Supercomputer Education and Research Centre Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore http://www.serc.iisc.ernet.

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Research Admissions Brochure for 2013
Research Admissions in SERC
The Supercomputer Education and Research Centre (SERC) conducts research in understanding and application of computational methods and systems toward solving problems in science and engineering. This brochure contains information about the research laboratories in SERC into which new students will be admitted in 2013. In order to help you prepare yourself for the interview, the brochure also describes the research admission process of SERC. The brochure ends with a Preference Sheet which you must fill up and sign when you appear for the interview.

Research Areas at SERC

Research at SERC in computer systems deals with the design, implementation and evaluation of computer hardware and software. Computer architecture, compilers, database systems, graphics and visualization, parallel and grid computing, cloud systems, high performance computing, multimedia systems, computer network and information security, image/video analytics, VLSI systems, embedded systems on a chip, and reconfigurable system design are the prominent topics in which research is being carried out at SERC. SERC faculty who work in these fields include: N. Balakrishnan, R. Govindarajan, S. K. Nandy, Jayant R. Haritsa, T. Matthew Jacob, P. C. Mathias, Sathish S. Vadhiyar, Vijay Natarajan, J. Lakshmi and R. Venkatesh Babu. Toward computational methods and applications, SERC conducts research in quantum computing, electromagnetics, numerical analysis, scientific computing, parallel algorithms, bioinformatics, computational biology, medical imaging, finite-element methods, photonics, and acoustics. These research threads typically require skills at the intersection of applied mathematics, application-specific understanding and effective use of relevant computing platforms. SERC faculty who work in these fields include: Apoorva D. Patel, Atanu Mohanty, Soumyendu Raha, Debnath Pal, K. Sekar, Phaneendra K. Yalavarthy, Murugesan Venkatapathi, and Sashikumaar Ganesan. Research activities specific to areas into which students may be admitted this year are given later in this brochure.

About the interview

The research interview has two components. 1. A written component (duration: 30 minutes) is conducted first. This will have short answer questions testing the candidates suitability for the research programs at SERC. The questions will be from the following subjects: data structures, discrete mathematics, linear algebra, functional analysis, probability and statistics, differential equations and simple programming, from which you can select appropriate questions to answer. Sufficient choice across these subjects will be provided; the number of questions that you must select and answer will be clearly indicated in the question paper. 2. Students who are successful in the written component will face an oral interview before a faculty committee (typical duration: 20 minutes). In the interview, you will be questioned on the subjects that you have opted for in the Preference Sheet (which is the last page in this brochure). In all cases, your background in programming will also be tested. In order to fill up the Preference Sheet, you will have to identify which of the research activities in SERC match your interests most closely, by looking at the laboratory descriptions in this brochure. This will determine which subjects you will be questioned in during the interview at the basic level (Basic Areas) - laboratories in which related research areas are pursued will expect you to be conversant in the same Basic Areas. You must also come well prepared in at least one of the Advanced Subjects that are listed against the corresponding laboratory. We next outline the research activities of the various SERC research laboratories. For each lab, the associated Basic Areas and Advanced Subjects for interview are also listed. Important Notes Candidates with BE/BTech/MSc/MCA qualification can choose either MSc(Engg) (or) Direct PhD program. Candidates with MS/ME/MTech qualification are only eligible for PhD program. External Registration Programme (ERP) candidates: The ERP candidates will be asked to give a brief (5 minute) oral description of their research proposal and will be tested on the proposal content (in addition to the Basic and Advanced interview subjects).

SERC Research Labs

1. Scientific Computation Lab (SCL) Associated Faculty: Soumyendu Raha. Mathematical Middleware and Software, Computational Study of Constrained Dynamical Systems, Application to VLSI CAD, protein-ligand interaction and multibody dynamics problems, Simulation, Stochastic and Deterministic Differential-algebraic equation systems. Basic Areas: Numerical methods, Differential equations Advanced Subjects: Control, Estimation, Dynamic optimization 2. Numerical Mathematics and Scientific Computing Group (NMSC) Associated Faculty: Sashikumaar Ganesan. Numerical analysis and higher order finite element (FE) discretization of incompressible Navier-Stokes, convection-diffusion-reaction and surface partial differential equations (PDEs) in fixed and/or time-dependent domains, Stabilization methods for convection dominated PDEs arising from fluid dynamics, Robust multigrid based solvers for algebraic systems obtained from FE discretization of PDEs, Numerical methods for high-dimensional (4D/5D) problems with applications to population balance equations, Modeling and simulation of fluid flows with moving boundaries and surfactants, e.g., free surface, multiphase and biomedical flows, Parallel algorithms for numerical schemes and computations using the in-house C++ finite element package ParMooN. Basic Areas: Numerical methods, Differential equations Advanced Subjects: Real/Functional analysis, Computational Fluid Dynamics 3. Biomolecular Computation Lab (BCL) Associated Faculty: Debnath Pal and K. Sekar Computational Biology, Bio-computing, Structural Biology of Biomolecules and Bioinformatics of proteins and nucleic acids. Basic Areas: Linear algebra, Probability and statistics Advanced Subjects: Computational biology, Chemistry 4. Quantum Computing Lab (QCL) Associated Faculty: Apoorva D. Patel. Quantum information and quantum computation. Algorithms and complexity. Modeling and simulation of quantum systems. Basic areas: Linear algebra, Differential equations Advanced Subjects: Quantum mechanics

5. Computational Photonics and multi-physics Lab (CPL) Venkatapathi.

Faculty: Murugesan

Optical properties of nano-structured materials, methods and models for Optical Physics, computational methods for matrix algebra. Basic areas: Linear algebra, Signal processing Advanced Subjects: Physics, Matrix algebra 6. Medical Imaging Group (MIG) Associated Faculty: Phaneendra K. Yalavarthy. Computational methods in medical imaging, medical image processing (reconstruction/analysis), physiological signal processing, and diffuse optical tomography. Basic areas: Linear algebra, Signal processing Advanced Subjects: Image processing, Differential equations 7. Video Analytics Lab (VAL) Associated Faculty: R. Venkatesh Babu Video Surveillance and Monitoring, Human Action/Activity Recognition, Computer Vision, Image Understanding, Image/Video Quality Assessment, and Human Computer Interaction. Basic areas: Linear algebra, Signal processing Advanced subjects: Image processing, Computer vision 8. Information Systems Laboratory (ISL) Associated Faculty: N. Balakrishnan. Information Security Engineering with emphasis on Intrusion Detections Systems, Malware and botnet analysis, Machine Learning and Sensor Fusion applied to Intrusion Detection and malware analysis, Survivable large scale networks, Security analysis of telecom equipments such as routers, VOIP, GSM and CDMA systems, Social Network Engineering for Detection, evolution and destabilizing of covert networks over overt networks, Wireless Sensor and Actuator Networks including message efficient, coverage and fusion aware clustering algorithms, Multi Target Tracking in sensor networks, Scattering and RCS prediction of large complex bodies using Computational Electromagnetics, Digital Library and Speech processing, Mobile applications for micropayment and tracking. Basic areas: Data structures and algorithms, Discrete mathematics Advanced Subjects: Probability

9. Cloud Systems Lab (CSL) Associated Faculty: J. Lakshmi, S. K. Nandy Cloud Systems and architecture support for application performance, security, availability; end-to-end virtualization for QoS provisioning, Elasticity in IaaS, Virtualization architectures. Basic areas: Data structures and algorithms, Operating systems Advanced Subjects: Distributed systems 10. Grid Applications Research Lab (GARL) Associated Faculty: Sathish S. Vadhiyar. Parallel, distributed and grid computing, Large-scale parallel applications for grids and state-of-the-art supercomputers, Scheduling, Rescheduling, Load balancing, Fault-tolerance, Middleware for parallel production systems. Basic areas: Data structures and algorithms, Operating systems Advanced Subjects: Parallel computing 11. Database Systems Lab (DSL) Associated Faculty: Jayant R Haritsa. Query Optimization, Data Mining, XML Databases, Biological Databases, Multi-lingual Databases, and Database engine design. Basic areas: Data structures and algorithms, Database management systems Advanced Subjects: Relational database engine design 12. Computer-Aided Design Lab (CADL) Associated Faculty: S. K. Nandy. Runtime Reconfigurable Systems, Architectures and Design Methodologies, Compiling techniques for Stream Processing and Runtime Reconfiguration, Embedded Systems on a Chip, Chip Multiprocessors, Dataflow and Multithreaded computing, Virtualizations, Region Coherence, Pervasive Computing, SoC Design Methodologies, Stream Processing and Network Processing, Design automation of VLSI Systems. Basic areas: Data structures and algorithms, Computer organization Advanced Subjects: Computer architecture, Compilers, Parallel computing 13. Computer Architecture Lab (CAL) Associated Faculty: T. Matthew Jacob. Processor Architecture, Instruction-level Parallelism, memory system design, Cache memory design, performance evaluation of computer systems, Interaction between computer architecture and operating systems.

Basic areas: Data structures and algorithms, Computer organization Advanced Subjects: Computer architecture 14. High Performance Computing Lab (HPC) Associated Faculty: R. Govindarajan. Computer Architecture, High Performance Cluster Architecture, Compiler Analysis and Optimizations, Programming Models and Compiling Techniques for Accelerator Based Architectures, Embedded system and Application Specific Architecture, Interaction between computer architecture and compilers. Basic areas: Data structures and algorithms, Computer organization Advanced Subjects: Computer architecture

Supercomputer Education and Research Centre, IISc

Preference Sheet for Research Admissions 2013 Name: ___________________________________________________________________________ Application No: ___________________________________________________________________ Program (tick one): MSc(Engg) Direct PhD PhD

TICK ANY Basic Areas for interview Laboratories that you will be considered for ONE BOX (DO NOT WRITE OR TICK (DO NOT WRITE OR TICK ANYTHING IN THIS COLUMN)
ANYTHING IN THIS COLUMN)

Numerical methods Differential equations Linear algebra Probability and statistics Linear algebra Differential equations Linear algebra Signal processing Data structures and algorithms Discrete maths Data structures and algorithms Database management systems Data structures and algorithms Operating systems Data structures and algorithms Computer organization

SCL, NMSC

BCL

QCL

CPL, MIG, VAL

ISL

DSL

CSL, GARL

CADL, CAL, HPC

At the time of the interview, you will be asked which Advanced Subjects you have studied in preparation for the interview. I understand that the preference chosen by me is binding in that, if I am selected for a research program in SERC, I can only work in one of the laboratories related to the box I have ticked above. Signature: -----------------------------Date: