EIA 02-20562Rishe, NaphtaliWongsaroj, BenFlorida International University (FIU) and Florida Memorial College (FMC) Title: MII Consortium: Infrastructure for Research and Training in Database Management for Web-based Geospatial Data Visualization with Applications to Aviation This proposal, facilitating research on high-performance database management and Internet dissemination of geospatial data, aims at attracting, recruiting, and retaining minority students while engaging these in research. The project enables the creation of a consortium between Florida International University (FIU) and Florida Memorial College (FMC). A pipeline of students from FMC, a four year HBCU, to FIU, a Carnegie-I HSI will be formed, encouraging FMC's students and others to enter FIU's masters or doctoral program in computer science. The consortium will focus on research necessary to enhance TerraFly, a web-based geospatial data viewer stemming from research performed at FIU's High Performance Database Research Center (HPDRC) under grants from NSF and other agencies. Researchers will work in Affinity Groups that consist of undergraduate and graduate students, post-docs, and faculty members. These groups provide the framework that enables deepening knowledge of a field by procuring a physical setting in a cooperative research-engaging environment. The project enhances TerraFly's underlying data storage mechanism, client-server interaction, user interface, its ability to overlay additional information layers, and its ergonomics of use and maintenance. The following specific research issues are addressed.Efficient and ergonomic dissemination of imagery with spatio-temporal data overlays, Data storage and querying methods for spatio-temporal data, Integration of heterogeneous data sources including relational and semantic databases and web sources with the spatial data, Testbed applications using geospatial data dissemination for aviation needs.Thus, the requested infrastructure will be used to perform this research, as well as the training of students at both institutions. Showing TerraFly's potential applications, FMC's knowledge of the aviation industry will be leveraged as the test beds are developed and tailored. The deployment of infrastructure at FMC will enable FIU's distributed database research to be incorporated into TerraFly research, as FMC students gain valuable hands-on experience with the requested infrastructure on a daily basis.
