Florida International University, Miami
Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge

Summary of Progress

The Florida International University School of Computing and Information Science (FIU SCIS) and its partner, Louisiana State University (LSU), recruited six Faculty/Student Scholar pairs to participate in an NSF-funded project, "Multi University Research and Training in Protection of Critical Information Infrastructures."

The project's selected Faculty/Student Scholar pairs participate in a series of development activities that include summer workshops, national lab/research center visits, and academic year mini-grants. These activities are meant to introduce the participating pairs to cutting-edge research topics in the protection of mission-critical information infrastructures, including secure, survivable, and adaptable network architectures, wide-area networked threat analysis, processing of complex events and reacting to them, design and analysis of secure distributed data-mining techniques for recognizing unusual spatio-temporal readings from a wealth of sensor data, sensor net based bio-chemical detection technologies, design and analysis of data aggregation and compact feature representation for obtaining the required information with low-latency and low-energy usage in sensor networks, and intrusion and anomaly detection in wireless sensor networks as well as design and analysis of energy-efficient robust information extraction mechanisms for these large-scale networks.

In collaboration with FIU and LSU research centers, the Faculty/Student Scholar pairs are interacting with distinguished scholars from national laboratories and homeland security laboratories. The project's coordinated efforts in security research and training will provide experience in antiterrorism, cybercrime, and counter-terrorism techniques as well as invaluable information on projects initiated by both state and federal law enforcement agencies. Through the exploration of open scientific problems, and the development of training and pedagogical materials that use model-based approaches to vulnerability analysis, this project will prepare its participants to transfer their new knowledge to classroom instruction and research programs at their home institutions.

The 2012 Workshop, held at Florida International University in Miami, FL included:

• 2 week training experience: July 5th-16th, 2012
• Research projects and lectures guided by distinguished faculty from FIU & LSU
• The 2012 Workshop included Guest Lecturers from Florida Interantional University, Florida Atlantic University, Florida A & M University, the Florida Institute for Human & Machine Cognition, Louisiana Tech University, the University of Missouri - Kansas City, the Technological University of America, and the Air Force Research Laboratory." after the bullet "Research projects and lectures guided by distinguished faculty from FIU & LSU

The agenda for the 2012 Workshop in Critical Information Infrastructure Protection:

• Day 1: Introduction and Overview of the Entire Workshop
• Day 2: Sensor Networks and Applications; Authentication
• Day 3: Discussion on Mini Grant Proposals; Development of Successful Education Proposals; Information Exploitation; Security
• Day 4: Cyber Security; Information Assurance; and Policy Services
• Day 5: Agile Computing; Complex Event Processing; Securing Information
• Day 6: Game Theories; Industry Partnerships; Intellectual Property
• Day 7: Testbed for Research & Training in Discrete Event Modeling of Distributed Infrastructure Management Systems; Authentication in Mobile Platforms
• Day 8: Internetwork Security Assessment; Security Properties and Analysis
• Day 9: Mobile Computing and Mobile Information System; Protection of Offshore Wind Energy Systems Critical Information Infrastructures
• Day 10: Summary of Year-1 Workshop; Evaluation/Survey/Exit Interview; Prospect on Year-2 Workshop

Please see the full agenda for additional details. The workshop's brochure contains abstracts and biographies. Photos from the Workshop are available here

Follow-on Mini-grants will allow faculty/student pairs to perform research during the academic year and to attend conferences to present their research results.

Scholars Selected for 2012-2013:

• Dr. Jason Black and Ms. Olivia Wilson, Florida A & M University
• Dr. Nicolas Diogo and Mr. Treston Hall, Florida Memorial University
• Dr. Yujian Fu and Ms. Janise Fowler, Alabama A & M University
• Dr. Dwayne Jerro and Mr. Derrick Rhone, Southern University, Baton Rouge
• Dr. Kaliappa Ravindran and Mr. Mohammad Rabby, City University of New York
• Dr. Li Yang and Mr. Eric Reinsmidt, University of Tennessee, Chattanooga

For further information, please contact:

• Dr. S. Sitharama Iyengar (Principal Investigator for the NSF award)
  Director and Ryder Professor of Computer Science
  Florida International University
  iyengar@cis.fiu.edu; (305) 348-3947
• Dr. Supratik Mukhopadhyay (Principal Investigator of the LSU Subcontract)
  Assistant Professor of Computer Science
  Louisiana State University
  supratik@csc.lsu.edu, (225) 578-1496
• Dr. Hsiao-Chun Wu
  Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering
  Louisiana State University
  wu@ece.lsu.edu, (225) 578-5530
• Dr. Su-Seng Pang
  Associate Vice Chancellor for Strategic Initiatives
  Jack Holmes Distinguished Professor of Mechanical Engineering
  Louisiana State University
  mepang@me.lsu.edu, (225) 578-5892

This material is based in part upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant Number DUE-1202690. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.