Malek Adjouadi - US grants

This grant supports planning activity to develop a continuing grant proposal for the Institutional Infrastructure-Minority Institutions program. The research areas of interest include computer vision, digital image processing, logic design, and microprocessors. Planning activities include a review of the curriculum, evaluation of laboratories and equipment, development of cooperative relationships with other universities, industry, and national laboratories, development of the minority graduate education pipeline, and finally the preparation and submission of a comprehensive five-year proposal //

9313624 Adjouadi This award provides infrastructure support for the development of research and educational activities in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and in the School of Computer Science at Florida International University. The management of the program will be by the Center for Advanced Technology and Education (CATE), a state of the art research facility to integrate critical technology areas in computer and information science and engineering. Project will involve software engineering, computer vision, neural networks, artificial intelligence and robotics applications, and computer aided education. The unifying theme to the work will be concurrent processing. In the course of the projects both the graduate and undergraduate programs will be enhanced and revitalized. ***

9512454 Adjouadi This proposal requests a confocal microscope, a high-speed video motion analyzer, and two dedicated processors which will complement the existing Onyx multiprocessing supercomputer with four R8000 RISC processors. The integrated equipment will bring new research dimension in real-time vision, cognition, and 3-D modeling with real-world applications. Research collaboration has been established with Coulter Corporation in analysis and classification of blood cells, with Baptist Hospital of Miami in surgical planning and nuclear medicine, and with the University of Florida's Center for Intelligent Machines in robot vision, motion analysis, and telerobotics. New visual/sensing techniques will be developed and used in these projects for high sensitivity and resolution, real-time motion analysis, real-time 3-D rendering and visualization, and on-chip 3-D surface reconstruction and depth extraction. ***

This CISE Educational Innovation award provides support to develop, test and disseminate innovations in the computer engineering undergraduate curriculum at this institution to emphasize real-time information processing systems to introduce undergraduate students to the areas of signal processing, image processing, cognition, human-computer interaction, and computer technology, in preparation for transition to graduate study or to industry. This laboratory builds on the existing and developing laboratories in Interactive Design and in Microcomputers. The institution has a strong record of involvement with underrepresented groups and that will continue in this project. Further, the project is planned such that key components will be able to be replicated at other institutions at reasonable cost.

With National Science Foundation support and under the direction of Dr. Malek Adjouadi, Florida International University will purchase a Neuro Scan Electrical Signal Imaging ESI-256 Channel EEG/EP system and a smaller interface unit, an infrared eye-gaze tracking development system. The ESI-256 is the first commercially available EEG and evoked potential (EP) system of its kind. It permits simultaneous display of average and raw EEG of all channels and post-processing, source localization and co-registration with three-dimensional data sets such as MRI. The system includes: an ESI Reader Station with optical drive and local area network (LAN) connection to the main ESI system; a Neuro Scan STIM System interfaced to ESI for evoked potential and cognitive event-related potential testing; a Curry Multimodal Neuro-imaging software for integration of EEG/EP measurements with MRI and CT modalities. An infrared eye-gaze tracking system from LC Technologies will be interfaced with the larger system to allow the consolidation of eye-gaze with brain activities associated with readiness potentials. The goal of the research is to develop an alternative form of brain-computer interface which is driven by the signals generated naturally by the body. It is particularly important for the large number of individuals who are physically limited in their access to computers. In the evolution of human - computer interfaces one hopes to approach the point where humans could use the signals that animate their normal activities to interact with such machines. Though study of voluntary movement commands initiated in the inner structures of the brain and through eye movement, Dr. Adjouadi and his colleagues will work to develop such a system. - À- v- +- ±@ + _ Ûª? ÑOh ª' +'ª?0 Ý + Õ $ H l + ¢ ? D h + R:\WWUSER\TEMPLATE\NORMAL.DOT

9900660
Adjouadi, Malek
Barreto, Armando
Pasztor, Ana
Martinez, Maria
Roig, Gustavo
Florida International University (FIU)

Development of an Institutional Infrastructure with Special Focus on Human-Computer Interfaces and Information Processing

This award enables the establishment of a multidisciplinary educational infrastructure with key innovations in engineering that promote an environment with effective learning strategies based on bridging instructional activities with research facilities. The award drives an ambitious program that focuses on FIU's strengths in the areas of human-computer interface research to include those persons with disabilities; key aspects of information processing (image and signal), including real-time applications; hardware-software integration; distributed processing, and data structures. A supplemental instruction component is included to tackle head-on the failure rates in those SEM "high risk" courses (failure rates exceeding 30%), which are critical foundations for Computer Science and Engineering. Within the proposed infrastructure, a comprehensive pipeline is established to attract more students in engineering and to redress at FIU the national trend showing limited graduation rates in Computer Science and Engineering. The project also addresses the recruitment and retention of students from groups traditionally underrepresented in Computer Science and Engineering, namely women, Hispanics and African Americans. In addition to these educational enhancements, the impact of the project will be extended through expected research results in distributed processing, and image and signal processing, particularly in their application to human-computer interfaces for individuals with disabilities.

Through this effort, Florida International University is expected to develop further its computing science and engineering research capabilities involving minority students in greater numbers, paving the way for eventual conferring of more doctoral degrees, not only to Hispanic students, but also to African American, and disabled students. It is hoped that through these efforts, the nation might find a successful model that will help in building a better racially and ethnically balanced technological enterprise for the benefit of its present and future generations.

HRD 0317692

CREST Center for Emerging Technologies for Advanced Information Processing and High-Confidence Systems

Florida International University

PI: Yi Deng

Florida International University (FIU) will establish the CREST Center for Emerging Technologies for Advanced Information Processing and High-Confidence Systems. This multidisciplinary research and educational center will serve as a resource center for the education of underrepresented minority students as well as a driving force to increase diversity in graduate education, especially at the Ph.D. level in computer science and engineering.

In addition to the educational component, the Center will pursue four major research subprojects. (1) High-Confidence Reactive Software Systems will build high confidence reactive software systems by developing efficient and scalable methods for modeling, specifying, analyzing, and implementing such systems.
(2) Multidimensional-Multimodal Data Modeling and Query Research focuses on the intelligent use of databases for data mining, modeling, and analysis through effective queries. The querying support process will yield efficient access over multidimensional multimedia data sets and effectively address the issues of interpretation and visualization of such complex data sets. (3) Assistive Technology Research is based on the design and development of real-time assistive systems that focus on Visual Impairments and Blindness, and Motor Disability, which are achieved through integration of highly dependable and sophisticated real-time software and databases to hardware designs. (4) Advanced Information Processing with Neuroscience Applications will focus on signal and imaging techniques that have significant real-world applications, while the Neuroscience research aims to meet the impending needs for new developments in bio-signal processing and neurorehabilitation as the functional mapping of the brain and the causality of key brain dysfunctions are elicited.

Successful interaction with a computer through a graphical user interface implicitly requires the undistorted perception of the images displayed on the computer screen. This is a problem for individuals with severe and irregular visual limitations that cannot be corrected through traditional mechanisms such as eyeglasses or contact lenses. In this project the PI will explore the possibility of having the computer generate modified displays to correct conditions such as keratoconus, pellucid marginal degeneration, Terrien's marginal degeneration, and related refraction disorders that distort the images perceived by the eye in asymmetrical and irregular ways. The irregularity of the distortion introduced by these conditions is captured by the need to include higher-order (i.e., >2) terms in the Zernike polynomial approximation of the eye's wavefront aberration (WA) function, which represents the distortion of images through the optical components of the eye (cornea, lens). Recent advances in image processing and optometry, as well as the continued promise of increasing computing power for real-time applications, make it possible to envision a computer system that, given the proper characterization of the visual capabilities of its user, will generate a display that matches his/her vision limitations in a complementary way, thus overcoming the user's vision problem. Furthermore, instruments capable of accurately characterizing a person's WA are now commercially available. The PI and his team will use the point-spread function (PSF), obtained from a person's WA, to pre-compensate (by deconvolution) the images shown on the computer screen, so that they are perceived undistorted by the individual whose PSF is considered.

Broader Impacts: This project will lead to the design of novel assistive technologies, which in turn may well lead to tools that benefit the population at large. A substantial impact on education is also to be expected, due to the large number of students who will participate in the project and in light of the fact that the PI's institution is one of the few minority institutions in the nation with comprehensive programs through the PhD level. The deconvolution work has the potential for broad impact in both technical and societal dimensions, in that it constitutes a novel approach to compensation of images for visual correction purposes via digital rather than optical means, and in consideration of estimates that higher-order visual impairment neglected in traditional solutions may affect as many as 7,000,000 Americans who have excessively irregular refractive errors.

This project is constructing a modern infrastructure to support cross-disciplinary research and to serve as a catalyst for student training in the fields of applied information processing, neuroscience, and assistive technology research. By merging these fields, a foundation is set for (1) developing new methodologies destined to respond effectively to the issue of universal accessibility, and (2) establishing research strategies to meet impending needs in neuroscience as functional mappings and causality of key brain disorders are developed. The infrastructure includes a high performance computational cluster with an active display mural, a magnetic link for integrating electroencephalography to magnetic resonance imagery, an optical topography system for near-infrared spectroscopy, and an eye-gaze tracking system. The infrastructure extends the research capabilities of Florida International University (FIU) and enables long-range improvements in neuroscience and assistive technology. The infrastructure is envisioned to provide researchers with an environment that is conducive to cross training among disciplines, supported by experimental evaluations and feasibility studies, from which prototype designs are moved to the realm of practicality. New opportunities are made possible for consolidating a joint FIU-Miami children's Hospital neuroscience program worthy of national distinction. In assistive technology research, a primary objective is to design the next generation of human computer interfaces that are multimodal and adaptive as real-time assistive systems that extend the functional capabilities of persons with motor and visually disabilities. On the educational front, new curriculum is planned, with engineers, computer scientists, neuroscientists, and radiologists working together for an integrated approach to the teaching and training of students. Furthermore, this project strengthens FIU's outreach programs for recruiting outstanding Ph.D. students. This is coupled with sustained commitments to recruiting and retaining underrepresented minorities in CISE-related disciplines.

This project, developing a highly integrated and modular system for affective sensing research, aims at designing, developing, verifying, and disseminating an instrumentation setup that can be used to sense, record, and identify physiological changes that signal affective shifts relevant to human-computer interaction (HCI). A large number of biological signal sensors will be integrated for the purpose of developing HCI with the ability to respond to the state of the user's autonomic nervous system (including user emotion and affect, and states related to exercise and health). Affective computing implies that a computer system should be able to assess the emotional state of the subject, i.e., perform affective sensing based on real-time monitoring of the physiological expression of the user's affective state. Non-invasive/unobtrusive measurements in this monitoring process ultimately yield enhancements in HCI. Physiological manifestations of sympathetic activation associated with affective shifts in a highly integrated sensory platform may reveal inconspicuous but relevant features that could be overlooked when the signals are observed in isolation. The work involves five sets of experiments:
-DSP for affective sensing,
-Real-time measurement of eye gaze tracking,
-Analysis of the relationship between exercise and blood volume,
-EEG as a way to assess the quality of HCI, and
-Autonomic nervous system monitoring as a way to assess HCI.

Broader Impact: This affective sensing system can be used as an evaluation platform toward the design of the next generation of human computer interfaces that would improve access and functional capabilities of persons with disabilities. The development of the instrument will impact the training and motivation of future professionals and researchers. This work contributes in the creation of new initiatives to engage students in an institution serving a large number of minority students; thus strengthening the student pipeline towards graduate degrees.

The University of Texas El Paso (UTEP) proposes an Alliance of Hispanic-serving institutions (HSIs) that includes some of the leading producers of Hispanic science and engineering graduates: UTEP, California State University Dominguez Hills, Florida International University, New Mexico State University, Texas A&M Corpus Christi, the University of Houston Downtown, the University of Puerto Rico Mayaguez, and the University of Puerto Rico Rio Padras. These institutions will create a unified voice and consolidate strengths, resources, and concerns in their commitment to increasing the number of Hispanics who pursue advanced degrees in computing. The project goals are (1) to increase the number of students who enter the professoriate in computing, (2) to support the retention and advancement of Hispanic faculty in computing, and (3) to develop and sustain competitive education and research programs at HSIs.

The Alliance will implement a variety of interventions, including a course designed to attract majors and bolster under-prepared students, peer-facilitation redesign of gatekeeper courses, undergraduate professional development and research experiences inside and outside the classroom, workshops to develop cohorts of graduate students and faculty, mentoring, availability of online resources, and strengthening of education and research programs. The Alliance will thus support students at each of the three critical transitions in the academic pipeline: the transition from high school to college, from college to graduate school, and from graduate school to the professoriate. These practices will be shared and deployed across the academic partners and with other HSIs.

Florida International University?s (FIU?s) proposed second-phase NSF CREST Center for Innovative Information Systems Engineering brings together a multidisciplinary group of researchers, large-scale collaborative relationships, and a broad ecosystem of partners to perform research that will lead to information technologies that help to solve critical societal problems of national priority.

Intellectual Merit: Each of the Center?s mutually-supportive subprojects builds on the strong research foundation established by FIU?s first-phase CREST award and each sets ambitious research goals that will result in the increased competitiveness of FIU?s CISE researchers. By intertwining these multidisciplinary research goals with CREST?s comprehensive education environment and by leveraging the synergistic academic and industry partnerships introduced above, the Subprojects provide one another with strong impetus for cohesiveness and potential for new research findings and educational breakthroughs: Subproject 1: Effective Access to Complex Multimodal Data with Applications in Disaster Mitigation will focus on developing effective techniques for managing and providing access to data that varies in type, source, location, time, and certainty by addressing storage optimization, data management, indexing and search, query techniques, and data presentation. Among its applications, it seeks to develop techniques to get the right information to the right people at the right time, thereby helping to mitigate disasters and to recover from them quickly. Subproject 2: Integrated Approach to Information Processing in Neuroscience focuses on an integrated imaging/signal processing approach that will result in comprehensive views of the human brain in greater depth and detail through faster, affordable, more effective, and less invasive methods. Subproject 3: Human Computer Interaction for Universal Access has a long-term goal of enabling any prospective computer user to interact with computer-based systems, regardless of their disability status and regardless of the interaction challenges derived from the context in which the interaction is taking place. Subproject 4: Complex System Modeling, Analysis, and Realization will focus on essential methodologies for modeling complex systems, a unified underlying semantic model, fundamental methods for compositional model analysis, and model-driven engineering technologies.

Broader Impacts: The Center will build upon the solid research foundation and flourishing educational pipeline developed over the course of FIU's first-phase CREST funding. Its research program will develop effective techniques for managing information, for modeling information, natural, and man-made systems, and for providing access to information while its educational program strives to become the nation?s leader in training underrepresented Ph.D. students in Computer Science and Computer Engineering.

The proposed research areas cross the boundaries of computer science and engineering, information processing, situational awareness, assistive technology, and neuroscience; this integrative approach of research will significantly advance the body of knowledge in these important fields and will make strides to solving some of society?s critical problems.

The University of Texas, El Paso proposes to extend the work of the Computing Alliance of Hispanic-Serving Institutions (CAHSI) in collaboration with their partners: California State University-Dominguez Hills, California State University-San Marcos, Dade College, Florida International University, New Mexico State University, Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, University of Houston Downtown, University of Puerto Rico Mayaguez, and the University of Texas Pan American. Together these Hispanic-Serving institutions will work to adapt proven strategies that have positive impact on (1) the number of Hispanic students who enter the workforce with computing degrees; (2) the retention and advancement of Hispanic students and faculty in computing, and (3) the development of sustainable, competitive education and research programs. To accomplish this, CAHSI has already implemented a number of programs, including Peer-Led Team Learning (PLTL) that creates an active learning experience for students and leadership experiences for undergraduates serving as peer leaders, the Affinity Research Group (ARG) model that emphasizes the deliberate and intentional development of technical, team and professional skills and knowledge required for research, and Mentor-Grad that engages undergraduates in experiences and activities that prepare them for graduate studies and the professoriate. CAHSI has a strong record of success: recent bachelor's graduation rates of Hispanics in computer science increased by nearly 25% within their member institution, while over the same time period, the national trend showed a 39% decline. This extension will add two new goals to its agenda (1) institute a sustainable infrastructure that supports CAHSI's continued impact and (2) become recognized as an organization that affects decision-making and cultural change at the local, regional, and national levels. To achieve these goals CAHSI will establish the cyber infrastructure to support collaborations and dissemination of CAHSI practices, establish collaborations beyond the Alliance with organizations and institutions sharing common goals, and promote multicultural awareness in administrators, faculty, and students.

"This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009(Public Law 111-5)."
Proposal #: 09-59985
PI(s): Adjouadi, Malek; Barreto, Armando B.; Gaillard,William; Jayakar,Prasanna; Rishe, Naphtali D.
Institution: Florida International University
Title: MRI-R2/Dev: Instrument for Information Science and Computing in Neuroscience
This project, developing an instrument for information processing and computing that enables cohesive study of the brain, involves the new concept of a 5-D brain processing platform while addressing the challenge of finding the best way to put together five dimensions to provide a complete picture of brain dynamics. This unified approach brings together fields of Computer Engineering, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, and Bioengineering to create an instrument for precisely measuring and visualizing significant information and results across the five dimensions, three from spatial data, time, and an imaging modality that serves as the fifth dimension. Accomplishing this mission involves advanced designs, hardware-software integration mechanisms, and novel interfaces that bring competing, and sometimes diverging, technologies into a unified brain research platform. Combining a Multi-site Data Repository, Modality Integration and Computational, Visualization, and Operation Support Units, this new instrument is expected to bring:
- New insights into brain structure, functional correlations and dynamics, both in its normal state and under specific pathological conditions,
- Far improved mapping of patterns of brain activity,
- Integration of multimodal technologies in order to augment their capabilities with new insights while consolidating high spatial resolution with high temporal resolution,
- Database design and management augmented with mechanisms for fast user interaction and visualization to meet the challenge of managing complex spatio-temporal datasets, posing complex queries, and establishing effective methods for data representation and visualization, and
- Resolution of those paradigms that confront heavy computational requirements and compatibility problems that arise from the use of different recording modalities and diverse software platforms.
The project aims to collectively overcome the primary barriers in identifying the different factors that influence the functional organization of the brain and its underlying pathology. As an example, it delves in the epileptic seizure that can be mapped over time as it moves along specific fiber tracts that may enable better identification of specific areas of treatment and consequently protect functionally important parts of the brain during surgery that may lead to better and safer outcomes.
Broader Impacts:
Fostering an environment that supports cross disciplinary initiatives, joint collaboration and programs, the instrument establishes a research platform that enables academic institutions and hospitals to investigate multi-site collaborative studies in accordance to systematically administered standardize protocols to a database of common assessments and measures. The project extends the breadth and depth of multidisciplinary efforts including new paradigms and findings. Moreover, the project advances the education, research, and training of many students in a minority serving university.

The proposed projects objective is to develop a system level framework for patient monitoring. This framework is intended to allow the interoperability of various patient monitoring devices; data preprocessing and fusion to detect the data inconsistencies and determine session and data prioritization; and bandwidth-adaptive data and video transmission driven by real-time prioritization. The proposed research will lead to the evolution of protocols that can be used for providing interoperability among various physiological measurement devices/sensors, and will have applications in numerous healthcare domains such as home healthcare, post-operative care, preventive care, adult care and nursing homes.

The outcomes of the proposed work have the potential to impact the medical sciences, healthcare and computer science, enabling an information rich environment with which medical care and outcomes may be significantly improving. The work is supported by the Industry Advisory Board as well as an individual industry member of the center and has the potential to extend the centers portfolio. The PIs will disseminate the results of the work using the already established TerraFly web-based data dissemination tool.

Program Director's Recommendation
1338922 Florida International (FIU); Rishe

The proposal requests Phase II funding for the Florida International University (FIU) to remain as an active site in the Center for Advanced Knowledge Enablement (CAKE). FIU at CAKE is the lead institution while Florida Atlantic University (FAU) Is a "Partner" site.

The faculty of the I/UCRC CAKE will carry out research in performance studies, benchmark evaluations, and the application of novel algorithms, routines, data models, network analyses and software tools to large-scale data sets. The research will be conducted by faculty at Florida International University (FIU), as well as the I/UCRC CAKE's ongoing affiliated sites, who are investigating a broad range of aspects of the science of data management and search. The Center, which will continue to be administratively hosted at FIU, expects to grow to include other domestic and foreign university partners.

The research proposed by the Center addresses challenges that cross scientific domains and vertical markets, as many industries are facing existential problems due to the sheer influx of data generated. The Center broadens participation of underrepresented groups in several ways. The investigators will Leverage their track record of involving FIU's predominantly Hispanic student population in research with programs such as 'affinity groups' that enable research performed by the graduate and undergraduate students to be shared with other students; the Center will expand opportunities of mentoring and graduating computer scientists from under-represented populations at the BS, MS, and PhD levels. As the I/UCRC CAKE continues to grow, the center will build a cohesive structure spanning multiple institutions, in part by enabling extended research visits at partner sites for faculty and doctoral students. The Center plans to include other US universities and international collaboration in the framework of its Latin American Grid Project, an existing NSF PIRE, and other work with European and Asian universities.

This project, developing an initial demonstration prototype, aims to make a first step towards an Instrument that will enable intelligent decision-making in disaster mitigation, greatly benefiting society at large. The enabled research will benefit applications in environmental monitoring, transportation, education, agriculture, urban planning, and public health and safety. This project will contribute to further broaden the mission of education, recruitment, retention and mentoring by engaging more minority students in research, by reaching out to local schools, media, and the Internet, and by engaging the students with industrial collaborators. Prior work on the TerraFly web-based data dissemination tools in this minority-serving and internationally-geared institution affords the researchers and students experience in disseminating large projects to a broad audience, leveraging coverage received by worldwide media.

Specifically, the project identifies the required datasets, allowing researchers to specify geographical and temporal selection and the multiple data types to be mashed up, and the analytical functions that may be developed or uploaded by the user. The Instrument will be built on top of TerraFly, inheriting its modules of Data Store, Mapping, High Performance Query, API, Spatial Join, Rooftop Geocoding, Data Drilldown, and Spatiotemporal Visualizer. The eventual Instrument will be an integrated system, comprised of: a server farm; a massive database containing contributed and created datasets; a fleet of balloon-borne aerial platforms streaming multi-spectral imagery and environmental measurements; modules for batch and ad-hoc data analytics and knowledge extraction; and a TerraFly extension to display and query super-resolution aerial imagery in the context of thousands of other datasets. The present Demonstration Prototype of the Instrument will include a large database containing sample contributed and created datasets; acquisition of imagery from several balloon-borne sensors, and a TerraFly extension to display and query super-resolution aerial imagery in the context of several other datasets. While the Demonstration Prototype will involve only several balloon-borne sensors in the airspace of the Institution, a design will be elaborated to prevent any air traffic and environmental problems in the broader deployment of untethered balloons in the eventual Instrument. The Demonstration Prototype will acquire, load, store, analyze, process, create, and serve geospatial data, including: traditional raster and vector geospatial data, sample geo-projected video streams, high-resolution data contributed by NASA, sample super-resolution aerial imagery contributed by committed industrial partners, and sample analyzed geo-referenced documents. Under prior funding, the TerraFly Geospatial Data Management project pioneered a number of technologies that became role models for later deployment by major mapping providers. The proposed Prototype is of an Instrument that would deploy an order-of-magnitude sharper aerial imagery, which will enable vast new applications and analytics. Due to its non-invasive low-altitude super-resolution sensing and automatic knowledge extraction, the Instrument will enable multi-disciplinary research of twelve groups.

This project, developing a new integrated instrument for neuroimaging and brain mapping, based on specialized software and unique hardware designs, aims to elicit new understanding of the functional mappings of the brain in its normal and pathology states focusing on key neurological disorders. Envisioning the brain in terms of the structural, functional, and brain connectivity maps under fully integrated recording modalities breaks the barriers of very challenging time and space alignments. This also bridges scientific premises in building system designs and novel software techniques that improve the delivery of patient-care in terms of enhanced diagnosis as well as well-thought-out treatment protocols. The work focuses on challenging neurological disorders of epilepsy, Alzeimer's disease and Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADD-ADHD) and related cognitive challenges so as to provide effective subject-centric care. The general construct of the software algorithms and the hardware components of this instrument facilitates research endeavors and applications that extend to other neurological disorders (such as Parkinson) to be addressed using novel hardware interfaces and related software modules and protocols.

This project utilizes a unique approach at collecting data in a fully integrated setting across different recording modalities to elicit new understanding of the functional mapping of the brain and in delineating normal state from the specific pathology state of these challenging neurological disorders. It performs pioneering work on integration in a same setting of non-invasive navigated transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) for mapping the eloquent cortex and instigating new protocols with embedded alignments and full registration to
- Neuro-navigation and pre-surgical evaluation,
- Anatomical and functional MRI for MRI/fMRI-guided magnetic stimulation, and
- Microcoil designs embedded into MRI and fully integrated with EEG electrodes for pinpointed TMS-MRI-fMRI and EEG integration, all of which are to yield a fully integrated instrument with the ability to augment capabilities for mapping, analysis, and diagnosis, followed by elaborate intervention and treatment protocols for these different neurological disorders.

The University of Texas, El Paso proposes to extend the work of the Computing Alliance of Hispanic-Serving Institutions (CAHSI) in collaboration with their partners: California State University-Dominguez Hills, California State University-San Marcos, Dade College, Florida International University, New Mexico State University, Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, University of Houston Downtown, University of Puerto Rico Mayaguez, and the University of Texas Pan American. Together these Hispanic-Serving institutions will work to adapt proven strategies that have positive impact on (1) the number of Hispanic students who enter the workforce with computing degrees; (2) the retention and advancement of Hispanic students and faculty in computing, and (3) the development of sustainable, competitive education and research programs.

To accomplish this, CAHSI has already implemented a number of programs, including Peer-Led Team Learning (PLTL) that creates an active learning experience for students and leadership experiences for undergraduates serving as peer leaders, the Affinity Research Group (ARG) model that emphasizes the deliberate and intentional development of technical, team and professional skills and knowledge required for research, and Mentor-Grad that engages undergraduates in experiences and activities that prepare them for graduate studies and the professoriate. CAHSI has a strong record of success: recent bachelor's graduation rates of Hispanics in computer science increased by nearly 25% within their member institution, while over the same time period, the national trend showed a 39% decline. This extension will further existing goals and intentionally develop a sustainable ecosystem to (1) institute a sustainable infrastructure that supports CAHSI's continued impact and (2) become recognized as an organization that affects decision-making and cultural change at the local, regional, and national levels. To achieve these goals CAHSI will establish the cyber infrastructure to support collaborations and dissemination of CAHSI practices, establish collaborations beyond the Alliance with organizations and institutions sharing common goals, and promote multicultural awareness in administrators, faculty, and students.