DIMACS 1997-1999 Special Year on Massive Data Sets: Call for Participation

The emergence of the computer as an essential tool in scientific research and as an essential ingredient in commercial systems has led to the emergence of massive amounts of data of critical importance for a broad variety of applications, including (but certainly not limited to) astrophysical models, genetic sequencing, geographic information systems, ecological models, weather prediction, telecommunications applications, commercial digital video and audio, digital libraries, government information systems, and biological models for medical applications.

Researchers in all of these applications currently face amounts of data in the terabyte range (with data sets in the petabyte range possible in the foreseeable future) and face daunting computational problems in organizing and extracting useful information from these massive data sets.

This special year will seek to stimulate new research on addressing these problems. Our goals are to:

Learn common properties among diverse applications and identify fundamental computational problems that transcend particular applications;
Relate these to core problems in computer science and discrete mathematics;
Discover fundamental limitations on performance;
Develop and analyze new practical algorithms;
Establish partnerships with researchers in other areas, with the goal of developing solutions for specific scientific and commercial problems.
Opportunities for short- and long-term visits will be available, including full sabbaticals. Applications for postdoctoral fellowship positions for 1997-98 will be solicited in the fall of 1996. The special year is in the early planning stages, and numerous opportunities are available for participation. Ideas for special-year workshop topics and volunteers for organizing workshops are particularly solicited.

Anyone interested in participating in special year activities is invited to send mail to:

Robert Sedgewick
Chair of DIMACS Special Year on Massive Data Sets
Department of Computer Science
Princeton University
Princeton, NJ 08540
rs@cs.princeton.edu
The Special Year program is made possible by long term funding from the National Science Foundation, the New Jersey Commission on Science and Technology and DIMACS' university and industry partners.
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Document last modified on October 30, 1998.