students to topics such as business and social studies in a more
engaging, challenging manner than traditional textbooks. Currently over
1000 schools from 48 states use our products in the classroom.
For more info, see www.KnowledgeMatters.com.
[Posted Wednesday 9/25/2002]
Joseph O'Rourke
Todd Anckaitis, an Amherst College Soccer Coach and
a Smith ESS Graduate Student,
is seeking a student to program a sports training program:
Objective: Develop a video-based software program designed
to train goalkeepers to defend against penalty kicks by
improving their reaction times and directional accuracy
through the recognition of the ball-striker's pre-kick movements,
otherwise known as advance visual cues.
He has designed the functionality he wants; now he seeks a student
to help implement it. Someone with some multimedia experience would
be ideal. Please write him at <tanckait@email.smith.edu> for
more information, possible financial arrangements, and so on, for
he is anxious to start the project.
[Posted Monday 9/9/2002]
Ileana Streinu
Doug Patey and Marjorie Senechal are offering a dean's internship
next year to a student to assist them in formatting of two volumes
of edited papers. The publisher of one of them wants the manuscript
in Quark. The other will be a CD; the publisher will provide the software.
The student need not know these programs a priori, but she should be
familiar with desktop publishing and willing and able to learn
quickly.
Contact:
*******************************************
Marjorie Senechal (senechal@felix.smith.edu)
Louise Wolff Kahn Professor in Mathematics and History of Science and
Technology
Director, Kahn Liberal Arts Institute
Smith College
Northampton, MA 01063
phone: (413) 585-3862
fax: (413) 585-3786
[Posted Monday 4/29/2002]
Joseph O'Rourke
Time: Tuesday, 23 April 02, 5:00-6:00PM
Location: McConnell 404 (central classroom on 4th floor)
Thesis Title:
Partitioning Orthogonal Polygons into Fat Rectangles
Honors Student:
Geetika Tewari
Abstract:
We examine the problem of partitioning orthogonal polygons into fat
rectangles, a problem that arises in the photolithography step of VLSI design.
The goal is to develop an algorithm that can find an optimal partition
of a polygon into rectangles, in the sense of maximizing the minimum
side length over all rectangles, while employing as few rectangles as
possible. We approach the problem by examining the type of cuts involved:
vertex, anchored, (boundary), and unrestricted (floating) cuts.
By proving results on the geometric and combinatorial structure of the
partitions, we obtain polynomial-time algorithms
for finding the optimal partition for each class of cuts.
[Posted Monday 4/22/2002]
Judy Franklin
The Last Computer Science Research Lunch of the season
will be held this coming Monday,
April 22
McConnell B15
12:10
Stan Sclaroff, from the computer science department at
Boston University will speak on
Automatic Shape-based Image Retrieval.
Please send State Street Deli lunch orders to
mdonoso@cs.smith.edu by 2:30 Thursday.
Dr. Sclaroff's abstract is below:
Automatic Shape-based Image Retrieval
Stan Sclaroff
Image and Video Computing Group
Computer Science Department
Boston University
Retrieval by shape is considered to be one of the more difficult aspects of
content-based image database search. A major part of the problem is that
many techniques assume that shapes have already been segmented from the
background, or that a human operator has encircled the object via an active
contour. Such assumptions are unworkable in applications where automatic
object detection and indexing are required (e.g., the world wide web).
In this talk, I will describe a region-based approach that segments
deformable shapes from images automatically. Parametric shape templates
are used to group image regions into consistent configurations. The
templates are acquired as a precomputation, given a training set of images.
Once trained, the system autonomously segments deformed shapes from the
background while not merging them with adjacent objects or shadows. The
automatic system includes two stages: over-segmentation using a traditional
region segmentation algorithm, followed by shape-based evaluation of
various region grouping hypotheses to find an optimal partition of the
region adjacency graph. The recovered shape models can be used directly in
image retrieval and object recognition. Experiments with biomedical images
(blood cell micrographs), as well as images from the world wide web will be
shown.
[Posted Tuesday 4/16/2002]
Caroline Moore
Job Listing:
Are you motivated and computer savvy? Do you like to know what's going
on in the Five College area? Are you looking for an on-campus job for
next year?
Work for Chilipeppers! It's a website sponsored by Wellsprings at
Health Services that lists upcoming events in the Five College area.
Check it out at:
http://www.chilipeppers-live.org
You would be in charge of finding events and entering them via a form,
checking events submitted by other people, and deleting events when they
are past. You will meet with Connie Peterson once a week, but the rest
of the work can be done on your own time. You will also run contests in
the post office once a month.
Time commitment: 8 hours per week
Pay level: 03 ($7.75/hr)
Deadline: May 13
How to apply: email Connie Peterson at cpeterso@email.smith.edu or call
x2824.
For more information: email cmoore@email.smith.edu
[Posted Monday 4/15/2002]
Judy Franklin
The next Computer Science Research Lunch will be held
this Friday, April 12 (and there will be no lunch
next week). We have a guest speaker, David G. Novik, from the University of
Texas El Paso. Please see his title, abstract, and bio below.
Once again, we will meet in McConnell B15 in order to use
the projector.
Please send lunch orders to mdonoso@cs.smith.edu by
1:30 Thursday April 11.
Engineering User Interfaces for Safety-Critical Systems
David G. Novick
Department of Computer Science
The University of Texas at El Paso
This talk looks at development methods for human-computer interaction
for safety-critical systems, with particular focus on commercial
airliner cockpits. I argue that user interfaces, operating procedures
and their documentation are functionally equivalent parts of the
interface, broadly considered, and present a set of techniques and tools
that can help developers assure the integrity of human-computer
interaction safety-critical settings. Methods for early evaluation of
operating procedures and documentation include the cognitive walkthrough
for operating procedures and the use of "low-tech" simulation.
Correctness in design and implementation can also be helped by using a
more formal model of acts and actions, and this model can be embodied in
tools for creating procedures and their documention.
---
David G. Novick earned his J.D. at Harvard University in 1977 and his
Ph.D.in Computer and Information Science at the University of Oregon in
1988. He is professor and chair of Computer Science at the University
of Texas at El Paso. Previously, he was on the faculty of the
Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the Oregon Graduate
Institute and then Director of Research at the European Institute of
Cognitive Sciences and Engineering. His research focuses on interactive
systems, and especially development methods for interfaces and their
documentation. Related interests include technologically mediated
communication and computational models of dialogue. He served as
General Co-chair of the 2000 ACM Conference on Universal Usability,
organized ACM SIGCHI's series of events in Natural Language Interfaces,
and serves on the program committee for the 2002 ACM SIGDOC conference.
[Posted Monday 4/8/2002]
Ileana Streinu
****************************************************
The Women in Engineering Program at the University of Maryland, through
funding from the National Science Foundation Program for Gender Equity,
is excited to announce summer research opportunities for undergraduate
students!
Twenty students (called RISE Scholars) will each be provided a stipend
of $3000 for participating in one of five research teams from June 2,
2002 through July 26, 2002. Talented female faculty in the Clark School
of Engineering and the College of Computer, Mathematical and Physical
Sciences lead the teams. RISE Scholars will be provided with multiple
tiers of female mentorship throughout their research experience. The
program offers training in team skills and project organization and
addresses issues of concern to women in science and engineering as
well.
The deadline for submitting completed applications is coming soon:
April 20, 2002. Selection of RISE Scholars will be announced no later
than May 1, 2002.
For additional information and applications, please review the RISE
Scholar website
http://www.eng.umd.edu/wie/students_undergrad/riseII.html or contact
the program coordinator, Kristen Vogt (kvogt@deans.umd.edu or
301-405-3283).
--
Kristen Vogt
kvogt@deans.umd.edu
RISE Coordinator
Research Internships in Science and Engineering
1134F Glenn L. Martin Hall College Park MD 20742
301.405.3283 (W)
Paige E. Smith
Director, Women in Engineering Program
(301) 405-3931
pesmith@deans.umd.edu
[Posted Friday 4/5/2002]
Judy A. Franklin
Our next Computer Science Research Lunch is Monday April 8
in McConnell B15
featuring Egle Karalyte who did research with Merrie Bergmann last semester.
Please send lunch orders to mdonoso@cs.smith.edu by
1:30 this Friday.
Creating Dynamic Web Sites Using PHP and MySQL
In order to create a powerful and dynamic web site, it is not just enough to know
HTML or Javascript. Nowadays, new technologies are emerging, which enable web developers
to create database-driven web sites where information is dynamically embedded into html
code according to various specifications.
One of the newest and most powerful technologies is the PHP scripting language
that is often used to communicate with the MYSQL database system.
MySQL is one of the relational database management systems (RDBMS).
This type of database is often used for the ecommerce web sites.
MySQL uses SQL (Structured Query Language) to communicate with the data.
SQL is a standard database language for all modern databases.
It is an interface between the user and the database it lets you create tables,
insert, delete, and modify data.
In my presentation I will introduce these technologies and show
how the information is inputted into the database and how it is shown on
the web sites.
[Posted Wednesday 4/3/2002]
Judy Franklin
On Monday April 1, Geetika Tewari will present her thesis work
for the Computer Science Research Lunch.
McConnell 403A
Please email State Street Deli lunch order to
mdonoso@cs.smith.edu by 1:30 Friday.
Here is the abstract:
We examine the problem of partitioning orthogonal polygons into fat
rectangles that arises in the photolithography step of VLSI design.
VLSI masks are etched by electron beams of some fixed minimum width.
Complex shapes can only be masked without unnecessary overexposure if they
can be partitioned into rectangles all of which are wider than this
minimum width. Thus it is of some interest to develop an algorithm that
can find an optimal partition of a polygon into rectangles, in the sense
of maximizing the minimum width of any rectangle in the partition. We
approach the problem by characterizing the complexity of polygon
partitions by the types of cuts involved. We will present a
polynomial-time algorithm, and its implementation results for solving the
problem using "vertex cuts," cuts emanating from polygon vertices. We
then proceed to show several short results that lead to a bound on the
maximum number of parallel "boundary cuts," cuts anchored to the polygon
boundary, in an optimal partition.
[Posted Wednesday 3/27/2002]
Ileana Streinu
Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2001 09:36:56 -0700
From: Jon Artigo
To: jon@internaldrive.com
Subject: Summer Employment: Computers-Film Editing-Web Design
Hello.
My name is Jon Artigo. I work for iD Tech Camps. We run amazing
technology programs for kids ages 8-17 at top universities across the
country like MIT, UCONN, Villanova, Stanford, UCLA, UT Austin,
Vassar College, Smith College, Emory University and Carnegie Mellon.
I'm currently looking to hire top notch instructors and directors
for our camps across the country and thought you might be able to assist me.
Perhaps you would pass along the following to graduate students, undergrads,
and/or educators that might be interested in this great opportunity. In
addition, as faculty of an iD University, you qualify for additional discounts in
sending a child or teen to our camps.
We offer great pay -- not to mention a job with iD Tech Camps is a
valuable resume builder. See Job Description below and/or attached
flyer:
iD Tech Camps provides summer technology camps for students ages 8-17 at
top universities nationwide. Our week-long camps feature the best of
everything - cool courses, cutting-edge technology and locations across
the country. Be an Instructor for Digital Video & Movie Production,
Programming & Robotics, Multimedia & Game Creation, Web Design & Graphic
Arts and Stop Motion Animation. Limited Camp Director positions are also
available.
You'll teach using the latest software while balancing out the day with
swimming, chess, and field trips to the beach or nearby arcade. iD's
small classes ensure one-on-one customized instruction and encourage
peer guidance and networking.
Preferred Job Qualifications (for Instructors)
- * Experience teaching and/or working with kids
- * An energetic, fun-loving personality
- * A proactive team player
- * A flexible summer schedule
- * Mastery in two or more of the following fields of study:
Web Design & Graphic Arts, Digital Video & Movie Production, Programming
& Robotics, Multimedia & Game Creation and/or Stop Motion Animation.
Preferred Job Qualifications (for Directors)
- * Experience teaching and/or working with kids
- * Ability to lead and motivate
- * Strong Organizational skills
- * A passion for education
- * Flexibility and a good sense of humor
- * Familiarity with Web Design & Graphic Arts, Digital Video & Movie
Production, Programming & Robotics, Multimedia & Game Creation and/or
Stop Motion Animation.
In order to apply, you MUST complete the online application at
www.internaldrive.com/staff.htm.
Make a difference with iD this summer!
Regards,
Jon Artigo
iD Tech Camps
[Posted Monday 3/25/2002]
Joe O'Rourke
Boston.com Unix sys admin job
Unix System Administrator- Level 1
Level 1 Unix Administration support position for Boston.com
Advertising operations.
The successful candidate will join a small but highly skilled
administration team that manages a dynamic, 30-server-plus web farm
in a 24 x 7 x 365 production environment. We support the editorial,
advertising and marketing initiatives for the largest regional web
portal site in the country. We're building a team that delivers
products on time in a stable, scalable, cutting-edge environment.
This position is responsible for administering and maintaining the
Advertising operations system cluster.
Level 1 support responsibilities include:
- Monitor Advertising system performance, network and server
utilization
- Monitor server and backup logs and advertising database processing
- Respond to Advertising system problems to include server hardware,
operating system, networking and application problems, tracking
problems from inception to resolution, including escalation to
senior staff and written problem definitions, updates and post
mortems.
- Follow procedures to install application upgrades and patches
- Develop expertise in administration, tuning and troubleshooting a
third party Advertising application
- Respond to requests from Sales, Traffic, Marketing and Customer
Support Departments
Requirements
- Must be able to maintain a flexible work schedule. Primary hours
are 8 am to 4pm.
- Minimum of 1 year Unix Administration, especially Solaris and
Linux
- Excellent oral and written communication and interpersonal skills
- Ability to manage multiple tasks and complete projects on time.
- Ability to maintain focus and perspective in a busy production
environment
- Familiarity with scripting languages (Perl) and relational
databases a plus
We provide an industry leading benefits package including medical,
dental, vision and hearing, discounted T-passes, matching 401K, and
tuition reimbursement. We offer you a challenging and supportive
environment where your contributions will be recognized and
rewarded.
Job Code SA
EOE. We encourage minority candidates to apply.
[Posted Monday 3/25/2002]
Ileana Streinu
Computer Science Research Lunch will resume the very Monday
after Spring Break, Monday March 25th, at 12:10 in room
McConnell 403A.
Katina Tiggas will talk about programming the AIBO robot.
Please send lunch orders to mdonoso@cs.smith.edu
by 1:30 *this* Friday March 15th. And then remember
to come Monday March 25th. The abstract is below:
Programming the AIBO robot - an introduction
Presenter: Katina Tiggas
The Sony AIBO robotic dog is a programmable robot with many degrees of
freedom, a variety of sensors and quite sophisticated programming
capabilities.
I will start with an introduction to the robot's capabilities and an
overview on how we program it using actions and behaviors. Then I will
talk about my work on testing AIBO's capabilities and limits, such as the
range of its "eyesight" or whether it really could walk in a straight
line.
Our goal is to develop a program that consists of two dog-like behaviors:
hunger and playing. The behavior is controlled by the percent of
remaining battery power. If the battery power is below 50%, the dog is
hungry. In this case the dog will search for the battery charger and go
toward it. It is not clear that we will be able to make it actually plug
itself in, but we intend to study whether such motions are possible. To
detect where the charger is, we use AIBO's sensitivity to the color pink,
and possible some "friendly guidance" through her touch sensors. We can
cover the battery charger in pink to entice AIBO towards it. We are in
the process of finding the best search algorithm that covers the work
space. When the battery power is above 50%, AIBO plays. She will randomly
choose between singing, sleeping, and dancing.
[Posted Wednesday 3/13/2002]
Judy Franklin
The next Computer Science Research Lunch will be Monday March 11
at 12:10 in room McConnell 403a. Vicky Manfredi will present
her thesis work.
Please email mdonoso@cs.smith.edu with your lunch order
by 1:30 Friday. A menu for State Street Deli is on the bulletin
board in McConnell 209.
-=-=-=-=Vicky's Abstract-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Non-linear Algorithms for Reinforcement Learning
The work we would like to present is from an honors thesis being
done in Computer Science. The faculty advisor is Judy Franklin.
We adapted two machine learning algorithms, temporal-difference
learning and Sarsa, to be non-linear. Temporal-difference learning
is used for predicting how good an action is in some
some state. Sarsa, conversely, is used for generating actions
based on the temporal-difference prediction. We then used these
algorithms to predict and select notes in a musical sequence.
We observed that both the linear and nonlinear temporal-difference
algorithms combined with function approximation can learn to
predict on a given note whether the future looks good or bad;
that is, whether the context of the note is good or bad, given
certain constraints. We found that the nonlinear algorithms can
learn to predict more difficult constraint problems than can the
linear. We determined that using as input to the algorithms a
history of the notes being played improved the correctness of
the nonlinear prediction. Finally, preliminary results show
that with linear Sarsa, the notes chosen to be played correspond
to the prediction value of the note as given by the temporal-
difference learning algorithm. Current experiments involve
exploring nonlinear Sarsa.
[Posted Tuesday 3/5/2002]
Judy Franklin
TOOLBOX Professional Series--Session Two
Friday, March 8, 11:45 a.m.-1:00 p.m.
Engineering Building, Room 201
PANEL: Job Savvy: What do corporations expect? How do you prepare?
Panelists: Vivian Dixon, Diversity Consultant, Capital One Financial
Corp.
Jane Sommer, Associate Director, Smith Career
Development Office
br>
Open to all students and the Five Colleges. Lunch provided.
Sponsors: WITI Invent Center; Picker Engineering Program
================================================
You are invited to attend the TOOLBOX Professional Series
on technology and career-related topics, and to visit the
WITI Invent Center in Tilly Hall, 30 Henshaw Avenue. The
Center is open daily for student and faculty use between 9 a.m.
and 4 p.m. Extended hours can be arranged.
COME AND VISIT US for information on SUMMER RESEARCH
opportunities and other technology-related experiences.
OPEN TO STUDENTS IN ALL SMITH MAJORS.
Telephone us at 4105/6.
=======================================
The third TOOLBOX Professional Series Lunch will will be
Friday, April 12th, on BALANCING CAREER AND PERSONAL LIFE.
Thank you,
Nancy Hellman
Consulting Director
WITI Invent Center@Smith/5 Colleges
Tilly Hall, 30 Henshaw Avenue
Northampton, Ma 01063
T 413-585-4106/5
E nhellman@email.smith.edu
F 413-585-4395
[Posted Thursday 2/28/2002]
Ileana Streinu
Dear CS students and faculty -
On Monday March 4 we resume the weekly CS luncheons with a series of
presentations, done by Computer Science students about their research
projects. We meet in McConnell 403A.
The first speaker is Elif Tosun, who will talk about her honors
thesis work. Future speakers include Vicky Manfredi (Monday March 11,
thesis work), Katina Tiggas (independent study, AIBO robot) and others
TBA.
Please send the luncheon order to mdonoso@cs.smith.edu, by 1:30 on Friday,
March 1st.
Here's Elif's abstract:
=======================================================================
Given visibility information at n positions of a hemispherical camera,
our goal is to reconstruct the absolute coordinates of the camera
locations and positions of image features when the images were taken. This
information will then be used the reconstruct a model of the environment.
We assume that the orientation of the camera relative to the absolute
frame of reference is known at each location, as well as approximate
values for unknown positions. The visibility information is given as a
set of slopes of lines going through camera positions and some image
features in the surrounding environment.
We worked on understanding the general problem, isolating the
geometric/combinatorial aspects, exploring it in two and three dimensions,
isolating several feasible subproblems and giving algorithmic solutions
for them.
[Posted Thursday 2/28/2002]
Judy Franklin
Programming Contest and Research Lunches Spring 2002
On Monday February 18, the CS dept. is holding a lunch for students
interested in continuing the research lunches this semester,
on Mondays, as well as to discuss Smith's participation in
a new (for us) programming contest, sponsored by the
Consortium for Computing in Small Colleges, Northeast. The
contest will take place at the Seventh Annual Consortium for
Computing in Small Colleges Northeastern Conference
April 19-20. The contest is the morning of Friday
April 19 at Worcester State College. The awards are given
at a banquet Friday night. The conference URL is
http://www.ccscne.org/2002/. The deadline for contest entry
is March 1. Come to the lunch even if you aren't interested
in the contest as we will talk about the research lunch plans
for the semester.
Meeting Room: McConnell 403A (the usual place)
As usual, we will have lunch from the
State Street Deli. There is a menu posted on the bulletin board in
McConnell 209. Please DO NOT REPLY TO THIS MESSAGE.
Send lunch requests to 111c@cs.smith.edu by 3pm THURSDAY 2/14
and have a Happy Valentine's Day.
[Posted Monday 2/11/2002]
Joe O'Rourke
Dear Colleague:
Furman University is again serving as a site for the National Science
Foundation Research Experiences for Undergraduates Program. Twelve
participants will be working with eight faculty on a variety of
biogeochemical projects in two large watersheds in the Piedmont of South
Carolina. We would be grateful if you could bring the attached
announcement to the attention of your students. More information can also
be found at the web site:
http://www.furman.edu/academics/dept/ees/riverbasin/index.htm
Thank you for your time,
Kenneth A. Sargent, Chair
Earth and Environmental Sciences
Furman University
Greenville, SC 29613
[Posted Monday 2/11/2002]
Joseph O'Rourke
I am seeking several students to work on a National Science Foundation
grant this summer, on various aspects of a project to develop and
integrate my research on folding and unfolding into the school system at
various levels, from grade school through graduate school. I could use
help from Computer Science, Mathematics, Engineering, or Education majors
to work on different aspects of this project: Web page development, C++
programming, Java programming, research in computational geometry,
development of educational modules, and so on.
Please write to me at orourke@cs.smith.edu expressing interest, by 1
February 2002, and I would be happy to provide more information. I have
to make commitment decisions by 15 February.
[Posted Monday 1/14/2002]
Ileana Streinu
From: Julie Barton
Recruiting Specialist, Microsoft
Microsoft recognizes the value of a diverse workforce and is committed to
hiring the best and brightest from all backgrounds. We know that having a
wide range of perspectives will enable us to continue to provide great
software and services in the 21st century. We have a scholarship program
that is designed to encourage students to pursue careers in Computer Science
and other related technical fields.
Microsoft is excited to be offering full tuition scholarships totaling over
a half million dollars for the 2002-2003 academic year. Applications must be
postmarked by Friday, February 1, 2002. Microsoft will interview finalists
by the end of February 2002. The names of the scholarship winners will be
announced by March 15, 2002. All recipients of the scholarship will be
required to complete a salaried summer internship of 12 weeks or more at
Microsoft Corporation in Redmond, Washington. (Microsoft reserves the right
not to offer a position to the scholarship winner if an appropriate match
cannot be found.)
Undergraduate students from across North America will be selected in
recognition of their passion for software and the ability to make a
difference in the software industry. We request that you forward the
information about the scholarships to students at your school that fit the
criteria and might be interested in applying. For your convenience, you can
send all students to
http://www.microsoft.com/college/scholarships
for
application information. Please contact me directly with any additional questions you may
have.
Sincerely,
Julie Barton
Recruiting Specialist, Microsoft
juliebar@microsoft.com
[Posted Friday 12/21/2001]
Joseph O'Rourke
Time: Friday 30 Nov 01, 12:10-1:00PM
Location: McConnell 403A (Seminar Room)
Dear Computer Science Students and Faculty,
This week we have a guest presentation by Bjo:rn Gehlsen
from the University of Hamburg, who is here visiting Bernd Page.
He will talk about
Genetic Algorithms: a Tool for Distributed Simulation Optimization.
Here is his abstract:
Genetic Algorithms (GA) provide a general process model for heuristic optimization by simulating the principles of
biological evolution. They can be used in various areas of application by specializing its' components according to the
application's needs. Following an introduction to GA the talk will show the application of GA in the field of simulation
optimization, where no closed form of the problem and no further analytical information can be used to guide the search
for optimal solutions. As the arising problems in this area are very load intensive, tasks are distributed across a network
to gain significant speedup.
Lunch:
Please reply to
mdonoso@cs.smith.edu specifying your intention to attend,
and placing a lunch order. The State Street Deli menu is
on the bboard in McConnel 209 and at http://www.statestreetfruit.com/menu.html.
There is no class in McC403A prior to our lunch, so we should
be able to start to gather around noon.
We always finish by 1:00PM.
[Posted Tuesday 12/4/2001]
Joseph O'Rourke
Time: Friday 30 Nov 01, 12:10-1:00PM
Location: McConnell B15 (in the basement!)
Dear Computer Science Students and Faculty,
We will continue the interactive code development
of lunch.pl, the Perl program to process
lunch orders emailed to Melody. Last time (2 Nov) we had progressed to the
point of having a correct parsing of the "From:" and
"Subject:" lines of simulated email, with a record
of the transactions deposited in a LOGFILE.
This time we should aim to accomplish four goals:
(1) Have the code recognize "Re: CSRL" in the Subject
line;
(2) Install the Perl program in the correct directory on the system,
with the correct permissions;
(3) Arrange that all email to Melody gets examined by
our code;
(4) Test with real email.
Again we will meet in
McConnell B15, so we can project the code from a workstation.
Lunch:
Please reply to
mdonoso@cs.smith.edu specifying your intention to attend,
and placing a lunch order. The State Street Deli menu is
on the bboard in McConnel 209.
There is a Physics class in B15 just prior to our lunch, so
we will not be able to start early.
We always finish by 1:00PM.
[Posted Monday 11/26/2001]
Joseph O'Rourke
Time: Friday 16 Nov 01, 12:10-1:00PM
Location: McConnell 403A (Seminar Room)
Dear Computer Science Students and Faculty,
This week we have a guest speaker, Iris Bahar from Brown University.
She will talk about designing machine architectures to minimize
power consumption. The main idea is to dynamically set microportions
of the processor into low-power mode when monitoring indicates they
are not being utilized.
Of course, one cannot sacrifice high speed performace in order
to achieve lower power dissipation, which is the crux of the matter
about which she will speak.
Lunch:
Please reply to
mdonoso@cs.smith.edu specifying your intention to attend,
and placing a lunch order. The State Street Deli menu is
on the bboard in McConnel 209, and online at
http://www.statestreetfruit.com/menu.html.
If the food arrives on time,
we will start gathering shortly
after 12:00, with many arriving after their classes let out
at 12:10.
We always finish by 1:00PM.
[Posted Monday 11/12/2001]
Ileana Streinu
An option for CS and Engineering Majors:
UNITeS Volunteers
Bridging the Digital Divide
The United Nations Information Technology Service (UNITeS) is a
new global volunteer initiative that sends volunteers to developing
countries to teach about technology. UN Secretary General Kofi
Annan introduced UNITeS to the world in his April 2000 Millennium
Report. It is managed by the UN Volunteers program, an organization
within the UN that places about 5,000 volunteers every year in
development and humanitarian projects around the world.
For more information, go to
http://international.monster.com/workabroad/articles/unites/
[Posted Wednesday 11/7/2001]
Judy Franklin
Using RTcmix to manipulate sound and make music
Veronica Morales and Judy Franklin
Time: Friday 9 Nov 01, 12:10-1:00PM
Location: McConnell 403A (Seminar Room)
CMIX is a package of sound-processing, synthesizing, modification and
mixing programs that can be used to manipulate pre-recorded sound or
create any sound and write the result to an audio file. RTcmix
adds real-time capabilities to CMIX, and it also
enables it to read sound data through TCP sockets. RTcmix is written
in C and C++ and takes advantage of the object-oriented paradigm.
With RTcmix, output can be sent directly to speakers, unlike CMIX
which needed the output to be saved to a sound file first. It can do this
because it incorporates a scheduler that dynamically calls the
RTcmix instruments. Here, an instrument is any function or class that
manipulates sound. We will describe RTCmix in more detail, go over
basic ways to manipulate sound (amplitude modulation and frequency
modulation), and demonstrate several of the basic RTcmix instruments.
RTcmix is different from almost every other computer music software
package in that users can create their own instruments and so can
manipulate sound programmatically. (Nearly every other package is
accessed either with a GUI or by using scripts only). We will
describe two or three accompaniment and pitch translation
instruments we worked on this past summer when Veronica was on
a Schultz Fellowship and we will demonstrate them as well.
Lunch: Please reply to mdonoso@cs.smith.edu by noon Thursday specifying your intention to attend, and placing a lunch order. The State Street Deli menu is on the
bboard in McConnel 209. If the food arrives on time, we will start gathering shortly after 12:00, with many arriving after their classes let out at
12:10. We always finish by 1:00PM.
[Posted Wednesday 11/7/2001]
Joseph O'Rourke
A sixth-grade teacher at the Smith College Campus School is seeking a
tutor for a mathematically talented, pleasant sixth-grade boy. He is more
than ready to be challenged beyond the usual curriculum. One or two days
per week, one or two hours per day, for a sustained period (perhaps a
semester) might be ideal. Details are negotiable and would be worked out
between the tutor, the teacher Lara Ramsey, and the boy's parents, who of
course expect to pay for the tutoring. If you are interested, please
contact Lara by sending email to lara_ramsey@gse.harvard.edu.
[Posted Tuesday 10/30/2001]
Joseph O'Rourke
Time: Friday 2 Nov 01, 12:10-1:00PM
Location: McConnell B15 (in the basement!)
Dear Computer Science Students and Faculty,
We will discuss the programming language Perl, which is a useful
tool in a Unix environment, especially for
text processing. In particular, we will write
code to process lunch order email messages (Melody's idea).
In order to run code during lunch, we are going to meet in
McConnell B15, where there is a nice workstation and projector.
We decided we could sacrifice our pleasant, informal environment
to gain ease of programming access, for one week at least.
Our plan is to look at the language Python later in the semester,
perhaps for the same task.
Lunch:
Please reply to
mdonoso@cs.smith.edu specifying your intention to attend,
and placing a lunch order. The State Street Deli menu is
on the bboard in McConnel 209.
There is a Physics class in B15 just prior to our lunch, so
we will not be able to start early this week.
We always finish by 1:00PM.
[Posted Monday 10/29/2001]
Joseph O'Rourke
Time: Friday 26 Oct 01, 12:10-1:00PM
Location: McConnell 403A (Seminar Room)
Dear Computer Science Students and Faculty,
The association of computers with binary logic seems
essential, but in fact a case can be made that digital computer
hardware should be based on base-3 numbers rather than on
binary numbers. The base-3 equivalent of a bit is
a trit.
Suzzane Gallagher will help describe the advantages of
trits over bits, not only in computer hardware, but
in the placement of tabs on file-cabinet folders,
among other applications.
Lunch:
Please reply to
mdonoso@cs.smith.edu specifying your intention to attend,
and placing a lunch order. The State Street Deli menu is
on the bboard in McConnel 209.
If the food arrives on time,
we will start gathering shortly
after 12:00, with many arriving after their classes let out
at 12:10.
We always finish by 1:00PM.
[Posted Monday 10/22/2001]
Joseph O'Rourke
Time: Friday 12 Oct 01, 12:10-1:00PM
Location: McConnell 403A (Seminar Room)
Dear Computer Science Students and Faculty,
Last Friday, the day before Fall Break, a small group of us
made a bit of progress on the problem, as I reported in email
Friday night: We proved that any tree can be directed to be balanced.
The challenge before us is to extend this positive result to
a wider class of planar graphs. Perhaps planar triangulations
would be a good place to start. There are various ways to
use induction on such graphs (e.g., edge contractions),
but at the moment I don't see how
they will yield a proof.
Nevertheless, let's spend one more week exploring this topic.
Lunch:
Please reply to
mdonoso@cs.smith.edu specifying your intention to attend,
and placing a lunch order. The State Street Deli menu is
on the bboard in McConnel 209.
The class that used to meet just prior to our lunch in that
seminar room has moved, so we should be able to start gathering shortly
after 12:00, with many arriving after their classes let out
at 12:10.
We finish by 1:00PM in any case.
[Posted Wednesday 10/10/2001]
Joseph O'Rourke
Time: Friday 5 Oct 01, 12:10-1:00PM
Location: McConnell 403A (Seminar Room)
Dear Computer Science Students and Faculty,
We had an unusually large group at our CS Research Lunch
last Friday, despite the esoteric topic.
I recommend we continue with the topic at least another week.
Let me first summarize our progress.
We explored bar-magnet polyhedral graphs, and had three
accomplishments:
- We caught up with the frontier of knowledge here by
reviewing the three known, partial results on alternating
assignments.
- We raised and answered a question: Is it possible
that a polyhedral graph could have the property that,
some vertex MUST have all incident poles the same?
The answer is NO.
- We formulated a new question: Might it be that every
polyhedral graph's edges can be assigned a direction so that
each vertex is balanced, in the sense that
its number of incoming and outgoing edges differ by at most one?
(This is weaker than alternating.)
A few notes on each three:
1. These partial
results establish not every polyhedral graph is alternating, and that
many classes are. It remains to characterize those which are, and are not.
We did not find this an attractive :-) problem.
2. Our answer NO was misunderstood by at least me, and perhaps others. Here
is a more careful proof than was explicated at lunch. Suppose a vertex v
has all incoming edges, in contradiction to what we claim. Look at three
consecutive vertices to which it is adjacent, x,y,z, consecutive
in the cycle (the "link") around v.
Consider flipping the vy edge direction, which would
break the "badness" of v. This could only create badness at y if the edges
to x and z are both incoming to y: x to y and z to y (for then a flip
of vy would increase the incoming edges to y). But in this case look at x.
It has an outgoing edge to y. So flip the vx edge. This breaks
the badness at v, and cannot create total badness at x, because vx goes into
x, and xy goes out.
3. Let's call these balanced, directed graphs Gallagher Graphs :-). I think
these merit study. One route is to examine the conditions under which local
flips of edges improves the balance. The question then becomes, could we
ever have a situation where no local balance improvement is possible, despite an
imbalance? Label a node +k if it has k more incoming than outgoing edges,
-k if k more outgoing than incoming, and = if its in/out edges are balanced
exactly. Suzanne's question is whether every node can always get a label in
{+1,-1,=}. Suppose we have the situation
+2 <----- =
Then we could flip that edge to produce
+1 ------> +1
So if there is an intransigent unbalanced node (the +2 above), it must have outgoing arcs,
or incoming arcs from +1's or higher; otherwise the arcs could be reversed,
improving balance. It seems we could study the conditions that must
hold if (a) there is an imbalanced node, and (b) every edge flip
intended to reduce the imbalance in fact creates more imbalance.
Maybe this can't happen?
I propose we review the above as needed, and work on proving or
disproving the hypothesis that every polyhedral graph can be
directed so that all its vertices are balanced.
Lunch:
Please reply to
mdonoso@cs.smith.edu specifying your intention to attend,
and placing a lunch order. The State Street Deli menu is
on the bboard in McConnel 209.
The class that used to meet just prior to our lunch in that
seminar room has moved, so we should be able to start gathering shortly
after 12:00, with many arriving after their classes let out
at 12:10.
We finish by 1:00PM in any case.
[Posted Monday 10/1/2001]
Judy Franklin
Immediate Job Opening at Smith
The Smith College Chapel is looking for a WEB WIZ.
The Chapel web site needs updating and we are looking
for a student with web maintenance experience who is
available 5 hours per week over the course of the semester.
Please call Charlene in the Chapel,
X2753 if you would like to be our (paid) WEB GURU!
[Posted Tuesday 9/25/2001]
Joseph O'Rourke
Time: Friday 28 Sep 01, 12:10-1:00PM
Location: McConnell 403A (Seminar Room)
Dear Computer Science Students and Faculty,
Last week we reviewed a plethora of possible topics, and interest
was at least implicitly shown in many of them
by nods around the table.
The most explicit
support came from Judy, who thought the
Bar-Magnet Polyhedra
problem was "attractive."
It was not until she mentioned to me later that this was a joke
that I saw the pun. :-)
Nevertheless, partly because many of the other topics
require advance work,
I would like to start this Friday by exploring
this unsolved bar-magnet problem.
I have a formal description in
The Opens Problem Project
web pages, but informally it is to characterize those polyhedra
one can build out of bar magnets without placing too many like
poles at a vertex (which makes for instability).
This time I will not forget to bring my models.
I think there are interesting variations possible aside from the
pure graph-theory formulation at the above link, and it would
be worth us exploring the question for one or two weeks.
I should mention that although this problem is unsolved, it is
not necessarily difficult--rather it is new and therefore relatively
unexplored.
Lunch:
Please reply to
mdonoso@cs.smith.edu specifying your intention to attend,
and a lunch order if desired.
[The lunch menu is pinned to the bulletin board in McConnell 209.]
We will gather about 12:10 after the previous class lets out;
hopefully our lunch will be delivered more promptly this week.
End by 1:00PM, promise.
[Posted Tuesday 9/25/2001]
Joseph O'Rourke
Time: Friday 21 Sep 01, 12:10-1:00PM
Location: McConnell 403A (Seminar Room)
Dear Computer Science Students and Faculty,
We are now ready to call for our first Computer Science Research Lunch
meeting of the semester, for this coming Friday.
The agenda is the same as last Friday's canceled meeting:
to create a list of topics for the semester.
See the previous announcement (on the department's "Announcements" web page)
for the philosophy behind these meetings.
Let me just reemphasize that they are intended to be
fun, informative, and not over anyone's head.
Lunch:
Please reply to
mdonoso@cs.smith.edu specifying your intention to attend.
Please note:
Melody is going to take over the management of
the lunch orders.
For those of you who intended to attend last week, you can just
say "same order," as we still have a record of your request.
However, we will not reorder a lunch unless you recommit.
There is a class immediately prior to the lunch in the seminar room,
so we'll never be able to get in there before 12:10.
We always finish by 1:00PM. It's all too short, but we manage to
have interesting discussions.
[Posted Wednesday 9/19/2001]
Joseph O'Rourke
Time: Friday 14 Sep 01, 12:10-1:00PM
CANCELLED ;
will be held the 21st instead.
Location: McConnell 403A (Seminar Room)
Dear Computer Science Students and Faculty,
For two years now the department has held an informal
"Computer Science Research Lunch"
every
Friday.
We order lunch from State Street Deli (using funds provided by
an alumna) and discuss some topic in computer science.
The topics have ranged widely (see the "Announcements" link off
the CS Department homepage), but usually have a research-oriented
flavor. We have either explored some hot topic on the frontier
of the field (quantum computing, everlasting security, quantum teleportation,
protein folding),
or we have worked on trying to solve some open problem
via interactive research.
It is intended to be a low-pressure environment,
informative, and fun.
Attendance is of course entirely voluntary, and is by no means
restricted to computer science majors--anyone interested is welcome.
We typically have 8-10 students in attendance.
This Friday we will primarily discuss which topics we might explore
this semester. I'll offer up a plate of possibilities, and take
suggestions. Whether we actually do anything substantive beyond
that remains to be seen.
Lunch:
Please reply to
gtewari@cs.smith.edu specifying your intention to attend.
We'll order lunch from State Street Deli, whose
menu is pinned to the bulletin board in McConnell
209; a generic sandwich is also possible. Orders will
be due Thursday afternoon at 2:30PM so that we can FAX
in the order by the end of the day.
(Please note that if you say you'll attend but do not, we
end up ordering lunch for you and wasting a portion of our endowment.)
There is a class immediately prior to the lunch in the seminar room,
so we'll never be able to get in there before 12:10.
We always finish by 1:00PM.
[Posted Monday 9/10/2001]
Joseph O'Rourke
Dear All,
Everyone is invited to Octavia's Honors Thesis Presentation
tomorrow afternoon!
:-j
McConnell 404
May 2, 2001
4:15-5:30pm
Refreshments will be served
Title: "Trapping Rays with Mirrors"
[Posted Tuesday 5/1/2001]
Geetika Tewari
Time: Friday 27 Apr 01, 12:10-1:00PM
Location: McConnell 403A (Seminar Room)
Dear Computer Science Students and Faculty,
This is the first announcement for this Friday's Computer Science
Research Lunch. The details for the lunch, its location, etc. are
below. Here are Joe's comments:
This will be our last CSRL lunch of the semester, as I will be
away on May 4th.
After three sessions on exploring papers on protein folding,
I feel it is time for us to do some original, interactive research.
I thought of a perhaps new locked-chains problem inspired by
our investigations into protein folding, and I would like to work
on that.
I will bring a bag of straws (to represent the backbone of a protein),
and scissors and tape, and we'll start a hands-on exploration.
Lunch:
Please reply to
gtewari@cs.smith.edu specifying your intention to attend.
We'll order lunch from State Street Deli, whose
menu is pinned to the bulletin board in McConnell
209; a generic sandwich is also possible. Orders will
be due Thursday afternoon at 2:30PM.
[Posted Saturday 4/21/2001]
Geetika Tewari
Time: Friday 20 Apr 01, 12:10-1:00PM
Location: McConnell 403A (Seminar Room)
Dear Computer Science Students and Faculty,
This is the first announcement for this Friday's Computer Science
Research Lunch. The details for the lunch, its location, etc. are
below. Here are Joe's comments:
For our penulimate meeting of the semester, I would like to
return to one aspect of the "probabilistic road map" (PRM) algorithm
that we did not explore: How to generate random points in
the configuration space of the protein molecule so that
the bottlenecks in the space (the thin channels that must
be threaded for the protein to fold) receive sufficiently
many points. As we observed before, it would not suffice
to generate the points randomly, for then their density would
be proportional to the volume, and so would miss thin
structures. I found three papers on this topic, all with Lydia
Kavraki and her (former advisor) Jean-Claude Latombe of Stanford
University as coauthors. I can't promise to read all three,
but I'll browse enough to have something to report on this
crucial technical topic.
Also I promise to review the PRM algorithm in sufficient
detail for newcomers to follow.
Lunch:
Please reply to
gtewari@cs.smith.edu specifying your intention to attend.
We'll order lunch from State Street Deli, whose
menu is pinned to the bulletin board in McConnell
209; a generic sandwich is also possible. Orders will
be due Thursday afternoon at 2:30PM.
[Posted Monday 4/16/2001]
Geetika Tewari
Time: Friday 13 Apr 01, 12:10-1:00PM
Location: McConnell 403A (Seminar Room)
Dear Computer Science Students and Faculty,
This is the first announcement for this Friday's Computer Science
Research Lunch. The details for the lunch, its location, etc. are
below. Here are Joe's comments:
I see two directions to proceed after our discussion last week:
backwards in time to other research on aspects of protein folding
and dynamics, or sideways in time :-) into the interesting
tangent of generating
random points in configuration space. It makes sense to pursue
the former first. Unfortunately, doing this well requires serious
library research I don't have the time to do now. I have found
and read one paper on polymer dynamics using cellular automata
and Monte Carlo simulations. I will report on this work by
Yaneer Bar-Yam, in his book Dynamics of Complex Systems.
Several other papers I'd like to read might take more time to
retrieve, so I don't want to promise anything beyond what I have
in hand at the moment.
Lunch:
Please reply to
gtewari@cs.smith.edu specifying your intention to attend.
We'll order lunch from State Street Deli, whose
menu is pinned to the bulletin board in McConnell
209; a generic sandwich is also possible. Orders will
be due Thursday afternoon at 2:30PM.
[Posted Monday 4/9/2001]
Joseph O'Rourke
Next Thursday night (12th) at 7:00 pm, there will be a
meeting in the clubhouse (ASH 221) Hampshire College, that will change
the
way you look at the World. Okay maybe not, but there will at least be
some free
pizza.
The topic... collaborating to build web-based services for
Hampshire and the other 4 colleges. For over a year now, I and others
have been working on grep (http://grep.hampshire.edu) to offer
services such as news, announcements, directory, course catalog, etc.
Now with YOUR help and the help of other smart and cool people in the
5 college community, services like these are going to be brought to a
whole new level.
It turns out there are kids just like us at the other colleges
working on similar projects, and it just makes sense to collaborate,
share and integrate our efforts.
At the meeting on Thursday night we plan to discuss current projects
that are in the works, future projects that you would like to see
happen, get to know each other, start to figure out who is interested
in what, and eat food.
You should come regardless of your interest or expertise level. The
projects we are talking about have several facets and I promise you
can fit yourself in somewhere that will be useful.
I've been speaking with students at Amherst that are excited about
collaborating. However, if you know of people from any of the other
schools please let them know about the meeting.
If you have no idea what I'm talking about, please ask on or off the
list and I'll fill you in.
If you are coming (and why wouldn't you) please send me an email off
list so I can be sure you get some pizza.
coxeter 164% cat hamp
Next Thursday night (12th) at 7:00 pm, there will be a
meeting in the clubhouse (ASH 221) Hampshire College, that will change
the
way you look at the World. Okay maybe not, but there will at least be
some free
pizza.
The topic... collaborating to build web-based services for
Hampshire and the other 4 colleges. For over a year now, I and others
have been working on grep (http://grep.hampshire.edu) to offer
services such as news, announcements, directory, course catalog, etc.
Now with YOUR help and the help of other smart and cool people in the
5 college community, services like these are going to be brought to a
whole new level.
It turns out there are kids just like us at the other colleges
working on similar projects, and it just makes sense to collaborate,
share and integrate our efforts.
At the meeting on Thursday night we plan to discuss current projects
that are in the works, future projects that you would like to see
happen, get to know each other, start to figure out who is interested
in what, and eat food.
You should come regardless of your interest or expertise level. The
projects we are talking about have several facets and I promise you
can fit yourself in somewhere that will be useful.
I've been speaking with students at Amherst that are excited about
collaborating. However, if you know of people from any of the other
schools please let them know about the meeting.
If you have no idea what I'm talking about, please ask on or off the
list and I'll fill you in.
If you are coming (and why wouldn't you) please send me an email off
list so I can be sure you get some pizza.
(jared@hampshire.edu)
If Thursday is terrible for lots of people then let me know and we'll
work out an alternative time.
Thanks,
_jared
[Posted Monday 4/9/2001]
D. Thiebaut
U U S S
Union of Underrepresented Science Students
"The Changing Face of Science"
A symposium to acknowledge the rising numbers of women of color in the sciences.
Saturday, April 7th
Smith College Campus
Seeyle 201
FREE
- 9:30 Check-In
Bagels and juice provided, while folders and name tags are distributed.
- 10:00 Keynote Panel
- Dr. Susan Stukes- representative for the United Nations. As well as having her own dental practice, Dr. Stukes
provides prison inmates with dental care, and travels with a group of doctors to Africa to provide health care.
- Dr. Jennie S. Hwang-founder and CEO of H-Technologies Group Inc. The first woman to graduate from Case
Western with a degree in materials engineering, she has four degrees, over 180 publications, and encourages women in
the sciences, especially engineering.
- 12:00 Luncheon
Chat with the panelists during the provided lunch.
- 1:00-3:15 Workshops
Workshops in the areas of summer internships, science career paths, and after-graduation options.
Registration is not required, but strongly recommended. To ensure that there is enough food, we ask that you e-mail kmcgill@smith.edu to say you are coming.
???s Kim 585-7458
[Posted Friday 3/30/2001]
Joseph O'Rourke
Here are Joe's comments:
We will start exploring protein folding, via a paper I recently ran
across entitled "Using Motion Planning to Study Protein Folding
Pathways."
[URL: http://citeseer.nj.nec.com/song00using.html.]
Their abstract claims that their
"framework enables one to easily and efficiently
compute folding pathways from any denatured starting
state to the native fold."
I have now read the paper, and I find it very interesting.
We will need to fill in some background
to understand this research paper, however.
So consider this a starting point
for our investigation of protein folding.
We'll decide which directions we want to explore further
at the meeting.
[Posted 3 Apr 2000]
D. Thiebaut
You are invited to a networking lunch on Friday, March 30, 2001 from
11:45 - 1:00 at the Alumnae House. Representatives from Boeing,
Cisco, Ford, General Dynamics, Kollmorgen, Microsoft, Parsons
Brinkerhoff, Raytheon, Texas Instruments, General Electric, Pfizer,
United Technology, the Institute for Women and Technology, Women in
Technology International, and Smith College will be joining us. This
is a great opportunity to speak to people in fields of interest to you
and possibly develop some contacts for future internships or jobs.
While it is NOT a job fair, we do encourage you to bring along some
resumes, in case someone requests one.
Please join us for good
food and good company! RSVP by Wednesday to Patricia Pate at
Ppate@smith.edu."
[Posted Monday 3/26/2001]
D. Thiebaut
Just a quick reminder to SAVE THE DATE!
The Women For Hire Boston Career Expo is coming up:
This event is geared towards women.
Tuesday, April 3
Swissotel
Ballroom, 4th Floor
Boston, MA
10am to 4pm
FREE ADMISSION/ NO PRE-REGISTRATION
Bring plenty of resumes. Business attire is suggested
MEET DIRECTLY WITH RECRUITERS FROM LEADING COMPANIES. It's a terrific
opportunity to launch or advance your professional career.
Among the diverse participants: Accenture, American Express Financial
Advisors, Bay Cove, Boston College, Crate & Barrel, Commonwealth of
Massachusetts Division of Banks to Boston, Department of Labor,
DigitalEve, Fairchild Semiconductor, Federal Reserve Bank, Fidelity
Investments, Headhunter.net, HSBC, IBM, Intel, Interface Media,
Investors Bank & Trust, Liberty Mutual, MapInfo, MBNA Information
Services, Mass Mutual, Merrill Lynch, Motorola, Northwestern Mutual
Financial Network, NSTAR, OnSite Companies, Peace Corps, Phoenix
Media/FNX Radio, PRIMUS, Random Walk Computing, Raytheon, State Street
Corporation, State Street Global Advisors, UniFirst Corporation,
Watson Wyatt, Womens Executive Network, WITI, XO Communications and
many more.
There will be a complimentary book signing by Pulitzer
prize-winning columnist Ellen Goodman.
For more information and a complete list of the participating
companies, please visit www.womenforhire.com or contact Stefanie Land
at land@womenforhire.com.
We hope to see you there!
[Posted Monday 3/26/2001]
Geetika Tewari
Time: Friday 12 Mar 01, 12:10-1:00PM
Location: McConnell 403A (Seminar Room)
Dear Computer Science Students and Faculty,
This is the first announcement for this Friday's Computer Science
Research Lunch. The details for the lunch, its location, etc. are
below. Here are Joe's comments:
(Sorry for the incongruous juxtaposition of "lunch" and "sewer"!)
I will report on a robot developed by a Swiss company
(KA-TE System AG), and now
employed by a U.S. company (CityNet) to string fiber optic cables
through the inaccessible sewer pipes under city streets.
A nice mixture of networks and robotics!
Lunch:
Please reply to
gtewari@cs.smith.edu specifying your intention to attend.
We'll order lunch from State Street Deli, whose
menu is pinned to the bulletin board in McConnell
209; a generic sandwich is also possible. Orders will
be due Thursday afternoon at 2:30PM.
[Posted Monday 3/12/2001]
Geetika Tewari
Time: Friday 2 Mar 01, 12:10-1:00PM
Location: McConnell 403A (Seminar Room)
Dear Computer Science Students and Faculty,
This is an announcement for this Friday's Computer Science Research lunch
which will focus on a new cryptographic scheme. If you plan to attend,
please send me (gtewari@cs.smith.edu) an email specifying your lunch order
by Thursday 2:30 pm.
Here are Joe's comments:
Octavia and I will discuss the new, provably secure crytographic
scheme announced by Ding & Rabin of Harvard University. It claims
to guarantee uncrackability even against attacks by a computationally
unbounded adversary. It sounds nearly unbelievable. There is
some controversy over its practicality, with the authors claiming
it is practical, and others saying it is not. I cannot guarantee
we will settle all controversies and clear up all mysteries, but
we hope to provide a better understanding of their accomplishments.
[Posted Tuesday 2/27/2001]
Dominique Thiebaut
This event is geared towards women.
Just a quick reminder to SAVE THE DATE!
This event is geared towards women.
The Women For Hire Boston Career Expo is coming up:
Tuesday, April 3
Swissotel
Boston, MA
10am to 4pm
FREE ADMISSION/ NO PRE-REGISTRATION
Bring plenty of resumes. Business attire is suggested
MEET DIRECTLY WITH RECRUITERS FROM LEADING COMPANIES. It's a terrific opportunity to launch or advance your professional career.
Among the diverse participants: Accenture, Crate & Barrel, Commonwealth of Massachusetts Division of Banks to Boston, EDS, Edward Jones, HALO, Headhunter.net, HSBC, Intel, Investors Bank & Trust, iVillage.com, Merrill Lynch, Motorola, Northwestern Mutual Financial Network, NStar, OnSite Companies, Pfizer, State Street Corporation, TD Waterhouse, Women's Executive Network, WITI, XO Communications and many more.
For more information and a complete list of the participating companies, please visit www.womenforhire.com.
[Posted Saturday 2/24/2001]
Joseph O'Rourke
Hewlett-Packard is hiring for a number of summer interns this summer. Like
many companies, HP is focused on increasing diverse backgrounds and
viewpoints within the organization. Smith
College could provide excellent highly motivated and qualified students.
I am a Project Manager within Hewlett-Packard's Technical Computing Division
in Fort Collins, Colorado. My purpose in writing is to ask if you could
recommend some of your students for our internships, or forward on a
notification of these opportunities to your students. We would like to fill
these positions no later than the end of March 2001.
Our lab develops Unix, Linux and NT Technical workstations. We design the
entire system from the computer chips, to the system boards to the system
software. We also work with a variety of industry partners to create
complete solutions. Our principal customers are in the Mechanical and
Electrical Design markets as well as Scientific Visualization and Digital
Content Creation markets.
Students participating in HP's internship program can expect a fun,
Students participating in HP's internship program can expect a fun,
and an exciting company, industry and products. The experience will likely
help motivate their interest in Computer Science and in possible careers
with Hewlett-Packard.
Our internship assignments will be in a variety of areas involving system
software development and qualification on different OS streams and different
new system architectures.
If you would like to call and discuss these opportunities in more detail or
if your students would like to find out more details, please feel free to do
so. I look forward to hearing from you!
With regards,
Maureen B. Smith Hoffert
Project Manager
Technical Computing Center/HP-UX Workstation Lab
Hewlett Packard
970 898 2774
[Posted Tuesday 2/20/2001]
Geetika Tewari
Time: Friday 16 Feb 01, 12:10-1:00PM
Location: McConnell 403A (Seminar Room)
Dear Computer Science Students and Faculty,
This is an announcement for this Friday's Computer Science Research lunch
which will focus on Pushing block puzzles.
Here are Joe's comments:
This week we will start exploring the key remaining open problem
on Pushing Blocks Puzzles. In particular we'll work on a
conjecture of Geetika and myself that Push-1 is in NP.
Push-1 is the version where the robot can only push 1 block at
a time, and it only moves exactly as far as it is pushed (no sliding).
We aimed to show the problem is in NP by proving that no solution
path need ever be too long. In particular, I believe that a
shortest solution path is O(n^2) for n total board squares.
We'll introduce you to the issues and start working on it.
Lunch:
Please reply to
gtewari@cs.smith.edu specifying your intention to attend.
We'll order lunch from State Street Deli, whose
menu is pinned to the bulletin board in McConnell
209; a generic sandwich is also possible. Orders will
be due Thursday afternoon at 2:30PM.
[Posted Wednesday 2/14/2001]
Joseph O'Rourke
Time: Friday 9 Feb 01, 12:10-1:00PM (i.e., tomorrow!)
Location: McConnell 403A (Seminar Room)
Dear Computer Science Students and Faculty,
My apologies for the late start on our "Computer Science Research
Lunches" for the spring semester.
I'm afraid you'll have to take quick action this week, as we need
the lunch orders by this (Thursday) afternoon.
My plan is to review the status of two problems on which we
worked hard in the last two years: Stabbing congruent balls
in 3D, and Pushing Blocks puzzles. There have been advances on
both topics since we last met.
Even if you've not attended any of the previous meetings,
you should be able to follow and participate in the discussion.
We will also make plans for topics for the spring semester.
Lunch:
Please reply to
gtewari@cs.smith.edu (not to Joe!) specifying your intention to attend.
We'll order lunch from State Street Deli, whose
menu is pinned to the bulletin board in McConnell
209; a generic sandwich is also possible. Orders will
be due Thursday afternoon at 3:00PM.
[Posted Thursday 2/8/2001]
Dominique Thiebaut
See email from Maliha Maleck, dated 1/29/01, below:
I am a 2000 Smith graduate, working at Morgan Stanley Dean Witter's Investment
Banking Division as an analyst. I was also a 1999 summer anaylst in the firm's
well-recognized internship program.
Given the great experience I had over the summer, I would highly encourage you
to apply for a summer analyst position. Each year we recruit one intern. It is
a 10 week program which starts with a week-long training on accounting and
finance. You are not required to have any specific major, but analytical work
is helpful.
Our resume drop deadline at the Smith CDO is February 1st and we will come to
campus for interviews tentatively around mid-February.
I had a very rewarding experience in my summer here and I hope you decide to
apply. If you have any questions regarding the internship, please feel free to
email me.
Thanks,
Maliha Malek, Maliha.Malek@msdw.com
[Posted Monday 1/29/2001]
Joseph O'Rourke
Joe O'Rourke and Ileana Streinu seek several students to work this summer
on our NSF-funded computational geometry projects. Students work a
portion of the summer (typically 6-12 weeks), receiving the same salary as
other summer science students, approximately $400/wk. Students who have
completed CS-2 (CSC 112), Calculus, and Discrete (MTH 153), will be most
comfortable with the projects. More familiarity with our specialties, via
Graphics (CSC 240), Computational Geometry (CSC 274), Graph Theory (MTH
255), Combinatorics (MTH 254), or Complexity Theory (MTH 353),
is especially useful.
Write to either or both of us (orourke@cs.smith.edu, streinu@cs.smith.edu)
if you are interested. Replies during February will receive first
consideration.
[Posted Saturday 1/27/2001]
Dominique Thiebaut
Laura McLellan, nee Eshner, who graduated from Smith with a
CS major a few years back, is now working at i2 Technologies
and sent us a note that they are looking for summer interns.
About i2:
i2 is looking for world-class students who want to gain valuable
business experience. This on-the-job experience will increase your
knowledge on how i2 brings value to our customers. For many Fortune
500s, i2 is the foremost provider of decision support and software
optimization solutions for complex business enterprises. We offer a
number of internship opportunities in the following locations:
Atlanta, GA
Austin, TX
Boston, MA
Chicago, IL
Dallas, TX
Detroit, MI
Parsippany, NJ
Redwood Shores, CA
Here is how the internship program works at i2:
As an intern
at i2, you will be involved in a career-related work assignment
supervised by an experienced mentor with expertise in your chosen
career field. Internships can range from 3 to 6 months in which a
student may or may not receive college credits depending on university
guidelines.
The candidates will need to apply online to
www.i2.com/college
to
create a profile, attach their resume, and select their area of
interest.
Why should you choose an internship at i2?
You will be assigned a mentor who will help you through your
internship and expose you to various real world assignments. You will
gain work experience making you more marketable when you graduate.
You will be exposed to one of the most exciting emerging segments in
today’s business world. You will see first hand why so many people
love working at i2.
Requirements for Student Interns:
Minimum 3.6 GPA or higher
Create profile and submit resume online (www.i2.com/college)
Students pursuing an undergraduate or graduate degree
Timeline
Deadline for resumes submission
February 9, 2001
Duration of Internship
May 2001 to August 31, 2001
[Posted Wednesday 1/24/2001]
Biliana Kaneva
Microsoft Women's Technical Scholarship
Scholarship overview.
Microsoft is committed to building great software and services. To
do that, we need a wide range of great perspectives from both men and women.
The Microsoft Women's Technical Scholarship Program is designed to encourage
women to pursue studies in computer science and related technical
disciplines. Microsoft is offering a full-tuition scholarship for the
2001-2002 academic year. Applications must be postmarked by Friday, March
2nd, 2001. Microsoft will review all applications and select final
candidates on the basis of eligibility, quality of application, interest in
the software industry, and financial need. Microsoft will interview
finalists by the end of March 2001. The names of the scholarship winners
will be announced by April 15th, 2001.
What are the provisions of the award?
Scholarships are awarded to recipients for one academic year.The
scholarship will cover 100 percent of the tuition for the 2001-2002 academic
year as posted by the financial aid office of the university or college. The
scholarships are made through the designated school and are not transferable
to other academic institutions. The funds are to be used for tuition only
and may not be used for other costs on the recipient's bursar bill. All
recipients of the scholarship will be required to complete a salaried summer
internship of 12 weeks
Job Openings in Music Retrieval
[Posted Tuesday 9/20/2005]