Pittsburgh executive David M. Burstin has provided new support for the Penn State’s Information Sciences and Technology Building, now under construction on the University Park campus. Burstin’s gift will fund a seminar room in the facility.

Burstin of Bennington Avenue, Pittsburgh, is a 1961 Penn State alumnus with a degree in business. Today, he is a principal in the insurance firm of Brand, Burstin & Runette, headquartered in downtown Pittsburgh.

The David M. Burstin Seminar Room will be located on the second, or “bridge,” level of the building, flanking the eastern ramp entrance.

Cognitive Systems Engineering (CSE) Subject of New Book by IST Faculty Member

Michael D. McNeese, associate professor of information sciences and technology, is co-editor with Michael (U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory) of Cognitive Systems Engineering in Military Aviation Environments: Avoiding Cogminutia Fragmentosa.

The book offers an in-depth look at military applicaiotns of cognitive systems engineering and captures the latest thinking of an international group of authors who are expert in this emerging new field.

Two IST Majors Win CIGNA Excellent Awards

Two IST majors at University Park, Parveen Shamsi and Luis Valbuena, have been selected for the 2002 CIGNA Excellence Award in recognition of their academic excellence, extracurricular involvement and leadership potential.

The two were chosen from an applicant pool of about 100 Penn State students, with five of the eight finalists from IST. Four University students, including Shamsi and Valbuena, received the CIGNA Award.

Databases Can Heal Themselves On-the-Fly

An innovative new software can detect and correct a database impaired by an attack while the database system continues to process transactions, according to IST faculty member Peng Liu

Liu performed the research underlying the technology while a faculty member at the University of Maryland-Baltimore County. He has since established his research team, the Cyber security Group, in IST. The team’s areas of expertise include network security, intrusion detection and masking, survivable systems and attack prediction.

IST Faculty Member Honored IST’s C. Lee Giles received the 2002 IBM Distinguished Faculty Award in ceremonies held by the Penn State eBusiness Research Center. Giles, holder of the David Reese Professorship of Information Sciences and Technology, was honored for his development of the niche search engine eBiz Search, which seeks documents about e-business, e-commerce, and related topics.

Award to Further Trauth’s Research in Ireland

Eileen Trauth, professor of information sciences and technology, has received one of 14 inaugural E.T.S. Walton Visitor Awards from Science Foundation Ireland to continue her research on Ireland’s informattio0n and communications technology (ITC) industry.

As part of a year-long grant of approximately $200,000, Trauth will examine what Ireland must do to remain competitive in the ITC market and retain its position as Europe’s fastest growing economy.

Hall Named IEEE Fellow

David L. Hall, IST associate dean for research and graduate programs, has been named a fellow in the Class of 2002 of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). Hall is one of 260 fellows IEEE’s board of directors recognized this year for their achievements. He was cited for his “leadership in establishing the field of multi-sensor data fusion and development of practical systems.”

Hall is the third member of the IST faculty to become an IEEE Fellow. Already honored are colleagues John Yen and C. Lee Giles.

Yen Joins Research Team for $6.9 Million NIH Grant

John Yen, University Professor of Information Sciences and Technology, will collaborate on a $6.9 million grant to develop ways of improving the images generated by high-field magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

The research, funded by the National Institutes of Health, could lead to new technologies that would produce clearer pictures of internal organs, tumors, and body structures. Patients will benefit as physicians will be able to diagnose condition s more easily and accurately, and researchers will benefit from better images.

Yen’s role will be to help develop the technology to construct three-dimensional human models for studying high-intensity MRI.

Cai Contributes to New Voice, Gesture-based Computer System

Emergency management teams, faced with an approaching storm, can access GIS map data through voice and gestures for real-time decision making on issues ranging from protecting hazardous materials sites to evacuating assisted living facilities by using a computer system developed by Penn State researchers, including Guoray Cai, assistant professor of information sciences and technology.

New Software Creates Dictionary for Retrieving Images

New software that responds to written questions by retrieving digital images has potentially broad applications from helping radiologists compare mammograms to streamlining museum curators archiving of artwork.

James Z. Wang, holder of the PNC Technologies Career Development Professorship, and principal investigator on the project, said the Automatic Linguistic Indexing of Pictures (ALIP) system first builds a pictorial dictionary, then uses it for associating images with key words. The new technology functions like a human expert who annotates or classifies terms.