Pervasive Infrastructure Sensor Networks
The CMU Pervasive Critter Sensor is now officially "patent pending". It is also a popular news piece as it has been featured on the local ABC and CBS news. There are also a ton of Internet news sites that have articles about the Critter. Google "CMU Critter" for a bunch. Our favorite is the article from Brazil.
A follow-on to our sensor data set from June 2003, we have temperature sensor data from sensors deployed in 15 locations around Hamburg Hall for the entire 2004 Spring semester and still growing. These include the 7 sensors in the Reliable Systems Laboratory with others in graduate student, faculty, and staff offices.
Another sensor network system device has been added to the Critter collection. The Jellyfish was designed by the students in 39-606 as a means to fully customize a room-based sensor system. The jfish is set up to consolidate readings from 30+ sensors that can be attached in different configurations for temperature, light, occupancy, water, humidity, etc. This project was sponsored by Microsoft Corporation.
The Sensor Networks class 39-650 will be offered again in the Fall of 2004.
Programming Reliable Systems
Why do systems fail? We have added the FlakyDisk too to our line of FlakyPOSIX and FlakyPalm exception injection tools. Is it just the lack of consistant error reporting? What about the unwritten semantic guarantees? The FlakyIO tools are for engineers to understand the ways software does not handle exceptions. The software tools are available (remember this is research code) to industrial partners.
What does "Illegal L-value" mean? As it turns out all compiler error messages are not the same. For engineers who are not compiler experts the reporting can be misleading. This causes misinterpretation or delays in solving the problem. The student in CS1621 did a survey of compiler error messages for common and uncommon problems. This goes back to our belief that you should have a few compilers at your disposal to help debug your programs.
Code reviews are a tedious yet necessary activity. This is especially important when the software developers are geographically distant in another state or another country. The PARIS project has developed a tool to produce a report that outlines the characteristics of a program that can be used to help drive code understanding. It helps to report what a human might overlook.
Engineering Knowledge Management
The Knowledge Management Forum was held in October as a one day workshop held at Carnegie Mellon. Proceedings are available to interested industry personnel.
An assessment of Knowledge Management was performed. A major problem facing companies is the retaining of knowledge when employees leave or retire. The project surveyed companies to identify the current state of knowledge management practices. The biggest problem that we uncovered is that most companies are not taking advantage of already existing KM infrastructure (email, instant messaging, intranet). This project is sponsored by the Center for eBusiness and Advanced Technlogy.