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NC2IF Approved for Center Status
01/22/2008
by Charles DuBois
by Charles DuBois
David Hall, professor of information sciences and technology.
The approval marks a significant step forward in the development of the research effort, led by Director David Hall, professor of information sciences and technology. Creation of NC2IF began in early 2007 and significant input was supplied by a subcommittee of the college’s Advisory Board.
Hall explained that the impetus behind the center was to harness the overwhelming flood of information available today and make it useful for decision making—from the personal level to the organizational level. He pointed to the spread of sensor technology into all aspects of our lives and to the rise of ubiquitous broad-band communications and the increase in communications capabilities. The resulting torrent of data can be too much to understand, much less use.
“The good news ought to be that we can make decisions and predictions that are unprecedented and that we couldn’t do before,” Hall said.
“We have all this incredible amount of information, but we don’t have knowledge,” he explained. “What we’re trying to do is focus on the problem of transforming energy—sensor and other information—into knowledge.”
The work of researchers will focus on the gap between the collection of the reports and data in computer systems and the knowledge and decisions in the minds of computer users.
Hall said, “The center will address a wide range of issues related to data collection, representation, dissemination, understanding and utilization for effective decision making. The applications range from monitoring the environment to homeland security to medicine.”
For example, progress has been on a project for the Army Research Office examining how best to integrate information gathered by “hard” sensors like radar or drone aircraft with that gathered by so-called “soft” sensors—troops making reports or supplying video through cell phones. Recent work here included teams of IST students who designed and implemented ways to securely transmit streaming video and texted information via cell back to a central location.
Other projects involve 3-D visualization of cyber-attacks on computer networks and the use of humans as sensors in international settings where military forces need to work with non-governmental organizations to deliver disaster aid. Overall, the center already has received cumulative support of more than $3 million for its research. IST’s developing new Extreme Events Laboratory (EEL) is expected to be important to the future of NC2IF, Hall indicated. Meant to serve both research and educational purposes for IST, the laboratory will be an actual command and control center like a 911 facility for coordinating civilian emergency response or a tactical operations post for military use.
Coupled with this, the college foresees a mobile command post like the Cisco Systems’ Network Emergency Response Vehicle (NERV), which was on display at University Park in December. The mobile command post essentially would put the EEL’s crucial array of information-gathering and communications capabilities on wheels.
Lastly, EEL would encompass the ability to deploy a network of “soft” sensors—students or researchers equipped with laptops, PDAs or cell phones to gather data.
Beyond uses by the college, EEL may find other applications by the University as well as outside agencies involved in emergency planning. Pending receipt of funding, the laboratory is hoped to be fully operational by the end of 2008.
A number of researchers and faculty members both within IST and elsewhere at Penn State are associated with NC2IF, including professors Michael McNeese, John Yen, Lee Giles, James Wang, Andrea Tapia and Stan Aungst; IST Senior Scientist Jake Graham and Research Associate Isaac Brewer; Applied Research Laboratory Associate Director Allan Sonsteby and several of his colleagues, as well as other individuals in psychology and engineering.
The center will offer opportunities for graduate students and undergraduates, whose classroom experiences will benefit from NC2IF. The latter also are expected to be able to take advantage of Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowships, internships and part-time employment opportunities.
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