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Center for Innovation and Research in Computing

Mission: The Center for Innovation and Research in Computing (CIRC) offers a scenario in which students in the School of Computing of Southern Adventist University work on research and development projects to benefit the church, the industry, and the university. By paying students to work on these projects, CIRC provides students with the opportunity to fund their education through on-campus, computing-related work (similar in nature to computing internships).

Vision: To be the most innovative center in the Adventist educational system in which computer science students solve relevant problems with science and technology. 

CIRC is guided by the following objectives:
  • Stimulate creativity and innovation through extracurricular projects
  • Enrich students’ educational experience
  • Collaborate with industry and community partners
  • Support faculty research
  • Enhance faculty-student interaction
  • Provide student employment within the computing discipline
CIRC

Domains:
  • Applied Data Science: In this domain, data science is applied to extract knowledge from data. Data science calls for multi-disciplinary approaches that incorporate theories and methods from many fields including mathematics, statistics, pattern recognition, knowledge engineering, machine learning, high performance computing, etc. Data science is the science about data.
  • Web App Development: In this domain, web apps are developed to implement data management and information solutions. Web app development requires incorporating knowledge of software development tooling, techniques, patterns, testing, documentation, UI/UX design, and full stack technologies.
  • Office Automation: In this domain, solutions are developed to simplify and automate common office processes. Development requires incorporating knowledge of data scraping, scripting, browser automation, testing, and documentation.
  • Educational Software: In this domain, educational software is developed to simplify or enhance teaching. Development requires incorporating knowledge of education, software development, UI/UX, testing, and documentation.
  • Mobile App Development: In this domain, mobile apps are developed to implement data management and information solutions. Mobile app development requires incorporating knowledge of software development tooling, techniques, patterns, testing, documentation, UI/UX design, app store guidelines, and client technologies.
  • Security: In this domain, security is applied to IT practices in business, education and government. Security encompasses both defensive and offensive strategies to improve the security position as it applies to both hardware and software. 
CIRC

Clients:

CIRC works with various industry and community partners as well as with Southern Adventist University on programming projects of various sizes. A wide range of technologies are used for development, including Android, iOS, PHP, C#.NET, and C++. Typically, CIRC works on specialized projects that don't fit neatly inside one of the many generalized software solutions that are available on the market today.

Here are a few of the clients that CIRC has worked with in the past:

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Project Portfolio


College and University Dialogue - Website Upgrade and Mobile Apps
The College and University Dialogue magazine (Dialogue) is published by the Department of Education of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists. CIRC was tasked with upgrading Dialogue's website from a file-based article system to a database-driven website with full-text search, PHP API, and a custom admin CMS for modifying and adding to many portions of the website. Native mobile apps for iOS and Android were created to take advantage of the website's new API. These mobile apps allow for downloading articles for offline reading as well as article theming (font size, etc.) and full-text searching. You can view the Dialogue website here. (PHP, JavaScript, Cocoa Touch, Objective-C, iOS, Java, Android, SQLite)

Download the App

ShareSynch
ShareSynch is an iPad and iPhone application that lets users present and edit ShareHim presentations. In ShareSynch, users can download sermon materials, dynamically generate PDF documents of presentations, edit speaker notes in rich text, and swap the slide or speaker note language independently of one another. (Cocoa Touch, Objective-C, SQLite)

Dowload the App

Devoted - Daily Devotional
The Devoted app was created for the Pacific Press Publishing Association and gives users the opportunity to easily read and share the Devoted Daily Devotional, which is also available online at the following link: Devoted Daily Devotional. (Android, Java, Cocoa Touch, Objective-C, SQLite)

Download the App

Quality Enhancement Plan Website
The Quality Enhancement Plan website was built for the School of Health and Kinesiology at Southern Adventist University. The site helps students and employees track their physical activity and make plans to improve their own physical health over time. (C#.NET, jQuery, MS SQL)
Other Projects
  • A C++ API that allows for resumable downloads as well as status information during downloads such as speed, estimated time remaining, etc. (C++, Boost)
  • An online academy enrollment application form with online payment and data export to Pearson PowerSchool. (PHP, Bootstrap, Oracle, MySQL, Stripe)
  • An employee training and records website with database-entry creation and modification. (PHP, MS SQL)
  • An Android application and mobile website system which allowed for uploading, conversion, and viewing of videos in an HTML5-friendly format as well as a custom chat interface for discussions between two people. (Android, Java, PHP, FFmpeg, jQuery Mobile, MySQL)
  • A personal library content management system. (Cocoa, Mac OS X)
  • A mobile website that let users retrieve directions from Google Maps and view persons or locations within a certain radius of the directions route. These persons or locations could then be added to a visitation list and printed. (PHP, jQuery Mobile, Google Maps JavaScript API)

Recent Scientific Publications
  • Hýbl, A. & Alférez, G.H. (2024). Using AutoML to Analyze the Effect of Attendance and Seat Location on University Student Grades. Proceedings of the Intelligent Systems Conference (IntelliSys) 2023, Amsterdam, the Netherlands. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-47721-8_42
  • Hines, J., Cunningham, N., & Alférez, G.H. (2023). Performance Comparison of Operations in the File System and in Embedded Key-Value Databases. Proceedings of the Computing Conference 2023, London, England. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37963-5_27
  • Sapkota, A., Alférez, G.H. & Chadwick, A. (2023). Visualizing Paleocurrents in a Web Application using GPlates. AGU23. https://agu.confex.com/agu/fm23/meetingapp.cgi/Paper/1344812
  • Domínguez, R., Alférez, G.H., González-Mejia, V., & Donías, N. (2023). Data Science Application for Creation of Maternal Morbidity and Mortality Predictive Software. Proceedings of the 27th World Multi-Conference on Systems, Cybernetics and Informatics (WMSCI 2023), Orlando, FL, USA. https://doi.org/10.54808/WMSCI2023.01.1
  • Bateman, L.T., Butler, M.A., & Alférez, G.H. (2022). Database Query Execution Through Virtual Reality. Proceedings of the Future Technologies Conference 2022 (FTC 2022), Vancouver, Canada. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18458-1_42
  • Cookenmaster, D.C., Bahn, J.A., & Alférez, G.H. (2022). Introducing Database Normal Forms to Students: A Comparison Between Theory-First and Practice-First Educational Approaches. Proceedings of the Future Technologies Conference 2022 (FTC 2022), Vancouver, Canada. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18344-7_12
  • Bosquez, S., Alférez, G.H., Martínez Ardila, A.M., & Clausen B.L. (2022). Automatic Classification of Felsic, Mafic, and Ultramafic Rocks in Satellite Images from Palmira and La Victoria, Colombia. Proceedings of the Computing Conference 2022, London, England. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-10464-0_36
  • Alférez, G.H., Esteban, O.A., Clausen, B.L., & Martínez Ardila, A.M. (2022). Automated machine learning pipeline for geochemical analysis. Earth Science Informatics.https://doi.org/10.1007/s12145-022-00821-8

Contact Information
For more information about the Center for Innovation and Research in Computing or to inquire about project development, please contact:

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