OFIS Notes from 8 April 2009

• Dawn: yesterday's CS school council meeting: report on the faculty performance reviews and how it is constructed.
• Daniel: student evaluations: process/questions might change, if they do strike a committee to do that (as suggested by browndg).
  • when? OFIS current data-release target date is September, though they only hit that last year not year before.
  • CS unlikely to do revisions by then.
• Daniel: student evaluation format: Frank Tompa suggested we could get post-processed data instead of his raw data. Marlon: that would be helpful.
  • Most useful format for input data:

• Daniel is looking into latex to RTF. program(s) exist; need to be tested for usefulness.
• Latex AND microsoft-compatible RTF are essential outputs for CS.
  • (can we auto-generate? Might we replace OFIS internal format with latex?...)
• Question of who should Daniel ask, for person-on-the-street thoughts about OFIS?
  • Discussion of uptake within engineering: software eng. is indifferent (doesn't use it); Computer engineering would like the code so they can hack their own version; high uptake within Management Science, Chemical, mechanical, civil (Civil may have admin staff entering data).
  • [ A thought; I could do a few database queries to look at current usage, perhaps ]
• Brief diversion into OGSAS vs. GAP. Would it be useful to put OGSAS into OFIS? hm, not much.
• Book import: since CS has well-formed input data, should be easy to import last three years' data programmatically.
• Daniel will send input-data sample from book to the list.

Past Tasks:

• Advise Peter whether we want a co-op <-- looks like fall, says Dawn.
• Latex to RTF feasibility?
  • http://www.tug.org/utilities/texconv/textopc.html <-- test latex2rtf
• Talk to Shaz in Software Engineering office.
  • Shaz says SE has no OFIS usage as far as she knows. Followup addressed in today's mtg.
• Daniel: Ask Frank about post-preprocessing data format <-- not done.
• Daniel: Ask Peter vB for a filled-in Annual Activity Report; and q. whether prior years' reports are handled by duplicating the prior reports. Also, hopefully, source of report in latex so we can see if a latex2rtf converter might work. <-- Peter mailed it to me; haven't addressed it yet.
• Daniel: find some source data from Research Book.
  • services108.cs:/.software/regional/wwwdata_cs.uwaterloo.ca/data/vhosts/cs/research/directory-2008/.README

2008/10/22:
  To rebuild the directory files from ./source,
  `cd` to this directory, and run
    source/bin/rd-make
  which will rebuild if any of the source files
  or program files are newer than the directory files.
  Run
    source/bin/rd-make -v -h
  for usage help.

• /.software/regional/wwwdata_cs.uwaterloo.ca/data/vhosts/cs/research/directory-2008/source/people contains one file per prof.
• Sample: csk.txt

<userid/>     csk
<name/>       Craig S. Kaplan
<position/>   Associate Professor
<joined/>     Joined School 2003
<education/>  BMath (Waterloo), MSc (Washington), PhD (Washington)
<email/>      csk@cs.uwaterloo.ca
<url/>        http://www.cgl.uwaterloo.ca/~csk/
<phone/>      519-888-4567 x34589
<fax/>        519-885-1208

<interests/>
Professor Kaplan studies the application of computer graphics in art,
illustration, ornamentation, and design.  This research area is rooted in
computer graphics, but involves forays into art (to study historical sources)
classical and computational geometry (to develop mathematical and
computational models of ornament), and computer-aided design and
manufacturing.  His goal is to push forward the frontiers of computer
graphics and geometry in order to put new tools in the hands of artists
and designers. These tools should be sensitive to the artist's needs and
desires---they should offer new aesthetic opportunities without usurping
the artistic process.

Topics explored by Professor Kaplan in the past include: the art of M.C.
Escher, particularly his regular divisions of the plane; the mathematical
structure and generation of Islamic geometric patterns; black-and-white
line art, especially mazes and labyrinths; traditional Chinese and European
papercutting; and graphic design based on calligraphy.

Professor Kaplan has also conducted research and maintains interests in
human-computer interaction, computational geometry (including computational
aspects of tiling theory) and programming language design.

<experience/>

<publications/>
J. Xu and C. S. Kaplan.
Artistic thresholding.
<em>Proceedings of NPAR</em>, 2008.

J. Xu and C. S. Kaplan.
Image-guided maze construction.
<em>Proceedings of SIGGRAPH</em>, 2007.

C. S. Kaplan and R. Bosch.
TSP Art.
<em>Bridges 2005: Mathematical Connections in Art, Music and Science</em>, 2005.

C. S. Kaplan and D. H. Salesin,
Islamic Star Patterns in Absolute Geometry,
<em>ACM Transactions on Graphics</em>, 23(2):97-119, 2004.

#
# Please describe, in the following section,
# any major awards that you have received.
#
<awards/>

#
# Please include from 3 to 7 keywords or phrases,
# ONE PER LINE, in the following "keywords" section,
# that describe your research.
# They will be used to construct the index.
#
<keywords/>

Upcoming Tasks

• Daniel: test latex2rtf from http://www.tug.org/utilities/texconv/textopc.html
• Daniel: figure out which Engineering prof(s) and admin(s) to talk to ; maybe do a few SQL queries on DB to see who is using it?
• Daniel: Ask Frank about post-preprocessing data format
• Daniel: Bring PvB's filled in Annual Activity Report(s) to next week's meeting.
  • Does this have any common text with his Research Directory entry?
• Daniel: mail source data to ofis mailing list

-- DanielAllen - 08 Apr 2009