James Abello
abello
at dimacs dot rutgers dot edu, abelloj at optonline dot net
(ninezeroeight) threefourtwo onefivezeroeight
· Computer Science
President's Post Doctoral Fellow -
· Ph.D.
Specialization
in Combinatorial Algorithms,
Supervised by Professor Stanley Gill Williamson.
·
Specialization
in Operating Systems,
Supervised by Professor John Bruno.
· Current areas of research center on External Memory Algorithms, Data Graph Mining, Relational Learning and Visualization of Massive Data Sets. Typical examples of data we have dealt with include information networks like The Web, Query co-occurrence, Internet, Wireless Call Detail and Epidemiological data. Our research has been funded mainly by NSF, DHS, USDA and LLNL.
· Previous research focus included Computational Geometry, Combinatorics and Complexity, Algorithm Animation and some applications in Petroleum Engineering and Biology.
· Industrial
o Senior Research Scientist, Ask.com, 2004 – 2007.
o
Senior Member of Technical Staff, AT&T Labs, and
·
Academic
o DIMACS, Rutgers University
Research Professor 2006 – present; Research Associate 2002-present.
o
Computer Science Department,
Research Associate Professor, 1994-1995;
Director of the Laboratory for Algorithms Design, 1990-1994;
Assistant Professor, 1988-1993;
Supervised 1 Ph.D. Dissertation and 7 Master Theses.
o Computer
Science and Mathematics Departments -
· Administrative
o Leader
of the Universal Information Graphs Project at DyDAn
(A newly founded multi million DHS center of excellence at
o Organizer of the DyDAn Seminar series, 2007.
o Organizer of DIMACS Computational and Mathematics Epidemiology Seminar series, 2006-2007.
o Program
Co-Chair (with G. Cormode) of DIMACS Tutorial
on Data Mining and Epidemiology,
o Program Chair of the First DIMACS Workshop
on Data
Mining and Epidemiology,
o Conceived, Designed and made operational a software platform for Query Relevance Algorithms Research. Interviewed, hired and supervised the required technical personal, Ask.com, 2004-2006.
o Member of the Editorial Board of the Journal on Discrete Algorithms, Elsevier Publishers, 2002-present.
o Program
Chair of the First AT&T Visualization Days,
o Program
Co-Chair (with J. Vitter) of the First DIMACS Workshop on External
Memory Algorithms and Visualization,
o Co-Editor of the Massive Computing Series, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1998-present.
o Associate
Managing Editor of the Journal on Computing and Information,
o Algorithms Group Leader. In charge of recruiting, interviewing, evaluating and recommending faculty candidates. Founder and director of the Laboratory for Algorithms Design, Texas A&M University, 1990-1994.
Conceived, designed and supervised the
software projects listed below. Responsibilities included proposal writing,
identification of necessary skills for involved personal, hiring, supervision,
preparation of periodic progress reports, testing, evaluation, deployment and
publication of associated research papers.
·
An External Memory Algorithms Platform (on going project).
The goal is to provide the basis for a system to "mine" dynamic
weighted graphs with several billion edges. This platform has been built as the
initial infrastructure for the “Universal Information Graphs project” which is
being conducted at DyDAn – the new funded DHS center
of excellence at
o
Hierarchical Graph Views. A C/C++ library to compute nested partitions of semi-external graphs.
It incorporates a variety of recursive graph
partitioning and Markov clustering methods
(in
cooperation with Roman Dementiev and Ali E. Qursh ).
o Graph-Zoom. A Unix/Windows prototype to navigate large graphs. It is based on a hierarchy of spanning trees. It incorporates a rectangular Fish-Eye view technique to provide focus within context. It uses our own circular layout of graph hierarchies (in cooperation with J. Korn and M. Kreuseler).
o MGV. Uses semi-external memory algorithms to build hierarchical partitions of weighted multi-digraphs. These partitions are mapped to the screen. They provide a virtual geography for the input stream. This virtual geography is used to guide the exploration of the data set. MGV follows the client-server paradigm and it is implemented in C and Java 3D. (In cooperation with J. Korn. US patent 6781599).
o Quasi-Clique Extractor.
Extracts subgraphs with density above certain
pre-specified threshold (quasi-cliques) and uses these subgraphs
as seeds to partition the vertex set(in cooperation
with
· X-AGE: An Animated Graph Environment. This is an interactive system for algorithms teaching and research; Texas A&M University, 1991-1994;
· SEDS: A Simple Experimental Distributed System. It provides a single machine, multiple user environment for an experimental distributed function-base; Computer Science Department and Center for Robotics Systems, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, 1987;
· J. Abello, G. Cormode (eds.), Discrete Methods in Epidemiology, Vol. 70 of DIMACS, AMS, May 2006.
· J. Abello, P. Pardalos, M. Resende (eds.), Handbook of Massive Data Sets , Vol. 3 of the Kluwer Series on Massive Computing, 2002.
· J. Abello, J. Vitter (eds.), External Memory Algorithms, Vol. 50 of the AMS-DIMACS Series in Discrete Mathematics and Theoretical Computer Science, 1999.
· DIMACS
Permanent Member,
· First
Prize Paper/Poster Award(with M. Veach),
ACM National Conference,
· Fellow
of the
·
· Post
Doctoral Visitor: IMA (
· University of California President's Post-Doctoral Fellow, 1986-1987;
· General
Dynamics Scholarship,
· Outstanding
Teaching Award,
· Hierarchical
Graph Maps, IPAM Workshop on Multi Resolution Analysis, UCLA September
2008.
· Massive
Graph Mining, Computer Science Departments,
· The Majority Rule and Combinatorial Geometry (via the Symmetric Group), Annales du Lamsade, Paris, 2004.
· Workshop
on Algorithms and Models for the Web-Graph, FOCS (
· Massive Multi-Digraphs.
Plenary Speaker at the Australian Conference in Optimization and Industry (
· LLNL
o Graph
Fusion in External Memory, $100,000, DIMACS –
· DHS
o
Leader of the Universal Information Graphs Project. A
project of DyDAn - the newly created
· NSF
o
Data Structures for Giga-Visualization(with A. Efrat
and
o Hashing for Massively Parallel Computation(with A. Chin), $31,804, 1994;
o Combinatorial Aspects of Point Visibility, $32,358, 1993;
o
Complexity of Restricted
· USDA
o A Decision Making System for Prioritization in Salmonella Control, $30,000, 1994;
· EDUCATIONAL GRANTS
o
An Honors Upper Division Sequence in Computer Science,
o Instructional Development Grants, UCSB and UCSD, 1984 and 1985;
ACM, AMS, EACTS,
· In Progress
[ATS08] J.
Abello, C. Tominski, H. Schumann, "CGV: An
Interactive Graph Visualization System”, Submitted to Computer and Graphics.
[AC07] J. Abello and M. Capalbo, "Finding Max Cliques in Power Law Graphs with high Clustering Coefficients", Submitted to Internet Mathematics.
[AD07] J. Abello and R. Dementiev, "Semi-External Induced Subgraphs", under review.
[ADQ08] J. Abello, R. Dementiev and A. E. Qursh, "HGV: A C/C++ library to generate Hierarchical Graph Views", in preparation.
[AC08] J. Abello and J. Chen, "Classifying between ports Shipment Contents ", in preparation.
· Massive Data Sets
[ACF06] J. Abello, G. Cormode, D. Fradkin, D. Madigan, O. Melnik and I. Muchnik, "Selected Data Mining Concepts, In Discrete Methods in Epidemiology", vol. 70 of the AMS-DIMACS Series, Co-edited by J. Abello and G. Cormode, pp 1- 40, 2006.
[AP06] J. Abello and A. Pogel, "Graph Partitions and Concept Lattices", In Discrete Methods in Epidemiology, vol. 70 of the AMS-DIMACS Series, Co-edited by J. Abello and G. Cormode, pp 115 - 138, 2006.
[AC06] J. Abello and M. Capalbo, "Random Graphs (and the Spread of Infections in a Social Network)", In Discrete Methods in Epidemiology, Vol. 70 of the AMS-DIMACS Series, Co-edited by J. Abello and G. Cormode, pp 115 - 138, 2006.
[A04A] J. Abello, "Hierarchical Graph Maps", Computers & Graphics 28(3): 345-359 (2004).
[AP04] J. Abello, Alex J. Pogel, Lance Miller, "Breadth First Search Graph Partitions and Concept Lattices", J. UCS 10(8): 934 -954 (2004).
[AH04] J. Abello and Frank van Ham, "Matrix Zoom: A Visual Interface to Semi-External Graphs", IEEE InfoVis Proceedings, pp 183 – 190, 2004.
[AK03] J. Abello, Yannis Kotidis, "Hierarchical Graph Indexing", CIKM 2003: 453-460.
[AB02] J. Abello, Adam L. Buchsbaum, Jeffery Westbrook, "A Functional Approach to External Graph Algorithms" , Algorithmica 32(3): 437-458 (2002).
[AK02] J. Abello, J. Korn, "MGV: A System for Visualizing Massive Multidigraphs" , IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, Vol. 8, No 1, January-March 2002.
[SA02] J. F. Sibeyn, J. Abello, U. Meyer, "Heuristics for Semi-External Depth First Search on Directed Graphs", ACM Symposium on Parallel Algorithms and Architectures, SPAA 2002: 282-292.
[AR02] J. Abello, M. Resende, and S. Sudarsky, "Massive Quasi-Clique Detection" In Proceedings of Latinoamerican Informatics, May 2002, Springer Verlag LNCS.
[AP99] J. Abello, P. Pardalos, M. Resende, "On Very Large Maximum Clique Problems”, in External Memory Algorithms, (J. Abello and J. Vitter, Editors), AMS-DIMACS Series in Discrete Mathematics and Theoretical Computer Science, Vol. 50, pp 119-130, 1999.
· Visualization
[AGST07] J. Abello, B. Gaudin,
H. Schulz and C. Tominski, "Name That
Cluster", IEEE Information Visualization Symposium,
[AH06] J. Abello, F. van Ham, and N. Krishnan, "Ask-GraphView-: A Large Scale Graph Visualization System", IEEE Transactions in Visualization and Computer Graphics, 12(5): 669-676 (2006)
[TA06] C. Tominski, J. Abello, F. van Ham, and H. Schumann, "Fisheye Tree Views and Lenses for Graph Visualization", In Proceedings of the Conference on Information Visualization, IV 2006, London, July 05 – 07, pp 17-25, 2006.
[AK04] J.
Abello,
[TA04] C. Tominski, James Abello and Heidrun Schumann: "Axes-based visualizations with radial layouts", Proceedings of the 19th ACM Symposium on Applied Computing, Nicosia, Cyprus, March 14-17, SAC 2004: 1242-1247.
[AS03] J. Abello, H. Schumann, C. Tominski, "Axes Based Visualizations for Time Series Data" , in IEEE InfoVis Poster Proceedings, Seattle, October 19-24, 2003
[AKK02] J. Abello, J. Korn, and M. Kreuseler, "Navigating Giga-Graphs" , In ACM Proceedings of Advanced Visualization Interfaces (AVI), pp 290-299, Trento, Italy, 2002.
[AF01] J. Abello, I. Finocchi, and J. Korn, "Graph Sketches", In IEEE InfoVis Proceedings, pp 67-71, San Diego, Ca, October 2001.
[AK00] J. Abello, J. Korn, "Visualizing Massive Multi-Digraphs", In IEEE InfoVis Proceedings, pp 39-48, Salk Lake City, Utah, October 2000.
[AK99] J. Abello, S. Krishnan, "Navigating Graph Surfaces" , 4th Intl. Congress on Industrial and Applied Mathematics (ICIAM), Edinburg, July 1999; Approximation and Complexity in Numerical Optimization: Continuous and Discrete Problems, (P. M. Pardalos, editor), Kluwer Academic Publishers, pp. 1-12, 1999.
[AKG99] J. Abello, E. Koutsofios, E. Gansner and S. North, "Large-Scale Network Visualization" , Computer Graphics, SIGGRAPH Newsletter, Vol. 33, Number 3, August 1999, pp. 13-15.
[AS94] J. Abello, C. Smith, "An Interpreted Algorithm Animation System", Journal on Computing and Information, pp 1569-1588, 1994.
[ASV94] J. Abello, S. Sudarsky, T. Veatch, J. Waller, "AGE: An Animated Graph Environment" , in AMS-DIMACS series in Discrete Mathematics and Theoretical Computer Science, N. Dean and G. Shannon (Eds.), vol. 15, pp 57-69, 1994.
§ Discrete and Computational geometry
[AK02] J. Abello, K. Kumar, "Visibility Graphs and Oriented Matroids", Discrete and Computational Geometry, vol. 28, pp. 449-465, 2002.
[AC98] J. Abello, V. E. Castro, T. Shermer, J. Urrutia, "Illumination of Orthogonal Polygons with Orthogonal Floodlights”, International Journal on Computational Geometry and Applications, vol. 8, No 1, pp 25-38, 1998.
[AG98] J. Abello, E. Gansner, ``Short and Smooth Polygonal Paths'', LNCS vol. 1380, pp 151-162, 1998.
[AE95] J. Abello, O. Egecioglu, K. Kumar, "Visibility Graphs of Staircase Polygons and the Weak Bruhat Order I: From Visibility Graphs to Maximal Chains" , Discrete and Computational Geometry, Vol. 14, No 3, 1995, pp 331-358.
[AK95] J. Abello, K. Kumar, "Visibility Graphs of 2-Spiral Polygons", LNCS vol. 911, pp.1-15, 1995.
[AE93] J. Abello, O. Egecioglu, "Visibility Graphs of Staircase Polygons with Uniform Step Length", Intl. Journal of Computational Geometry and Applications, Vol. 3, No.1, 1993, pp. 27-37.
[AH92] J.
Abello, L. Hua, and
§
Combinatorics, Algorithms and Complexity
[A04B] J. Abello, "The Majority Rule and Combinatorial Geometry (via the Symmetric Group)", Annales Du Lamsade, No. 3, pp 1- 13, October 2004.
[AB01] J. Abello, S. Butenko, P. Pardalos, and M. Resende, "Finding Independent Sets in a Graph Using Continuous Multivariable Polynomial Formulations" , Journal of Global Optimization, Vol. 21, pp. 111-137, 2001.
[AD97] J. Abello, S. Dolev, "On the Computational Power of Self-Stabilizing Systems", Theoretical Computer Science, Vol. 182, No 1-2, pp. 159-170, August 1997.
[AK95] J. Abello and K. Kumar, "On the Complexity of some Synthetic Problems in Computational Geometry”, J. Computing and Information, pp. 92-110, 1995.
[SA95] J. Shawe-Taylor, C. Domingo, H. Bodlaender, J. Abello, "Learning Minor Closed Graph Classes with Membership and Equivalence Queries", NeuroCOLT TRS, NC-TR-94-014, Jan 1995.
[JK94] J.
Abello, V. Kreinovich, H.T. Nguyen, S. Sudarsky, J. Yen, " Computing an Appropriate
Control Strategy Based Only on a Given Plant's Rule-Based Model can be Hard.
(NP-Hard)”, Proceedings of NAFIPS/IFIS/NASA 1994, pp. 331-332,
[AH93] J.
Abello, A. Hoang, and J. Russell,
``A Hierarchy of Pattern Recognition Algorithms for the Diagnosis of Sucker
Rod Pumped Wells'', J. Computing and Information, pp. 359-364, IEEE,
[AK93] J. Abello, K. Kumar, and O. Egecioglu, "A Combinatorial View of Visibility Graphs of Polygons" , IEEE Proceedings of International Conference on Computing and Information, 1993, pp. 87-92.
[AH92] J. Abello, L. Hua, and M. Lu, "An Efficient Parallel Algorithm for the Longest Common Subsequence Problem", LNCS, Springer Verlag, Vol. 4, 1992, pp. 123-130.
[JA91] J.
Abello, "The
Weak Bruhat Order, Consistent Sets and Catalan
Numbers",
[AF91] J. Abello, M. Fellows, J. Stillwell, "On the Complexity and Combinatorics of Covering Finite Complexes", Australasian Journal of Combinatorics, Vol. 4, 1991.
[JA86] J. Abello, "Algorithms for Consistent Sets”, Congressus Numerantium, Vol. 53, pp. 23-38, 1986.
[JA85] J.
Abello, "Intrinsic Limitations of the Majority Rule, an Algorithmic
Approach",
[AJ84] J. Abello, C. Johnson, "How Large are Transitive Simple Majority Domains”, SIAM J. Alg. Disc. Meth., 5(4), pp 603-618, 1984.
· Under Review
[AF] J. Abello and P. Fishburn, "Real vs. Rational Visibility”.
[AC] J. Abello and J. Chen, "Some Results on Graph Emulation”.
Grant Reports
J. Abello, "Decision Tools for Salmonella Control”,
Report to the USDA, TR 94-007, CS Dept,
J. Abello and O. Egecioglu, "Complexity
of Algorithms for Some Restricted
Theses
J. Abello, "A Study of an
J. Abello, "Computability, Logic and Limitations of
the Formal Systems”, MS Thesis,
A possible way to describe the current stage of my career is that of an experimental computer scientist with a solid theoretical foundation. During the past decade I became fascinated by the fundamental questions that have been arising from the exploration of very large data sets, (for us a data set is very large if it does not fit on the available RAM).
A variety of massive data sets exhibit an underlying structure that can be modeled as dynamic weighted multi-digraphs with a collection of edge dependent attributes that are application dependent, (Web Queries Co-occurrence, Internet data and Telecommunications traffic are prime examples).
When a multi-digraph does not fit in RAM many of the classical algorithms break down. Operations that we usually take for granted, like graph traversing, get wretched when they are faced with the I/O bottleneck. Even though cluster of PC's or enough Parallel I/O are currently used to alleviate this problem, the truth of the matter is that these are just temporal solutions. Behind the scenes, there are fundamental computational questions that are reminiscent of the challenges faced by early computing pioneers. From my view point, sequential media is outgrowing random access storage at a speed and cost that makes imperative to approach the problem of massive data sets as a massive distributed network computing problem instead of using variations of Von Newman architectures that are handicapped by their inherent bottlenecks. This is an area with great potential if we can built off the shelf cost effective computing platforms for large data analysis research.
My confidence for pursuing this area comes in part as a result of 10+ years of experience in developing and implementing techniques to process, navigate, analyze and visualize multi-digraphs, arising from the web and the telecommunications industry. The corresponding data sets sizes range from million to several billion edges (please see our contributions to this area in the publication summary). One of the clear messages we have learned is that RAM and processor investments alone are not able to keep up with the data generation ability of the computing and communication devices that are becoming so common in our daily endeavors.
· Data Streams
In light of the previous discussion, another research direction revolves around algorithms and architectures that operate on sets of data streams each of which is accessible only through a small random access window. These architectures shall be flexible enough to be able to incorporate in their processor network special agents that interact with the external world on a semi-continuous fashion. Some of the technological tools necessary for this undertaking include mobile Internet-able devices, a fast local interconnection network, a PC cluster, a basic visualization platform, I/O libraries, languages and system performance tools and web server technology. The theoretical tools with potential applicability are rooted in circuit and communication complexity, random graph theory, combinatorics, game theory, optimization, distributed and succinct data structures, probability, statistics, algebraic topology and dynamical systems. This type of research calls for a highly interdisciplinary team and a large portion of the necessary hardware and software is readily available. There is a plethora of large driven data applications that will benefit from this undertaking. I would like to contribute to the design and development of cost effective hardware/software platforms that facilitate access, navigation, visualization and analysis of “large” data sets.
· Visual Metaphors
Another major topic of my research vision emphasizes the creation of computational efficient visual metaphors for the representation, navigation and analysis of very large data sets. The rational is that these metaphors shall be useful not only for the experimentation stages of some of the research topics described above but they shall also become useful for the analysis of data associated with the organization where the research is undertaken.
· Applied Computational Geometry
Combinatorial Geometry has become a quite relevant tool for some problems in visualization and computer graphics. These include visibility representations of graphs and partially ordered sets; interactive rendering of polygonal terrains and volumetric data sets arising in finance and medicine.
I have been the recipient of several teaching awards at different levels in the educational system. During my undergraduate studies in Mathematics and Physics, I pursued a specialization in Pedagogy.
Arguably, the fast pace of technological and economical developments is causing an erosion on the foundation of several scientific disciplines. Our era offers a golden opportunity for Computer Science, Mathematics, Physics, Engineering, Biology and the Social Sciences to nurture each other in a positive way. There is the need to develop programs that are driven by a hierarchy of interdisciplinary computational challenges that students complete during their education. In the next paragraph, I describe an example of such an approach.
With funds provided by two educational grants, I founded and directed a Laboratory for Algorithms Design. One of its central objectives was to develop educational software to support some classes in the undergraduate curriculum. Unix tools were developed to enhance some fundamental notions that included Turing Machines, Graph Algorithms, the Symmetric Group, Concurrency control and a host of Local Heuristics. A central project in this regard was a client-server system named "AGE: An Animated Graph Environment". It provided the basis of an interactive system for algorithms teaching and student research. In total 43 applications were based on this system. It is worth to point out that all these applications were developed by students that were using AGE as a supporting tool for their classes. This illustrates a possible direction to provide technological training with a solid theoretical backing. I believe that knowledge transfer must be structured conceptually; its delivery fun, amusing and entertaining, and its computational experimentation sound and rigorous.
James Abello has taught Computer Programming, Software Fabrication, Operating Systems, Scientific Computing, Discrete Mathematics, Data Structures, Analysis of Algorithms (Sequential, Parallel and Distributed), Formal Languages, Computability, Complexity Theory, Combinatorial Optimization, Operations Research, Calculus, Linear Algebra, and Numerical Analysis, both at the undergraduate and graduate levels. Java, Web Based Computing and Information Visualization are his current teaching interests.
·
Ph.D. External Reviewer
Christian Tominski, “Event-Based Visualization for User-Centered
Visual Analysis”, PhD thesis,
Frank van Ham, “Interactive Visualization of Large State Spaces”, PhD thesis, ISBN 90-386-0704-0, Technische Universiteit Eindhoven, 2005.
·
Ph.D. Students Supervised
Krishna
Kumar, “Combinatorial Aspects of Point Visibility”, Computer Science
Department,
·
M.S. Students Supervised
Timothy Veach, “An
Animated Graph Environment”, Computer Science Department,
Sanjay Joshi, “Some
Algorithmic Results in Graph Imbeddings”,
Computer Science Department,
Ronald Chambers, “Heuristics for the Traveling
Salesman Problem”, Computer Science Department,
Sekhar Pisupati, “Polynomial Algorithms for Visibility Graphs
of Staircase Polygons”, Computer Science Department,
Chris Roda, “An
Animated Interface to the AGE System”, Computer Science Department,
Anne Hwang, “Pattern Matching for the Evaluation
of Sucker-Rod Pumped Wells”, Petroleum Engineering Department,
Don Sonom, “Visualization
of Heuristics for Some NP-Complete Problems”, Computer Science Department,
Craig Smith, “A Graphics-based
Language for Algorithm Animation”, Computer Science Department,
· Professor Fred Roberts
Director of DIMACS, Center for Discrete Mathematics and
Theoretical Computer Science
Rutgers University
96
email:
· Professor Omer Egecioglu
Department of
email: omer@cs.ucsb.edu phone: (805)893-3529 messages: (805)893-4321
· Professor Gill Williamson
Department
of Computer Science and Engineering
University of California, San Diego
La Jolla, CA, 92093-0114
email: gill.williamson@gmail.com phone: (858)755-7621 , cell :858-232-7089
Correspondence
Professor Gill Williamson
1352 Oribia
· Professor John Bruno
Vice
Provost Information and Educational
email: jlbruno@ucdavis.edu phone: (530)400-7217
Correspondence
Professor John Bruno
· Professor Janos Pach
Courant
Institute for the Mathematical
251
email:
pach@CIMS.nyu.edu, pach@courant.nyu.edu
phone: (212)998-3184 fax: (212)995-4121
Note: James Abello is a