Ann Gates - Profile on Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Ann Gates

International Journal of Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering, Feb 1, 2007

The paper presents an approach to support run-time verification of software systems that combines... more The paper presents an approach to support run-time verification of software systems that combines two existing tools, Prospec and Java-MaC, into a single framework. Prospec can be used to clarify natural language specifications for sequential, concurrent, and nondeterministic behavior. In addition, the tool assists the user in reading, writing, and understanding formal specifications through the use of property patterns and visual abstractions. Currently, Prospec automatically generates a specification written in Future Interval Logic (FIL). The goal is to automate the generation of MEDL formulas that can be used by the Java-MaC tool to check run-time compliance of system execution to properties. The paper describes the mapping that translates FIL formulas into MEDL formulas and demonstrates its correctness.

2019 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE)

The purpose of this workshop is to offer engineering faculty, post-docs, and graduate students a ... more The purpose of this workshop is to offer engineering faculty, post-docs, and graduate students a collection of effective pedagogies for incorporating professional skills development in their courses. As a result of attending the workshop, attendees will:

We describe reforms to a highly engaging algorithm-centric introductory course in media programmi... more We describe reforms to a highly engaging algorithm-centric introductory course in media programming offered to pre-engineering students at the University of Texas at El Paso, an urban Hispanic-serving institution (HSI) as part of a required entering students program. In order to become eligible to attend the introductory programming course that begins the computer science degree plan at UTEP (“CS-1”), a large fraction of incoming freshmen must attend several semesters of preparatory “pre calculus” math courses. Most of these students will have limited if any prior exposure to programming or engineering. The initial implementation of our course was intended solely to provide an engaging first experience with programming, and followed Mark Guzdial’s “Media Computation” curriculum. Dr. Guzdial’s curriculum has successfully engaged Liberal Arts students in programming through the creation of aesthetically motivated multimedia projects. Attendees in pre-engineering and pre-professional p...

2018 Research on Equity and Sustained Participation in Engineering, Computing, and Technology (RESPECT), 2018

Broadening Participation in Computing

Proceedings of the 51st ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, 2020

By 2026, the number of computing-related job openings in the US are expected to reach 3.5 million... more By 2026, the number of computing-related job openings in the US are expected to reach 3.5 million [1]. Yet even with an enrollment booming in many 4-year college computing programs, institutions of higher education have been unable to produce enough graduates to meet this growing demand. In addition, women and racial/ethnic minority students continue to be underrepresented in computing majors further reducing the potential computing workforce. Community colleges, because of their mission to serve their local communities, tend to have more diverse student populations. Yet, to date, they have not been considered a critical partner in the conversation on broadening participation in computing (BPC). To fill this gap, universities and community colleges need to work more collaboratively to bridge the workforce and diversity gaps [2]. In this BOF, participants will discuss strategies and resources for community colleges to participate more fully in the BPC community. Topics may include pathways from community colleges to 4-year computing programs, improving institutional culture to support advancement, providing role models so that students are encouraged to see themselves in computing, and strategies to recruit, retain, and motivate diverse students.

Proceedings of the 16th ACM/IEEE-CS on Joint Conference on Digital Libraries, 2016

Identifying research areas of researchers is a difficult task because of the various levels of ab... more Identifying research areas of researchers is a difficult task because of the various levels of abstraction in which information may be stored; however, such a task is essential for detecting potential research collaborations within an institution. This work describes an approach to create a scientific research network with topics identified from the researchers' scholarly data and relations between topics by analyzing data harvested from digital libraries and queries to domain ontologies. The relations are used to connect the researchers. Such networks have the potential for revealing the synergy between different topics and researchers within an institution. It will also show less explored research areas that can be targeted for further study. The poster will describe the approach and how it was applied to a biomedical domain at the university.

Due to the rapid expansion and reliance on the global Internet for day-to-day functions of indivi... more Due to the rapid expansion and reliance on the global Internet for day-to-day functions of individuals, organizations, governments, and industry around the world, cyber-security has emerged as an essential component of computing curricula. Today, software systems of large sizes and high complexity control almost all aspects of our lives. These systems play an integral role in the operation of larger systems used for defense, energy, communication, transportation, and manufacturing. Lack of attention to security and incorrect functionality can have devastating consequences including loss of life and major financial costs. It is essential to train and produce a workforce that is capable of developing reliable, secure, and correct software systems. To address the regional and national need for software engineers and computer scientists capable of developing advanced, complex, robust, secure, and reliable systems for government and industry, the Department of Computer Science at the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) is offering a sequence of courses in Secure Cyber-Systems for both the Bachelor of Science in Computer Science (BSCS) program and the Master of Science in Software Engineering (MSSwE) Program. A specialized track in Secure Cyber-Systems (SCS) has been added to the 2014 undergraduate and graduate catalog. The vision of the new curriculum is to educate students to meet the expanding need for a workforce capable of taking a disciplined, process-oriented approach to the analysis, development, and deployment of complex secure systems of the 21st century. Both the BSCS and the MSSwE programs at UTEP are designed to prepare professionals, specifically, with the engineering management and systems verification and validation skills needed to develop reliable, complex systems. In an attempt to address that regional and national need for expertise in cyber-security, the Computer Science department has set the following goals: (1) to increase the number of qualified students who complete the Secure Cyber-Systems (SCS) tracks at UTEP; (2) to graduate students who can enter the workforce with the ability to transfer state-of-the-art cybersecurity techniques and approaches into practice; (3) to place students in positions that utilize their knowledge and capabilities in cybersecurity. The effort takes advantage of several innovative approaches to meet its goals. Recruiting will target qualified U.S. citizens with an emphasis on individuals from under-represented groups including females. UTEP has a significant history of attracting, supporting, retaining, and graduating minority students, in particular Hispanics who are first in their family to graduate and nontraditional students in STEM fields through the use of research-based approaches to student development. 2012, enrollment reached 23,003 with 77% of those students being Hispanics. UTEP is the only doctoral/research-intensive university in the U.S. with a student population that is majority Mexican-American. The El Paso area is home to a number of military, intelligence, and law enforcement communities. Fort Bliss, White Sands Missile Range, Biggs Army Airfield, Holloman Air Force Base, and the El Paso Intelligence Center (EPIC) are all based in the region. Over 15 different government agencies are currently represented at EPIC. UTEP's Department of Computer Science (CS), which has been accredited by ABET's Computer Science Accreditation Board since 1986, has 15 tenured or tenure track faculty members, two research faculty members, and one clinical faculty. The department offers a Bachelor of Science in CS (BSCS), a Master of Science in CS (MSCS), a Master of Science in Information Technology (MSIT), a Master of Science in Software Engineering (MSSwE), and Ph.D. in CS.

is Chair of the Department of Communication. To increase the total number of female faculty, in p... more is Chair of the Department of Communication. To increase the total number of female faculty, in particular those from underrepresented groups, in tenure-track and tenured positions, UTEP ADVANCE has established four integrated and mutually supportive components: 1) a policy and recruitment process that that proposes faculty support and retention policies, supports recruitment efforts, and provides research support; 2) a faculty development process that helps faculty define a holistic and balanced academic career; 3) a collaborative leadership process that works with departments to remove barriers to recruitment, retention, and advancement of women faculty by assessing departmental climates and sharing best practices that encourage diversity and promote leadership; and 4) an evaluation process that includes both formative and summative self-assessments and review by an external advisory board.

Proceedings - Frontiers in Education Conference

In the context of science, abstract workflows bridge the gap between scientists and technologists... more In the context of science, abstract workflows bridge the gap between scientists and technologists towards using computer systems to carry out scientific processes. Provenance traces provide evidence required to validate scientific products and support their secondary use. Assuming abstract workflows and provenance traces are based on formal semantics, a knowledge-based system that consistently merges both technologies allows scientists to document their processes of data collection and transformation; it also allows for secondary users of data to assess scientific processes and resulting data products. This paper presents an evaluation approach for interactions between abstract workflows and provenance traces. The claim is that both technologies should complement each other and align consistently to a scientist's perspective to effectively support science. The evaluation approach uses criteria that are derived from tasks performed by scientists using both technologies.

FIE'99 Frontiers in Education. 29th Annual Frontiers in Education Conference. Designing the Future of Science and Engineering Education. Conference Proceedings (IEEE Cat. No.99CH37011

The affinity research group model provides students with opportunities to learn, use, and integra... more The affinity research group model provides students with opportunities to learn, use, and integrate the knowledge and skills that are required for research with the knowledge and skills that are required for cooperative work. Membership in affinity groups is dynamic, i.e., members graduate and new members join, and students come to the groups with different levels of knowledge and skills. Because of this, an annual orientation is needed for new members to facilitate their understanding of the philosophy and goals of the affinity model, understanding of the research goals of the projects to which they are assigned, learning of the basis of the cooperative paradigm, and awareness of group expectations. More importantly, the orientation develops new members' basic understanding of the research process and provides information about available resources. The orientation also is important for established members. It provides them with an opportunity to renew their commitment to the group, improve their research and cooperative group skills, and process within the group with the goal of improving the group's effectiveness. The orientation also allows faculty mentors to become aware of members' misgivings and expectations of the affinity group experience, and to process among themselves with the goal of reevaluating the model and its success. The orientation, which is the topic of this paper, consists of five components that provide a cooperative platform for meeting these objectives.

Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2007

Maps are artifacts often derived from multiple sources of data, e.g., sensors, and processed by m... more Maps are artifacts often derived from multiple sources of data, e.g., sensors, and processed by multiple methods, e.g., gridding and smoothing algorithms. As a result, complex metadata may be required to describe maps semantically. This paper presents an approach to describe maps by annotating associated provenance. Knowledge provenance can represent a semantic annotation mechanism that is more scalable than direct annotation of map. Semantic annotation of maps through knowledge provenance provides several benefits to end users. For example, a user study is presented showing that scientists with different levels of expertise and background are able to evaluate the quality of maps by analyzing their knowledge provenance information.

Productive design of scientific workflows often depends on the effectiveness of the communication... more Productive design of scientific workflows often depends on the effectiveness of the communication between the discipline domain experts and computer scientists, including their ability to share their specific needs in the design of the workflow. Discipline domain experts and computer scientists, however, tend to have distinct needs for designing workflows including terminology, level of abstraction, workflow aspects that should be included in the design. This paper discusses the use of a Model-Based Workflow (MBW) ...

International Journal of Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering, 2007

This paper presents an approach to support run-time verification of software systems that combine... more This paper presents an approach to support run-time verification of software systems that combines two existing tools, Prospec and Java-MaC, into a single framework. Prospec can be used to clarify natural language specifications for sequential, concurrent, and nondeterministic behavior. In addition, Prospec assists the user in reading, writing, and understanding formal specifications through the use of property patterns and visual abstractions. Prospec automatically generates specifications written in Future Interval Logic (FIL). Java-MaC monitors Java programs at runtime to ensure adherence to a set of formally specified properties. Safety properties of a program are specified in the formal language Meta-Event Definition Language (MEDL). Java-MaC generates runtime components from specifications. The components are used to instrument the target program and determine whether the execution of the program violates any of the safety properties. This paper describes an algorithm for tran...

2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access Proceedings

Dr. Villa received her doctoral degree in curriculum and instruction from New Mexico State Univer... more Dr. Villa received her doctoral degree in curriculum and instruction from New Mexico State University; she received a Master of Science degree in Computer Science and a Master of Arts in Education from UTEP. She has led and co-led numerous grants from corporate foundations and state and federal agencies, and has numerous publications in refereed journals and edited books. Her research interests include communities of practice, gender, transformative learning, and identity.

2009 Annual Conference & Exposition Proceedings

The difficulty of writing, reading, and understanding formal specifications remains one of the ma... more The difficulty of writing, reading, and understanding formal specifications remains one of the main obstacles in adopting formal verification techniques such as model checking, theorem and runtime verification. In order to train a future workforce that can develop and test high-assurance systems, it is essential to introduce undergraduate students in computer science and software engineering to the concepts in formal methods. This paper presents an experiment that we used to validate the effectiveness of a new approach that can be used in an undergraduate course to teach formal approaches and languages. The paper presents study that was conducted at two institutions to compare the new approach with the traditional one in teaching formal specifications. The new approach uses a model checker and a specification tool to teach Linear Temporal Logic (LTL), a specification language that is widely used in a variety of verification tools.

For the United States to maintain its historic preeminence in the fields of Computing, Science, T... more For the United States to maintain its historic preeminence in the fields of Computing, Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (C-STEM)-it must produce, over the next decade, one million more STEM professionals (PCAST, 2012). According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, fewer than a third of the 1.4 million computing-related job openings expected by 2022 could be filled by U.S. computing graduates (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2013). This shortage can be addressed by investing in the recruitment, retention, and advancement of Hispanics/Latinos 1 in C-STEM. In spite of Hispanics being the nation's largest minority group and among its fastest growing populations, Hispanic representation in higher education remains low. While the college enrollment and graduation rate for Hispanics has increased over the last ten years, the number of Hispanics in professional STEM positions is still abysmal-Hispanics comprise only 5% of the professional workforce according to the Excelencia in Education's 2015 report, Finding Your Workforce: Latinos in STEM (Santiago, Taylor & Galdeano, 2015). In order to thrive-and even survive-in the globalized marketplace of ideas and innovation, the U.S. must aggressively meet the challenge of increasing the number of students who complete degrees in computing areas. It is critical for our economic and social health that we maintain a globally competitive computing workforce and expand our engagement of Hispanics.

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition Proceedings

Software verification is one of the most important activities in the software development cycle, ... more Software verification is one of the most important activities in the software development cycle, and testing remains the most common approach to verification used in industry. The goal of blackbox testing (functional testing) is to verify the system's adherence to specifications. The notion of patterns and scopes developed by Dwyer et al. provides a cohesive and rich set of examples to teach black-box testing strategies. A pattern describes a recurring software property, and a scope specifies the interval of program execution where a pattern must hold. A property specified using a pattern and scope combination has characteristics that must be satisfied if it is to hold. Based on these characteristics, there is a large set of behaviors that can be examined using black-box testing techniques. In a complementary fashion, the behaviors specified by patterns and scopes provide clear and simple examples that can enhance the understanding of these testing techniques. In this paper, we describe an approach and present general lessons and exercises that demonstrate how patterns and scopes can be used to teach boundary value analysis and equivalence class testing, which are two of the most commonly used black-box testing techniques. As a side effect of this approach, students are exposed to, and become familiar with, formally specifying system behavior.

Application of Kolmogorov Complexity to Image Compression: It Is Possible to Have a Better Compression, But It Is Not Possible to Have the Best One