Colloquium Series Fall 2001

Sponsored by
Department of Computer Science, Iowa State University

Next Colloquium Listing of Talks Abstracts Speaker Biographies Archives Contacts

The Computer Science Colloquium Series is a forum for invited speakers, faculty, and graduate students to share research ideas. Everyone is invited to attend and participate. An up-to-date listing of the speakers and abstracts of their talks will be posted here. Please e-mail the colloquium committee if you are interested in speaking or know of someone who would be a good addition to our program. Thank you.

Colloquia are generally held every Thursday at 3:40 p.m. except during academic holidays. See below for specific times and topics. Refreshments will be served after every colloquium in the conference room, 225 Atanasoff Hall.
In some cases, the colloquium will start at 4.10 pm and refreshments will be served earlier starting at 3.30 pm. These colloquiums are marked with an asterisk (*) below.

Next Colloquia

There are no colloquia scheduled for the next 7 days. Please check below for future colloquia.

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Listing of Talks

Several speakers have agreed to present but have not yet been scheduled. Potential dates for these talks are listed as "to be announced" in the table below. All other dates are open. Please contact one of us listed below if you are interested in speaking or know of a potential contributor to our series.

Title	Speaker	Affiliation	Host	Flyer	Date	Time	Location
Research Poster Day	Graduate Students	Dept. of Computer Science, Iowa State University	Graduate Advisory Committee		Nov. 08, 2001	3:40 p.m.	1st and 2nd floor, Atanasoff
Assignment Statement + References = Disaster	Bruce W. Weide	Department of Computer and Information Science, The Ohio State University, Columbus	Gary T.Leavens	PDF	Nov. 15, 2001	3:40 p.m.	B29 Atanasoff
An Algorithm for Searching a Polygonal Region with a Flashlight	Borislav Simov	Department of Computer Science, Iowa State University	Giora Slutzki		Nov. 29, 2001	3:40 p.m.	B29 Atanasoff

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Abstracts

1. Research Poster Day

Graduate Students

What fun is it to just get cornerred day and night gazing at your dear old computer? Let's not just work our work. Let's talk our work! Yes.. the Research Poster Day is around the corner. It's an excellent opportunity for knowledge sharing and getting to know the multitude of research activities ranging from AI and Robotics to Programming Languages and Computational Science. Graduate Students and members of faculty will be available to answer questions.

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2. Assignment Statement + References = Disaster

Bruce W. Weide

One of the most important properties a good software engineer seeks is the ability to reason modularly (a.k.a. "compositionally") about software system behavior. If this property holds then summary information about the behavior of a concrete component -- i.e., its abstract behavioral specification, as opposed to its implementation code -- can be used to predict how the component will behave when it is composed with other components into a larger unit. Software that does not have the modular reasoning property is inherently difficult to understand, to reverse engineer, and to change.

It turns out that the good old assignment statement and the explicit use of object references ("reference variables", "reference semantics"), which underpin virtually all imperative and especially object-oriented programming today, conspire to defeat modular reasoning. Many others have noticed that this is a problem. But the two standard suggestions to restore modular reasoning seem unacceptable from the software engineering standpoint: (1) move from an imperative/object-oriented style to a pure functional style of design and programming, or (2) further complicate the imperative/OO programming model with various twists that limit (but do not eliminate) references. We will show how to keep software engineers firmly within an imperative/OO paradigm without giving up modular reasoning, while making surprisingly minor changes in the discipline by which we normally design and implement software components.

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3. An Algorithm for Searching a Polygonal Region with a Flashlight

Borislav Simov

In this talk I will give an overview of the planar pursuit-evasion problem. After discussing previous work in the area I will describe in detail a polynomial algorithm for pursuit by a single pursuer with a flashlight. The talk is based on work done under the supervision and jointly with Dr. Giora Slutzki and Dr. Steven LaValle.

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Speaker Biographies

Graduate Students

The Graduate Advisory Committee, or GAC, was formed in the the spring semester of 1999 to serve as an advisory committee to the department chairperson. The committee's role has since evolved. We seek to provide a common focal point for computer science graduate student concerns. By directing graduate student concerns through a single committee we are able to focus our efforts and achieve greater impact than each student might be able to achieve individually.

Members of the committee serve as representatives to the Graduate Student Senate, the facilities committee, which coordinates department computer systems, and to the colloquium committee. Additionally, through our regular meetings with Dr. Baca, the committee provides input to the graduate committe regarding course offerings and program requirements.

Finally, the committee works to welcome new graduate students by sponsoring a mentoring program for incoming students, hosting a welcome session at the beginning of each semester, and participating in the ComS 591 orientation class.

Visit Graduate Students's hompage here.

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Bruce W. Weide

Bruce W. Weide is Professor of Computer and Information Science at The Ohio State University, where he co-directs the Reusable Software Research Group with Tim Long, Bill Ogden, and Stu Zweben. His research interests include all aspects of software component engineering, especially in applying RSRG work to practice and in teaching its principles to beginning CS students. Weide holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University and a B.S.E.E. from the University of Toledo. He is a member of the IEEE, ACM, and CPSR.

Visit Bruce W. Weide's hompage here.

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Borislav Simov

Borislav Simov is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Computer Science of Iowa State University. He received an M.S. degree in Computer Science from Iowa State University in 1995, and B.S. degrees in Mathemarics and Computer Science from Graceland College, Iowa. He has also done undergraduate coursework at Sofia University, Bulgaria.

Visit Borislav Simov's hompage here.

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Contacts

Thank you for visiting this page. Please send your suggestions and comments to one of us in the Computer Science colloquium committee.

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ananthk@cs.iastate.edu