IUCRC Phase III + Florida Atlantic University: Center for Advanced Knowledge Enablement

The CAKE Center is successfully building a bridge linking academia, industry, and government in a coordinated research initiative, in response to the needs of this region. The Center has the critical mass to serve the information technology industry and to help South Florida IT mature into the top tier. The research focus of the Center is in the field of advanced knowledge enablement with the focus on areas of big data analytics, multimedia and data mining, video and multimedia processing, and cloud computing systems, sensors and networks. Research projects are interdisciplinary in nature with focus on applications in medicine and healthcare, the environment, and other industries. The Center’s mission is to accomplish the following goals: (1) to continuously evolve an understanding of the technology needs of the industry sector through direct contact with industry professionals and related corporations; (2) to identify applied research themes that meet the needs of private and public sectors; and (3) to conduct industry-relevant research. Center’s research agenda includes the creation of new technologies for various web-based applications, next generation hardware and software development techniques and tools, mobile and wireless systems and technologies, video compression and communication technologies and systems, networking and communication systems, data mining and machine learning technologies, and various interdisciplinary initiatives, and applications including medical systems and healthcare informatics. Research outcomes are applicable to many fields, including national defense and homeland security, healthcare, biomedical science, environmental science, entertainment, finance, and technology services. The results of the projects will provide benefits to society in various application areas including medical, healthcare, environmental, public, and others. Proposed research roadmap for Phase III will continue to have an interdisciplinary focus. Educational activities include, reaching out to women, minorities, and underrepresented groups. FAU has a large Under-Represented Minority population, and it is ranked as the most diverse public university in Florida. As IUCRC CAKE continues to grow, the Center will build a cohesive structure spanning multiple institutions by enabling extended research visits for both faculty and graduate students. As part of the program, we will document and describe the process of developing systems and software for individual projects. We will maintain a project repository including data, code, simulators, results of all projects, etc. on a single Center-wide repository for a period of ten years. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.