UW's computer sciences plays a big role in Google's data storage

When Google recently announced it would be upgrading its systems to use the Linux ext4 open-source file system, a key piece of technology developed at the UW-Madison Computer Sciences Department became a key part of the world's data-storage infrastructure.

Virtually all data within Google, including email messages, YouTube videos, and the large search database that is accessed by millions of Google search requests every day, is stored across many thousands of machines running Linux.

Each of those machines stores data in what is known as a file system which is responsible for reliably and efficiently storing and retrieving the data from hard-disk drives.

The Advanced Data Systems Lab at UW-Madison, co-led by Professors Andrea Arpaci-Dusseau and Remzi Arpaci-Dusseau, specializes in building reliable and efficient storage.

In an effort led by Vijayan Prabhakaran (MS'03, PhD'06, Computer Sciences) the group developed a new technique for writing data to disk more reliably and efficiently, known as the "transactional checksum." 

This technique ensures that every write to disk is committed safely and with little overhead — improving the ability of the file system to recover in the presence of system crashes and other typical hardware failures, while simultaneously improving performance.

As Linux ext4 has matured, it has slowly gained momentum, and the adoption by Google cements its place in the mainstream.

Next time you read your Gmail, access a Google document, or search, rest assured that beneath it all, your data is being carefully guarded by advances in storage technology developed at UW-Madison.

Category: Biological & Physical Sciences
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Computer Sciences Student Team wins Hirsch Family Award

Computer Sciences undergraduate students Tom Duffield, Nathalie Cheng, and Jamie McMahon won this year's Hirsch Family Award with a project they developed in Professor Bilge Mutlu's Introduction to Human-Computer Interaction course.

The Hirsch Family Award is designed to applaud innovative work by students and faculty who explore and showcase the University’s diversity and excellence.

In their winning project, called myCourseCenter, the team designed a new course search and registration interface for UW-Madison students following a user-centered design process.

The team and the Computer Sciences Department will be awarded a total of $5,000 and their achievement will be recognized at the 2010 Awards in the Creative Arts on April 30th, 2010.

Congratulations to the team!

Category: Biological & Physical Sciences
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Bucky meets social robots for first National Robotics Week

A team of UW-Madison researchers recently brought robots right into the hands of K-12 students and parents.

The Computer Sciences Department's Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory partnered with the UW-Madison IEEE Robot Team and iRobot Corporation’s SPARK Educational Initiative to contribute to the 1st National Robotics Week with a daylong educational experience for K-12 students and parents.

The event, organized by Bilge Mutlu, an assistant professor of computer sciences, psychology, and industrial engineering, and an interdisciplinary team of students, attracted students and parents from the Madison area interested in science and technology, particularly computer science and robotics.

Mutlu and his students plan to offer daylong educational events annually in conjunction with the National Robotics Week as well as daylong summer camps starting the summer of 2010.

Category: Biological & Physical Sciences
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Interdisciplinary team launches new efforts to untangle evolutionary histories

Researchers in Botany, Horticulture, Statistics and Computer Scienced, led by Assistant Professor Cecile Ane (Statistics and Botany) are collaborating to find out why different genes tell different stories about the past history of species.

They aim to better understand the variability in vertical transmission of genetic material from generation to generation, and also understand how much horizontal transmission of genetic material has occurred in the past, such as from hybridization between species.

They were awarded NSF funding to integrate powerful statistical methods and software development.

These tools will allow them — and many other evolutionary biologists beyond our campus to extract vertical and horizontal signals from massive genomic data.

Category: Biological & Physical Sciences
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L&S graduate programs highly rated by U.S. News and World Report

Several University of Wisconsin-Madison graduate programs — many in the College of Letters & Science — are ranked among the nation's best in the 2011 edition of U.S. News and World Report's "Best Graduate Schools."

Graduate school rankings are an indicator of the overall quality of the department and caliber of its teaching and faculty.

Not all programs are ranked every year. Those UW programs ranked this year (along with specialties ranked in the top 10 nationally) include:

• Chemistry: tied for seventh overall, with specialties ranked in analytical (eighth), biochemistry (fifth), inorganic (seventh), organic (ninth), physical (seventh) and theoretical (ninth).
• Computer sciences: tied for 11th overall, with specialties ranked in  programming language (10th), and systems (seventh).
  
• Biological sciences: tied for 15th overall, with a specialty ranked in microbiology (third).
• Earth sciences: tied for 13th overall, with specialties ranked in geochemistry (eighth) and geology (eighth).
• Mathematics: tied for 16th overall, with specialties ranked in analysis (10th) and logic (fifth).
• Physics: tied for 17
• Statistics: tied for 12th.

Other highly ranked UW-Madison programs include:

• School of Education: ninth overall. Specialties were ranked in curriculum and instruction (first), education policy (third), elementary education (second), secondary education (second), counseling and personnel services (second), administration and supervision (second), educational psychology (first) and special education (tied for ninth).
• College of Engineering: tied for 15th overall. Specialties were ranked in nuclear (second), chemical engineering (tied for sixth), industrial manufacturing (tied for 10th).
• School of Business: tied for 27th overall. The school's part-time MBA program was tied for 15th.th overall, with a specialty ranked in plasma (tied for second).
• Law: Tied for 28th. 
  
• Medicine:  Tied for 27th, with specialties ranked in primary care (tied for 12th), family medicine (fifth), rural medicine (eighth).
  

For more on the rankings, visit: http://www.usnews.com/

New via University Communications 

Category: College Updates
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Zhang named a 2010 Sloan Research Fellow

Computer Sciences Assistant Professor Li Zhang received a 2010 Sloan Research Fellowship from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

The Sloan Research Fellowships seek to stimulate fundamental research by early-career scientists and scholars of outstanding promise. 

These two-year fellowships are awarded yearly to 118 researchers in recognition of distinguished performance and a unique potential to make substantial contributions to their field.

Zhang works in computational vision/imaging and computer graphics/animation. 

One of his recent projects has been a method for stabilizing video images obtained from hand-held camera array — Zhang's Light Field Video Stabilization Project.

Zhang joins other recent Computer Sciences winners of the Sloan Fellowship: Associate Professor AnHai Doan (2007) and Assistant Professor Shuchi Chawla (2009).

Category: Biological & Physical Sciences
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Hill wins Kellet Mid-Career Award

Computer Sciences Professor Mark Hill has received a 2010-11 Kellett Mid-Career Award from UW-Madison.

Hill works in computer architecture, parallel computing, memory systems, and performance evaluation.

The Kellet Mid-Career award was created to provide needed support and encouragement to faculty at a critical stage of their careers.

Hill also received the 2009 Distinguished Service Award from the Association of Computer Machinery's Special Interest Group on Computer Architecture (SIGARCH).

Category: Biological & Physical Sciences
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