Research Centers and Labs

Center for the Advancement of Formal Methods
Director: Sotiris Skevoulis, PhD

Upon receiving an NSF grant for "Integrating Formal Methods Tools into the Undergraduate Curriculum, "Dr. Skevoulis created the Center for the Advancement of Formal Methods dedicated to the study and development of innovative approaches and tools to promote the integration of formal methods into academia.

Research activities resulted in the following:
 

Publication

  • Sotiris Skevoulis
    "Integrating Formal Methods Tools into Undergraduate Computer Science Curriculum," Proceedings of the Frontiers in Education - FIE 2006 Conference (November 2006).

Invited Talk

  • Sotiris Skevoulis
    "Software Engineering: The Road to a Rigorous Software Development Education and Practice" as part of the Distinguished Lectures and Research Seminars series sponsored by the Athens Institute of Technology, Athens, Greece (May 29, 2006).

     

Center for Pervasive Computing
Directors: Charles Tappert, PhD and Sung-Hyuk Cha, PhD

 

The Pervasive Computing Lab conducts research on biometric authentication, interactive visual systems, handwriting and voice forensics applications, and pervasive/mobile computing. The lab, originally supported by the Hudson Valley Center for Emerging Technologies, now receives occasional support from Kenan Funds and Seidenberg Summer Grants.

Publications resulting from Pervasive Computing research include:

Journal Articles

  • Charles Tappert and Sung-Hyuk Cha
    "Security-related Research and Projects in Computing Promote Student Awareness of Security Issues," Information Systems Education Journal , 4:82 (September 2006).

     
  • Sung-Hyuk Cha, S. Yoon, Charles Tappert
    "Enhancing Binary Feature Vector Similarity Measures," Journal of Pattern Recognition Research - JPRR , 1:1 (2006).

    "Handwriting Copybook Style Identification for Questioned Document Examination," Journal of Forensic Document Examination , 17 (2006).
     

Conference Proceedings

  • B. Son, Sung-Hyuk Cha, and Y. Lee
    "Multifocus Image Sequences for Iris Recognition," Proceedings of the IEEE Pacific-Rim Symposium on Image and Video Technology - PSIVT '06 (December 2006). 
  • Charles Tappert, Mary Villani, Giang Ngo, Justin Simone, Huguens St. Fort, and Sung-Hyuk Cha
    Keystroke Biometric Recognition Studies on Long-text Input over the Internet," Proceedings of the 23 rd  International Biometric Conference - IBC 2006 (July 2006).  
  • Mary Villani, Charles Tappert, Giang Ngo, Justin Simone, Huguens St. Fort, and Sung-Hyuk Cha
    Keystroke Biometric Recognition Studies on Long-text Input under Ideal and Application-Oriented Conditions," Proceedings of the 2006 Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition Workshop - CVPR '06 (June 2006).  
  • Mary Curtin, Charles Tappert, Mary Villani, Giang Ngo, Justine Simone, Huguens St. Fort, and Sung-Hyuk Cha
    "Keystroke Biometric Recognition on Long-text Input: A Feasibility Study," Proceedings of the International Workshop on Scientific Computing and Computational Statistics - IWSCCS'06 (June 2006).  
  • Carl Abrams, Sung-Hyuk Cha, and Charles Tappert
    "Shape Matching with Ordered Boundary Points Using a Least-cost Diagonal Method," Proceedings of the 2006 International Conference on Image Processing, Computer Vision, and Pattern Recognition - IPCV'06 (June 2006). 
  • Sung-Hyuk Cha, Sukmoon Chang, and Michael L. Gargano
    "On the Assumption of Cubic Graphs of Vascular Networks," Proceedings of the International Society for Optical Engineering - SPIE - Medical Imaging 2006: Physiology, Function, and Structure from Medical Images , 6143 (March 2006).
     

Student Publications for Seidenberg Research Day

  • Carl E. Abrams, Sung-Hyuk Cha, and Charles C. Tappert
    "Analyzing Shape Context Using the Hamiltonian Cycle," Technical Report , No. 228 (July 2006).  
  • Carl Abrams, Sung-Hyuk Cha, and Charles Tappert
    "Shape Matching with Ordered Boundary Points Using a Least-Cost Diagonal Method," Proceedings of the Pace University Ivan G. Seidenberg School of CSIS Student/Faculty Research Day (May 2006).  
  • Mary Curtin, Charles Tappert, Mary Villani, Giang Ngo, Justin Simone, Huguens St. Fort, and Sung-Hyuk Cha "Keystroke Biometric Recognition on Long-Text Input: A Feasibility Study," Proceedings of the Pace University  Ivan G. Seidenberg School of CSIS Student/Faculty Research Day (May 2006).  
  • Mary Villani, Charles Tappert, Giang Ngo, Justin Simone, Huguens St. Fort, and Sung-Hyuk Cha
    "Keystroke Biometric Recognition Studies on Long-Text Input Under Ideal and Application-Oriented Conditions," Proceedings of the Pace University Ivan G. Seidenberg School of CSIS Student/Faculty Research Day (May 2006).  
  • Sung-Hyuk Cha and Charles Tappert
    "Assessing the Discriminatory Power of Biometric Verifiers," Proceedings of the Pace University Ivan G. Seidenberg School of CSIS Student/Faculty Research Day (May 2006).

     

Center for Robotics and Intelligent Agents
Director: D. Paul Benjamin, PhD

The Pace University Robotics Laboratory continued a three-way collaboration with Brigham Young University and Fordham University begun two years ago to design a robotic cognitive architecture. Pace's and Fordham's Robotics Labs own similar robot models. The collaborating professor at Fordham is Professor Damian Lyons, whose specialty is computer vision. Professor Deryle Lonsdale of Brigham Young is in the Department of Linguistics and English Language, and is focusing on the development of the robots' ability to speak. Pace's Professor Paul Benjamin focuses on the development of the robots' cognitive architecture. Considerable progress was made this year on these three aspects of the robotic architecture.

Thomas Achtemichuk (BS/CS '07), an outstanding undergraduate and promising researcher, provided support to the graduate students working in the lab and pursued independent research in predictive computer vision and mobile robot navigation. His work resulted in a paper titled "Obstacle Avoidance using Predictive Vision Based on a Dynamic 3D World Model" that he presented at the SPIE Optics East Conference held in Boston in October. It was this outstanding work that prompted Dr. Benjamin and Dr. Dennis Anderson, associate dean, to nominate him for the prestigious Outstanding Undergraduate Research Award given by the Computing Research Associate. The award is considered to be one of the highest honors an undergraduate computer science student can receive. Tom placed as a finalist.

The VMSoar project, involving the implementation of a network security agent that learns to detect network intrusions, has resulted in a number of publications this year. They include:

  • D. Paul Benjamin, Deryle Lonsdale, and Damian Lyons
    "Embodying a Cognitive Model in a Mobile Robot," Proceedings of the SPIE Conference on Intelligent Robots and Computer Vision XXIV: Algorithms, Techniques and Active Vision (October 2006).  
  • D. Paul Benjamin, Thomas Achtemichuk, and Damian Lyons
    "Obstacle Avoidance Using Predictive Vision Based on a Dynamic 3D World Model," Proceedings of the SPIE Conference on Intelligent Robots and Computer Vision XXIV: Algorithms, Techniques and Active Vision (October 2006).  
  • D. Paul Benjamin
    "Panel on Intelligent Systems: The Robotics Lab at Pace University," Proceedings of the 17 th Annual Conference of the International Information Management Association (October 2006).  
  • D. Paul Benjamin and Thomas Achtemichuk
    "A Fast Predictive Vision System for a Mobile Robot," Proceedings of the American Association for Artificial  Intelligence - AAAI 2006 Fall Image Comprehension Symposium (Fall 2006). 
  • D. Paul Benjamin, Deryle Lonsdale, and Damian Lyons
    "Developing a Cognitive Architecture to be Embedded in the Physical World," Proceedings of Behavior Representation in Modeling and Simulation - BRIMS 2006 (May 2006).

 

Center for Undergraduate Research and Collaborative Computing
Director: Dennis Anderson, PhD

The Undergraduate Research and Collaborative Computing (URCC) Lab, established by Dennis Anderson, PhD, serves to involve undergraduates in significant research in computing with the goal of encouraging them to conduct research in applied computing. Beginning in 2005, five undergraduate and graduate researchers: Bennett Pursell (BS/CS), Ishan Chaterjee (BS/CS), Anthony Oren (BS/IS), Andreas Zimmerer (MS/CS), and Prashant Srivastav (MS/CS) worked in New York City on projects related to Internet2 database, open source, social computing and other special projects such as developing Web sites for nonprofit organizations. This work continued through 2006.

 

Center for Information Assurance Education and Research
Director: Narayan Murthy, PhD

The Information Assurance Education and Research Center was established this year for the purpose of exploring computer vulnerabilities with the objective of improving prevention and detection techniques through research.

Through the Center, Pace University also promotes education, research, and outreach in the field of information security. Recently, a Security Lab was created with funding from a National Security Agency grant of $30k obtained through the efforts of Dr. Narayan Murthy.

The Security Lab is located in Room 321 at the Goldstein Academic Center in Pleasantville. Students and faculty can access the lab both physically and virtually via a VPN connection. The lab's network was set up outside the University network so that students can safely experiment with powerful security tools. This lab has a Linux server and other servers for experimenting with security software tools and the other is a honeypot. The lab is equipped with 12 Windows machines to be used for hands-on work in numerous security courses.

The activities and publications emanating from the Center this year include:

Accomplishments

  • The Center spent considerable time and effort preparing an application for redesignation as a National Center of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance Education for academic years 2007-2012. The original designation was awarded in 2004. 
  • The Information Assurance Courseware Evaluation (IACE) Review Committee has certified that Pace University courseware maps 100% to the Committee on National Security Systems ( CNSS ) National Training Standards for Information Systems Security (INFOSEC) Professionals, NSTISSI No. 4011 and for System Administrators (SA), CNSSI No. 4013 Entry Level . The IACE Program provides consistency in trainin g and education for the information assurance skills that are critical to our nation. Pace's certification will be valid through June 2012.  
  • The Seidenberg School received two grants, over $250,000, through the Department of Defense Information Assurance Scholarship Program. Funds were used for scholarships and development of the security laboratory.  
  • Seidenberg students William Sabia (BS/IS '07) and Andrew Harris (BS/MS/CS '09) were the recipients of scholarships awarded through the U.S. Department of Defense's (DoD) Information Assurance Scholarship Program (IASP). They were among 25 students chosen for this prestigious award from a pool of approximately 350 applicants nationwide.
     

Events

  • Dr. Simson Garfinkel, a computer forensics expert, gave a presentation to the Seidenberg School community on two new approaches for analyzing large data sets of disk images and other forensic data: Forensic Feature Extraction (FFE) and Cross-Drive Analysis (CDA). (November 2006).  
  • The Seidenberg Student Seminar Series is a series of events where guest speakers focus on current topics in computing. The Seminar hosted Jaswinder Hayre, senior security tester at Ernst & Young, who lectured on "A Peek into the World of Application Security" (October 2006). Another guest of the Student Seminar Series was Anthony Reyes, First VP, High Technology Crime Investigation Association (HTCIA), who gave a lecture on Computer Forensics. (October 2006).  
  • The Seidenberg School has hosted a series of presentations given by Hal Berghel, PhD, a renowned security expert. Dr. Berghel spoke about "Compelling Issues in Information Security" at a Pace University luncheon for university and business executives. In addition, Dr. Berghel gave a lecture on the same topic for the Seidenberg undergraduate, graduate and doctoral students. (October 2006).


Refereed Journals

  • Charles Tappert and Sung-Hyuk Cha
    "Security-related Research and Projects in Computing Promote Student Awareness of Security Issues,"  Information Systems Education Journal (ISEDJ), 4:82 (Sept 2006).
     

Conference Proceedings

  • Bel Raggad
    "Cyberspace Security: How to Develop a Security Strategy," Proceedings of the International Conference on Cyberspace 2006 (Nov 2006).  
  • Charles Tappert
    "Keystroke Biometric Recognition Studies on Long-text Input Over the Internet," Proceedings of the 23rd International Biometric Conference - IBC 2006 (Jul 2006).