Abstract: There are questions which can't easily be answered by traditional ecological sensors. Indirect sampling of phenomena through image analysis can provide a non-invasive and inexpensive means of answering these questions. Domain specific knowledge will serve to make this image analysis more tractable than general vision. This presentation serves as an introduction to our vision and preliminary results. (October 2007)

Abstract: There exist many natural phenomena where direct measurement is either impossible or extremely invasive. To obtain approximate measurements of these phenomena we can build prediction models based on other sensing modalities such as features extracted from data collected by an imager. These models are derived from controlled experiments performed under laboratory conditions, and can then be applied to the associated event in nature. In this paper we explore various different methods for generating such models and discuss their accuracy, robustness, and computational complexity. Given sufficiently computationally simple models, we can eventually push their computation down towards the sensor nodes themselves to reduce the amount of data required to both flow through the network and be stored in a database. The addition of these models turn in-situ imagers into powerful biological sensors, and image databases into useful records of biological activity. (September 2007)

Abstract: In order to increase the quality and quantity of Computer Scientists graduating for universities, we need to spark their interest early. In this talk, I talk about a few differnt project ideas tailored to students of various ages to peak their interest. In practice, I have found that these particular projects originally caught the attention of many computer scientists I know and work with. (July 2007)