CGL Meeting Agenda

Wednesday, January 7, 1998


Location:
DC1304
Time:
1:30
Chair:
Ian Stewart

1. Adoption of the Agenda - additions or deletions

2. Coffee Hour

Coffee hour this week:
??
Coffee hour next week:
??

3. Next meeting

Date:
Wednesday, January 14, 1998
Location:
DC1304
Time:
1:30
Chair:
Teresa Yeung (switched with Clara Tsang)
Technical presentation:
Faramarz Samavati

4. Forthcoming

Chairs:
  1. Ion Vasilian (21st)
  2. Tali Zvi (28th)
  3. Balasingham Balakumaran (Feb 4th)
Tech Presenters:
  1. Ian Stewart (21st)
  2. Tali Zvi (28th) (switched with Teresa)
  3. Teresa Yeung (Feb 4th) (switched with Tali)

5. Technical Presentations

Presenter:
Navid Sadikali
Title:
On the Real - Take 2
Abstract:
In a previous talk, I made some observations about the idea of "realism" in computer graphics. The crux of the talk was that much of what we do in CG is supported by a tenuos set of terms that fails subjective. Finding a standard from which we can validate our work was found to be next to impossible. In this talk, I wish to examine concept of realism from the perspective of art history. I shall try to demonstrate that artists have never looked at the goal of depiction as the quest for matching the real world. Rather, a realistic image is one that has the potential capacity to evoke the real scene. The distinction between these two ideas will be made clear.

6. General Discussion Items

7. Action List

8. Director's Meeting

9. Seminars

THEORY SEMINAR - Wednesday, January 7, 1998 --> TODAY

C. K. Poon, City University of Hong Kong, will speak on ``A Parallel Algorithm for Finding a Minimum Spanning Forest''. TIME: 3:30-4:30 p.m. ROOM: DC 1304 ABSTRACT Finding a minimum spanning forest of a given graph is one of the most well studied problems in computer science. In this talk, we present a randomized EREW PRAM algorithm to find a minimum spanning forest in a weighted undirected graph. On an n-vertex graph the algorithm runs in 1+epsilon o((log n) ) expected time for any epsilon >0 and performs linear expected work. This is the first linear work, polylog time algorithm on the EREW PRAM for this problem. This also gives parallel algorithms that perform expected linear work on two more realistic models of parallel computation, the QSM and the BSP. Joint work with Prof. Vijaya Ramachandran (U of Texas at Austin) Biography: Dr. C.K. Poon obtained his Ph.D. in U of Toronto in 1995. Then he was at U of Texas at Austin as a postdoctoral fellow for a year before joining the City U of Hong Kong as a Research Assistant Professor. His major research interest is in computational complexity, data structures and algorithms. ------------------------------------------------------

THEORY SEMINAR - Wednesday, January 14, 1998

John Tromp, CWI, Amsterdam, will speak on ``Mutual Search''. TIME: 3:30-4:30 p.m. ROOM: DC 1304 ABSTRACT We define a new type of search problem called ``mutual search'', where k players arbitrarily spread over n nodes are required to locate each other by sending ``Anybody at node i?'' query messages (for example processes in a computer network). If the messages are not delivered in the order they were sent (for example when the communication delay time is arbitrary) then two players require at least n-1 messages. In an asynchronous network, where the messages are delivered in the order they were sent, 0.88n messages suffice. In a synchronous network 0.586n messages suffice and 0.536n messages are required in the worst case. We exhibit a simple randomized algorithm with expected worst-case cost of 0.5n messages, and a deterministic algorithm for k >= 2 players with a cost well below n for all k=o(sqrt n ). The graph-theoretic framework we formulate for expressing and analyzing algorithms for this problem may be of independent interest. ------------------------------------------------------

10. Lab Cleanup