1. © 2000-2001 Franz Kurfess Project Topics 1 Topics for Master’s Projects and Theses -- Winter 2003 -- Franz J. Kurfess Computer Science Department Cal Poly Email: fkurfess@csc.calpoly.edufkurfess@csc.calpoly.edu

2. © 2000-2001 Franz Kurfess Project Topics 2 Areas of Interest  Artificial Intelligence  knowledge management  neural networks for structured knowledge  Software Engineering  component-based systems  process-oriented design  Educational Systems  teaching support

3. © 2000-2001 Franz Kurfess Project Topics 3 Specific Topics  Knowlets  Content-Based Spam Filtering  Ontologies  Neural Networks for Structured Knowledge  How Computers Work  AI Toolbox

4. © 2000-2001 Franz Kurfess Project Topics 4 Knowlets  component-based systems for knowledge management  modular design of more complex systems from simpler components  similar to components in Software Engineering, but the emphasis is on content, not function  content-based organization of knowlet collections  Background: AI, SE, possibly data bases  Funding: possibly through CAD-RC  other funding sources under investigation

5. © 2000-2001 Franz Kurfess Project Topics 5 Content-Based Spam Filtering  design and implementation of a system that categorizes email messages  goal: identify as many unsolicited email messages (“spam”) as possible  avoid false positives (valid messages mis-classified as spam)  methods  use content-based and possibly usage-based techniques rather than explicit rules to filter out spam  Bayesian networks  http://www.paulgraham.com/spam.html http://www.paulgraham.com/spam.html  Collaborative filtering  Background: AI, SE; possibly in combination with knowlets  Funding: None

6. © 2000-2001 Franz Kurfess Project Topics 6 Ontologies  design and implementation of ontologies  (semi-)automatic extension of ontologies  user interfaces for ontologies  various perspectives, presentation methods  Background: AI, SE  Funding: some through CAD-RC  other funding sources under investigation

7. © 2000-2001 Franz Kurfess Project Topics 7 Neural Networks for Structured Knowledge  processing of complex structures representing knowledge with neural networks  most NNs are based on vectors, and can’t represent knowledge easily  recurrent NNs are more powerful, but also more difficult to handle  experimentation with various types of NNs to evaluate their suitability  bio-informatics (drug discovery, genome sequencing)  knowledge management (ontologies, relationships between documents)  Background: AI, specific domain  Funding: None now

8. © 2000-2001 Franz Kurfess Project Topics 8 How Computers Work  demonstrations and animations of important concepts in computer science  goal: visualize and animate abstract concepts and methods that may be difficult to understand from static text and diagrams  hardware  CPU, memory, hard disk, …  OS algorithms  CPU scheduling, disk scheduling, memory management, deadlock detection, …  data structures and algorithms  Background: Java  Funding: Would be most welcome :-)

9. © 2000-2001 Franz Kurfess Project Topics 9 AI Toolbox  generic educational environment  agents perform tasks in a simulated or real environment  search for a goal, explore a room, perform a task, chase other agents, work in teams, …  development of search algorithms, games, knowledge representation methods  modular design  playground, agents with various capabilities  Background: AI, SE  Funding: None