Title: Department of Computer Science Seminar
Date:  Thursday, March 2, 2000
Time: 4:00pm to 5:00 pm
Venue: Room N101, CSIT Building [108]
Speaker: Dr Lakshmi Narasimhan (DSTO, SA)
Description: "INFORMATION MANAGEMENT AND EXPLOITATION 
TOWARDS KNOWLEDGE AND INTELLIGENCE"


Abstract:
Anecdotal studies indicate that computer accessible information in the
world is currently doubling at the rate of every 180 days, 
but by the year 2010, information doubling will occur every 50 days. 
It will therefore become impossible for humans to collect, 
navigate, comprehend and analyse information manually and 
automated technologies will soon become the norm.
Fundamental issues in information systems include: 
volume, heterogeneity (e.g., numeric, non-numeric, 2D, 3D), 
mode (e.g., multimodel, multimedia and geospatial),  
nature (e.g., off-line, realtime, mission critical), 
language (e.g., lingua, context), and culture 
(e.g., meaning and use of information and 
therefore their relative relevance). 
On the other hand, operational issues such as, 
storage, management, retrieval, linking, security, 
effectiveness and efficiency of use of information systems 
play vital roles in the performance and quality of service 
provided to both individuals and organisations.  
What components therefore constitute to making information, 
knowledge and intelligence are therefore difficult to fathom.
In this seminar some of the fundamental and operational issues 
will be described and illustrated through few case studies 
where I have been involved in terms of research, 
design, development and analysis.  
Examples will be drawn briefly from the areas of computer
architecture, performance modelling and measurement, 
test data generation for large software systems, 
fact extraction system, speech processing system 
and geospatial data management system.  
In addition, issues in data fusion and their relevance to 
information management will also be included, where required.
Issues in software engineering (a la OO paradigm), visualisation, 
pattern engineering, interoperability and composability 
form the technical foundations to total information management 
and exploitation for the future.  
The proposed visionary statement has a strong underpinning 
based on these areas, but will also allude to the moral dilemma 
between ethical issues and human ambitions.
The works reported are based on CORBA and Java/C++, 
but other technologies such as HLA and COM+ also have 
relevance and significance to information management.

Biography: 
Lakshmi Narasimhan received Bachelor's degrees in Physics and 
Electronics Engineering from the University of Madras 
and Indian Institute of Science respectively 
and a Master's degree in Computer Science 
from the Madras Institute of Technology.  
He received a PhD in the area of distributed computing 
from the University of Queensland, where he worked as a postdoctoral
fellow, lecturer and later as a Senior Lecturer.  
Currently he works for the Defence Science and Technology Organisation
(DSTO) as Principal Research Scientist and heads a program on
Information  Management and Fusion.  
Lakshmi also has a graduate certificate in Scientific Leadership 
from the University of South Australia, 
where he is an Adjunct Professor 
in the Department of Computer Information Science.
Lakshmi has research interests and publications in the areas of
computer architecture (sequential, parallel and distributed systems),
performance measurement and metamodelling, distributed operating
systems, software engineering (OO paradigm and testing), systems
engineering (interoperability and composability) and datafusion
technologies.  Lakshmi has also supervised a number of graduate
students on these areas.


URL: http://cs.anu.edu.au/lib/seminars/seminars00/dept20000302b