ACET Conference Program Friday, October 9, 2009 Student Presentations 1:30-5pm in the Atrium Students were judged by the ACET attendees based on the following criteria: Content Quality, Quality of Data, Opportunity for Further Research or Development, Innovative Presentation Technique and Visual Impact, and Relevance to Computing.
		Title/Speaker/Abstract/Bio
	2009-5 First Place Winner	INSPIRED Instructional Materials for Engaging High School Students Kelli Hall and Valerie Juarez, Faculty Mentor: Dr. Peggy Doerschuk Many of the students in high school already have an idea of what they would like to do after they leave high school, whether they go to college or enter the workforce. By that time, computer science may or may not be of interest to them, therefore, the student must be introduced and engaged in computer science. The INSPIRED (Increasing Student Participation in Research Development) Program is a National Science Foundation Broadening Participation in Computing Project. INSPIRED hosts a single high school robotics academy each year to attract students, particularly those from underrepresented populations, females and minorities, to computing. As the main focus, robots are used to spark their interest first. To add variety and interest to the academy, there is a webpage building session called WebLab to introduce the students to the creative side of computing. This project presents the development, use, and assessment of instructional materials for teaching high school students basic webpage building. Most people around the world, including the high school students, use the internet on a daily basis and are constantly seeing carefully and creatively designed web pages. The WebLab focuses on teaching the students the fundamentals of web design and HTML using notepad and Microsoft Expression^© Web 2. The materials teach students in a computer lab setting to build their personal web pages using templates and HTML. The materials were used in a week long academy for high school students at the beginning of June 2009. A formal assessment is still pending, but from the prior year’s academy, there will hopefully be a statistically significant increase in the knowledge of webpage building. This multimedia presentation will include PowerPoint slides used to teach HTML and Expression Web 2, sample templates, web pages developed by the students, and pictures from the academy. Keywords: Outreach, webpage building, computer science, high school, academy Kelli is a post-baccalaureate majoring in Computer Science at Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas. Kelli has previously graduated with a Bachelors of Music in Theory and Composition. Valerie is a junior majoring in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering at Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas. Valerie graduated as valedictorian from Hardin-Jefferson High School and is currently the president of Lamar's chapter of the ACM.
	2009-8 Second Place Winner	Transportation-caused Air Pollution in Mexico City: A Drastic Public Policy Plan Haydee Balderas and Kari Bustos Faculty Mentors: Dr. Merrilee Cunningham and Dr. Ruth Robbins Our matrix of objectives for this project is to contribute substantial public policy initiatives to make positive changes in the quality of the air environment in Mexico City, as that megalopolis has impaired the health of both its citizens and its neighbors. A primary cause of Mexico City’s air pollution problem is transportation. Because of the congested traffic, the time a car spends on the road per outing, overcrowded roads and the continued use of dirty gasoline; the air quality has continued to negatively affect the population. Using best practices models, we will investigate the major problems and solutions of transport-caused air pollution in Mexico City as well as estimate the viability of continuing present public policy initiatives. Haydee Balderas and Kari Bustos are undergraduates at the University of Houston-Downtown. This presentation is based on a group project assignment in linked English and Computer Information Systems courses.
	2009-13 Third Place Winner	DrugChem: Web-based Data Integration Software Marwa Hassan Faculty Mentor: Dr. Longzhuang Li DrugChem is a web-based data integration application that allows users to query unique chemical structures using drug names (ex. Advil) or active ingredients (ex. Ibuprofen). Query results include the description, chemical structure, molecular weight, standardized identifiers, and chemical formula related to the queried element. This Java-based project employs the Global-as-View (GAV) integration approach and uses a custom-developed HTML Parser library. This alleviates the need for a local database. DrugChem integrates data from three data sources 1) Wikipedia (http://wikipedia.org/). This data source provides the general description of the queried element. 2) PubChem (http://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/). This is the data source for the molecular weight and IUPAC identifier. 3) NIST WebBook (http://webbook.nist.gov/chemistry/name-ser.html). DrugChem extracts the chemical structure, chemical formula, and further chemical details from this data source. Keywords: Data integration, HTML Parsing, Global-as-View Marwa Hassan is a graduate student of Computer Science at Texas A&M University – Corpus Christi. She holds a Bachelor degree in Electronics and Electrical Communications.
	2009-4 Fourth Place winner	Unpredicted Educational Use of Video Games Aaron Trevino Faculty Mentor: Dr. Carol Redfield Many computer games have recently been examined for educational benefits. The work presented here looks at popular video games that are not characterized as educational and suggests possible knowledge and skills that may be supported or enhanced by playing these games. A scoring process is presented to calculate the educational potential of a video game. The summarized results of applying this scoring process are presented with the potential educational areas for over 350 games. It appears that role-playing games may have the best potential for educational uses and that the top benefits include improving reflexes, planning and strategy skills. Furthermore, games with the Electronic Software Review Board (ESRB) rating of T for Teen had an overall higher average than other ESRB scores. The data suggests that each game should be considered on a case-by-case basis for any potential educational purposes and benefits. Keywords: Gaming, education, video games, survey Mr. Aaron Trevino is an undergraduate senior at St. Mary’s University pursuing a bachelor’s of science in Computer Science. As a McNair scholar, he is focused on research concerning education and gaming.
	2009-2 Honorable Mention	The Rehabilitation Professionals’ Utilization of the Nintendo Wii as a Therapeutic Modality by Survey Steven Miller Faculty Mentor: Dr. Carol Luckhradt Redfield In the early 1980’s researchers began finding evidence to suggest the use of video games in patients’ rehabilitation sessions. The Nintendo Wii is currently used in rehabilitation sessions. However, there is little evidence of scientific studies having been performed. The purpose of a survey reported in this presentation is to find common trends in the therapeutic usage of the Nintendo Wii by rehabilitation professionals and determine what characteristics of the Nintendo Wii, and its games, do rehabilitation professionals view as being important. Data is being collected in survey form. From the preliminary findings of the surveys and from literature, the presenter will provide preliminary data on the utilization of the Nintendo Wii in rehabilitation settings with more specifics on both rehabilitation professional and patient populations along with a list of Wii games to support rehabilitation modality use. Preliminary data suggest appositive trend in rehabilitation professionals’ utilization of the Nintendo Wii in patients’ rehabilitation sessions with rehabilitation professionals’ video gaming experience. These surveys also provide new additions to the known lists of therapeutic physical activities incorporating the Nintendo Wii, the patient populations the Nintendo Wii is being utilized with, and the Wii games chosen by the rehabilitation professionals. Keywords: Nintendo Wii, physical therapy, occupational therapy, rehabilitation, video games Mr. Steven Miller is currently a graduate student studying computer science at St. Mary’s University in San Antonio, Texas. He is expected to graduate in December of 2009. Mr. Miller obtained a bachelor’s degree in computer engineering from West Virginia University in Morgantown, West Virginia in May of 2007. He is currently a graduate research assistant for Dr. Carol Redfield at St. Mary’s University. Mr. Miller was formerly employed by the U. S. Army Research Laboratory before moving to Texas. He currently lives on Fort Hood, Texas with his wife, Leah. Both Mr. Miller and his wife currently serve in the military. His wife is an active-duty army medical officer working in the occupational therapy clinic at Carl R. Darnall Army Medical Center. Mr. Miller is an army reservist with the 4^th Expeditionary Sustainment Command.
	2009-14 Honorable Mention	Solving Some Classical Geometric Problems in the New Models of Computation Anastasia Kurdia Faculty Mentor: Ovidiu Daescu Traditionally, algorithm design and analysis has considered models associated with the current computing devices (e. g. a sequential computation random-access memory, RAM, model corresponding to a desktop computer). Emergence of a conceptually new computing tool, like a multi-core platform, that is now becoming a standard in mobile devices, high-performance computing systems, even home workstations, dictates the need to develop the algorithms to take advantage of the features of that new tool. In the multi-core model there are several processors having private cache, sharing common cache and global memory. Another recent model of computation is the multi-pass model, corresponding to the devices with a limited available memory that read large size input data stored externally (e. g. on disks or tapes) and are allowed to pass over the input several times. Many important sequential and parallel algorithms do not map directly to the multi-core or multi-pass models of computation. Seeking a way to characterize algorithmic techniques that could be used across different models of computation and a generic way to design algorithms that would take advantage of a particular model, we consider a fundamental geometric problem, computing the closest pair of points in the input set, in multi-core, multi-pass and RAM models of computation. We describe the algorithms for the former two models, highlight their differences and give an analysis of the time and space requirements. Keywords: Multi-core, multi-pass, model of computation, computational geometry Anastasia Kurdia is a PhD student in the Department of Computer Science at The University of Texas at Dallas. Her research interests are in geometric and graph algorithms and computational biology.
	2009-15 Certificate	INSPIRED Summer academy Program Encouraging Students to Participate in Computer Science Activities Daniel Vincent and Valerie Juarez Faculty Mentor: Dr. Jane Liu By the time most students leave high school, they have already lost interest in Computer Science. Those with no interest probably have no idea of how big of an impact Computer Science has on our daily lives. Cars, cellular phones, PCs, all contain some form of computer software and computer hardware. Even non-computer related goods were created or processed by machines ran by computers such as soda. The INSPIRED (Increasing Student Participation in Research Development) Program is a National Science Foundation Broadening Participation in Computing Project. The INSPIRED program holds summer academies to expose middle school and high school students that may not have been introduced to Computer Science in general before. During the course of a one-day academy, middle school students engaged in hands-on labs involving the use of autonomous robots, web development software, and animation development software. This presentation will cover the general topics discussed during the INSPIRED 2009 Middle School Academies. All materials, teaching resources, and equipment used will be included. Videos, photos, and additional media will be included to demonstrate the activities as well as form an assessment of the success of the program. Keywords: Middle School, Broadening Participation, Academy Daniel J. Vincent II is a junior majoring in Computer Science at Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas. Daniel is a member of the INSPIRED program, an outreach program funded by a grant from the National Science foundation and is also the treasurer of Lamar University’s local chapter of the ACM.
	2009-12 Certificate	Spatio-Aware Data Integration of Ocean Observatory Systems Anilkumar Nalluri Faculty Mentor: Dr. Longzhuang Li Environmental, hydrographic, meteorological, and oceanographic data have been collected by numerous local, state, and federal agencies as well as by universities around the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) coast. Without an adequate system and personnel for managing data, the magnitude of the effort needed to deal with such large and complex data sets can be a substantial barrier to GOM research. The presentation presents a database integration system that is alble to retrieve data from multiple ocean observatory systems in the Gulf of Mexico with a uniform interface. The system answers complex queries by employing a mediator-based approach, called Global As View (GAV), to access the underlying distributed and heterogeneous data sources of various locations. The integration system can not only answer the traditional keyword-based queries, but also take into consideration the qualitative spatial terms/concepts in the queries. The system is feasible and easily extendible while adding new ocean observatory systems. Keywords: Data integration, qualitative spatial features Anilkumar Nalluri is currently a graduate student in the Department of Computing Sciences at Texas A & M University – Corpus Christi.
	2009-11	Data Archiving Based on the Integrated Rule-Orientated Data System Li You Faculty Mentor: Dr. Longzhuang Li Nowadays, querying historical data from multiple heterogeneous web databases in real time is time-consuming and sometime impractical. Our goal is to archive historical data in an appropriate location. Thus we can quickly and easily get the data we want. An approach towards data management system based on the dynamic execution of rules is discussed. By building upon the experiences gained with an existing data archiving system, iRODS (integrated Rule-Oriented Data System) data grid, a scalable rule-based data management system can be designed. The iRODS is a software middleware that organizes distributed data into a shared collection, while enforcing management policies across the multiple storage locations. The iRODS system is a generic software infrastructure that can be tuned to implement any desired data management application, ranging from a data grid for sharing data in collaborations, to a digital library for publishing data, to a preservation environment, to a data processing pipeline, and to a system for federating real-time sensor data streams. What we have already done so far is something fundamental but necessary. Such as, we are able to archive regular text files and images. We can also use the specific web browser to implement the client application. The further work is to figure out how to integrate and archive relational databases in the iRODS system. Keywords: iRODS, Data Integration and Archive, DBMS, Historical Data Query Li You is a graduate student in the Department of Computing Sciences at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi
		Submitted by: N. Leveille