31st August 2011 , 0800 - 1700 hours
Workshop Title
Social Life Networks: The Next Generation of Social Networks
| Prof. Ramesh Jain, Prof. Athula Ginige, Prof. Genny Tortora & Prof. Giuliana Vitiello |
Synopsis
Social networks have revolutionised communication and connectivity among people. By using the enormous reach of mobile phones equipped with myriads of sensors, the next generation of social networks can be designed to further connect people with essential life resources. We call these Social Life Networks. These will have applicability beyond a social setting into education, business, healthcare, agriculture, fisheries, banking etc. A user equipped with a mobile phone can use it to access information as well as to upload new information. Similar empowerment enabled by Web 2.0 technologies was a major contributor for rapid growth of social networks. Today use of mobile phones for micro blogging using applications such as Twitter is getting increasingly popular. These user generated micro blogs on its own may not provide much useful information. But once these micro blogs are aggregated in a meaningful way these can become a very rich source of information. This aggregated user generated content will be a key information resource in Social Life Networks. This workshop will provide an introduction to Social Life Networks, various application scenarios and how these networks can be developed on top of Social Networks and micro blogging applications such as Tweeter. We will also discuss a potential reference architecture for Social Life Networks, emerging approaches for aggregating micro information and situation detection, and challenges and solutions in developing user interfaces for these applications to run on mobile devices due to limited screen size and power.
31st August 2011 , 0800 - 1700 hours
Workshop Title
Digital and Mobile Phone Forensics
| Dr. Abhaya Induruwa |
Synopsis
This workshop is aimed at introducing the state-of-the-art in digital and mobile phone forensics. After a brief introduction to digital computers the attendees will be introduced to extracting evidence from digital storage devices in a forensically sound manner. The workshop will then discuss the important role played by mobile phone forensics in criminal or civil investigation. The increasing complexity of mobile phones and the capabilities of smartphones which, in some respects, outperform digital computers will be discussed. The forensic investigation of mobile phones will be demonstrated using some of the well known industry standard commercial tools used by forensic investigators worldwide. The interrogation of mobile devices using cable, wireless and Bluetooth connections will be discussed. It is expected to demonstrate the use of tools such as EnCase from Guidance Software, XRY/XACT from MicroSystemation, RTL (Radio Tactics Ltd), Oxygen Forensic tools, etc.
31st August 2011 , 0800 - 1700 hours
Workshop Title
Running a High-Performance Website with Apache and NGiNX
| Dr. Ajanatha Atukorala & Mr. Buddhika Siddhisena |
Synopsis
The need to scale is in high demand in an age where everything is moving to the cloud. Though the standard Apache configuration could handle a website with moderate traffic, the minute it gets slash dotted or twitted multiple times could spell an embarrassing crash landing! If you are the administrator of such a website then good luck finding another job! On the other hand you value high availability in the midst of popularity then read on.
On this one day workshop, we will show you how to scale your website and webapps to scale to handle thousands of simultaneous sessions the right way. The topics covered will include:
- Setting up Apache and NGiNXM
- Setting up a sample LAMP web app
- Benchmarking Apache performance
- Fine tuning Apache to improve performance
- Fine tuning NGiNX to improve performance
- Fine tuning of OS (Linux) to further squeeze performance using Kernel/Disk/Schedular optimizations
- Discussion about code level improvements when developing custom webapps using PHP
The workshop will include practical sessions and it is expected you have 1+ years of system admin in Linux / Unix.
03rd September 2011 , 0800 - 1200
Workshop Title
Biometrics Authentication
| Prof. Daving Zhang |
Synopsis
In recent times, an increasing, worldwide effort has been devoted to the development of automatic personal identification systems that can be effective in a wide variety of security contexts. As one of the most powerful and reliable means of personal authentication, biometrics has been an area of particular interest. This presentation will explain some fundamental concepts related to biometrics authentication, like why & what about biometrics, and how to evaluate & design a biometrics system, and so on. Many typical examples are also provided.
03rd September 2011 , 0800 - 1200
Workshop Title
Virtual and Augmented Environments supporting Collaborative Learning and Work
| Prof. Genny Tortora |
Synopsis
The next generation of telecommunication environments probably will provide an ideal virtual space with a certain amount of reality, essential for information sharing and communication. The objective of this talk is to examine these perspectives, considering "mixed reality" environments. Mixed Reality is "... anywhere between the extrema of the virtuality continuum", that is the real environment and the virtual environment. In the virtual environment, the participant is totally immersed in, and able to interact with a synthetic world. Virtual Worlds are characterized by collaborative and community-related aspects and provide significant transaction-based commercial opportunities. In "Mixed Reality" environments physical and virtual objects co-exist in the same computer-based environment. In particular, Augmented Reality environments present real world and virtual world objects together within a single display. In this way, it is possible to see information in the context. The availability of high-resolution digital cameras, displays, graphical capabilities and broadband connectivity on mobile devices let Augmented Reality applications go into the context of people's every-day life. In this talk, I will discuss the main advances in the field, including lessons learned and the prototypes developed exploiting these technologies to support collaborative learning and work, future trends and challenges.
03rd September 2011 , 1300 - 1700
Workshop Title
Addressing the Five W's of Interaction Design - Ethnographic Studies and Scenario-based Approaches
| Prof. Giuliana Vitiello |
Synopsis
Ethnographic studies and scenario-based approaches are key strategies for the design of interactive applications, which the users will be encouraged to adopt. In this workshop I will discuss how ethnographic studies help interface designers better fit the user's needs viewing the system through the eyes of the expected end-user. I will summarize successful scenario-based design approaches and emphasize the role of scenarios in keeping design choices tightly related to user's requirements throughout the development cycle.
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| IEEE Sri Lanka Section | University of Colombo School of Computing | IEEE Computer Society Sri Lanka Chapter |
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| IFS Silver Sponsor | MillenniumIT Gold Sponsor | Cambio & CodeGen Bronze Sponsors |
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| NSF Sponsor | ||








