Browse Active Research Projects
Undergraduates can participate in projects for credits by registering in CS 4974 or 4994. Consult the Faculty Advisor or Research Supervisor before you register for this course.
Participation on a VTURCS project could also lead to an honors thesis for CS majors interested in graduating with honors.
Can't find anything that piques your curiousity? Don't be afraid to check out the Computer Science faculty list for someone who has a research interest you'd like to know more about. They might just have something for you.
Deep, Personalized Searching
Faculty Advisor- Lenwood S. Heath
Research Supervisor- Lenwood S. Heath
Description of Work- Powerful keyword-based searching is available for the web (e.g., Google) and for scientific literature (e.g., Web of Science). However, a person searching for a very specific kind of resource may spend much effort on a search that ends in frustration due to a mismatch between keyword search and the semantics of her information resource needs.
The focus of this project is to incorporate semantic-based searching that is deep and time consuming, even leisurely. A search that takes 24 hours to find just the right resource(s) can be considered successful, as long as those 24 hours consist of automated effort only, while the person pursues other tasks and interests.
Keyword semantics will be obtained using word senses obtained through WordNet. A command-line user interface will launch semantic search algorithms that integrate keyword search (probably Google) and semantics. A relational database will be built to record search progress. Email notification of search milestones can be given. A prototype searcher will emphasize searching for a small list of high-quality tutorials on a precise topic specified by the user. Implementation will be under Linux or Mac OS X.
Application Instructions- If this description charges you up, then see Professor Heath during his office hours (available on his web site). Please bring a resume and transcript. A love of the subtleties of the English language is a definite plus.
Project URL- http://
Area(s) of Research- Databases, Data Mining, Knowledge, Artificial Intelligence
Compensation- Work for Credit or Volunteer
Contact- heath@vt.edu
High-Performance Biological Sequence Search
- Faculty Advisor
- Wu Feng
- Research Supervisor
- Jeremy Archuleta
- Description of Work
- Biological sequence searching has become a fundamental aspect of all bioinformatics. It can help in tasks such as sequencing the human genome, designing pathogen signatures for pathogen detection, identifying unknown viruses (e.g., the virus now known as SARS), and so on. In this project, you will be coding different modules of part of a much larger project (i.e., mpiBLAST at http://www.mpiblast.org) in order to improve functionality, maintainability, and performance.
- Application Instructions
- E-mail a resume to feng@cs.vt.edu. Optional, but preferred, materials include unofficial undergraduate transcript and a brief one-paragraph statement of what interests you about this project.
- Project URL
- http://www.mpiblast.org/
- Area(s) of Research
- Bioinformatics, Parallel Computation, Software Engineering, Systems, Theory, Computational Biology, Databases, Data Mining, Artificial Intelligence
- Compensation
- Negotiable
- Contact
- feng@cs.vt.edu
Human Memory Mirror
- Faculty Advisor
- Lenwood S. Heath
- Research Supervisor
- Lenwood S. Heath
- Description of Work
- Human memory enjoys a very different structure and different capabilities from artificial memories such as RAM, file systems, and the Internet. For example, file systems were designed primarily for space efficiency and access speed and only secondarily for appropriateness for use by humans. In particular, directories, files, and hierarchies are far less powerful representations of knowledge than human memory.
The aim of this project is to design a radically new kind of "file system" (actually a human memory mirror) in analogy to human memory. A prototype that runs under Linux should be implemented as a proof of concept.
- Application Instructions
- If this description appeals to you, see Professor Heath during his office hours for a chat. Research may be done by a team or individually. Bring a resume and transcript.
- Project URL
- http://
- Area(s) of Research
- Systems, Knowledge, Artificial Intelligence
- Compensation
- Work for Credit or Volunteer
- Contact
- heath@vt.edu