Assignment 2: State of CS Research and Variety of Technical Topics

We had a new assignment in CS research. It asked us to find any article/information and examine the state of CS research. Also, discuss the variety of technical topics. So I look for CS research papers and found an article that interest me. It's a study from Stanford University, the article was entitled BioAct!

In compliance of the assignment here is my article regarding the BioAct of Stanford students who won awards: Best Student Paper award at JCDL 2006 and Brian Shackel Award at Interact 2005.

The students of Stanford University conducted a study, BioAct, to help biodiversity researchers for three purposes:

1) To Acquire – to help in acquiring digital materials in the field,

2) To Curate – to help in managing these online holdings, and

3) To Transfer (or disseminate) – to help transfer the knowledge to other researchers, museums, and the public [1].

Due to the increasing diversity of data to be gathered it is a great challenge in identifying and cataloging the data. Therefore, the proponents’ created three sets of tools: (1) Tools for speedy data entry and small-group collaboration in the field, (2) Tools for large scale collaboration in distributed collection curation, and (3) Tools for semi-directed search and browsing of digital biodiversity materials [1].

The study is favorable since the study utilized the technology in gathering and maintaining the collections of the biodiversity documents around the globe, and to educate students and the public about the aspects of natural history.

From what I read and understand about BioAct the variety of technical topics that are discussed are bioinformatics and computational biology which involves the use of techniques including applied mathematics, informatics, statistics, computer science, artificial intelligence, chemistry, and biochemistry to solve biological problems usually on the molecular level [2].

References:

1. BioAct! http://i.stanford.edu/bioact/
2. BioInformatics and Computational biology. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioinformatics
3. Video of PhotoSpread. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf7rA-roBlM