Vote for CSE grad student Andrew Huynh and the search for Genghis Khan’s Tomb

Today NSF launched its three-day 2012 IGERT Online Video and Poster Competition, which is live online at http://igert.org/competition2012. One student from each of the 114 IGERT programs is selected to provide a poster as part of the annual IGERT meeting in Washington, D.C.  

Representing Calit2's IGERT this year is second-year Computer Science and Engineering graduate student Andrew Huynh, who participated in Albert Lin's expedition to Mongolia and produced a poster on "Defining the Undefined: Harnessing the Public in the Search for Genghis Khan's Tomb." You can watch a video and delve into Andrew's great poster at http://posterhall.org/igert2012/posters/252. Also there: read an abstract, join the discussion, ask questions, and vote directly on the site and by "Liking" the presentation on Facebook. The presentation with the most votes ("Likes") as of 12PM EDT on Friday, May 25 will receive the Public Choice award.

It's a great way to learn about cutting-edge research being conducted across IGERT programs and a way to learn from each other and make connections.   This year's competition includes videos as well as posters.

Andrew -- whose interests are in human computation, machine learning and computer vision -- has three ways to win one of 25 awards for travel for professional development activities. One is by winning the Public Choice award. Current faculty, students and alumni involved in the IGERT program are also eligible to vote for him to receive one of four Community Choice awards. And ultimately, NSF IGERT PIs at the annual meeting will vote on 20 recipients of travel awards based purely on the academic merit of the presentations.

Here at UC San Diego, there are two active IGERT programs: Calit2's cultural heritage engineering project; and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography-based IGERT on Global Change, Marine Ecosystems and Society (represented this year by Micah Gell-Redman). His topic: "A military approach is required: The political logic of disease control on a warming planet."

There are a lot of great presentations now posted on the competition website, but we're especially proud of Andrew’s poster and video that explore the use of crowdsourcing in exploration. The project was also highlighted in a recent National Geographic documentary, "Forbidden Tomb of Genghis Khan."

Be sure to vote at http://posterhall.org/igert2012/posters/252 and send the link to your friends and social networks. And you can vote for more than one project! For more about the IGERT TEECH project, visit http://culturalheritage.calit2.net/igert-teech/.

Jacobs School Students Win Micromouse Competition--Again

For the second year in a row, a team led by Alex Forencich, a fifth-year student at the Jacobs School, took first place at the California Micromouse competition, held on campus May 20. Forencich autonomous robotic mouse found the center of a maze in just 40 seconds.

It was a close finish: the team that took second place, led by Todd Yamakawa of the University of Hawaii at Manoa, took 11 seconds to solve the maze. But they also took a 30-second penalty for pick up the mouse at some point during the competition. The third place team also took a 30-second penalty, in addition to taking 55 seconds to solve the maze.

In all, 28 teams, and their micromice, competed all day Sunday at the Qualcomm Center, on the ground floor of Jacobs Hall, also known as EBU 1 on the UC San Diego campus. The teams hailed from as far as China, and as close as UC San Diego. Teams from UCLA, UC Riverside and other Southern California campuses also attended. The mice are completely autonomous and the goal is to get to the center of the maze as fast as possible. They typically use a microcontroller (a small computer on an integrated circuit) and infrared sensors reflecting off the walls to make their way through the maze. Some also use a wireless interface to transmit debugging data back to their team’s laptop.

Most teams build the robots with off-the-shelf components. But some prefer to put together a custom circuit board, chassis and other parts. All robots map the maze, then return to the starting point and make a run for the center, using the fastest route they’ve found. Some prefer to map the whole maze, then plot a route to the center. Others prefer to map the maze only until they’ve figured out where the center is, then make a run for it. Teams are not allowed to reprogram their robots after they’ve seen the maze. The competition was hosted by UCSD IEEE at the Jacobs School of Engineering.

Robotic Mice Take Over Qualcomm Center at Jacobs School Sunday

Don't worry, these mice don't bite. They're really robots designed to find the center of a maze as soon as possible, without needing cheese as a reward.

In all, 28 teams, and their micromice, will compete all day Sunday, May 20, at the Qualcomm Center, on the ground floor of Jacobs Hall, also known as EBU 1 on the UC San Diego campus. The teams hail from as far as China, and as close as UC San Diego. Teams from UCLA, UC Riverside and other Southern California campuses also are set to attend.

The mice are completely autonomous and the goal is to get to the center of the maze as fast as possible. They typically use a microcontroller (a small computer on an integrated circuit) and infrared sensors reflecting off the walls to make their way through the maze. Some also use a wireless interface to transmit debugging data back to their team’s laptop.

Most teams build the robots with off-the-shelf components. But some prefer to put together a custom circuit board, chassis and other parts. All robots map the maze, then return to the starting point and make a run for the center, using the fastest route they’ve found. Some prefer to map the whole maze, then plot a route to the center. Others prefer to map the maze only until they’ve figured out where the center is, then make a run for it. Teams are not allowed to reprogram their robots after they’ve seen the maze.

The competition is open to the public and hosted by UCSD IEEE at the Jacobs School of Engineering.

Shake, Rattle and Roll

Jacobs School researchers put a five-story building through motions from the 7.9 earthquake that took place in 2002 in Denali, Alaska. The results were quite impressive. See for yourself in the video below:

From Garage Band to Facebook Game to PNAS Paper

  

Ian B. Murphy over at DataInformed wrote a great article charting the course of some interesting music research from electrical engineering here at the Jacobs School of Engineering at UC San Diego. The story connects the dots from a garage band, to a Facebook game, all the way to a new paper in PNAS.

The Value in a Facebook Game: Training Machines to Characterize Music Selections

A related press release from the Jacobs School is here.

Cubic and the Jacobs School of Engineerint at UC San Diego to Collaborate On Next Generation Intelligent Travel Research

The San Diego Union Tribune ran news of the new research partnership between  Cubic Transportation Systems (NYSE:CUB) and the Jacobs School of Engineering here at UC San Diego. 

Cubic will contribute $500,000 over five years to the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering to fund research done by faculty, students and Cubic Transportation Systems staff.  The project aims to achieve a better understanding of the application and utilization of emerging technologies, with the ultimate goal of making transportation easier, more convenient, more economical and environmentally greener for transit operators and their customers.  

Read the story in the Union Tribune. 

Read the press release on the Jacobs School website.

Ortiva Wireless bought by Allot Communications

Allot Communications  (NASDAQ: ALLT) announced last week that it is acquiring Ortiva Wireless, the company launched by University of California, San Diego Electrical Engineering Professor Sujit Dey in 2004 to manage mobile video and rich media content delivery. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. Allot, which is based in Tel Aviv, said in a May 1 statement that incorporating Ortiva’s “leading-edge mobile video optimization solution” with its own Allot Service Gateway technology will “allow mobile service providers to effectively manage the ever-increasing volume of video traffic on their networks, which according to Allot’s latest Global MobileTrends report, now represents 42% of mobile data traffic worldwide.”

We asked Dey for his thoughts on the acquisition and he responded:

 “I am pleased with the intended acquisition as it will be complimentary and strategic, in line with rising market demand for integrated mobile data management solutions. Allot’s fast expanding customer base will be beneficial for deployment of Ortiva’s video delivery solutions globally. Allot is committed to expanding the operations in San Diego, so it is good for the San Diego economy. I truly appreciate the support and encouragement that I received while founding Ortiva and later from UC San Diego, including from Dean Frieder Seible and the Jacobs School, Calit2, the ECE department, the von Liebig Center, and the Technology Transfer office.”

News of the acquisition sent Allot’s stock climbing in response to analysts’ expectations that the company’s momentum in the network traffic management sector will continue, particularly as the market for smart phones and computer tablets expands. RCR Wireless reported that “mobile video is expected to comprise 41% to 67% of telecom network traffic by 2015.”

San Diego-based Xconomy reported that Allot intends to maintain Ortiva’s San Diego office and expects the 41-person staff here to grow. 

Dey (third from the left in photo) talked about the process of launching Ortiva Wireless and the challenges of commercialization during a recent dinner celebrating the 10^th anniversary of the von Liebig Center for Entrepreneurism and Technology Advancement, which offers seed funding and advisory services and is part of the Jacobs School of Engineering at UC San Diego. It was with a grant from the von Liebig Center, that Dey created a prototype that became the core technology to launch Ortiva Wireless.