José C. Cunha



Phone:      +351-21-294 85 36 Ext. 10706

Email:      jcc AT My_faculty dot My_university dot My_country 
(please see Address below (), in order to instantiate My_coordinates)

Office:     Sala P2/8, CITI, Edifício II

Address:    Departamento de Informática
Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia (fct)
            Universidade Nova de Lisboa (unl)
            2829-516 Monte de Caparica - Portugal (pt)


Positions

Degrees

Teaching and Research interests:  Computer Architecture, Operating Systems, and Parallel and Distributed Computing. 
More specific interests:  Parallel and Distributed Models, Tools and Environments, Problem-Solving Environments, Cluster and Grid Computing Systems.

Publications

Research: In the beginning of the 1990s I have founded the Parallel and Distributed Processing group at the Computer Science Department of FCT/UNL.  Research in this group has been focused on parallel / distributed languages and execution models,  tools for parallel and distributed program development for multiprocessors, cluster, grid and cloud computing systems, and parallel / distributed problem-solving environments, developed in co-operation with researchers from specific application domains,

My research work has been focused on the following main topics

Pattern-based abstractions for the development of Grid applications were proposed in the scope of the PhD dissertation of Cecilia Gomes, under my supervision.  We have  developed a model and its support methodology for specifying and manipulating structural and behavioral patterns  in Grid applications, and a proof-of-concept protoype was implemented and integrated into the Triana workflow system (developed in Cardiff University), within a co-operation with Omer Rana.
As
as part of Jorge Custodio's PhD work, we are currently working on further developments of the  JGroupSpace model towards autonomic and exascale parallel computing,  
More recently, as part of our  ongoing work with  Joaquim Ferreira Silva (from the Natural Language group of the CITI Centre of FCT/UNL)  a new direction has emerged to investigate the requirements for supporting efficient monitoring and
processing of the execution traces generated by large-scale  parallel/distributed computations, by relying on parallel- and statistical-based approaches: This is  been investigated in the scope of the PhD dissertation by Carlos Goncalves, under our joint supervision, towards an adaptive problem-solving environment for statistical-based text mining.  A prototype was developed based on the MapReduce model with runtime system for a cluster of Cell BE processors, and for a cluster of commodoty machines under Apache Hadoop.
Developments on advanced workflow tools for dynamic and large-scale scientific applications are also been investigated in the scope of the PhD dissertation by Luis Assuncao, in a project with applications  in Geological Sciences.  Our main concern is how to smoothly integrate the support for the application/problem specification with  the resource management and the execution support concerns in distributed, heterogeneous and dynamic cluster, grid or cloud environments.  A model and prototype was developed for a workflow tool (AWARD). In this project we are investigating the relationships between the AWARD framework and the MapReduce architecture.
A multidisciplinary co-operation with Davide d'Alimonte (CENTRIA  centre)  and Tamito Kajiyama (CITI centre)  is also ongoing concerning the development of a high-performance problem-solving environment with integrated tools for Ocean Color applications. The environment is composed of several
pre-processing and post-processing components around a core component based on Monte Carlo simulation, with support for parallelism based on OpenMP and MPI,  Performance modeling and tuning, and support for dynamic adaptation  is a current focus of this project (GeoInfo).

More recently we worked on concurrent and distributed execution of tabled logic programs, in the scope of the PhD dissertation by Rui Marques,  jointly supervised by Terrance Swift (SUNY at Stony Brook) and myself.  Our goal is to provide mechanisms and their support algorithms for concurrent and distributed execution of tabled logic programs, in a two-level approach: (i) by supporting concurrent threads of execution within a WAM engine; (ii) by coordinating multiple distributed WAM engines, to perform distributed evaluation and reasoning. Level (i) consisted of the design of a multithreaded XSB-Prolog abstract machine and its implementation on shared-memory multiprocessors. This work led to the integration of thread management support into the XSB-Prolog system that is now in current use by the XSB-Prolog users' community.  

Teaching:  Since 1996 I have been the Coordinator of the ASC (Computational Systems and Architectures)  Section of the Computer Science Department of FCT/UNL.  This is a teaching and research   unit (currently with a staff of 13 members) encompassing the area of Computer Systems, with focus on Computer Architecture, Operating Systems, Computer Networks, and Distributed and Parallel Computing Systems. At undergraduate level, I have been lecturing Computer Architecture and Operating Systems, and recently focused on the teaching of a course on Fundamentals of Operating Systems. At master level, I have been teaching Parallel and Distributed Computing since the 1990s. At that time I have proposed a first course on an integrated approach for teaching parallel and distributed processing, and I have been working on this topic since then, Recently, I have proposed and have been teaching the new master courses on Parallel and Distributed Computing Systems and on Grid Computing Systems and Applications. At the PhD level, I have been lecturing a course on Parallel, Grid, and Autonomic Computing. I have a deep interest in education issues in Computer Science at all level of studies. I have been a member of ACM - Association for Computer Machiner for more than 20 years, and I was the conference co-chair of the ACM ITiCSE 2005 Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education that was held in the Campus of FCT-UNL.

Teaching: In 2012/13: 

1º Semestre:
Fundamentos de Sistemas de Operação (Licenciatura)
Sistemas de Computação em Grid (Sistemas de Computação em Cloud) (Mestrado)
Parallel, Grid and Autonomic Computing (Doutoramento)

Teaching: In 2011/12: 

1º Semestre:
Parallel, Grid and Autonomic Computing (Doctoral Program in Computer Science)

Teaching: In 2010/11: 

1º Semestre: 

Fundamentos de Sistemas de Operação (Licenciatura)
Sistemas de Computação em Grid (Mestrado)

2º Semestre:
Computação Paralela e Distribuída (Mestrado)
Parallel, Grid and Autonomic Computing (Doutoramento)

Awards:

Association for Computing Machinery, Recognition of Service Award In Appreciation for Contribution to the ACM, General Co-Chair, ITiCSE'05: Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education, June 26-29, 2005.
Membership of Editorial Boards in Scientific Journals and Conference Series:

Selected Publications

Parallel and Distributed Programming and Execution

Tools for Parallel and Distributed Processing

Problem-Solving Environments and Grid Computing

 
Organisation of International Events, at the Campus of FCT/UNL
Organisation of Events and/or Program Committee memberships:

Recent work on Grid Computing:

Other Information:
Courses (in Portuguese)
Disciplinas em 2005/06 - Licenciatura e Mestrado em  Engª Informática 

Other Publications

Research and Education Projects