Web Enabled Urban Planning Teaching Tool Called Web Polis  Web Polis is an interactive tool developed to encourage and facilitate community participation through an online portal. This technology provides a direct link for local communities through an open information sharing environment. Web Polis offers a suite of applications including online discussion forums, newsletters, consensus builders, real estate analysis, a mapping/GIS component for spatial analysis, and community online survey prototypes with integral statistical analyses. The targeted users of the tool include city officials, economic development groups, the educational community (to teach politics and city government), and urban planning groups. |
Electronic Metastructure for Endangered Languages Data Language data is central to the research of a large social sciences community - not only linguists, but also anthropologists, archaeologists, historians, and sociologists interested in the culture of indigenous peoples. Members of this research community are currently faced with two urgent situations: the number of languages in the world is rapidly diminishing while the number of initiatives to create digital archives of language data is rapidly multiplying. The latter might seem to be an unalloyed good in the face of the former, but there are two ways things may go wrong without adequate collaboration among archivists, linguists, and language engineers. First, a common standard for the digitization of linguistic data may never be agreed upon. And the resulting variation in archiving practices and language representation would seriously inhibit data access, searching, and cross-linguistic comparison. Second, standards may be implemented without guidance from the people who best know the range of structural possibilities in human language-descriptive linguists who have done fieldwork on poorly described languages.
If digital archives of language data and documentation are to offer the widest possible access and to provide information in a maximally useful form, consensus must be reached about certain aspects of archive infrastructure. As the largest linguistic organization in the world and the central electronic publication of the discipline, The LINGUIST List is organizing a collaborative project with a dual objective: (1) to preserve endangered languages data and documentation and (2) to aid in the development of infrastructure for linguistic archives. One outcome of the project will be a LINGUIST List digital archive housing data from 10 endangered languages. But the focus on infrastructure will produce other, equally important results. In the first place, The LINGUIST archive will function, not only as a repository, but also as a 'showroom of best practice.' The archive will offer endangered languages data marked up and catalogued according to community consensus about best practice; furthermore, the archive will disseminate reference material delineating best practice and software tools supporting it. Another outcome will be the establishment on the LINGUIST List site of a central metadata server for the discipline; this server will organize information on all the language-related resources residing at distributed sites, not just endangered languages information alone. Other infrastructure-related outcomes include (1) the involvement of the linguistics community in establishing best practice, (2) the widespread dissemination of the resulting recommendations, and (3) the hands-on training of a substantial core of linguists and language archivists in the implementation of the guidelines. Although the data collection efforts will focus initially on endangered languages, the metadata server, the recommendations for best practice, and the distribution of supporting software will have a significant impact on all empirical research in linguistics. The project will thus add value to many other language-related projects currently planned or underway. |
Language and Location: A Map Annotation Project Unlike objects such as vases or pieces of jewelry, languages move primarily when a group of people speaking them migrates and settles in a new area. Thus, information about language boundaries and language relationships can provide critical insights into the migrations, interactions, cultures, and genetics of populations. However, such insights can only be realized in a system that melds language information with information from the physical and social sciences. The most effective way to do this is through a Geographical Information System (GIS), which can flexibly organize a wide range of heterogeneous data, presenting the assembled information according to the topography of geographical regions. This allows language data to be integrated with geographical, political, demographic, zoological, botanical and archaeological data in ways which are immediately visually interpretable.
The LL-MAP project will build a database of linguistic information which is integrated into such a geographically-based system and is made freely available through Internet-based tools. These will allow users to generate customized maps showing the relationships between language and diverse kinds of non-linguistic data. They will also allow researchers to add annotations to map-oriented data, and to discuss the relationships the system manifests. In this way LL-MAP will encourage collaboration between linguists, historians, archaeologists, ethnographers and geneticists, as they explore the relationships between language and cultural adaptation and change. The integrated data approach embodied in LL-MAP will thus promote innovative research methods, and these in turn may lead to new insights into the prehistoric relationships among human populations. |
Dena'ina Archiving, Training, and Access This is a cooperative project between the Alaska Native Language Center at the University of Alaska and the LINGUIST List program at Eastern Michigan University to preserve Arctic Languages. This proposal creates the "DATA" (Dena'ina: Archiving, Digitization, and Access) project to digitize existing collections of Dena'ina documentation using the standards and software developed by The LINGUIST List as part of the E-Meld project. The E-Meld project had developed and implemented recommendations of digital best practice for linguistics data. Through E-Meld the DATA project will create long-lasting archival formats and standardize linguistic data digitization of Dena'ina. In addition, the proposal will train both Native and non-Native students in linguistic research practices, applied computational linguistics, and linguistic analysis for the future preservation and revitalization of Dena'ina. This project will not only facilitate the preservation of Dena'ina for community members, but also standardize the linguistics information so as to make it accessible and useful for scientific computational analyses. |
Microprocessor-Based System Design  Faculty members at Oakland University are introducing problem-based learning (PBL) in the Microprocessor-Based Systems Design course required in the Computer Engineering and Electrical Engineering undergraduate programs. Previous studies have shown that the PBL method significantly improves important skills such as evaluating and using appropriate learning resources; analyzing and solving open-ended, real-world problems; working cooperatively in teams; and communicating effectively.
The newly structured design course is replacing the lecture component with a mixed PBL and lecture-based method of instruction. This mixed approach of instruction has been successfully used in other disciplines; examples include the Engineering Measurement course in Mechanical Engineering at the North Dakota State University (NSF DUE Award #0126671) and the Honors General Chemistry courses at the University of Delaware. In the second half of the semester, students are being engaged through four PBL modules. A set of measurable outcomes has been identified and an evaluation criterion is being developed to assess the impact of the PBL method in the course. |
Undergraduate Computer Research (UnCoRe) for Women Eight undergraduate students will be recruited for a ten-week summer experience in the field of Computer Science and Engineering. The program will provide opportunities for students to conduct research as part of a team, present research results orally and in writing, and disseminate project information and results through the web. In addition, each participant will attend a national conference (i.e. Society of Women Engineers (SWE) to gain an up-close experience about research as a profession.
The primary objective of this project is to promote graduate studies and research careers in Computer Science and Engineering to these talented undergraduate students. The majority of the students will be recruited from two and four -year colleges with limited on non-existent research program opportunities for undergraduate students with a special emphasis placed on recruiting minority women students from southeastern Michigan. It is anticipated that this REU Site will increase the number of women in Computer Science and Engineering who embark upon graduate studies to pursue careers in industry, government or academia. |
A Student-Accessible Model for Human Genetics Using Fast Plants and Microsatellite Markers An experimental system that models human genetics is being developed for instructional laboratories. The experiments involve microsatellite markers in rapid cycling Brassica rapa (RCBr), or Fast Plants. The objectives of the project include development of microsatellite markers for RCBr and analysis methods that make them accessible to the instructional lab, strains of RCBr with defined microsatellite genotypes resembling human genetic variation, a pedigree analysis experiment for linkage analysis with microsatellite markers and the model genetic disease anthocyaninless, a virtual laboratory in which students will exchange data with peers, analyze data, and allow the instructor to track their data analysis, and a prototype web site and manual for high school teachers and students to analyze data generated by the college labs.
The types of genetic analysis the students can use in these instructional labs include techniques of microsatellite analysis, assessment of informativeness of families, inheritance of highly polymorphic markers, and haplotype analysis. Since genetic linkage cannot be established from a single family, students use the virtual lab to pool data. In this way, students can perform experiments that accurately model human genetic analysis and gain experience with molecular markers. The web-based system facilitates analysis of complex data, pooling of individual student data, and instructor tracking of analysis. |
Integrating Bioinformatics Concepts in Computer Science Curricula: A Cognitive Assessment Driven Strategy This project introduces the concepts of a new multidisciplinary field (bioinformatics) within the existing computing curriculum by incorporating research-oriented, self-contained learning modules. Prospects for majors in the field of bioinformatics are expanding, including opportunities for graduate study and employment. This project fulfills this demand by introducing the notion of self-contained modules that encapsulate not only the core biological principles necessary to fully appreciate the computational aspect of the subject, but they also provide theoretical and practical exposure to the related computational biology algorithms and research areas. Graduates who know how to identify and work on solving leading research problems gain the significant benefit of being able to apply bioinformatics to a broad range of problems. In addition to being immersed in a burgeoning research sector, graduates of this program, who have free access to the newest knowledge and skills in the field as it evolves, may enjoy a competitive advantage in the workforce. Specifically, this project involves developing five lecture series. Each lecture series is comprised of 2-3 lectures and 1-2 laboratory modules devised for integration within the existing courses. The modules are designed with the objective of serving as academic examples of some of the computer science concepts covered in courses such as databases, analysis of algorithms, networking, data structures, etc. Thus, the main goal is to have a CS major cognizant of the computational challenges in bioinformatics. These modules all have some common characteristics. They are self contained, designed to be delivered with 3 to 4 hours of student contact, present the bioinformatics research concepts within a computer science context, incorporate a hands-on laboratory component, and integrate cognitive assessment with the objective of helping students appreciate the depth of their understanding of new concepts taught. The modules include: BINF 01 - The Biological Database Lectures Module (Biological Databases, GenBank Schema, Biological Database Federation, Biological Databases and Federation Architecture); BINF 02 - The Information Retrieval Lectures Module (Sequence Similarity Algorithms in Bioinformatics, Bio-Database Indexing Strategies, Genome Database Search Algorithms, Searching Genomic and Protein Databases with BLAST); BINF 03 - The Intelligent Models for Mining Biological Data Lectures Module (Computational Models of Biological Sequence, Hidden Markov Models for Biological Patterns, Machine Learning Paradigms applied to Bioinformatics, Applying Hidden Markov Models for Sequence Analysis, Information Theoretical Measure of Surprise); BINF 04 - The Adaptive Middleware Lectures Module (The Bioinformatics Open Source Project, CORBA and BioCORBA, Java Servlets and Distributed Annotation Systems, Internet Sequence Analysis with BioJava and BioPerl, Dazzle Servlet and DAS); and, BINF 05 - The Evolutionary Tree Computation Lectures Module (Computational Complexity of Constructing Evolutionary Trees, Cluster Based Methods for Evolutionary Tree, Hamming Distance and Parsimonious Trees, PHYLIP - The Phylogenetics Analysis Program). |
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