Introduction to the Discipline of Computer Science and Technology (CST)

The Computer Science and Technology (CST) department in Northeast Forestry University (NEFU) was founded in 1995, while the secondary-level discipline master degree program of Computer Application Technology was established in 2001 and began to recruit postgraduate student in the following year. In 2006, the master’s degree program of CAT was named a key subject of Heilongjiang province. In 2010, CST began to award first-level master’s degrees and added two second-level master’s programs, including Computer System Architecture and Computer Software and Theory, and recruited postgraduate students in 2012.

 

1. The Orientation and Target of CST

 

In order to meet the requirement of NEFU’s medium and long-term strategy of constructive development, the department aims to develop forestry, serve the domestic economy and to launch innovative research on the basic theory and application of computer science and technology in forestry engineering. We focus on cultivating interdisciplinary top engineering professionals and insist on the educational ideology of “information based, industry-oriented and development with characteristics”. We are strengthening the high quality of education and research, promoting social influence, shift to research-based teaching and achieving the goal to lead regional universities and industry with distinct characteristics. We are going to train an advanced innovative team of computer scientists and build a training base for high-level applicable professionals of information technology.  

 

2. Research Interests of CST

 

Computer Architecture: ①Parallel and Distributed Computation; ②Internet of Things and Mobile Internet; ③Embedded System and Architecture.

 

Computer Software and Theory: ①Software Science and Intelligent Information Processing; ②Computer vision and perception calculation; ③Theory and Application of 3S.

 

Computer Application Technology: ①Pattern Recognition and Intelligent Control; ② Network and Information Security; ③Application of Cloud Computing and Internet of Things.

 

3. The CST Faculty

 

The department now has 31 lecturers, 5 tutors of PhD students, and 18 tutors of master’s students. Among them, there are 6 professors, 13 associate professors, 1 new century excellent talent of the Ministry of Education and 1 top-notch talent of youth. 3 teachers have overseas experience. In the department, 21 teachers have doctoral degree and 3 teachers are PhD candidates. 4 people are over the age of 46, 20 people are with the age between 36 and 45 and 5 people are below the age of 35 years old.

 

We have set up one Heilongjiang province’s “forestry ecological big data storage and high performance (cloud) computing engineering technology research center” (Science and Technology Agency), one Heilongjiang province’s “forestry intelligent equipment engineering research center” (Development and Reform Commission), one provincial “TRIZ theory research laboratory” and three “demonstration bases of postgraduate students’ innovation and training”.

 

4. The Advantages and Features of CST:

 

The department is featured with following the frontier of information technology, combination of theoretical research and engineering applications, multi-disciplinary integration, high-level international communication and cooperation, deeply merging regional economic development and the improvement of forestry technology. 

 

(1) Research of 3S primary theory and engineering application to serve the regional economy and special forestry requirements

 

CST research mainly focuses on forest resources, ecological environment and forestry engineering. It is dedicated to the research fields of 3S technology and digital forestry, intelligent information processing and information fusion, spatial database and expert decision support system. Our ongoing work is:

 

①Undertaking a number of national and provincial research on forest fire prevention, establishing remote infrared automatic fire detection systems, intelligent monitoring systems of forest fire prevention based on location service, expert systems for forest fire prevention, etc. They have earned several science and technology progress awards for Heilongjiang province.

 

②Undertaking the provincial and ministerial-level key project research such as “expert decision system of forest disease and insect pest prevention and control,” establishing the expert decision system of forest disease and insect protection and control, automatic question answering system with forest diseases and insect pests knowledge, and expert knowledge system of diseases and insect pests in fast-growing and high-yield plantations. Several science and technology progress awards of Heilongjiang province have been earned.

 

③Carrying out the project of State Forestry Bureau’s “comprehensive software technology and application of digital forestry”, mainly researching on forest resource spatial data updating model algorithms, man-made larix gmelini forests basal area growth model algorithms, growth model algorithms of large fast-growing productive forest stands, methods to modify forest stand growth models, evaluation of the multifunctional benefits of forests, and function zoning based on GIS systems. They have been awarded several second prizes and third prizes of science and technology progress prizes in Heilongjiang province.

 

④Taking the lead in using bar code technology in wood purchase-sales-inventory management, and having successfully widely applied the technology in forestry enterprises, creating huge economic benefits. A second prize of science and technology progress prize of Heilongjiang province has been awarded.

 

Most research achievements have been applied widely in forestry production enterprises, and created great economic and ecological benefits for forestry enterprises.

 

(2) Research of primary theories of image processing, intelligent detection and engineering applications for the special requirements of the wood processing industry

 

More than 20 national and provincial scientific research projects have been undertaken in recent years. The research and achievements are listed below:

 

① In the field of wood processing industry, the following work has been carried out: wood color grading, recognition of defects in timber, recognition of knots in solid wood floors, segmentation and calculation of sections of raw wood, multi-threshold edge detection in real time, algorithm for panel identification of optimized selection of solid wood, multi-objective quick identification of panels with parallel computation, classification and identification of seeds of timber, etc.

 

② In wood microstructure and analysis of material property, the following work has been carried out: research of Nano-Laser cutting micro-Nano wood fiber technology, detection algorithms of micron-level wood fiber diameter, characteristic analysis and simulation of influence factors of extrusion molding of wood-plastic composites, simulation study of combining directional slicing of wood and sieving of heat flow into nanofibers, study of 3D-structure information extraction of wood cells and prediction of physical property parameters of wood, etc.

 

③ In bamboo wood processing, the following work has been carried out: extraction of bamboo inner and outer contours, target tracking algorithms, research of concentric mechanism of cutting bamboo, research of CNC bamboo cutting machines, technology of numerical control machining and analysis of outturn percentage of bamboo wood, etc.

 

Valuable research experience and practical techniques have been accumulated over the past years. A series of high level scientific research achievements have been made and widely applied. They have been awarded several second prizes and third prizes of science and technology in Heilongjiang province.

 

(3) Research of primary theory for cloud computing and big data and their forestry applications

 

The following research projects have been carried out: two State Forestry Bureau projects, “forest ecological function evaluation decision platform and demonstration based on cloud computing,” and “research of monitoring technology and its application in forestry based on Internet of things;” three provincial key projects, “research of dynamic service resources integration with cloud computing and coordinated management technology for forestry big data applications,” a “Transverse” research project “processing method of huge amounts of noise data and construction of elastic platform based on cloud computing,” and “fusion safety and evaluation system of reliability in cloud computing environment.”

 

Construction of a cloud platform which fits the characteristics of forestry big data, storage and analysis of big data have been implemented, automatic acquisition, wireless transmission, real-time monitoring, historical data storage, web publishing and data analysis of important parameters in the environment of wide-area forestry have been implemented, continuous space-time multi-point collaborative monitoring for forest ecological environments have been applied, and several high level scientific research achievements have been awarded as well as a second prizes of science and technology progress prize of Heilongjiang province.

 

(4) Research of primary theory of intelligent control and robots and their applications in forestry and artificial boards

 

Research in forestry mainly involves wood physics, intelligent techniques and equipment, elaborate processing in the field of forestry engineering, such as forest engineering, wood science and technology, chemical engineering, wood science and technology, forest chemical products, biomass materials, transportation in forestry, forestry informationization, and automation. More than 10 scientific research projects which are national, provincial or ministerial level have been carried out.

 

① With regards to robots, research is mainly into mobile robot path tracking control, robot recognition of fruit, robot recognition of leaves, humanoid robot motion tracking and running planning, intelligent PID controller parameter optimization, chaotic dynamics analysis of five-dimension system, parallel simulation technology of multi-scale biological models, group behavior consistency of multi-agent systems, manufacturing of three-dimensional cutting five-axis numerical control equipment, and so on.

 

② Regarding the optimization control of biomass material process, research such as continuous hot-pressing optimized control of man-made boards, continuous flat-pressing calculation methods for quality control of man-made boards, multi-layer hot-press mass transfer process optimization control, optimization control of particleboard multilayer hot-pressing caloric transfer process, popularization of key technology of poplar veneer strengthen manufacturing composite materials, and gluing mechanism of laccase activating wood materials film pressure sawn tree have been carried out.

 

Plenty of experience in scientific research and practical techniques have been accumulated in research of optimization control of man-made board processes, solid wood intelligent online sorting and cooperative control, precision control of forest wood bamboo processes, on-line testing and numerical control technology of wood drying, energy saving techniques and intelligent controls, and embedded development and optimization calculation theory. A series of high level scientific research achievements have been made and applied widely. With a domestic leading position and first class international level, they have obtained two second prizes of science and technology in Heilongjiang province.

 

5. Target and quantity of training professionals

 

In order to serve the development of information industry and informatization and modernization of the domestic forestry industry, we work to cultivate high level professionals who: are healthy both physically and mentally; have good humanistic quality; have rigorous scientific attitude; master solid theory fundamentals and systematical knowledge; have strong team work spirit; are familiar with the latest trends of corresponding research fields; are able to work independently on scientific research and engineering applications in computer science; perform scientific research and engineering application in interdisciplinary areas, especially forestry.

 

The quality of postgraduate students’ education is improving continuously. Over the past years, the department has recruited more than 200 postgraduate students. At present, we have 42 postgraduate students. More than 10 SCI papers have been published by postgraduate students. 12 papers were awarded school-level outstanding master's theses and 4 papers were awarded provincial-level outstanding master's theses. The employment rate of students is 100% and most of them work in government departments, large and medium-sized enterprise and public institutions, well-known IT enterprises while some of them who have outstanding scientific research ability continue to study in famous universities all over the world.

 

6. Level and achievements of scientific research

 

During the past years, the department has undertaken more than 160 national, ministerial-level and provincial research projects with the funds of more than 30 million CNY in total. Among them, there are 4 projects of the Natural Science Foundation of China, 10 national-level projects, 3 national major 863 projects, 42 provincial and ministerial-level planning projects, 40 bureau-level planning projects, 20 scientific research projects entrusted by enterprises and institutions. More than 20 projects have obtained provincial-level and ministerial-level science and technology progress prizes and 10 patents and 25 software copyrights are also achieved. More than 800 academic papers have been published, more than 150 papers published in SCI and EI index and more than 30 published academic compositions and textbooks.

 

7. Influence and social service

 

The department has formed its own features and advantages in 3S technology and intelligent forestry, computer vision and intelligent detection, cloud computing and big data, intelligent control and robot research. It has become an important base for cultivating high-level IT professionals with distinct characteristics of forestry, and having dual attributes of both scientific education and engineer training.

 

In terms of transferring research outcomes and serving the local economy, the department emphasizes a combination of production, teaching and research. We transfer research outcomes and innovative applications through the window of 2 engineering centers and 1 provincial-level base of TRIZ theory teaching and research. They received high praise and high regard from industry.

 

In terms of academic communication, as a Council Unit of Heilongjiang Computer Society, we cooperated with CCF YOCSEF and successfully hosted a “High Performance Computing Application” seminar and more than 10 high-level academic forums. We have created an active academic atmosphere. Teachers serve as Program Committee Chairs in high-level conferences such as Wicon2016, Ficloud2016, ICYCSEE2015-2016, BDTA2015 and SC2015 and as reviewers in high-level journals such as Computing and Informatics, Cluster Computing, Concurrency and Computation: Practice and Experience, Computing and Informatics, and Journal of Supercomputing. 

 

In terms of a think tank, we twice participated in the revision of the State Forestry Bureau 948 and industry of public welfare special declaring guidelines. We also twice participated in formulating forestry industry standards. In addition, we actively promote scientific popularization, undertook social public services and gave full play to the function of the university serving society and the advantage of innovation research platform. We organized many kinds of trainings and examinations for more than 20 thousand people, 6,000 of whom were candidates of Computer Grade Examination. We have made huge contributions to serve local needs.