{"274021":{"#nid":"274021","#data":{"type":"external_news","title":"Georgia Tech Earns Title of 2014 Code Wars Champion","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EGeorgia Institute of Technology won top honors at the 2014 Windward Code Wars hackathon\u0026nbsp;as Yellow Jackets, made up of students Ben Cousins, Sadra Yazdanbod, Yijie Wang, and Zhongtian Jiang, took home the coveted glass sailboat trophy.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":"","field_summary_sentence":"","uid":"27556","created_gmt":"2014-02-05 11:30:49","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 02:26:56","author":"Michaelanne Dye","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","publication":"Faculty Honors Awards Committee","field_article_url":"","publication_url":"http:\/\/www.prweb.com\/releases\/2014\/02\/prweb11546805.htm","dateline":{"date":"2014-02-05T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2014-02-05T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"groups":[{"id":"47223","name":"College of Computing"}],"categories":[{"id":"153","name":"Computer Science\/Information Technology and Security"},{"id":"8862","name":"Student Research"},{"id":"143","name":"Digital Media and Entertainment"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"}],"keywords":[{"id":"85821","name":"ben cousins"},{"id":"85791","name":"code wars"},{"id":"85781","name":"Codewars"},{"id":"11450","name":"first place"},{"id":"168990","name":"sadra yazdanbod"},{"id":"166847","name":"students"},{"id":"85811","name":"win"},{"id":"85801","name":"windward"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"325511":{"#nid":"325511","#data":{"type":"news","title":"ACM, IEEE Taps Lipton for Prestigious Knuth Prize","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ERichard Lipton, a professor and the Frederick G. Storey Chair in Computing in the School of Computer Science, added a second major award to his credentials this year as he was recently named the \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.acm.org\/press-room\/news-releases\/2014\/knuth-prize-2014\u0022\u003Ewinner of the 2014 Knuth Prize\u003C\/a\u003E for his contributions to the foundations of computer science.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIn receiving the award, \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.cc.gatech.edu\/people\/richard-lipton\u0022\u003ELipton\u003C\/a\u003E was cited for \u201cinventing new computer science and mathematical techniques to tackle foundational and practical problems in a wide range of areas in graph algorithms, computation, communication, program testing, and DNA computing.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe Knuth Prize is jointly presented by ACM\u2019s Special Interest Group on Algorithms and Computation Theory (SIGACT) and the IEEE Computer Society Technical Committee on the Mathematical Foundations of Computing (TCMF). The award will be presented at the\u0026nbsp;Foundations of Computer Science (FOCS) Conference\u0026nbsp;in Philadelphia, PA, from Oct. 18 to 21, where Lipton will give the Knuth Prize Lecture.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EEarlier this year, Lipton was \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.cc.gatech.edu\/news\/lipton-elected-american-academy-arts-and-sciences\u0022\u003Eelected to the 2014 class of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences\u003C\/a\u003E. With the Knuth Prize, Lipton joins a \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.sigact.org\/Prizes\/Knuth\/\u0022\u003Eshort list\u003C\/a\u003E of extraordinary computer scientists.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThe Knuth Prize means a great deal,\u201d Lipton said. \u201cIt is very exciting to be recognized by your peers for work that spans over 40 years.\u0026nbsp;I feel very special\u0026nbsp;and thankful to have been selected.\u201d\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ELance Fortnow, chair of the School of Computer Science, offered his praise:\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0022Dick\u0027s work has had a major impact in quite diverse areas across theoretical computer science and has heavily influenced many researchers including myself. I can think of no one more deserving of this award.\u0022\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIn presenting the award, the selection committee cited:\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cul\u003E\u003Cli\u003ELipton\u2019s development of the planar separator theorem. Working with Turing Award winner Robert Tarjan, Lipton created a \u201cdivide-and-conquer\u201d approach to solving difficult network problems by breaking problems into two or more sub-problems of the same or related type.\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003ELipton\u2019s pioneering work in the design of algorithms that make random choices in order to solve computational programs. He showed that when working with complex algebraic problems, it was sufficient to check a program by running it against randomly chosen but related inputs and comparing the results for consistency.\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003EHis development of a fundamental theorem in circuit complexity with Richard Karp, another Turing Award recipient. This demonstrated that NP-complete problems are unlikely to be solved by the best algorithms even with specialized hardware.\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003EHis status as an early developer of communication complexity, the study of the number of bits of communication needed for agents to solve computational tasks, and in DNA computing, which uses the combination and replication of the vast numbers of DNA strands that fit in a test tube as a basis for parallel computation.\u003C\/li\u003E\u003C\/ul\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe Knuth Prize is named in honor and recognition of Turing Award winner Donald Knuth, professor emeritus at Stanford University. Knuth is well-known for his ongoing multivolume series, \u003Cem\u003EThe Art of Computer Programming\u003C\/em\u003E, which played a critical role in establishing and defining computer science as a rigorous, intellectual discipline.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ELipton earned his undergraduate degree in mathematics from Case Western Reserve University and his Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon University. He taught at Yale, the University of California in Berkeley and Princeton before joining the Georgia Tech faculty in 2000.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ELipton explores one of the most daunting puzzles in computation theory in his blog\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/rjlipton.wordpress.com\/\u0022\u003EG\u00f6del\u2019s Lost Letter and P=NP\u003C\/a\u003E\u0026nbsp;and recently published his second book based on the blog,\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/People-Problems-Proofs-Essays-G%C3%B6dels\/dp\/3642414214\/ref%3Dsr_1_2?s=books\u0026amp;ie=UTF8\u0026amp;qid=1393085404\u0026amp;sr=1-2\u0022\u003E\u003Cem\u003EPeople, Problems, and Proofs: Essays from G\u00f6del\u0027s Lost Letter\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cem\u003E,\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/em\u003Ewhich he co-authored with Kenneth W. Regan of the University of Buffalo.\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EComputing professor cited for \u201cinventing new computer science and mathematical techniques to tackle foundational and practical problems in a wide range of areas in graph algorithms, computation, communication, program testing, and DNA computing.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Richard Lipton, a professor and the Frederick G. Storey Chair in Computing in the School of Computer Science, was recently named the winner of the 2014 Knuth Prize for his contributions to the foundations of computer science."}],"uid":"27998","created_gmt":"2014-09-16 15:28:59","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:17:04","author":"Brittany Aiello","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2014-09-17T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2014-09-17T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"50569":{"id":"50569","type":"image","title":"Richard Lipton","body":null,"created":"1449175408","gmt_created":"2015-12-03 20:43:28","changed":"1475894463","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:41:03","alt":"Richard Lipton","file":{"fid":"128749","name":"richard-lipton.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/richard-lipton_1.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/richard-lipton_1.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":14847,"path_740":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/richard-lipton_1.jpg?itok=AZGBlWFy"}}},"media_ids":["50569"],"groups":[{"id":"47223","name":"College of Computing"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[{"id":"55631","name":"ACM Awards"},{"id":"103451","name":"Algorithms and Computation Theory"},{"id":"103461","name":"Foundations of Computer Science Conference"},{"id":"1187","name":"IEEE"},{"id":"103441","name":"Knuth Prize"},{"id":"114601","name":"Press Release"},{"id":"15711","name":"richard lipton"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[{"id":"71871","name":"Campus and Community"}],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EPhillip Taylor\u003Cbr \/\u003ENews and Media Relations Manager\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:ptaylor@cc.gatech.edu\u0022\u003Eptaylor@cc.gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["ptaylor@cc.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"350211":{"#nid":"350211","#data":{"type":"news","title":"ARC Fellowship Winners\u2013Fall 2014","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EThree students\u2014Ioannis Pannageas of SCS and Guido Lagos and Burak Kocuk, both of ISyE\u2014have earned fellowships with the Georgia Tech Algorithms \u0026amp; Randomness Center (ARC). \u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe selection committee includes: Gregory Blekherman, Math; Santanu Dey (committee chair), ISyE; David Goldberg, ISyE; Milena Mihail, SCS; Le Song, CSE; and Santosh Vempala, CS.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EThree students\u2014Ioannis Pannageas of SCS and Guido Lagos and Burak Kocuk, both of ISyE\u2014have earned fellowships with the Georgia Tech Algorithms \u0026amp; Randomness Center (ARC).\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Three students\u2014Ioannis Pannageas of SCS and Guido Lagos and Burak Kocuk, both of ISyE\u2014have earned fellowships with the Georgia Tech Algorithms \u0026 Randomness Center (ARC)."}],"uid":"27255","created_gmt":"2014-11-26 17:14:29","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:17:37","author":"Josie Giles","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2014-10-10T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2014-10-10T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"related_links":[{"url":"http:\/\/arc.gatech.edu\/","title":"Algorithms \u0026 Randomness Center"}],"groups":[{"id":"50875","name":"School of Computer Science"}],"categories":[{"id":"134","name":"Student and Faculty"},{"id":"153","name":"Computer Science\/Information Technology and Security"}],"keywords":[{"id":"111051","name":"Algorithm and Randomness Center"},{"id":"4265","name":"ARC"},{"id":"111111","name":"ARC Fellowship Winners"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EDani Denton\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:denton@cc.gatech.edu\u0022\u003Edenton@cc.gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"350261":{"#nid":"350261","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Subhash Khot Wins the Nevanlinna Prize","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EOur former colleague Subhash Khot, now at the Courant Institute of New York University, was awarded the Nevanlinna prize during the opening ceremony of the 2014 International Congress of Mathematicians. The citation reads:\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ESubhash Khot is awarded the Nevanlinna Prize for his prescient definition of the \u0022Unique Games\u0022 problem, and leading the effort to understand its complexity and its pivotal role in the study of efficient approximation of optimization problems; his work has led to breakthroughs in algorithmic design and approximation hardness, and to new exciting interactions between computational complexity, analysis and geometry.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDetails may be found at the website of the\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.mathunion.org\/general\/prizes\/2014\/\u0022\u003EInternational Mathematical Union\u003C\/a\u003E.\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EOur former colleague Subhash Khot, now at the Courant Institute of New York University, was awarded the Nevanlinna prize during the opening ceremony of the 2014 International Congress of Mathematicians.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Our former colleague Subhash Khot, now at the Courant Institute of New York University, was awarded the Nevanlinna prize."}],"uid":"27255","created_gmt":"2014-11-26 17:19:13","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:17:37","author":"Josie Giles","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2014-11-26T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2014-11-26T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"related_links":[{"url":"http:\/\/arc.gatech.edu\/","title":"Algorithms \u0026 Randomness Center"}],"groups":[{"id":"50875","name":"School of Computer Science"}],"categories":[{"id":"153","name":"Computer Science\/Information Technology and Security"}],"keywords":[{"id":"111051","name":"Algorithm and Randomness Center"},{"id":"4265","name":"ARC"},{"id":"111131","name":"Nevanlinna prize"},{"id":"171393","name":"Subhash Khot"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EDani Denton\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:denton@cc.gatech.edu\u0022\u003Edenton@cc.gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"342821":{"#nid":"342821","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Georgia Tech Researchers Discover Breakthrough \u0027Gaussian Cooling\u0027 Algorithm in High Dimension","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EAdvances in computing have enabled researchers to collect massive amounts of data with relative ease but have given them an even greater challenge to analyze those enormous collections of data. A single data point might have numerous features and the effort to examine patterns across a data set can reveal an exploding number of possibilities and relationships, a number that grows \u003Cem\u003Eexponentially \u003C\/em\u003Ewith each dimension.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThese problems have proved nearly intractable, requiring weeks or even months of high performance processing to handle such data sets.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EBut not anymore.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EResearchers at Georgia Tech\u2019s School of Computer Science have discovered an algorithm \u2013 deemed \u201cGaussian Cooling\u201d \u2013 to accurately compute the volume of convex bodies in a matter of minutes using off-the-shelf computers.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWith this randomized algorithm, mathematicians and researchers can estimate the volume of high dimensional objects in real time,\u201d said Santosh Vempala, a professor in the School of Computer Science (SCS) who developed the new algorithm with doctoral candidate, Ben Cousins. \u201cIt can handle bodies in 100 dimensions and greater, using a new, provably correct technique.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe problem of estimating the volume of a set is ancient. It has spawned a stream of mathematical and algorithmic ideas throughout history, starting with the Egyptians and Greeks who developed formulas in only two or three dimensions.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EHowever, in spite of rapid advances in computers and algorithms and intensive study over the past 25 years, sampling and volume computation for high-dimensional sets has evaded a practical and complete solution. Research has resulted in a suite of tools to address parts of the challenge, such as analyzing and manipulating high-dimensional objects, choosing representative samples, and learning useful properties.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWith this latest advance, total volume computation is practical for the first time.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0022Professor Vempala and his student, Ben Cousins, made significant and surprising improvements to take the theoretical algorithm for volume computation to where we can now solve volume problems on today\u0027s computers,\u201d said Lance Fortnow, chair of SCS. \u201cTheir work brings a major tool to the algorithmic arsenal that should have applications across the sciences.\u0022\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe algorithm can be used as a tool for high-dimensional data analysis. Such data involving great numbers of parameters abounds in many fields today, including biology, neuroscience, as well as applied areas such as medical research, which may involve numerous vital statistics across many patients, or in computer security, where the algorithm can be applied to a model of information flow to estimate number of instances where data might leak.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ERavi Kannan, a principal researcher at Microsoft Research India and a member of the first team to create algorithms in this field, calls the latest discovery a \u201ctour de force.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cIt is the culmination of a decades-long effort by leading researchers to develop an efficient algorithm for the problem of estimating the volume of convex sets,\u201d Kannan said. \u201cI foresee many important consequences. Congratulations to Cousins and Vempala on their achievement.\u2019\u2019\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EGeorgia Tech\u2019s researchers have made their algorithm publicly available as a \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.mathworks.com\/matlabcentral\/fileexchange\/43596-volume-computation-of-convex-bodies\u0022\u003EMATLAB implementation\u003C\/a\u003E and report that the method has been downloaded\u0026nbsp; hundreds of times to date. More details of the research and the researchers\u2019 paper are available \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.cc.gatech.edu\/~bcousins\/volume.html\u0022\u003Ehere\u003C\/a\u003E.\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":"","field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"New algorithm provides volume estimations of convex bodies in high dimensions with general computer hardware in real time"}],"uid":"27998","created_gmt":"2014-11-07 11:36:54","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:17:26","author":"Brittany Aiello","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2014-11-08T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2014-11-08T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"346031":{"id":"346031","type":"image","title":"Santosh and Cousins Research News","body":null,"created":"1449245670","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:14:30","changed":"1475895068","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:51:08","alt":"Santosh and Cousins Research News","file":{"fid":"201939","name":"santosh-cousins.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/santosh-cousins_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/santosh-cousins_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":117451,"path_740":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/santosh-cousins_0.jpg?itok=_aS3tT39"}}},"media_ids":["346031"],"groups":[{"id":"47223","name":"College of Computing"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[{"id":"85821","name":"ben cousins"},{"id":"108931","name":"breakthrough research"},{"id":"108941","name":"gaussian cooling algorithm"},{"id":"114601","name":"Press Release"},{"id":"167405","name":"santosh vempala"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EPhillip Taylor\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ENews \u0026amp; Media Relations Manager\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:ptaylor@cc.gatech.edu\u0022\u003Eptaylor@cc.gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["ptaylor@cc.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}