Avinash Kak

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Avinash Kak
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Kak in 2016
Born
Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, India
Alma mater University of Madras, Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi
Occupation(s) Computer Scientist, professor
Known for Computer vision, SART algorithm, Robotics, Software engineering
Notable credit(s)Author of "Digital Picture Processing", "Objects Trilogy Project"

Avinash C. Kak (born 1944) is a professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Purdue University who has conducted pioneering research in several areas of information processing.[ citation needed ] His most noteworthy contributions deal with algorithms, languages, and systems related to networks (including sensor networks), robotics, and computer vision.[ citation needed ] Born in Srinagar, Kashmir, he did his Bachelors in BE at University of Madras and Phd in Indian Institute of Technology Delhi. [1] He joined the faculty of Purdue University in 1971. [2]

Contents

His brother is the computer scientist Subhash Kak and sister the literary theorist Jaishree Odin. [1]

Robotics and computer vision

His contributions include the 3D-POLY, which is the fastest algorithm for recognizing 3D objects in depth maps [3] In 1992, Kosaka and Kak published FINALE, [4] which is considered to be a computationally efficient and highly robust approach to vision-based navigation by indoor mobile robots. In 2003, a group of researchers that included Kak developed a tool for content-based image retrieval that was demonstrated by clinical trials to improve the performance of radiologists. This remains the only clinically evaluated system for content-based image retrieval for radiologists. [5] His book Digital Picture Processing, [6] co-authored with Azriel Rosenfeld, is also considered a classic and has been one of the most widely referenced sources in literature dealing with digital image processing and computer vision.

Kak is not a believer in Strong AI as evidenced by his provocative/amusing essay Why Robots Will Never Have Sex. This essay a rejoinder to those who believe that robots/computers will someday take over the world. [7]

Image reconstruction algorithms

The SART algorithm [8] (Simultaneous Algebraic Reconstruction Technique) proposed by Andersen and Kak in 1984 has had a major impact in CT imaging applications where the projection data is limited. As a measure of its popularity, researchers have proposed various extensions to SART: OS-SART, FA-SART, VW-OS-SART, SARTF, etc. Researchers have also studied how SART can best be implemented on different parallel processing architectures. SART and its proposed extensions are used in emission CT in nuclear medicine, dynamic CT, and holographic tomography, and other reconstruction applications. [9] Convergence of the SART algorithm was theoretically established in 2004 by Jiang and Wang. [10] His book Principles of Computerized Tomographic Imaging, [11] now re-published as a classic in applied mathematics by SIAM (Society of Industrial and Applied Mathematics), is widely used in courses dealing with modern medical imaging. It is one of the most frequently cited books in the literature on image reconstruction.

Software engineering and open source

The three books written by Kak in the course of his 17-year-long Objects Trilogy Project [12] cover object-oriented programming, object-oriented scripting, and object-oriented design. The first of these, Programming with Objects, [13] presents a comparative approach to the teaching and learning of two large object-oriented languages, C++ and Java. This book is now used in several universities for teaching object-oriented programming with C++ and Java simultaneously. The second book, Scripting with Objects [14] does the same with Perl and Python. The last book of the trilogy is Designing with Objects. [15] Regarding the teaching of programming languages in universities, Kak is critical of programs that start the students off with relatively easier-to-learn languages like Java. [16] and [17]

Over the years, Kak has also contributed to several open-source projects. [18] [19] [20] The software modules developed through these projects are widely used for data analytics and computer security. In addition, during the last decade, Kak has collaborated with people in industry and developed metrics for measuring the quality of large software systems and the usability of APIs (Application Programming Interfaces). [21] [22] [23]

Computer and network security

In computer security research, together with Padmini Jaikumar he has presented a robust solution to the difficult problem of botnet detection in computer networks. [24] He has authored popular online lecture notes that are updated regularly. These notes provide comprehensive overview of computer and network security. [25]

Related Research Articles

Computer vision tasks include methods for acquiring, processing, analyzing and understanding digital images, and extraction of high-dimensional data from the real world in order to produce numerical or symbolic information, e.g. in the forms of decisions. Understanding in this context means the transformation of visual images into descriptions of the world that make sense to thought processes and can elicit appropriate action. This image understanding can be seen as the disentangling of symbolic information from image data using models constructed with the aid of geometry, physics, statistics, and learning theory.

Computer science is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and their implementation and application in computer systems. One well known subject classification system for computer science is the ACM Computing Classification System devised by the Association for Computing Machinery.

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to software engineering:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tomographic reconstruction</span> Estimate object properties from a finite number of projections

Tomographic reconstruction is a type of multidimensional inverse problem where the challenge is to yield an estimate of a specific system from a finite number of projections. The mathematical basis for tomographic imaging was laid down by Johann Radon. A notable example of applications is the reconstruction of computed tomography (CT) where cross-sectional images of patients are obtained in non-invasive manner. Recent developments have seen the Radon transform and its inverse used for tasks related to realistic object insertion required for testing and evaluating computed tomography use in airport security.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">OpenCV</span> Computer vision library

OpenCV is a library of programming functions mainly for real-time computer vision. Originally developed by Intel, it was later supported by Willow Garage, then Itseez. The library is cross-platform and licensed as free and open-source software under Apache License 2. Starting in 2011, OpenCV features GPU acceleration for real-time operations.

This is an alphabetical list of articles pertaining specifically to software engineering.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Component-based software engineering</span> Branch of software engineering

Component-based software engineering (CBSE), also called component-based development (CBD), is a branch of software engineering that emphasizes the separation of concerns with respect to the wide-ranging functionality available throughout a given software system. It is a reuse-based approach to defining, implementing and composing loosely coupled independent components into systems. This practice aims to bring about an equally wide-ranging degree of benefits in both the short-term and the long-term for the software itself and for organizations that sponsor such software.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thomas Huang</span> Chinese-American engineer and computer scientist (1936–2020)

Thomas Shi-Tao Huang was a Chinese-born American computer scientist, electrical engineer, and writer. He was a researcher and professor emeritus at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). Huang was one of the leading figures in computer vision, pattern recognition and human computer interaction.

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to computer programming:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">3D reconstruction</span> Process of capturing the shape and appearance of real objects

In computer vision and computer graphics, 3D reconstruction is the process of capturing the shape and appearance of real objects. This process can be accomplished either by active or passive methods. If the model is allowed to change its shape in time, this is referred to as non-rigid or spatio-temporal reconstruction.

Simultaneous algebraic reconstruction technique (SART) is a computerized tomography (CT) imaging algorithm useful in cases when the projection data is limited; it was proposed by Anders Andersen and Avinash Kak in 1984. It generates a good reconstruction in just one iteration and it is superior to standard algebraic reconstruction technique (ART).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Malcolm Slaney</span>

Malcolm Slaney is an American electrical engineer, whose research has focused on machine perception and multimedia analysis. He is a Fellow of the IEEE for "contributions to perceptual signal processing and tomographic imaging". He is a consulting professor at the Stanford University Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics and an affiliate faculty member in the Electrical Engineering Department at the University of Washington.

This glossary of computer science is a list of definitions of terms and concepts used in computer science, its sub-disciplines, and related fields, including terms relevant to software, data science, and computer programming.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gregory D. Hager</span> American computer scientist

Gregory D. Hager is the Mandell Bellmore Professor of Computer Science and founding director of the Johns Hopkins Malone Center for Engineering in Healthcare at Johns Hopkins University.

Berthold Klaus Paul Horn is an American scientist working in the field of artificial intelligence and computer vision. He is Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He is also Principal Investigator at the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) at MIT.

This is a list of the individual topics in Electronics, Mathematics, and Integrated Circuits that together make up the Computer Engineering field. The organization is by topic to create an effective Study Guide for this field. The contents match the full body of topics and detail information expected of a person identifying themselves as a Computer Engineering expert as laid out by the National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying. It is a comprehensive list and superset of the computer engineering topics generally dealt with at any one time.

References

  1. 1 2 Kak, Ram Nath, Autumn Leaves. Vitasta, 1995.
  2. ↑ Homepage https://engineering.purdue.edu/kak/ Avi Kak's Personal Homepage
  3. ↑ Chen, C.H. and A. C. Kak, "A Robot Vision System for Recognizing 3-D Objects in Low-Order Polynomial Time," IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, pp. 1535–1563, November/December 1989
  4. ↑ Kosaka, A. and A. Kak, "Fast Vision-Guided Mobile Robot Navigation using Model-Based Reasoning and Prediction of Uncertainties," Computer Vision, Graphics, and Image Processing -- Image Understanding, pp. 271–329, November 1992
  5. ↑ Aisen, A., Lynn Broderick, H. Winter-Muram, C. Brodley, A. Kak, C. Pavlopoulou, J. Dy, Chi-Ren Shyu, and A. Marchiori, "Automated Storage and Retrieval of Thin-Section CT Images to Assist Diagnosis: System Description and Preliminary Assessment," Radiology, Vol. 228, No. 1, pp. 265–270, July 2003
  6. ↑ Rosenfeld, A. and A.Kak, Digital Picture Processing Academic Press(1982)
  7. ↑ Kak, A. Why Robots Will Never Have Sex
  8. ↑ Andersen, A. and Avinash Kak, "Simultaneous Algebraic Reconstruction Technique (SART): A Superior Implementation of ART," Ultrasonic Imaging, 1984
  9. ↑ Byrne, C. A unified treatment of some iterative algorithms in signal processing and image reconstruction. Inverse Problems 20 103 (2004)
  10. ↑ Jiang, M. and Ge Wang, "Convergence of the simultaneous algebraic reconstruction technique (SART)" IEEE Transactions on Image Processing, Vol. 12, August 2003, pp. 957–961.
  11. ↑ Kak, A. and Malcolm Slaney, Principles of Computerized Tomographic Imaging SIAM (Society of Industrial and Applied Mathematics) Press(1988)
  12. ↑ https://engineering.purdue.edu/kak/ObjectsTrilogy.html The Objects Trilogy Project
  13. ↑ Kak, A. Programming With Objects: A Comparative Presentation of Object Oriented Programming with C++ and Java John Wiley and Sons (2003)
  14. ↑ Kak, A. "Scripting with Objects: A Comparative Presentation of Object-Oriented Scripting with Perl and Python" John Wiley and Sons (2008)
  15. ↑ Kak, A. "Designing with Objects: Object-Oriented Design Patterns Explained with Stories from Harry Potter" John Wiley and Sons (2015)
  16. ↑ "Teaching Programming: An Essay on What's Wrong with How Computer Programming is Taught in Many Universities" (PDF).
  17. ↑ "Ensañar Programaciòn (in Spanish)" (PDF).
  18. ↑ "Avinash Kak (AVIKAK) - metacpan.org". search.cpan.org.
  19. ↑ "Search results".
  20. ↑ "Avi Kak's Open-Source Projects".
  21. ↑ Sarkar, S., G. Rama, and A. C. Kak, API-Based and Information-Theoretic Metrics for Measuring the Quality of Software Modularization, IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, vol. 33, no. 1, pp. 14-32, January 2007.
  22. ↑ Sarkar, S., A. C Kak, G. M. Rama, Metrics for Measuring the Quality of Modularization of Large-Scale Object-Oriented Software, IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering}, vol. 34, No. 5, September/October 2008
  23. ↑ Rama, G.M. and A. Kak Some Structural Measures of API Usability Software -- Practice and Experience pp. 1-36, 2013.
  24. ↑ Jaikumar, P. and Avinash Kak, "A Graph-Theoretic Framework for Isolating Botnets in a Network," Security and Communication Networks, 2012
  25. ↑ "Computer and Network Security by Avi Kak". engineering.purdue.edu.
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