DATE: Thursday , January 16, 2003
TIME: Noon - 1 pm
PLACE: Hamerschlag Hall D210

SPEAKER:
Norman H. Cohen
Research Staff, IBM - TJ Watson

TITLE:
Composing Pervasive Data

ABSTRACT:
The emergence of pervasive networked data sources -- such as web services, sensors, and mobile devices -- enables context-sensitive, mobile applications. We have developed a programming model for writing such applications, in which entities called composers accept data from one or more sources, and act as sources of higher-level data. An application developer expresses requirements for data sources rather than identifying specific sources; a runtime system discovers appropriate data sources, binds to them, and rebinds when properties of data sources change. Composers are built out of powerful operators, including operators to generate, filter, and recognize patterns in streams of values. We have defined and implemented a nonprocedural language, iQL, specifying the behavior of composers

BIO:
Norman H. Cohen is a Research Staff Member at IBM's Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Hawthorne, New York. His current research is focused on middleware to support pervasive-computing applications. He helped develop IBM's WebSphere Everyplace Intelligent Notification Services. He has also worked on a number of projects related to synchronization of mobile data, contributing to IBM's eNetwork Web Express product for mobile web browsing and the Gold Rush middleware for mobile object-based transactional access to a database. Previously, Dr. Cohen worked on an experimental optimizing compiler for Very Long Instruction Word (VLIW) architectures, the TOBEY optimizing compiler back end, the definition of the 1995 revision to the Ada programming language, the definition of an Ada-based language for formal specification and design, and formal verification technology. He is the author of the book Ada as a Second Language. Cohen received his B.A. in mathematics and computer science from Cornell University and his M.S. and Ph.D. in applied mathematics and computer science from Harvard University.

SDI / LCS Seminar Questions?
Karen Lindenfelser, 86716, or visit www.pdl.cmu.edu/SDI/