specific platform, for instance, could
significantly reduce the time a patient
must spend in a CT scan machine.
Other computational approaches to
making scanning and image processing more powerful, such as massive
parallel processing by general-purpose
computers, are highly inefficient, and
cloud computing poses possible data
access and privacy issues, Cong says.
Kok-Kiong Yap, left, a Ph.D. candidate in electrical engineering at stanford university,
explaining the award-winning poster “openRoads: empowering Research in mobile
networks” to an attendee at siGcomm 2009.
than model checking. In their Expeditions project, the researchers will take
advantage of the strengths of both
methods by tightly integrating the two
into what they call MCAI 2.0.
“These domain challenges are at
opposite ends of the spectrum of size,”
says Clarke, co-winner of the ACM A.M.
Turing Award in 2007. (The 2007 Turing Award lecture, “Model Checking:
Algorithmic Verification and Debugging,” begins on p. 74.) “One is at the
cellular level and the other is at the size
of a 747 or Airbus A380—yet we believe
that many of the same problems you
need for handling complexity at one
level will apply to the other as well.”
en task much more easily than someone who is not similarly trained, Cong’s
team will explore creating a computing
platform with what he calls a “very flexible” processor core with customizable
elements such as operating frequency,
voltage, and cache sizes, as well as a domain-specific programming fabric and
a radio frequency-based communications fabric that can be tuned to multiple applications. All of the customizable computing and communications
elements will be managed by a stack of
intelligent software.
The UCLA-led project will focus on
adapting these platforms for medical
imaging and hemodynamic simulation. A successful imaging domain-
Domain-Specific Computing
university of california,
Los angeles
Jason Cong, professor of computer science and engineering at UCLA’s Center
for Domain-Specific Computing, likens the computing platform his team
is devising to a human brain.
“If you look to the evolution of humans in the last 5,000 to 10,000 years,
I don’t think the number of neurons in
the brain has changed that much, nor
has the firing speed of neurons; we’re
all wired in a very similar way,” Cong
says. “So, I believe a lot of progress is
done through specialization.”
Just as training in a specific discipline leads one person to perform a giv-
the seven projects
address a daunting
challenge that,
like an adventurous
expedition, can
stimulate one’s
imagination.
RoboBees: Body, Brain, and Colony
harvard university
The RoboBee researchers will explore
complementary elements of creating
robotic bees using three vectors modeled on live insects—body, brain, and
colony. Topics within the body research
includes all aspects of flight apparatus,
propulsion, and power systems. The
brain experiments involve research on
the electronic nervous system equivalent of a bee’s brain, including circuits
for sensing and decision making. Colony research entails communication
and control algorithms that will enable
performance beyond the capabilities
of an individual. The research team
includes experts in biology, computer
science, electrical and mechanical engineering, and materials science.
“We are trying to develop micro-mechanical devices, power electronics, and low-power computing fabrics
we need to instrument the brain, and
to wrap it all together, this notion of
developing algorithms and simulating
a whole colony of individual agents,”
says co-principal investigator Gu-Yeon
Wei, associate professor of electrical
engineering at Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.
The researchers will also create an
exhibit at the Museum of Science in
Boston, which will explore the life of
bees and the technologies required to
create RoboBees. “Bees elicit a lot of
excitement and imagery from young to
old,” Wei says. “We felt that a good way
of tying it together is to share our research in an easily accessible manner.”
2008 a WaRDees
Computational Sustainability:
Computational Methods for
a Sustainable Environment,
Economy, and Society
cornell university
This Expedition applies techniques
from computer science and related