SIGMOD: ACM SIGMOD Conf on Management of Data
       PODS: ACM SIGMOD Conf on Principles of DB Systems
       VLDB: Very Large Data Bases
       ICDE: Intl Conf on Data Engineering

       CIKM: Intl. Conf on Information and Knowledge Management
       ICDT: Intl Conf on Database Theory

Rank 2:

SSD: Intl Symp on Large Spatial Databases
DEXA: Database and Expert System Applications
FODO: Intl Conf on Foundation on Data Organization
EDBT: Extending DB Technology
DOOD: Deductive and Object-Oriented Databases
DASFAA: Database Systems for Advanced Applications
SSDBM: Intl Conf on Scientific and Statistical DB Mgmt
CoopIS - Conference on Cooperative Information Systems
ER - Intl Conf on Conceptual Modeling (ER)

参考 http://www3.ntu.edu.sg/home/assourav/crank.htm

<1>Module  Usually,in enterprise software,it presents the logic of the commercial bean.To the SE Swing GUI,it contains data and the rules that govern access to and updates of this data.
<2>View  It specifies exactly how the module data should be presented,changing with the model data.
<3>Controller   Controller defines all the methods connecting to the user action which are called by the View.

SONIA Team Click here for more images

For no college credits, no pay, and no guarantee of success, the ETS team designed and built an AUV that could meet the complex and demanding mission requirements of the competition. Detailed in an 18-page document, these requirements included the ability to autonomously pass through a gate, detect a flashing light, find and connect with a docking station, locate a pipe and drop material into a bin—all underwater and with no communication with the team.

The submarine is called SONIA, which stands for Système d’Opérations Nautiques Intelligent et Autonome, and is just over one meter long, with a dry weight of 20 kg and a unique box-shaped design. It is equipped with sensors and two color video cameras. Navigation data input is provided by a compass and two gyroscopes as well as active and passive sonar arrays.

SONIA outperformed all but two of the 21 entries in the student competition, securing a place for ETS on the podium for a fourth year in a row. With an overall budget of just $15,000 U.S. (provided by ETS and a variety of corporate sponsors), the ETS team scored higher than teams with six-figure budgets. The competition was won by the University of Florida, but the ETS team came out ahead of renowned engineering schools such as MIT, Georgia Tech, and Virginia Tech.

Innovative Design, Expert Software Engineering

Two of the characteristics that set SONIA apart from competitors were its innovative box-shaped design and the sophistication of its core software systems.

SONIA underwater Click here for more images

The ETS team’s expertise with Java software proved a decisive advantage. Martin Morissette, software team leader of the SONIA team, is currently entering his third year in software engineering, and recently completed a six-month internship at Sun Labs, where he worked on the “Squawk VM,” a small J2ME™ virtual machine (VM) written almost entirely in Java. The Squawk VM provides the ability to run wireless transducer applications directly on the CPU without any underlying OS, saving overhead and improving performance.

“I learned a great deal during my time with Sun Labs that was extremely useful in the development of the navigation software for SONIA,” said Morissette. “The fact is, Java is an excellent programming language for robotics. All schools teach Java, so everyone on the software team knows how to use it. It’s object-oriented; it’s portable so it runs on Macs, PCs, Linux, whatever; it’s very efficient so we don’t have to worry about memory management; and there are lots of APIs available. And if you know how to write your applications properly, it can be very fast.”

The ETS team used Java for mission control and SONIA’s control systems, Java Management Extensions (JMX) for management, and a Java 3-D Simulator to simulate a broad range of mission scenarios. The team is now investigating the possibilities of Real-time Java, introduced at this year’s JavaOne Conference, for AUV and other robotics applications.

Consensus Building and Peer Review

According to Mr. Mercier, teamwork was every bit as important as technology in the ETS team’s success. “I can’t stress strongly enough that our ability to work together was the key to our success in the competition,” he said. “This is not about 12 individuals working on separate tasks by themselves. Every step of the way, we worked as a team and built consensus, so in the end everyone learned more. And that’s what this is really all about.”

For example, each software change was subject to peer review. All team members would receive an e-mail containing the previous version of the software, the new version incorporating a proposed change, and the rationale behind the change. Far from slowing the process down, the peer review concept got more team members more actively engaged, and ultimately resulted in far higher quality, according to Mr. Mercier. These peer reviews also ease the integration of new team members. Being a volunteer based project, volunteers come and go on a regular basis.

At the same time, the team shared tips and tricks with peers at other educational institutions. “This is more of a friendly rivalry than a dog-eat-dog competition,” said Tennessee Carmel-Veilleux, electrical team leader of the SONIA team. “We like to exchange information with some of the other teams, keep in touch with them. Who knows—we may all be working together some day.”

In recognition of the team’s willingness to work with other teams, and for achievements at the Unmanned Underwater Vehicle Competition, Felix Pageau, team captain, won the Andy Estabrook Award for "initiative and vision in the unmanned underwater systems.” Given for the first time to a student, the award was presented by the Lindbergh Chapter, San Diego, CA, of the AUVSI. Andy Estabrook was a pioneer in unmanned robotics and this award was created to honor his accomplishments in the advance of unmanned systems technology.

What’s next for the ETS team? The team itself is growing rapidly, thanks in part to the success at this year’s competition. The team leaders now find themselves in management roles as the team’s ranks have swollen to 34. “We’re going to compete again next year, and we’re going to focus on making our software more stable, more reliable, and faster,” said Mr. Morissette. In the mean time, the team leaders will be presenting their work at a variety of conferences worldwide—from Florida and Washington D.C. to Cologne, Germany.

And when will they get around to more traditional college activities such as frat parties and beer runs? “Probably never,” said Mr. Mercier. “We’re geeks. We’re doing what we love.”

For more information:

• SONIA website: http://sonia.etsmtl.ca
• Project Squawk (Java implementation of Project SunSPOT):http://research.sun.com/projects/squawk/
• Real-Time Specification for Java (RTSJ): http://www.rtsj.org
• Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI) http://www.auvsi.org/
• AUVSI Lindbergh Chapter: http://www.sd-auvsi.org/index.html