Alfred Hero - Research Activities


The Hero group is currently (July. 2008) focussing on the following broad research themes:
1. High dimensional data analysis and dimensionality reduction including manifold learning and sparsity regularization in inverse problems.

2. Structural graphical models for dynamic spatio-temporal processes including those arising in genetic, proteomic, and metabolic regulation networks.

3. Distributed signal processing algorithms for adaptive sensing, localization, tracking, anomaly detection and imaging in sensor and data networks.

4. Computational geometric methods for clustering, semi-supervised classification, and pattern matching, and multimodality image registration

These areas arise in the context of several sponsored projects in the Hero lab including the following:

1. Predictive health and diagnostics. The objective is to predict health and disease propagation (epidemics) over a close knit human population based on a combination of genetic, metabolic, and social network data collection. We are developing approaches based on high dimensional data analysis, adaptive sampling (when to take an measurement or assay and where to take it from), large scale distributed statistical inference, genetic/social/metabolic Bayes networks, and multimodality data/information integration.

2. Molecular imaging. We are using sparsity regularization to perform image reconstruction on magnetic resonance force microscopy (MRFM) - a developing imaging modality that is capabable of attometer (1 millionth of a nanometer) spatial resolution. With collaborators at IBM and Univ of Washington, we are developing signal and image processing for forming molecular images using this emerging technology.

3. Network monitoring and data analysis. This is a project to develop distributed models and methods for analysis of high dimensional spatio-temporal network data. This is primarily focussed on Internet data analysis, including flows (TCP, UDP, etc), application level (email, http), and transport (end-to-end delays, packet losses) to reconstruct topology and virtual topology of the network.

Publications

A chronological listing of my publications (most downloadable): .html

These research publications are divided into the following areas (this has not been updated. For most recent publications see the chronological listing).

  • sensor management
  • statistical inference and learning ,
  • magnetic resonance force microscopy (MRFM)
  • bioinformatics,
  • communications and networking,
  • image processing,
  • tomographic imaging,
  • signal modeling,
  • timing estimation,
  • intelligent vehicular systems .
  • array processing
  • Click on topic title to access research summaries and links to recent papers. For some transparencies of recent presentations and seminars click here . For my bibtex citation file click here .bib . For my .sty file click here .sty .

    Software Resources


  • Intrinsic Dimension and Entropy Estimation in Manifold Learning webpage .
  • Multi-sensor landmine data visualization tool webpage

    Past and Present Postdocs


  • Ami Weisel, (2007-),
  • Eran Bashan, (2008) bashan at umich.edu
  • Nicolas Dobigeon, (2007), ENSEEIHT (Toulouse)
  • Mark Kliger, (2006-), Medasense Biometrics, mkliger at umich.edu
  • Neal Patwari, (2005-2006), University of Utah, npatwari at ece.utah.edu
  • Raviv Raich, (2004-2007), Oregon State University, raich at eecs.oregonstate.edu
  • Pei-Jung Chung, (2004), National Chiao Tung University, Taiwan, peijung_chung at yahoo.com
  • Cyrille Hory, (2003-2004), Trinity College Dublin, Ireland, chory at mee.tcd.ie
  • Stephane Chretien, (1995-1998), University of Besancon, France, chretien at descartes.univ-fcomte.fr
  • Olivier Michel, (1993-1994), INP Grenoble, France, olivier.michel at gipsa-lab.grenoble-inp.fr

    Students Doing Research Under my Supervision


  • Sung Jin Hwang (EECS G) ssjh at umich.edu
  • Kumar Sricharan (EECS G) kksreddy at umich.edu
  • Patrick Harrington (Bioinformatics G) plhjr at umich.edu
  • Yongsheng Huang (Bioinformatics G) huangys at umich.edu
  • Yilun Chen (EECS G) alwyn.chen at gmail.com
  • Greg Newstadt (EECS G) newstage37 at gmail.com
  • Tzu-Zu Liu (EECS G) joyliu at eecs.umich.edu
  • Arnau Tibau Puig (EECS G) arnau.tibau at gmail.com
  • Se-Un Park (EECS G) seunpark at eecs.umich.edu

    Former PhD Students


  • Kevin Carter (kmcarter at umich.edu). Currently at MIT Lincoln Laboratory. Thesis Dimensionality Reduction on Statistical Manifolds, Dec. 2008. (.pdf)
  • Arvind Rao (ukarvind at umich.edu). Currently at Carnegie Mellon University. Thesis Prospective identification of long-range transcriptional regulatory regions via integrative genomics, July 2008. (.pdf)
  • Eran Bashan (bashan at umich.edu). Currently post-doc at Univ. of Mich Dept. EECS. Thesis, Efficient resource allocation schemes for search, May 2008. (.pdf)
  • Jay Marble (jamarble at umich.edu). Currently at US Army Night Vision Laboratory, Fort Belvoir VA. Thesis Advances in surface penetrating technologies for imaging, detection, and classification, Dec. 2007. (.pdf)
  • Raghuram Rangarajan (rangaraj at eecs.umich.edu). Currently at Cisco, San Jose CA. Thesis Resource constrained adaptive sensing, Aug. 2006. (.pdf)
  • Derek Justice (djusticed at mmm.com). Currently at 3M Corporation, Minneapolis MN. Thesis "Inference methods for message endpoint localization in networks," g. 2006. (.pdf)
  • Dongxiao Zhu (DOZ at stowers-institute.org). Currently at Stowers Institute, Kansas City, MO. Thesis "Reconstructing Signaling Pathways from High Throughput Data" May 2006. (.pdf)
  • Doron Blatt (dblatt at DRWHoldings.com). Thesis "Performance Evaluation and Optimization for Inference Systems: Model Uncertainty, Distributed Implementation, and Active Sensing," May 2006. (.pdf)
  • Mike Ting (mting at umich.edu). Currently at Seagate Research Pittsburgh, PA. Thesis "Signal Processing for Magnetic Resonance Force Microscopy," May 2006. (.pdf)
  • Neal Patwari (npatwari at ece.utah.edu). Currently at Univ. of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT. Thesis (.pdf) Location estimation in sensor networks, Dept. EECS, Sept. 2005.
  • Jose Costa (jcosta at caltech.edu). Presently at CalTech, Pasadena CA. PhD Thesis (.pdf) Random graphs for structure discovery in high dimensional data , Dept. EECS, Aug. 2005.
  • Chris Kreucher (christopher.kreucher at gd-ais.com). Presently at General Dynamics, Ann Arbor MI. PhD Thesis (.pdf) An information-based approach to sensor resource allocation , Dept. EECS, Feb. 2005.
  • Clyde Shih (mfshih at gmail.com). KLA-Tencor Corporation, San Jose, CA. PhD Thesis (.pdf) Unicast Internet Tomography , Dept. EECS, Jan. 2005.
  • Huzefa Neemuchwala (hneemuch at umich.edu). Presently at Fujifilm, San Jose CA. PhD Thesis (.pdf) Entropic graphs for image registration , Dept. Biomedical Engineering, Jan. 2005.
  • Tom Kragh MIT Lincoln Laboratory (kragh at eecs.umich.edu), PhD Thesis (.pdf) : Tradeoffs and limitations in statistically based image reconstruction problems , Dept. EECS, Sept. 2002.
  • Jia Li (li4 at oakland.edu). Presently at Oakland University, MI. PhD Thesis (.pdf) : Three dimensional shape modeling: segmentation, reconstruction and registration , Dept. EECS, Jan. 2002,
  • Mahesh Godavarti Altra Broadband, Inc (mgodavar at engin.umich.edu). PhD Thesis (.pdf) : Antenna arrays in wireless communications, , Dept. EECS, July 2001.
  • Riten (Robby) Gupta TRW, Los Angeles, (Riten.Gupta at trw.com). PhD Thesis (.pdf) : Quantization Strategies for Low-Power Communications, , Dept. EECS, May 2001.
  • Hyungsoo Kim, Samsung Electronics, Korea (hns.kim at samsung.com, dearhs at hotmail.com). PhD Thesis (.pdf) : Adaptive target detection in radar imaging, , Dept. EECS, Jan. 2001.
  • Bing Ma , Dept. Radiology, University Of Michigan, Ann Arbor. (bingm at umich.edu). PhD Thesis (.pdf) : `Parametric and non-parametric approaches for multisensor data fusion Dept. EECS, Jan. 2001.
  • Robinson Piramuthu (G), KLA-TENCOR, Milpitas, CA (Robinson.Piramuthu at kla-tencor.com). PhD Thesis Robust fusion of MRI and ECT data, and acceleration of EM algorithm using proximal point approach , Dept. of EECS, May 2000.
  • Anne Sauve , PhD Thesis System modeling, sampling, interprolation and iterative reconstruction for the 3D Compton camera, Dept. of EECS, Jan. 2000.
  • Steve Titus, Accelerant Networks (stitus at accelerant.net). PhD Thesis Improved penalized likelihood image reconstruction of anatomically correlated emission computed tomography data , Dept. EECS, Oct. 1996.
  • Ilan Sharfer, Smart Link Inc., Israel (ilans at slink.co.il). PhD Thesis Recursive algorithms for digital communications using the discrete wavelet transform , Dept. EECS, Oct. 1996
  • Mohammad Usman, Avaz Networks, Irvine CA (usman at avaznet.com), PhD Thesis Biased and unbiased Cramer-Rao bounds: computational issues and applications , Dept. EECS, Aug. 1994.
  • Ron Delap, AFIT, Dayton OH (DelapRA at M105X4.LAAFB.AF.MIL). PhD Thesis ADEPT: Task Specific Adaptive Beamforming , Dept. EECS, May 1994.
  • Nick Antoniadis, HITEC, Athens Greece (nadon at atrion.hitec.ariadne-t.gr). PhD Thesis Time Delay Estimation for Inhomogeneous Poisson Processes in the Presence of Gaussian Noise , Dept. EECS, Oct. 1992.
  • Bulent Baygun, Barclay Capital, New York NY (bbaygun at bpa_su70.sbi.com). PhD Thesis Optimal Strategies and Tradeoffs for Joint Detection and Estimation , Dept. EECS, Oct. 1992.
  • Nick Petrick, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (petrick at engin.umich.edu). PhD Thesis Optimal Arrival Time Estimators for Electromagnetic Radiation Detectors , Dept. EECS, July 1992.
  • John Gorman, SET Corporation (jgorman at SETcorporation.com). PhD Thesis Error Bounds in Constrained Estimation , Dept. EECS, June 1991.
  • Ling Shao, ADAC, Inc., CA. PhD Thesis Mutual Information Optimization and Evaluation of Single Photon Computed Tomography , Bioengineering Program, Oct. 1989.
  • Joong K. Kim, Sung Kyun Kwan University, Korea (jkkim at yurim.skku.ac.kr). PhD Thesis Time Delay Estimation with Nuisance Parameters: Performance Approximation and Coarse Acquisition , Dept. EECS, Oct. 1989.

    Former MS Students who have done research in my group


  • Christine Kim (EECS G) poppins at umich.edu
  • Kyle Herrity (EECS G) kherrity at umich.edu
  • Xing Zhou (EECS G) zhouxing at umich.edu
  • Nitin Nayer (EECS G) nnayar at umich.edu
  • Yuezhou Jing (Statistics G)
  • Sakina Zabuawala (EECS G) sakina at umich.edu
  • Megan Flynn (EECS G) flynnm at umich.edu
  • Sebastien Cerbourg (Financial Engineering G) Sebastien.Cerbourg at free.fr
  • Arpit Almal (EECS G) aalmal at umich.edu
  • Kashif Israr Siddiqui (EECS G) kashif at eecs.umich.edu
  • Chunyu (Frank) Yip (EECS G) chunyuy at umich.edu
  • Krish Subramanian (EECS G) ksubramz at umich.edu
  • Baptiste Poupard baptiste.poupard at polytechnique.org
  • Matthieu Colet
  • Ram Kakarala, Agilent, Palo Alto CA (ramakrishna_kakarala at agilent.com).
  • Adrian Yap, Hughes, Germantown MD ayap at hns.com.
  • Agissilaos Ziotopoulos (aziot at engin.umich.edu)

    Former BS Students who have done research in my group


  • Laurent Guillaume (Stagiare) laurent.guillaume at supelec.fr
  • Adam Pocholsky (UG-UROP) apachols at umich.edu
  • Liyan Huang (UG-UROP) liyanh at engin.umich.edu
  • Smita Krishnaswamy (UG-UROP) smita at engin.umich.edu
  • Alina Chu (UG-UROP) achu at engin.umich.edu
  • Hafez Hadinejad (TH-Darmstadt) hafez at ient.rwth-aachen.de
  • Richard Cheung (UM) rcheung at engin.umich.edu
  • Christophe Guillouet (ECN) Christophe.Guillouet at supaero.fr

    Other students who have done research in my group


  • Jindan Yu University of Michigan (jindany at med.umich.edu), PhD Thesis (.pdf) : Transcript profiling of the cone-only Nrl-knockout retina using custom cDNA-microarrays: identification of novel targets of Nrl and of signaling pathways involved photoreceptor function , Dept. BME, Jan. 2004,

    Past and Present Research Collaborators


  • Anand Swaroop , Prof. Human genetics (UM)
  • Christophe Vignat , Prof at Univ. de Marne-la-Valle, France
  • Jeff Fessler , Prof. EECS (UM)
  • Bill Williams, Prof. EECS (UM)
  • Wayne Stark , Prof. EECS (UM)
  • W. Les Rogers, Prof. Nuclear Medicine (UM)
  • Neal Clinthorne, Research Scientist Nuclear Medicine (UM)
  • Raj Goyal, Prof. Cardiology (UM),
  • Sridhar Lakshmanan, Prof. ECE, Univ. of Michigan - Dearborn (lakshman at umich.edu)
  • David Castanon, Prof. ECE, Boston University
  • Olivier Michel, Prof. Physics, Ecole Normale Superieure (Lyon, France)
  • Anne-Emanuelle Badel , Ecole Normale Superieure (Lyon, France)
  • Yong Zhang, TENCOR (YONG.ZHANG at tencor.com)
  • Jeff O'Neill, Ecole Normale Superieure
  • Mila Nikolova, University of Paris (Dauphine) (nikolova at math-info.univ-paris5.fr)
  • Tom Marzetta, Lucent Bell Laboratories (Murray Hill) (tlm at research.bell-labs.com)

    Links of Interest

  • Yi's LP web page (.html) - provided by R. Saigal

    Work in Progress

    Click here for papers in preparation or submitted (Restricted Access - for information send me email at hero@eecs.umich.edu)

  • Draft of "Highlights of SSAP" , IEEE SP Magazine, 1998.

    Visitor count: accesses since July 2, 1996.
    Contact Information:

    Prof. Alfred O. Hero III ,
    Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
    The University of Michigan
    1301 Beal Avenue
    Ann Arbor, MI 48109-2122
    Tel. (313) 763-0564
    FAX: (313) 763-8041
    WWW: http://www.eecs.umich.edu/~hero/hero.html
    email: