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department:cs_research_seminar_talks [2022/04/28 16:37] – [Spring 2022 Schedule] added missing abstract mayfiecsdepartment:cs_research_seminar_talks [2023/10/09 15:02] (current) – [Fall 2023 Schedule] bowersjc
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 ====== CS Research Seminar Talks ====== ====== CS Research Seminar Talks ======
  
-The CS Research Seminar Talks are talks given by faculty members and undergraduate research assistants on a variety of topics at the cutting edge of computer science research. Talks happen on Fridays at 12:40 pm and are usually held in King Hall room 236.  The format is a 30-40 minute research talk with 10-20 minutes reserved for questions. All CS students (and other interested students and faculty) are invited to attend. Email announcements about each seminar will be sent to the CS listserv.+The CS Research Seminar Talks are talks given by faculty members and undergraduate research assistants on a variety of topics at the cutting edge of computer science research. Talks happen on **Fridays at 11:25am** (Fall 2023) and are usually held in **King 236**.  The format is a 40-45 minute research talk with 5-10 minutes reserved for questions. All CS students (and other interested students and faculty) are invited to attend. Email announcements about each seminar will be sent to the CS listserv.
  
 +==== Fall 2023 Schedule ====
 +
 +Tue 9/12: Distinguished Lecture Series, Dr. Laurent Babout (Lodz University of Technology). King 259 11:30-12:30pm
 +
 +Fri 9/15: Research Talk: What is Research? (With Mike Lam and Co.) King 259 11:25am-12:25pm [[https://w3.cs.jmu.edu/bowersjc/what_is_research-2023.pdf|Slides]]
 +
 +Fri 9/22: Research Talk: Ben Saupp. King 236 11:25am-12:25pm
 +
 +Thu 9/28: Distinguished Lecture Series, Dr. Everlyne Kimani (Toyota Research Institute). King 259 2:30-3:30pm. 
 +
 +Fri 10/27: Research Talk: Dr. Chris Mayfield. King 236 11:25am-12:25pm
 +
 +Fri 12/1: Research Talk: Dr. Dee Weikle. King 236 11:25am-12:25pm
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 +Fri 12/8: Research Talk: Dr. Siddharth Bhaskar. King 236 11:25am-12:25pm
 +
 +
 +**Abstracts for the 2023 Fall Research Talks**
 +
 +* **Sept. 22** Ben Saupp -- //Praxly: An Online IDE for the Praxis CS Test Pseudocode//
 +
 +**Abstract:**
 +CodeVA has a new professional development (PD) course designed to prepare Virginia high school Career Technical Education (CTE) teachers for the Praxis CS test. This test uses a pseudocode language that is different from traditional programming languages. In CodeVA’s course, teachers do not have an easy way to verify the correctness of pseudocode programs when learning and practicing. This talk will introduce Praxly, an online IDE we developed over the summer, for teachers to write, visualize, and run pseudocode. We will highlight Praxly’s implementation details, outline our current research goals, and discuss next steps for the project.
 +
 +==== Fall 2022 Schedule ====
 +
 +* **Oct 7** Prof. John C. Bowers  //A proof of the Koebe-Andre'ev-Thurston theorem via flow from tangency packings//
 +
 +* **Nov 4** Prof. Siddharth Bhaskar //Four naive questions in the theory of algorithms//
 +
 +* **Nov 11** Virginia Tech PhD Candidate and JMU CS Alumna Kylie Davidson //Exploring Sensemaking Strategies in Immersive Space to Think//
 +
 +
 +**Abstracts for the 2022 Fall Research Talks**
 +
 +* **Oct 7** Prof. John C. Bowers -- //A proof of the Koebe-Andre'ev-Thurston theorem via flow from tangency packings//
 +
 +**Abstract:**
 +The beginning of the study of circle packings is the circle packing theorem, which says that any triangulation of the sphere can be realized as a pattern of interior-disjoint disks on the sphere whose tangency graph is isomorphic to the triangulation. The now classic Koebe-Andre’ev-Thurston theorem extends the circle packing theorem to weighted triangulations whose weights code for overlap angles of up to pi/2 between disks and not just tangencies. Recently Connelly and Gortler gave a new proof of the Circle Packing Theorem, which is also constructive—the proof gives rise to a numerical algorithm for computing a circle packing for any given triangulation. In this talk we will give an overview of Connelly and Gortler’s result and describe a new proof of the full Koebe-Andre’ev-Thurston theorem that extends their approach to packings with overlaps up to pi/2 and gives rise to an algorithm for computing them. We will discuss the main hurdles to the generalization and the main ideas used to overcome them. We will also show demo code for computing the packings. 
 +
 +* **Oct 7** Prof. Siddharth Bhaskar -- //Four naive questions in the theory of algorithms//
 +
 +**Abstract:**
 +In this talk I will raise four questions that you could, in theory, ask after taking a first data structures and algorithms course, viz.,
 +
 +--Why are so many sorting algorithms quadratic time?
 +
 +--Why are stacks and queues the "only" implementation of certain abstract data type (namely add, query a distinguished element (the "top"), delete the top, and an empty test) for collections of unstructured data?
 +
 +--Why are there only about three different types of proofs of general lower bounds?
 +
 +--What is an algorithm anyway?
 +
 +To be clear, I don't know a definitive answer to any of these, but the questions seem to be deep and continue to inspire me. I shall discuss each question, illustrate what the underlying problem is, and say a few words about how each has inspired some specific research projects.
 +
 +
 +* **Nov 9** PhD. candidate  Kylie Davidson -- //Exploring Sensemaking Strategies in Immersive Space to Think//
 +
 +**Abstract:**
 +Existing research on immersive analytics to support the sensemaking process focuses on single-session sensemaking tasks. However, in the wild, sensemaking can take days or months to complete. In order to understand the full benefits of immersive analytic systems, we need to understand how immersive analytic systems provide flexibility for the dynamic nature of the sensemaking process. In our work, we build upon an existing immersive analytic system – Immersive Space to Think, to evaluate how immersive analytic systems can support sensemaking tasks over time. We conducted a user study with eight participants with three separate analysis sessions each. We found significant differences between analysis strategies between sessions one, two, and three, which suggest that immersive space to think can benefit analysts during multiple stages in the sensemaking process.
 ==== Spring 2022 Schedule ==== ==== Spring 2022 Schedule ====
  
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 In this talk, we will examine research conducted by the Wearable Computing Group to address these challenges by developing a wearable computing system to monitor patient at-home exercises. The system will actively monitor patients to provide real-time feedback to improve their functional gains and adherence to exercises. Prototype demonstrations will be presented along with discussions of specific research questions including capturing patient posture through various sensor systems, designing methods for feedback through visual, haptic, and audible modalities, and machine learning techniques to estimate patient improvement over time. In this talk, we will examine research conducted by the Wearable Computing Group to address these challenges by developing a wearable computing system to monitor patient at-home exercises. The system will actively monitor patients to provide real-time feedback to improve their functional gains and adherence to exercises. Prototype demonstrations will be presented along with discussions of specific research questions including capturing patient posture through various sensor systems, designing methods for feedback through visual, haptic, and audible modalities, and machine learning techniques to estimate patient improvement over time.
 +
 ==== Fall 2021 Schedule ==== ==== Fall 2021 Schedule ====