IRC monitoring grant
In a two-year agreement with the National Science Foundation, the Central Intelligence Agency began the selection of recipients for NSF research grants to develop automated chat room monitors. By July 2004, the CIA had reviewed nearly 250 research proposals and decided to pursue the proposal from RPI.
Associate Professors of Computer Science Bulent Yener and Mukkai Krishnamoorthy received a grant for over $155,000 to develop new techniques for gathering, analyzing, and modeling information found in chat room communications.
The research aims to devise algorithms to identify chat room participants by answering questions such as who in a particular chat room is discussing a specified topic or what kinds of topics are being discussed in a particular room.
Since identifying the true identity of those in a chat room or even whether the U.S. courts have jurisdiction over them can be problematic, it is hoped that these kinds of algorithms will help create an automated surveillance system for the CIA that can discover covert groups of chatters that may pose threats to national security.
When all of the research into this area is completed, it may lead to a system that can be deployed in the background of any chat room and work as a silent listener for eavesdropping.
Underwater robots
RPI Professor Arthur Sanderson, collaborating with a group of researchers at RPI’s Darrin Freshwater Institute on Lake George, has begun testing of solar-powered autonomous underwater vehicles.
These robots are being used to form a network of distributed sensing devices and water monitoring tools that are to some degree self-sufficient and interconnected wirelessly.
The tests are part of the National Science Foundation’s RiverNet initiative—whose main purpose is ultimately to interactively and remotely monitor water quality and conditions in the Hudson River and the Adirondack Estuary.
Tests, especially in the operation of the distributed network, have been encouraging to researchers thus far.
Additionally, the RiverNet initiative is expected to have developmental impact in educational outreach efforts, environmental policy management, and automated self-sufficient defense and security systems.
2005 Troy budget
Despite the failure of the Troy City Council to adopt Mayor Tutunjian’s 2005 budget proposal, the full 2005 budget as proposed by the mayor took effect last Wednesday anyway. The council failed to adopt the budget following a 5-3 vote. Six votes were required for the budget to pass.
The Mayor’s plan raises taxes 6.5 percent, which will cost the average Troy homeowner about $75 extra each year. Additionally, the budget featured a 5 percent hike in water rates. These tax hikes were opposed by council leader Marjorie DerGurahian who sought lower tax hikes.
The tax increases are being used to supplement lower sales-tax revenues given to Troy from the county executives, who as of last Wednesday, had not signed off on reimbursing any sales tax revenues. This was a cause of concern because should the city of Troy fall into a $500,000 deficit or more, the state Financial Supervisory Board would take control of the city’s finances.
After several serious discussions with the Mayor, many council members were of the mind that the fiscal solvency of the city as well as control of the purse was more important than a difference in tax-hike proposals.
One councilwoman who did not agree with the tax hikes at all proposed that the city find ways to charge fees for services to the non-taxable properties in Troy. These make up more than half the property in the city but are owned by tax-exempt institutions such as churches and colleges.
3-D chip development
A team of RPI researchers recently received funding to bring a concept for 3-D electronic chip design to realization. The development of 3-D memory stacks in high-specification systems will allow the system to handle memory and processing demands by providing multiple data streams without having to repeatedly read from memory.
Nature magazine first reported in April that scientists at the Shanghai Institute of Optics and Precision machines first succeeded in actually fabricating a 3-D chip using glass injected with gold oxide, which allowed a number of 3-D images to be stored in the glass.
The work of Professor John McDonald and his group drew interest from IBM, who recently awarded the group a DARPA subcontract to further explore 3-D chips with the intent of bringing them to market for high-end corporate and government customers.
Though a great deal of research remains to be done and fabrication facilities have not yet been devised, a workable computer chip will be the next goal of the RPI study, which has been funded for the past 5 years by the Interconnect Focus Center.
