CSE Professor Co-Inventor of New Government Standard for Data Communications Security
Calit2 participant and Computer Science and Engineering professor Mihir
Bellare got some great news.
A dozen years ago Bellare was one of the inventors of the Keyed-Hash Message Authentication Code (HMAC),
a crypotology algorithm for use when message authentication is required. After a long process and a series
of new proofs published by Bellare in 2006, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) proposed
last year to make HMAC a standard for data communications security, and today it became effective -- with the
publication of a notice in the Federal Register.
The Message Authentication Code uses a secret key that is shared with the intended recipient. The sender uses
the key to produce a hash, or message digest, unique to the message being sent. The recipient uses the same key
to produce a hash of the message being received. If the hashes match, the recipient can be sure that the message
has not been altered and that it came from the other holder of the key. FIPS 198-1
specifies a mechanism for message authentication using cryptographic hash functions in federal information systems.
Undergraduates Forge New Area of Bioinformatics
Under project organizer Pavel Pevzner a group of undergraduate students from the University of California San Diego
have forged a new area of bioinformatics
that may improve genomic and proteomic annotations and unlock a collection of stubborn biological mysteries.
Their work will be published in the July issue of the journal Genome Research.
The new area of bioinformatics is called "comparative proteogenomics,"
and as the name implies, sits at the intersection of the fields of "comparative genomics" and "proteomics" -- which is the study of all of an organism's proteins.
"Our bioinformatics undergraduates have shown that you can simultaneously analyze multiple genomes and proteomes,
and use this information for scientific discovery," said Pevzner, who put together the Bioinformatics Undergraduate
Research Consortium in Comparative Proteogenomics at UCSD.
CSE Tutor Reunion a Success!
"On Friday evening, April 25, 2008, CSE Tutors , old and new,
came together to be recognized by the CSE Tutor Reunion.
The two hour event had almost 200 attendees including a dozen attending at Google in Mountain View participating via
video teleconference. The catered event was filled with laughter and nostalgia through renewing connections made long ago.
Faculty reconnected with their former tutors; alumni tutors reconnected with each other, and current tutors connected with
alums to get a glimpse into their own futures. A program of brief yet touching speeches were given by CSE lecturers and
alumni tutors telling of stories of CSE courses back in the day. The event announced the formation of SAGE (Students
Achieving Guiding Enriching), a new student organization aimed to enable more students to have a tutoring experience.
If you are interested in giving to the tutor program click here
CSE Majors deliver "The Byte" at the 2008 Junkyard Derby
This year brought triumph to CSE majors Cameron Esfahani, Bhishan Hermajani, Tamir Husain, Le Shu, Bryant Chou and Trent Tai in the 2008 Junkyard Derby. Their winning entry "The Byte" took first place amongst over 50 other competitors. Sponsored by Yahoo! and the UC San Diego Triton Engineering Student Council, this tournament challenged competitors by having each team transform junk into a functional boxcar. In less than 40 hours teams were released among a campus parking lot full of junk. From a collection of items like old bicycles, rusty wheel chairs, broken toys, old kayaks and wood palates, teams made a frantic dash to collect the garbage and transform it into a vehicle. Despite the rain, teams battled for the triumph of having the fastest mode of junk-transportation that stays upright through the finish line. Hundreds of fans cheered the contestants as they drove their motley collaboration down the slope between Peterson Hall and Geisel Library. This is the first time for Computer Science students to take top prize at the Derby, which began 5 years ago.
CSE Gets New AAAI Fellow
Professor Yoav Freund has been elected as a Fellow of the Association
for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI). The AAAI Fellows Program was started in 1990 to recognize individuals who have made significant,
sustained contributions--usually over at least a ten year period--to the field of artificial intelligence. Yoav was elected
Fellow in recognition of his significant contributions to machine learning, including the development of practical boosting
algorithms. He is the first UCSD professor to be elected as AAAI Fellow. Congratulations, Yoav!
Digital Fog Machine
CSE Graphics Faculty leave conference goers in a "fog". Professors Henrik Wann Jensen,
Matthias Zwicker, and Ph.D student Wojciech Jarosz
presented improved "photon mapping algorithms"
at Eurographics 2008 in Crete, Greece on April 17. They have created a fog and smoke machine for computer graphics that
cuts the computational cost of making realistic smoky and foggy 3-D images, such as beams of light from a lighthouse piercing
thick fog. This new work is part of a shift in the computer graphics, film, animation and video game industries toward greater realism
through the use of "ray tracing algorithms." Much of the realism in ray tracing technologies comes from calculating how the
light in computer generated images would behave if it were set loose in the real world and followed the laws of nature. The full JSOE
press release can be found here.
