Researchers from two groups at Virginia Tech have recently been awarded $1M to develop a collaborative problem-solving environment to support engineers who will design and analyze future generations of portable multimedia communicators. Computer Science Professors Watson, Shaffer, Ramakrishnan and Kafura from the Problem-Solving Environments (PSE) research group will be working together with Professors Rappaport and Tranter from the Mobile and Portable Radio Research Group (MPRG) in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. The funding comes from the National Science Foundation's Next Generation Software program under the Directorate for Computing and Information Sciences and Engineering (CISE).

The project, called S⁴W for Site-Specific System Simulator for Wireless Communications, will build a comprehensive design and support system for fundamental problem-solving in broadband wireless communication systems. This system will serve as a flexible design tool for the deployment and performance of evaluation of emerging wireless systems. It will also validate new wireless communications modeling approaches and serve as a test bed for research into developing collaborative problem-solving environments.

The new Advanced Communications and Information Technology Center (ACITC) is really both an organization and a building. You may have seen the massive construction site across from the library on Virginia Tech's Mall (a model of the finished building is shown at right), but you probably haven't had a glimpse of what's going on behind the scenes.

The ACITC is designed to bring together outstanding technology research programs from across Virginia Tech's campus. It will bring together students, faculty, and partners from beyond the campus, and it will integrate campus resources to support three organizational thrusts: research, instructional technology, and digital libraries. There are nine focus areas: human-computer interaction (HCI), fiber optics, wireless communications, parallel computing, visualization and animation, networking, multimedia and learning resources, high-technology classrooms, and library information systems. Computer science faculty members are involved in virtually all of these areas, and three are led by CS professors: HCI - John Carroll, parallel computing - Cal Ribbens, and digital libraries - Ed Fox.

Ad for bioinformatics faculty, to appear in February's CACM.

Bioinformatics is a word that's often heard in the halls of McBryde these days. Take computer science and combine it with biology and a wealth of cutting-edge inquiry and applications results. Virginia Tech has the ingredients to establish itself as a powerhouse in this area: strengths in computing, engineering, and the biological sciences; the presence of the Fralin Biotechnology Center; the university's focus on biosciences and biotechnology as one of its seven cross-cutting initiatives; and the resources of the Corporate Research Center and Tech's extended community of corporate partners.

Computer science has been hosting a series of distinguished scholars from around the country speaking on topics related to bioinformatics. Interest in the area has been growing since the Bioinformatics Symposium held at Fralin in 1999. The department is also involved in seeking new faculty to augment those alreadly involved in campus bioinformatics initiatives (see ad at right). In addition to the bioinformatics web site at http://www.bioinformatics.vt.edu/, computer science professor Dr. Lenwood Heath maintains a collection of bioinformatics information and links.

Virginia Tech and the Department of Computer Science are at the forefront of research into digital libraries. Dr. Edward Fox, professor of computer science, is leading worldwide efforts to expand the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations. He was recently mentioned in a January issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education in an article on digital dissertations. Fox also is a key participant in the ongoing development of VT-PetaPlex-1, a data repository with over 2.5 terabytes of storage and more than 100 processors. This installation is only the second of its kind anywhere and is housed at Virginia Tech's Computing Center. Researchers are involved in developing and refining methods of data access that will increase efficiency and ease-of-use.