A Study on the Viability of Hadoop Usage on the Umfort Cluster for the Processing and Storage of CReSIS Polar Data
http://nia.ecsu.edu/ur/1011/teams/polar/IndexPolarGrid2011.html
The primary focus of this research was to explore the capabilities of Hadoop as a software package to process, store and manage CReSIS polar data in a clustered environment. The investigation involved Hadoop functionality and usage through reviewed publications. The team’s research was aimed at determining if Hadoop was a viable software package to implement on the Elizabeth City State University (ECSU) Umfort computing cluster. Utilizing case studies processing, storage, management, and job distribution methods were compared. A final determination of the benefits of Hadoop for the storing and processing of data on the Umfort cluster was then made.

Hybrid Cloud Security: Replication and Direction of Sensitive Data Blocks
http://nia.ecsu.edu/ur/1112/summerinterns/11internships.html#koch
The primary focus of this research was to analyze the Hybrid Cloud security platform as proposed by Dr. Xiaofeng Wang and his research team. Large scale data sets in cloud computing environments carry inherent security concerns. The proposed platform involves code implementation and modification within the Hadoop Distributed File System as it pertains to parallel data processing. A hybrid cloud solution involves separating sensitive data which is confined to a private domain (private cloud), from non-sensitive data (public cloud). The specific research task was to create and modify java source code within the Hadoop Distributed File System, to implement alternative replication factors and test to verify that data was replicated to the proper domain (public or private) based on its security tag. Code was modified to change the replication factor of data and tested. Modified code was tested to see that data was distributed to public and private domains as tagged. This project is supported in part by National Science Foundation Grant CNS-0716292.

Survey to Detect Long-term Variability in Pine Island Bay Coastal Ice Using Archived Landsat Imagery 

http://nia.ecsu.edu/ur/1112/teams/antarctica/index.html 

The primary focus of this research was to survey an area of west Antarctica
between 100° West Longitude to 110° West Longitude. A comparison was made between early LANDSAT images spanning the years from 1972 to 2003. The LANDSAT images were georeferenced and compared against an existing grounding line established by an international team of glaciologist and computer scientist that defines the boundary between the ice sheet resting on land and floating ice. Results will include a validation of the actual grounding line location and detection of coastal ice morphology changes.

Using CReSIS Radar Data to Determine Ice Thickness at Pine Island Glacier By Topographic Identification of Surface
Research Experience for Undergraduates for Ocean, Marine, and Polar Science
Elizabeth City State University Summer 2012
http://nia.ecsu.edu/reuomps2012/teams/penn/index.html
The 2012 Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU), Ocean Marine Polar Science (OMPS), Penn State Team analyzed CReSIS radar data to identify the ice-surface and ice-bottom features. From this, both elevation and ice thickness at Pine Island Glacier were determined. The team utilized MATLAB along with an add-on picker program; The Penn State Environment for Seismic Processing (PSESP), developed at Pennsylvania State University. MATLAB is a programming environment that analyzes data as well as many other technical processing applications. With the picker program the team selected specific, maximum-strength radar peaks on individual radar traces and applied a formula to compute the distance traveled by the signal. The difference between the distance traveled from the surface and bottom features was calculated to produce an ice thickness map. The team results will provide data that will aid in modeling of the Pine Island Glacier.