Wheres IT going....where should I go with IT?

[theEclipse]

Hello,

I am a third year Computer Science student at a liberal arts college. I have finished all the in-major requirement classes and now have only general ed credits and in-major elective credits to get.

I have not decided if I am going to continue in school and go get a masters or more (please dont try and give me advice here .... I've herd it all).

I will be doing my senior research project this next school year and there are a lot of options. I want to choose something to research that needs research. I have seen senior research projects on things that are already defined like XML schema and other topics that are not on "the fringe" and it almost seems a waste of a year of research to present on something like that.

20 years ago I would have done research on sorting algorithms, but I think that we have that just about nailed down by now.

What are some areas that the computer science world is still developing? (Preferably topics that are cheap to research ;-)

Robert Carpenter
"Disobedience to conscience is voluntary; bad poetry, on the other hand, is usually not made on purpose." - C.S. Lewis (Preface to Paradise Lost)
ô¿ô

http://www.robertcarpenter.net

 

[MikeLacey]

A "supervising neural net" that can look after and coordinate the i/o of other nets...

Mike

I am not inscrutable.

Want great answers to your Tek-Tips questions? Have a look at faq219-2884

 

[CajunCenturion]

Computational linguistics and mathematical modelling are two areas that have a fair amount of original research opportunites.

--------------
Good Luck
To get the most from your Tek-Tips experience, please read FAQ181-2886
As a circle of light increases so does the circumference of darkness around it. - Albert Einstein

 

[infinitelo]

Gesters. This has been around for a while, and has not been given a lot of attention.

if it is to be it's up to me

 

[theEclipse]

infinitelo-

You must be right--I have never herd of this.

Can you provide some links to people working with this technology?

Robert Carpenter
"Disobedience to conscience is voluntary; bad poetry, on the other hand, is usually not made on purpose." - C.S. Lewis (Preface to Paradise Lost)
ô¿ô

http://www.robertcarpenter.net

 

[infinitelo]

http://www.smardec.com/products/mouse.html

http://www.tcbmi.com/strokeit/

http://www.codeproject.com/cpp/gestureapp.asp

Same theory used by the tablet pc for handwriting
recognition.


The vidio game Black and White uses this technology
extensively. Don't know if it will catch
on, but it has a very high cool factor.



if it is to be it's up to me

 

[theEclipse]

oooh....gestures.

That is actually one area I have thought about (sort of). I like the idea of learning software (neural networks) and that has applications here. Thanks.

Mike- A supervising neural network to create and manage other neural networks, eh? I suppose that I should start by learning basics of neural networking....

Cajun- computational linguistics has be just about burnt out right now but that could be because I just finished compiler design class. Its interesting but it kind of gives me a headache. As far as mathmatical modeling is concerned, I guess I dont exactly know what is being researched. Discrete algorithms and hashing type things?

Robert Carpenter
"Disobedience to conscience is voluntary; bad poetry, on the other hand, is usually not made on purpose." - C.S. Lewis (Preface to Paradise Lost)
ô¿ô

http://www.robertcarpenter.net

 

[CajunCenturion]

If a compiler class has left you burnt out, then language processing may not be your area. I will say that much of the research in computation linguistics goes well beyond what's in a typical compiler class, as in many cases it's dealing with natural language processing rather than formal programming languages, but if that doesn't excite you, then by all means, choose a different direction.

The research in mathmematically modelling is fairly broad, but the areas that I follow deal with tradionally non-computable problems on two fronts. The first front is problems where there is too much data, such as weather, and to research is coming up with techniques to increase the amount of data that can be processed in reasonable timeframes. The second research area where I dabble (I don't dabble nearly as much as I'd like, but that's another story) is in reducing high volume brute-force calculations, where all possibilities cannot be evaluated in reasonable timeframes. It's coming up of modelling techniques which quickly eliminate entire groups of combinations bring the problem back into one of reasonable computability.

No matter what direction you choose -- follow your passion.

--------------
Good Luck
To get the most from your Tek-Tips experience, please read FAQ181-2886
As a circle of light increases so does the circumference of darkness around it. - Albert Einstein

 

[theEclipse]

Tractibility problems are interesting .... but I havent learned much about computing problems like that. I think that advances in the way that computers work on a basic electronic level (ie parallelism) is going to change the way researchers tackle problems of great magnitude and in brute force calculations (such as the factoring of primes that makes us all so happy to see that little lock icon).

You might be interested in this article...

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/11/1119_041119_brain_petri_dish.html

I have continued to do alot of thinking on what areas I would like to help research and havent come to much of a conclusion (but then, it is finals week...). I have been dwelling on computer learning algorithms lately, especially as they pertain to mapping a dynamic environment for robotic obstical avoidance, ect.

Thanks

Robert Carpenter
"Disobedience to conscience is voluntary; bad poetry, on the other hand, is usually not made on purpose." - C.S. Lewis (Preface to Paradise Lost)
ô¿ô

http://www.robertcarpenter.net

 

[MikeLacey]

I should start by learning basics of neural networking

Err yeah

Mike

I am not inscrutable.

Want great answers to your Tek-Tips questions? Have a look at faq219-2884

 

[SteveGlo]

...piece of cake