Text Box: Proceedings of the 
44th Annual

Midwest Instruction
and 
Computing Symposium


April 8 – 9, 2011
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  Department of Computer Information Systems

 

   http://www2.css.edu/mics/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sponsored by our Partners:

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Midwest Instruction and Computing Symposium:

 

The Midwest Instruction and Computing Symposium (MICS) is a regional conference dedicated to providing an educational experience to higher education participants. The conference focuses on integrating computer-based technology into teaching and learning processes of all disciplines, along with incorporating the study of this technology into the curriculum.

 

The Symposium was established in 1967, making it one of the nation’s oldest conferences focusing on computer-related issues at smaller higher education institutions. MICS was formerly known as the Small College Computing Symposium.

 

For more information on the history and goals of MICS, see http://www.micsymposium.org.

 

Keynote:

 

Andrew ElofsonAndrew Elofson

Founder of PCs for People

 

 

 

PCs for People was formed in 1998 when Andy Elofson, a Blue Earth County social worker, arranged a donation for a local teen that was computerless. In 2001 a relationship/internship program was developed with Minnesota State University - Mankato. Since that time, PCs For People has donated thousands of computers to those who would not otherwise have the opportunity to easily access technology and actually own a computer.

 

PCs for People takes donated computers and rebuilds, refurbishes and redistributes them to people with limited access to technology. PCs for People allows people to give something back to the community and increase their knowledge of computers in doing so. In 2010, PCs for People was awarded a contract to distribute 1,000 computers to low income families throughout the state of Minnesota.

 

 


 

Technical Session I       DECC 12:30 PM – 2:00 PM

 

Topic                                    Harbor Side Convention Center – Room 302   Chair: Paul Wagner

12:30 PM

Nifty Assignments: A Team & Project Oriented Undergraduate Computer Graphics Course

Ronald Marsh

1:00 PM

Nifty Assignment: Ethics in Artificial Intelligence using Robot-based Movies

Kristine Peters

 

 

 

 

Topic                                    Harbor Side Convention Center – Room 202  Chair: Karen Arlien

12:30 PM

Overtime Effects on Project Team Effectiveness

Brandon Olson,
David Swenson

1:00 PM

Mobile Augmented Reality for Grocery Shopping

Monica Thompson, Daniel Stevenson

1:30 PM

A Comparative Analysis to Validate the Benefits of Formal Versus Informal Software Model Transformation

Kaden Daley,
Emanuel Grant

 

Topic                                    Harbor Side Convention Center – Room 203 Chair: Joseph Clifton

12:30 PM

Developing Computational Thinking Skills across the Undergraduate Curriculum

Christopher Kuster,
John Symms, Christopher May, Chenglie Hu

1:00 PM

A modular approach to teaching parallelism at all levels of CS curricula

Richard Brown, Elizabeth Shoop

1:30 PM

Introductory Programming using Processing

Mark Meysenburg

 

Topic                                    Harbor Side Convention Center – Room 204              Chair: Elena Machkasova

12:30 PM

A Mobile World Wide Web Focused Search Engine Using Implicit Feedback

Malvika Pimple,
Wen-Chen Hu

1:00 PM

Security Policy Concerns in a Virtualized Host/Network Environment

Dennis Guster,
Olivia Lee,
Dustin Rogers

1:30 PM

Runtime Characteristics of the Quadratic Sieve

Chad Seibert,
Dave Roberts

 

Topic                                    Harbor Side Convention Center – Room 205              Chair: Yi Liu

12:30 PM

A Parallel Depth-first Search Algorithm for Global Optimization Using Interval Analysis

Adam Baldwin, Asai Asaithambi

1:00 PM

Virtualizing Network Traffic To Improve Performance and Security in a Virtualized Production Environment

Corey Hemminger, Smith Martin,
Nicole Gillespie,
Dennis Guster

1:30 PM

Classifying Networks for Network Coding

William Janssen,
Eric Manley


 

Technical Session II     DECC  2:30 PM – 4:00 PM

 

Topic                                    Harbor Side Convention Center – Room 302       Chair: Noel Petit

2:30 PM

Trends in Computer Science Laboratories

Stuart Hansen,

3:00 PM

 

Paul Wagner,

3:30 PM

 

Kent Lee,
Terrence Mason

 


Topic                                    Harbor Side Convention Center – Room 202          Chair: Qi Yang

2:30 PM

Using the Wiimote in Computer Graphics Projects

Joseph Clifton

3:00 PM

Teaching Map-reduce Parallel Computing in CS1

Richard Brown, Elizabeth Shoop,
Patrick Garrity,
Timothy Yates

3:30 PM

Introducing Software Engineering to the Freshman Student

Yi Liu, Wei Wang, Onyeka Ezenwoye

 

Topic                                    Harbor Side Convention Center – Room 203    Chair: Cate Sheller

2:30 PM

Helping Bridge the Digital Divide: Solutions for Technological Deprivation, Affordable Connectivity and Acquiring Needed Computer Skills

Scott Jones

3:00 PM

Video Game Education

Brian Flannery

3:30 PM

Animation Techniques: A comparison

Narda Hamilton,
Ronald Marsh

 

Topic                                    Harbor Side Convention Center – Room 204     Chair: Mike Rowe

2:30 PM

On Clustering in the Subset Sum Problem

Thomas O'Neil

3:00 PM

Item Retention Improvements to Dropsort,
a Lossy Sorting Algorithm

Abram Jackson,
Ryan Mcculloch

3:30 PM

Improving error messages in the Clojure programming language

Brian Goslinga,
Eugene Butler,
Elena Machkasova

 

Topic                                    Harbor Side Convention Center – Room 205 Chair: Andrew Anda

2:30 PM

Intelligent GPS Systems

Chad Seibert, Peh Ng

3:00 PM

Optimization of Job Efficiency in a Heterogeneous and Distributed Beowulf Cluster through Node and Job Analysis

Robert Foertsch,
Matti Kariluoma,
Brian M. Slator

3:30 PM

Principles for the Exploration and Construction
of Reactive Swarm Systems

Karl Altenburg

 


 

Technical Session III          CSS    8:30 AM – 10:00 AM

 

Topic                                                            Tower 2607                            Chair: Terry Mason

8:30 AM

Nifty Assignment: Parallelism in a Data Structures course using Java threads and concurrent data structures

Elizabeth Shoop,
Shilad Sen,
Richard Brown

9:00 AM

Nifty Assignment: A Rigorous Course Sequence Based on VB.NET

Qi Yang

9:30 AM

Nifty Assignment: iOS 3D Game Development using Unity3

Kuravi Hewawasam

 

Topic                                                            Tower 2611                              Chair: Imad Rahal

8:30 AM

Using Python, Django and MySQL in a Database Course

Thomas Gendreau

9:00 AM

Enabling Group Work: Developing an Automated Evaluation System that Collects, Manages, and Analyzes Student Performance Data

Shaun Lynch

9:30 AM

Computer Science: Teaching Methods - Artificial Intelligence in Gaming

Shinjini Kar

 

Topic                                                            Tower 3121                     Chair: Kenneth Grenier

8:30 AM

Playing a Virtual Musical Instrument

Matthew Stangel,
Dan Torgerson,
Mike Rowe

9:00 AM

Google Earth Visualization of Magnetometer Data

Brian Love, Noel Petit

9:30 AM

LandscapeEC: Adding Geographical Structure to Cellular Evolutionary Algorithms

Lucas Ellgren,
Nicholas Mcphee

 

Topic                                                            Tower 3150                               Chair: Ron Marsh

8:30 AM

Can You Trust Your JVM Diagnostics?

Isaac Sjoblom,
Tim S. Snyder,
Elena Machkasova

9:00 AM

Browsing Mobile World Wide Web by Using Intelligent Web Recommendations

Anupam Thakur,
Wen-Chen Hu

9:30 AM

Using An Enhanced Dictionary to Facilitate Auditing Techniques Related to Brute Force SSH and FTP Attacks

Ryan Mcdougall,
Nicole Gillespie,
Dennis Guster


 

Technical Session IV          CSS   10:30 AM – 12:00 PM

 

Topic                                                            Tower 2607                              Chair: Stu Hansen

10:30 AM

Nifty assignment:  Introducing issues in concurrency using the Manycore Testing Lab

Richard Brown, Elizabeth Shoop

11:00 AM

Nifty Assignment: OS Project for Today's Student

James Jones

11:30 AM

Nifty Assignment: An insightful empirical comparison of sorting algorithms

Elena Machkasova

 

Topic                                                            Tower 2611                             Chair: Nic McPhee

10:30 AM

Teaching in China, Teaching Chinese Students in the U. S.

Curt Hill

11:00 AM

Comparison of Online Tools That Can Be Used to Enhance CS1 Distance Learning

Mark Hall

11:30 AM

 

 

 

Topic                                                            Tower 3121                        Chair: Karl Altenburg

10:30 AM

Noise and Erosion Algorithms for use in Procedurally Generated Content

Travis Archer

11:00 AM

Comparing Quantum Random Number Generators to Traditional Pseudo-Random Number Generators for Effective Key Generation

Dustin Rogers,
Joseph Mbari

11:30 AM

Implementing a Distributed Key Algorithm to Enhance Confidentiality and Provide Fault Tolerance

Isaac Rego,
Nicole Gillespie,
Dennis Guster

 

Topic                                                            Tower 3150                        Chair: Jennifer Rosato

10:30 AM

A Web-based Testing Tool

Yaozhong Li,
Bohong Zhou,
Bian Wu, Mao Zheng, Tom Gendreau

11:00 AM

Verification & Validation of Object-Oriented Functional Design using Formal Specification Techniques

Vanessa Jackson

11:30 AM

Lock-Free Algorithms for Thread-Safe Programming

Patrick Garrity