CSE Undergrad News

Interested in working on projects like openie.cs.washington.edu and revminer.cs.washington.edu this summer?

We have a project for you.  Looking for someone energetic, independent, with strong programming skills for a paid summer RA.  Should have finished CSE 332 or 326.

Please send resume, unofficial transcript, and a note about what you’re looking for to me. (Contact information linked on name below)

Oren Etzioni: http://www.cs.washington.edu/people/faculty/etzioni

We would be grateful if you could please circulate this information to your colleagues and students.   Please note the deadline for the McNair Application is May 30, 2012 by 5:00pm

Printable PDF of McNair Applications are online:

http://depts.washington.edu/uwmcnair/McNair%20Application%202012-2013g.pdf

You are invited to apply for the McNair Scholar Program.  The Ronald E. McNair Scholars Program prepares undergraduates for doctoral study through involvement in research and scholarly activities.  For more information please go to: http://depts.washington.edu/uwmcnair/description.htm

In order to apply for the McNair Program, you must meet the following eligibility criteria, set by the U.S. Department of Education. Because this is a federally funded program, these are strict requirements.

To be eligible, you:

• must be a U.S. citizen or U.S. permanent resident
• must be a low-income student who is also a first-generation col lege student (for detailed descriptions, click on the links); or
  must be a member of a group that is underrepresented in graduate education (African American, American Indian/Alaskan Native, Hispanic/Latino, or Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander)
• must be currently enrolled as an undergraduate in a degree program at the UW¹
• must have completed 36 credits by the time of initial entry into the program
• must have at least one year remaining before graduation (i.e., if you are graduating within the year, you are not eligible for the program)
• must have a minimum cumulative GPA of: 2.8 (sophomores), 3.0 (juniors), 3.2 (seniors)
• must have STRONG desire to attain a Ph.D.

¹Post-baccalaureate students and students who already have one bachelors degree are not eligible for the program.
²Students whose career goals include a medical (MD) or other professional degree (JD, MBA, PharmD, etc.) are not eligible for the program.

http://depts.washington.edu/uwmcnair/eligible.htm

The BS/MS aka 5th year masters program application is now open. It’s linked on this page: http://www.cs.washington.edu/prospective_students/bsms/application_information

The application will close on June 6th at midnight.

I suggest you carefully read the directions listed on the application page linked above.

ChronoZoom is a really neat system built by Microsoft Research:

http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/chronozoom/

http://www.chronozoomproject.org/

There will be a presentation and demo on May 18 at 10 a.m. in the Simpson Center for the Humanities, Communications 202.

Among other things, MSR is hoping that some UW CSE students might be interested in contributing to further development of ChronoZoom.  Their development partners thus far have been Berkeley (for content) and a university in Russia (for technology).

Here’s a description of the May 18 talk, followed by a description of partnership opportunities.

=====

Title: ChronoZoom: Bridging the Gap Between the Humanities and Sciences

Abstract: Imagine a world where scientists, researchers, students, and teachers collaborate to share historical information through images, videos, documents, charts interactive tours, and more. Imagine a world where leading academics publish their findings to the world in a manner that can easily be accessed and compared. ChronoZoom is an open-source community project dedicated to visualizing the history of everything and supporting the emerging field of Big History. Big History is the attempt to understand, in a unified, interdisciplinary way, the history of cosmos, Earth, life, and humanity. ChronoZoom seeks to bridge the gap between the humanities and sciences by enabling all kinds of information to be visually presented and organized.  In this session, learn about what challenges we have in taxonomy and content and how humanistic researchers and ischools can help. Understand what ChronoZoom hopes to  accomplish with the research community and how computer scientist can better work with scientists and humanists.  We will then provide a behind the scenes look at bringing ChronoZoom to life through HTML5 and Windows Azure. We will address the various visualization challenges, data management issues and user interface questions solved in this project and the complex algorithms created.  We’ll discuss what we hope to accomplish in the next phases of ChronoZoom development and how other computer science PIs can work with the team.

=====

ChronoZoom Project:

Background: Big History is the attempt to understand, in a unified, interdisciplinary way, the history of cosmos, Earth, life, and humanity. Envisioned as a new discipline launched 25 years ago by Dr. David Christian at Macquarie University, Australia.

Big History invites scholars of the humanities and scientists from fields like geology, paleontology, evolutionary biology, astronomy, and cosmology to work together in developing the broadest possible view of the past. However, incorporating everything we know about the past into Big History greatly increases the amount of data to be dealt with.  A serious problem in teaching Big History courses is conveying the vast stretches of time from the Big Bang, 13.7 billion years ago, to the present, and clarifying the immensely distinct time scales of cosmic history, Earth and life history, human prehistory, and human history. A traditional linear timeline is ill equipped to convey the vast differences in time scales. Furthermore, incorporating the plethora of data from so many fields and disciplines into a single, comprehensive view has proven difficult. To present Big History properly, a completely new kind of tool had to be developed.

ChronoZoom, developed in collaboration between Microsoft Research and Roland Saekow and Walter Alvarez of the University of California, Berkeley, overcomes the challenges of visualizing Big History. “By letting us move effortlessly through this enormous wilderness of time, getting used to the differences in scale, ChronoZoom helps to break down the time-scale barriers to communication between scholars,” says Professor Alvarez.  One goal is to have educators and students use ChronoZoom to deepen their study of history. At the university level, our goal is for ChronoZoom to allow scholars and scientists to bring together graphically a wide range of data sets from various disciplines and to search for connections and causal relationships that better explain the universe and our world.

About the Project:  ChronoZoom 2.0 is focused on providing a dynamic, interactive cloud based data visualization tool for Big History. When completed, this project will be online and freely available to anyone interested in using it as an educator, a student and/or a researcher.  ChronoZoom is already a solution provided to the Outer Curve Foundation and is available on codeplex for computer scientist around the world to modify and use the code, add to the code and work on the project. The vision is to enable innovative ways of teaching Big History and empower interdisciplinary research. ChronoZoom is truly a community based project with development being done by Moscow State University and Content leadership by UC Berkeley.  ChronoZoom is a highly curated, peer reviewed historic timeline full of audio, video, images, documents, etc.  that can help explain the interplay between sciences and humanities.  This is a partnership with the International Big History Association, Gates Big History Project, UC Berkeley and Microsoft Research Connections.  Visit: http://research.microsoft.com/chronozoom for more details, visit http://www.chronozoomproject.org to see the tool.

What is the Opportunity:  ISCHOOLS:  In growing ChronoZoom it is critical to bring the best researchers data and stories inside ChronoZoom.  We need library scientist who understand content, taxonomy, data organization, etc.  We would like to get a PI and graduate student interested in leading the content community and strategy for ChronoZoom.  This would mean looking at the data structure and ensure it is correct and will be easier to search, flag and organize all the data that will come into ChronoZoom.  When we look at each regime how to determine what are the most important events should be in each regime, where to get the content, what are the best repositories and digital libraries, who are the best researchers to contact.  Who are possible experts to help support, what are great organizations to partner with like (CERN, UNESCO, Smithsonian, etc.) how do we build a plan on organizations we work one on one to hand hold versus wait till there is a tool for them to create a timeline/tour on their own?

HUMANISTIC & SCIENTIFIC PROFESSORS, RESEARCHERS, STUDENTS:  Work with us to build ChronoZoom to be the platform to help digital humanities.  Have your research, lectures, content come alive in ChronoZoom and be shared with students, educators and researchers around the world.  Give feedback and help shape the features and capabilities needed for ChronoZoom to be a good teaching and learning tool.

COMPUTER SCIENCE RESEARCHERS & STUDENTS:  Help us build the features and capabilities required in the tool.  80% of ChronoZoom was built by graduate and undergraduate students at Moscow State University.  We need a technical lead computer science department to lead the project and organize the community with Microsoft research and later lead.  We are also looking to have computer science departments to help us solve the current difficult computer science challenges in this project:

• Visualization: How do you visually portray different interpretations of events/research/data?  How do we deal with debates in dates (+/- standard deviation)?  How do we compare multiple timelines and datasets?  How can you populate a visible canvas with only relevant timelines? As CZ grows the number of timelines will also grow, how do you provide a meaningful view of the areas that interest you? How do you allow this without destroying the opportunity to discover new relationships?  Given that exhibits are curated displays of content items (up to 15 per exhibit) centered around a specific topic, can an algorithmic method of creating these exhibits be developed? Can we move from human curators to automation? This also suggests that we can algorithmically analyze the highly diverse content and yield useful combinations that reveal new insights and organization of events (topics).
• Data management: How do you create a sustainable model for localization, taxonomy for multimedia data sources, manage data from multiple repositories, creating a third party authoring tool connected to proper database and data structure to enable curated timeline/tour and crowdsource/social rated timelines/tours. How do you organize (nest) timelines so that vast amounts of data can be easily explored? “ And as a corollary, How do you provide a meaningful experience without directing the user? What would tools look like that would encourage exploration in the ChronoZoom paradigm.
• Machine Learning: How can visitor behavior be used to provide an “intuitive” progression of information presentation. How can overall visitor experience be used to predict what an individual is trying to find.  Since ChronoZoom will contain many millions of content items, and only a very small percentage will be visible on the canvas in exhibits, how do we expose the underlying content in a way that facilitates visitors discovering what they want?
• Data Views includes Visualization, Data Management and Machine Learning: Given that one organizational taxonomy can’t satisfy every visitor, what is the set of views needed to permit timeline creation and organization to satisfy a wide range of interests; for example, a topical organization for some, geographical for others? What other taxonomies should be considered? Can we use machine learning to discover entirely new ways of looking at this data?

Thank you,

Rane Johnson-Stempson

Education & Scholarly Communications Principal Research Director | Microsoft Research Connections | Cell +1.425.457.3665 | Office  +1.425.421-3447

Kim Polese is a leading Silicon Valley entrepreneur and innovator. She will speak on Thursday at 3:30 in EEB 105 on “The Journey of the Entrepreneur.”  She will discuss her experiences from 25 years in Silicon Valley founding and leading groundbreaking technology projects and software companies, sharing stories from the trenches, lessons learned, and insights about what it takes for a promising technology to become an innovation that changes the world.

Ms. Polese earned a Bachelor’s degree in Biophysics from the University of California, Berkeley and studied Computer Science at the University of Washington.

Complete information here.  Please join us!

We would love to see some of your student and Faculty at AFDS. The event is taking place from June 11-14; however we suggest interested parties register soon! We are offering 50 free entries to the event to Faculty and 100 free entries to Students and they will be awarded on a first come, first serve basis.

——————————————-

Get a head start on the next era of computing

Get FREE access to the premier event that is helping to usher in a new era of computing: Visit amd.com/afds and enter code STUCOMP when you register.

This is an incredible time to be a student in any area of computer science. There’s an unprecedented level of change and innovation occurring–in both hardware and software:
Tablets and mobile devices are exploding. User interfaces are becoming richer and more intuitive. Services are shifting from the desktop to the cloud. But all these trends are placing incredible demands on existing hardware and software platforms.

Heterogeneous computing is a new paradigm designed to help meet these demands. If you’ve heard of it, you’re ahead of the curve. If you haven’t, you need to catch up. Fast.

Want an edge on your peers when competing for an internship or a job? Then arm yourself with insight into heterogeneous computing, OpenCL, OpenGL, and C++ AMP.

Sound overwhelming?

Don’t worry–you can help boost your knowledge and skills in less than a week.
Attend the premier event on heterogeneous computing

AMD and others are pioneering the hardware and software platforms required to make heterogeneous computing a reality. And the momentum is building–fast. To help unite the industry and advance the skills required to take advantage of the new paradigm, AMD is hosting its second annual AMD Fusion12 Developer Summit (AFDS).

Held June 11-14, 2012 in Bellevue, Washington, AFDS provides an intense immersion into the world of heterogeneous computing and the impact it will have on a huge range of technology sectors.

Learn from the best in the industry

Want to know where this new paradigm is headed? We’ve secured some of today’s most visionary technologists to share their insights on how heterogeneous computing will affect areas like the cloud, multimedia and graphics, security, user interfaces, device capabilities, and more.

Plus, the event features nearly 100 intensive working sessions, premier demonstrations, and a chance to meet developers and representatives of the industry’s leading hardware and software companies.

Get access to AFDS for free
AMD believes so strongly in helping students get a head start in the world of heterogeneous computing that we’re offering 100 free entries to the event.* But they’re on a first come, first serve basis. Just enter code STUCOMP when you register. Please note that you must have a .edu email address and you will be required to provide proof upon entrance (a student ID) to the event that you are a full-time student at a post-secondary school.** To learn more, and access registration, visit amd.com/afds.

Sincerely,
The AFDS Team

P.S.: Remember, the number of free student scholarships is limited to 100. Register today using this code: STUCOMP

* Event entry only. Student is responsible for paying for travel, hotel, food and any other expenses.

Hey everyone,

This is a reminder that we’ll be having the annual CSE spring BBQ this Friday from 4:30 pm to 7 pm at Sylvan Grove.

This is also the last week for you to purchase T-shirts. Orders will no longer be accepted on May 20th. Get your shirts at: http://abstractionary.com/uw_cse_2012

Last, but not least, ACM-W is having their Spring canoe trip this Saturday from 10:30 am to 11:30 am. Meet in the Atrium.

We need to alert all of you to some registration issues this fall.

1. There is a prerequisite change, 477 (the capstone course) will only have 466 as a prerequisite next year.

2. If a course is full, please do two things. One, try to register even though you know it’s full.  The UW registration system captures a tally, and this helps us understand if we need to open more space in a course. Two, keep watching for space to open, watch the blog for announcements for additional sections, and attend the first week to try to overload.

3. CSE 190 the web programming course will open for registration with it’s new (permanent) number late next week, stay tuned. The time , 330 MWF should stay the same.

4. Capstone survey, pre-registration will take place late May or early June, watch the blog for updates.

5. Seminars: There are a few seminars for ugrads this fall.

a. 490q: quantum computing for beginners, one credit, not graded

An introduction to computation using the fundamental laws of quantum
> physics: quantum circuit model, quantum algorithms, experimental
> implementations, recent research progress, philosophical conundrums,
> connections to classical computer science, engineering, and physics.
> Focus on intuitive/pictorial understanding. Includes guest lecturers
> and possibility of programming a D-Wave machine. Prerequisites: high
> school physics, undergrad linear algebra, curiosity.

b. 490 O: k-12 outreach, this course may or may not be offered, please fill out the survey if you’re interested and if there are enough students who express interest, it will likely be offered.

https://catalyst.uw.edu/webq/survey/helenem/168181

c. DUB and CHANGE seminars are usually open to ugrads, search the CSE website for information. They are listed as a 590.

Italy: Technology and Society – A Global Perspective

Join Institute of Technology Professor, Orlando Baiocchi, in Rome, Italy, for an intensive examination of the complex relationships between technology and society from a perspective both global and historical. Visit the remains of Roman technology and some of the most important historical and technological museums in Europe. Discover for yourself the new uses of technology and navigate the social, economic, environmental and ethical issues associated with those technologies. Stay in Rome with excursions to Naples, Florence and Milan!

For more information on this *12-credit* program and/or to apply, visit the program website:

www.tacoma.uw.edu/international-programs/italy-technology-society-global-perspective

The application deadline has been extended to one week from today (Friday, May 18th, 5 p.m.).  Application is linked on the website.

And, yes, Federal Financial Aid can be applied to the costs of this program including those expenses not included in the program fee.

Thank you,

***********************************

Tracey Norris

Study Abroad Coordinator

International Programs

University of Washington, Tacoma

1900 Commerce Street

Tacoma, WA  98402-3100

Ph: 253-692-4426  Fax: 253-692-5643

uwtintl@uw.edu

www.tacoma.uw.edu/international-programs