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Nargess MemarsadeghiNargess Memarsadeghi
Golomb Patterns: Introduction, Applications, and Citizen Science Game

Wednesday, September 11, 2013
Building 3 Auditorium - 11:00 AM
(Coffee and cookies at 10:30 AM)

A Golomb Rectangle is a matrix of zeros and ones such that its autocorrelation matrix values are 0, 1, or k, where k is the number of ones in the grid. That is, in such a grid no pattern or pairwise distances of marks repeats. Finding optimal Golomb patterns is a computationally hard problem, since there are exponential ways of selecting cells on a grid. Golomb patterns have NASA applications in radio astronomy, interferometry, and radar missions, where non-redundant aperture or antenna patterns are desired. Other scientific and engineering applications include sonar applications, communication network labeling, encryption, coding theory, and sensor placement in x-ray crystallography. Nargess is the Principal Investigator for a NASA/GSFC 2013 Science Innovation Fund (SIF) award to design and develop an interactive online game for engaging the public to find (optimal) Golomb patterns. In this talk, we give an introduction of Golomb Patterns and our citizen science project for finding, visualizing, and archiving such patterns.

Nargess Memarsadeghi is a computer engineer at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center since 2001. She received her B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Maryland at College Park in 2001, 2004, and 2007 respectively. Her past experience includes design and development of algorithms for processing large scientific data sets with applications in earth sciences, planetary sciences, and astrophysics. Nargess is also interested in educational projects and was the Principle Investigator for the Educational NASA Computational and Scientific Studies (enCOMPASS) project (http://encompass.gsfc.nasa.gov) . She currently is NASA's project manager for the Data and Information System of the Global Learning and Observation to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE, http://www.globe.gov) program as well as the Principal investigator for GSFC'S 2013 Science Innovation Fund (SIF) award titled "An Interactive Golomb Aperture Pattern Solver Game".
IS&T Colloquium Committee Host: John Donohue

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