Belmont Greenlee Farley, professor emeritus in the Department of Computer and Information Sciences, passed away on Feruary 28. He was 87.
Professor Farley joined Temple in 1969, becoming the second member of the university's new Department of Computer and Information Sciences. He retired in 1986.
A pioneering brain researcher and
computer scientist, he helped develop
the world’s first fully transistorized
computer and, with a colleague, created
the first computer simulation of
a neural network while working at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
in the 1950s. Components of that computer
are now exhibited at the Smithsonian
Institution in Washington, D.C.
During his distinguished career,
Farley also worked at Bell Telephone
Laboratories and the University of
Pennsylvania.
Computer Science junior Pauline Romas selected for Diamond Peer Teachers Program
The Diamond Peer Teachers Program, an initiative funded by the University Vice Provost for Undergraduate Studies, provides upper-level undergraduates the opportunity to participate in the teaching experience for a lower-level course in their major. We are pleased to announce that a Computer Science major, Pauline Romas, has been selected for this award. Pauline was nominated by Dr. Frank Friedman based on her work as an undergraduate lab assistant, as well as her enthusiasm towards fostering a more cooperative learning environment among CIS students. She will be working with Dr. Rolf Lakaemper as her faculty mentor.
Computer Science major Tanish Rankin Receives Microsoft Scholarship
Tanisha Rankin, a junior majoring in Computer Science, has been awarded a scholarship by Microsoft Corporation. The Microsoft Technical Scholarship is a $2500 tuition award. Tanisha was selected for this award based on her excellent grades in CS, and essays that she wrote. Tanisha is also a candidate for Microsoft's 12 week summer internship program.
Elliot Koffman and Frank Friedman, Professors in the Department of Computer and Information Sciences, have released a new fifth edition of Problem Solving, Abstraction, and Design Using C++, published by Addison-Wesley. Dr. Koffman also recently released Problem Solving and Program Design in C, Fifth Edition, published by Addison-Wesley with Jeri Hanly of the University of Loyola as co-author.
The CIS Department deeply expresses its sorrow with the passing and loss of Peter E. Kuhner, III. After receiving a B.S. in Computer and Information Sciences, Peter remained in the CIS department teaching CIS 55 laboratories while seeking full time employment. He was nominated and received the CIS 55 Outstanding Lab Instructor Award. After learning he was nominated for the award he wrote “I can’t explain how much this means to me and I’m off to call everyone I know”.
Pete approached his classes joyously and was devoted to teaching and his students. As honored as he was to receive the award, it was our privilege to have Pete in our lives, as a student, colleague and friend.
Michelle Rufe, a senior CIS student majoring in IS&T, has been awarded a scholarship to attend the Grace Hopper Women in Computing 2007 Conference. Michelle is a Dean's List student and is part of a team that submitted their project “Algorithms of Love: The Growing Technology and Social Implications of Online Dating” for presentation at the conference.
New Ph.D.s
On August 7, 2007, Ph.D. candidate Bo Han successfully defended his dissertation titled "Knowledge Discovery by Fusion of Information ". His thesis advisor is Dr. Zoran Obradovic.
On August 6, 2007, Ph.D. candidate Hongbo Xie successfully defended his dissertation titled "Functional Characterization of Large Scale Biological Data". His dissertation advisor is Dr. Zoran Obradovic.
On July 26, 2007, Ph.D. candidate Yijian Yang successfullydefended his dissertation titled: "A Fault Tolerance Protocol for Stateless Parallel Processing". His thesis advisor is Dr. Justin Y. Shi.
Research of CIS Students to be Presented at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing
Congratulations to Alanna Burke (IS&T), Rebecca Mackin (IS&T), Pauline Romas (CS), and Michelle Rufe (IS&T), undergraduates in Temple’s CIS Department! Their research has been selected for presentation at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing 2007 to be held this October in Orlando, Florida. Their research is described in a technical poster project, “Algorithms of Love: The Growing Technology and Social Implications of Online Dating”. This project examines the system architectures and methods of profiling for different online dating websites, compares the various matchmaking methods, and evaluates the overall societal impact of online dating. Their mentoring faculty, Wendy Urban and Claudia Pine-Simon, will accompany Alanna, Rebecca, Pauline, and Michelle to the conference.
Special Recognition Awards Given to Two Very Special CIS Friends
Steven Petchon and the company for which he works, Accenture, have been steady, long-term
contributors to CIS, both in hiring our students and starting them on successful careers, and by
providing financial support to the CIS Department. For his early and consistent support for CIS
education over the past 25 years, Steve was presented a Certificate of Recognition.
Philip Bagley, a faculty-emeritus in CIS, has always thought first and foremost of the Temple CIS
Department when hiring for his company, The Automated Office. Recently, Phil provided financial support for starting
a new CIS Department Undergraduate Student Activities Fund. Phil is back at Temple, as a student, learning about technologies for website development. For his contributions to the
Department and its students over the years, Phil Bagley was presented a Certificate of Recognition.
On Thursday April 12, the CIS ACM Students Awards Dinner was held. A number of awards were given for Scholarship, Outstanding Achievements, Service and Leadership. The following awards were presented:
The Aetna Information Services Scholarship:
Tanisha Rankin
Awarded to a deserving student in their junior year who demonstrates excellence in the field of computer and Information sciences or information science and technology.
Award for Outstanding Achievement:
Andrew Andrijiwskyj and Ulid Jirapatnakul
Awarded to the member of the graduating class who is concentrating in Computer and Information Sciences with the highest grade point average.
Award for Outstanding CIS55 Laboratory Instructor:
Chris Pascucci
Awarded Annually for outstanding teaching as CIS 55 laboratory instructor.
Award for Outstanding CIS 55 Laboratory Helper/Consultant:
Luke Bilger
Awarded annually for outstanding services as a helper/consultant for CIS 55.
Award for Outstanding Graduate Teaching Assistant:
Vishnuparasad Radhakrishnan
Awarded annually for outstanding teaching as a Graduate Teaching Assistant.
Student Leadership Award:
Hector Castro and Bryan Palmer
Awarded to an undergraduate who has made a significant contribution to the Computer and Information Sciences ACM organization and to the CIS department.
ACM Awards
Outstanding Officer: Rebecca Mackin
Outstanding Teacher: Claudia Pine-Simon
Jemuel Curden and Eugene Genin are the recipients of the 2006 Society of Information Management (SIM) Philadelphia Area Chapter Scholarship. Each award is in the amount of $2000 and Awarded to an academically talented and deserving student majoring in Information Science and Technology to promote the advancement of the information technology field.
Dr. Robert Aiken, Professor and Chair, CIS Department, has recently been given a "Recognition of Service Award" in Appreciation for Contributions to ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) as a Member, and former Chair, of the Education Board. Dr. Aiken served on the Board from 1984 - 2006.
Claudia Pine-Simon, the ACM Faculty Advisor, has provided access to the Job Resource Center
CIS Labs gets serious with redundant servers
CIS laboratory staff ( Tom Stauffer and Jon Ikoniak ) have implemented new primary servers as redundant fail-over pairs using common hardware. This was done to provide servers for CIS students and faculty that are more reliable, have better performance and can be more easily managed and maintained. This is being accomplished using free and open source software under Linux.
We are using 10 Dell PowerEdge servers (base servers), each with 4GB of RAM, 3 1Gbps Ethernet cards and a pair of SATA hard drives. The two drives in a base server are configured as redundant fail-over mirror devices using the 64 bit Fedora Linux Core 5. Additional SATA controllers with another 6 SATA drives in external drive enclosures have been added to each base server. These disks are configured into a single large storage space. This configuration makes the file systems on each base server system resistant to disk failures. To ensure that the systems are not susceptible to whole system failure, “application server systems” were constructed, each using two of the enhanced Dell PowerEdge (base) servers. For each pair of these systems, DRBD (mirroring a whole block device for a ‘high-availability” cluster) was setup to duplicate the file system between the systems in real time. A heartbeat program is used to detect and perform an automatic fail-over to the duplicate system. This all happens across one of the three network interfaces in each system. By duplicating the disk drives using hardware, as opposed to a more traditional and more expensive disk sharing architecture, the problem of a massive disk failure wiping out both systems can be avoided.
With the implementation of this architecture, a new network design was implemented for the servers. As noted, each system has three 1 Gbps Ethernet interfaces. For each server, one of the interfaces connects the server to a private CIS 1 Gbps network. One network interface is used to connect the base server to its twin to make up the application server. The third interface is used to connect the server to the University network.
One application server constructed as described above has replaced the aging student Linux system and all of its services. Two application servers (two server pairs) have been used to replace our Windows NT 4 Domain with SAMBA on Linux, giving all of the same features, but better reliability. Another application server replaced the aging faculty Linux system and all of its services. Another application server was constructed and is running a number of VMWare Virtual Machines that replace our aging Windows 2000 Server MS SQL and IIS systems used for our Microsoft based web design classes.
All user authentications are now shared across the cluster of systems using LDAP and each account authenticates the users into both the Linux and Windows servers and workstations. This helps to reduce the management overhead and helps the users by not having to remember numerous account names and passwords.
One of the primary goals of this development has been to improve manageability of the server systems, while enhancing performance and significantly improving ‘uptime’. We are also addressing the availability and stability of the systems by introducing a new backup strategy and architecture. The backup system will co-exist with the servers on the private 1 Gbps network .
As further enhancements to system software become available, this new environment will enable testing of new configurations of the clustered setup without diminishing performance to users. Users should find only new features available, while the system architecture will be transparent to them.
CIS does provide users with a few servers and services in addition to these new clustered systems. There is the Oracle Database server, a faculty Windows IIS web server, and the Sun Solaris lab server and systems. In time some of these systems may be added into the cluster while others will remain separate for security reasons. The architecture and implementation of user services are evaluated separately upon need, resources and manageability.
CIS Students can now access their profiles and files from the TECH Center. The TECH Center houses a special break-out room for CIS, MIS and Engineering students, the Software Development Laboratory (SDL). Using the workstations in the SDL, CIS students can execute software and have access to their files as though they were using a CIS laboratory workstation.
The SDL workstations can bootstrap (startup) a system image specific to CIS students, or MIS (FSBM) students, or College of Engineering students. For CIS students, a Linux system is bootstrapped and the Linux system has a virtual Windows XP operating system, that is a direct copy of the Windows XP systems in CIS laboratories, and a virtual Linux operating system system that is a direct copy of the Linux systems in CIS laboratories.
Through LDAP authentification (see the News article about CIS redundant servers), a user is able to sign in to the CIS network, and the corresponding server.
The SDL workstations are the only workstations in the TECH Center that permit users to compile, build prgrams and load programs.
The TECH Center has additional hours of operation, enabling students to use TECH Center workstations when the CIS laboratories are closed. The TECH Center hours are:
24 Hours per Day
Sunday 12 noon
to Friday 7:30 p.m.
Saturday
9:00 a.m. to 6:30 p.m
The SDL is located in area #3 on the second floor of the TECH Center.