GOALS

This course is a hands-on introduction to software development for data and information modeling of modern civil infrastructure systems.

Students will learn how to write and compile simple programs in Python and Java (no prior experience required), and then work step-by-step toward the use of object-oriented software architectures, collections, and software design patterns. We will use graph data structures and algorithms to model networked systems found in the built environment.

A wide range of case study applications will be considered, e.g., modeling of road and utility networks, multi-domain semantic modeling and reasoning, project scheduling, and planning of activities in disaster response.

The semester will conclude with completion and presentation of a project.

Click here to see a sample of screenshots from recent class projects.

Note: We welcome students from across the College of Engineering.

COURSE CONTENTS - SPRING SEMESTER 2023

The topics will be as follows:

Part 1: Data and Information Management for Modern Civil Systems (2 weeks)

• Modern Civil Infrastructure Systems
  Topic: Features and required capabilities.
  Topic: Role of sensing, communications, control, and computation.
  Topic: Pathway from sensing to data to information, knowledge and decision making to action.
  Topic: Cyber-physical systems and Digital Twins.
  
• Languages for Engineering Software Development
  Topic: Evolution of computer languages over the past 20 years?
  Topic: Features of low- and high-level languages
  Topic: Features of scripting languages versus compiled languages
  
• Visual Modeling of Systems with UML/SysML
  Topic: History and Goals of UML/SysML.
  Topic: Modeling abstractions for system structure and system behavior.
• Real-World Urban Datasets
  Topic: Urban, Government and Geographic Data Portals
  

Part 2: Introduction to Python and Java (3 weeks)

• Getting Started with Python
  Topic: Writing and Compiling a Simple Python Program,
  Topic: Basic programming (data types, expressions, control structures, functions),
  Topic: Working with builtin collections (lists, dictionaries, sets).
  Topic: Working with Pandas (series and dataframes).
  Topic: Reading CSV files; two and three-dimensional graphics.
  Topic: Software Productivity Tools: pip, Jupyter Notebook.
  
• Getting Started with Java
  Topic: Writing and Compiling a Simple Java Program,
  Topic: Basic programming (data types, expressions, assignments, branching constructs, loops),
  Topic: Public and private methods and data.
  Topic: Single- and multi-dimensional arrays,
  Topic: Reading CSV files; two and three-dimensional graphics.
  Topic: Software Productivity Tools: Ant.
  
• Object-Oriented Software Development
  Topic: Classes, objects, association and inheritance relationships.
  Topic: Abstract classes and interfaces.
  Topic: Guidelines for class and package design.
  

Part 3: Data Structures and Algorithms (2 weeks)

• Introduction to Data Structures and Algorithms
  Topic: Arrays, arraylists, hash tables, and trees.
  Topic: Modeling Association relationships (e.g., many-to-one, many-to-many),
  Topic: Working with the Java Collections Framework.
  Topic: Working with the Python Collections Module.
  
• Graph Data Structures and Algorithms
  Topic: Graphs and Graph Algorithms.
  Topic: Working with JGraphT (Java) and NetworkX (Python) .
  Topic: Applications of graphs to infrastructure/network modeling.
  

Part 4: Software Design Patterns (2 weeks)

• Introduction
  Topic: Definition and importance
  Topic: Design patterns in architecture and city planning.
  
• Structural Design Patterns
  Topic: Builder, composite hierarchy, adapter and bridge design patterns.
• Behavioral Design Patterns
  Topic: Observer, mediator and visitor design patterns.
• System Design Patterns
  Topic: Model-view-controller and router design patterns.

Part 5: Spatial Modeling of Urban Systems (2 weeks)

• Spatial Abstractions and Reasoning
  Topic: Points, Lines, Polygons, MultiPoints, MultiLines, ...
  Topic: Region Connected Calculus (RCC).
  Topic: Modeling planar geometric objects with Shapely (Python).
  Topic: Spatial modeling with JTS (Java Topology Suite).
  
• XML Data Models
  Topic: Traditional Approaches to Working with XML (SAX and DOM)
  Topic: Java Binding for XML (JAXB)
  Topic: Java to XML conversion; XML to Java conversion.
• OpenStreetMap (OSM) Data Models
  Topic: The Open Street Map Markup Language (OSM).
  Topic: Reading and Processing OSM Data.
  

Part 6: Additional Topics (Class Interest and Time Permitting) (1 week)

• Graphical User Interface (GUI) Development with JavaFX
  Topic: Organization of JavaFX components.
  Topic: Layout managers, event listeners.
  Topic: Working with FXML.
  
• GeoSpatial Modeling and Visualization
  Topic: Introduction to GeoPandas.
  Topic: Visualization of networks and graphs.
  

Students will complete individual homework assignments, and work in small teams on a software development project.

ENCE 688R SYNCHRONOUS ONLINE

Here's what synchronous online means:

• For each lecture I will post the "lecture content" (pdf) to the notes from class page.

• I will also post handouts and links to interesting web sites on notes from class .

• We will meet during class times over zoom.
  I will go over the material, demonstrate various ideas in software, and answer your questions.
  

• E-mail submission of homework and project work.
  Please see the detailed instructions (for naming of files) below.

Synchronous Class Sessions and Office Hours

• Mark Austin . Synchronous class sessions and office hours will be Tuesday and Thursday, 5-6.15 pm.
  Join Zoom Meeting: https://umd.zoom.us/j/6517468335
  

  This semester I will be holding in-person office hours (at the university), Monday and Wednesday 11 am -- 12 pm.
  If you are having a problem with your computer, meeting in person might be the best option. Even if you just want to drop-in to catch up, that'll be fine too!
  

Submission of Homework and Project Work

• Homework will be posted on the notes from class web page.
  Please submit your homework as a zip file and send either as an attachment to an e-mail or via Dropbox.
  Also, please indicate in your e-mail subject heading the class and purpose of the e-mail, e.g,,

      ENCE688R: Homework 2 ...
  

Submission of Midterm and Final Exams

• I will post exam on the "notes from class" web page at 5pm on the day of the exam,
  and log into Zoom soon thereafter (just in case you have questions).

• You will have 24 hrs to work on your solution, scan and convert your solution into a pdf file having the name, e.g.,

      ENCE688R-Midterm1-YourLastName-YourFirstName.pdf
  

  For example, the file name: ENCE688R-Midterm1-Austin-Mark.pdf would indicate midterm 1 exam paper from Mark Austin.

• Good luck!

Midterm exam papers will be returned after they have been graded.

Class Text and Resources

• Text not required, but there will be lots of class handouts distributed via notes from class web page.
• Java and Python software will be distributed via the notes from class web page and Dropbox.

Course Assessment and Exam Schedule

The course will be assessment will be as follows:

• Homework (20%).
• One midterm exam (25%).
  The exam will be open book and open notes.
• Final exam (25%): December XX.
  The exam will be open book and open notes and will
  be similar in style to the midterm exam.
  Study hints have been posted to the notes-from-class web page.
• End-of-semester project/report involving the use of graphs/networks (30%).
  

Note. Students may drop the midterm exam if they do better on the final exam (i.e., it can count for up to 50% of the final grade).

Note.

• Accommodation for students with disabilities will be made.
• At the end of the semester, please participate in the evaluation of courses through CourseEvalUM.
  Your feedback is confidential and an important means of improving the course in future semesters.

Download Python and Java

• Download Python 3.X . It seems that Apple ships its Macs with Python 2.X pre-installed.
  But for the purposes of this class I am going to assume you have Python 3.7 (or Python 3.8) installed.
  This detail matters because the language is not backwards compatible (Strike 1 against Python).
• Download Java . I have Java 1.11 on my laptop, but you are
  certainly welcome to download a more recent version.
• Download Apache Ant . Apache Ant is a Java Library that
  manages the compilation of Java programs and execution of programs and test cases. Extremely useful.
• Click here to download the Eclipse IDE.

• NEW: Download Microsoft Visual Studio .

• If your computer is a Mac think about downloading Homebrew and then using brew to
  automatically download and install the Ant packages on your machine.

  Note (Oct, 2020). I just installed homebrew on my iMac (home) running Catalina (10.15) and, sadly, Apple has not
  made this process easy. Here's the bottom line to get things working:

  Homebrew uses something called the "command line tools", which is an addition to Xcode.
  So before you can install Homebrew, you need to download and install the command line tools.
  I downloaded the dmg file for the command line tools from the Apple developers web site --
  just create an account, it's free. Run the installation program and the tools will be put
  in /Library/Developers/CommandLineTools/
  

  Then, to install Homebrew, cut-and-paste the command listed on the Homebrew page into a terminal window
  running the bash shell. The installation only takes are few minutes and you are good to go.
  For example, to install ant, simply type: brew install ant at the prompt in a terminal window.

Python and Java Programming Resources

• Python 3.8 Tutorial
• The Python Collections Module
• Shapely : Python package for manipulation and analysis of planar geometric objects.
  Also see Shapely User Manual .

• NEW: Check out Python Tutor , expecially it's features for visual code execution.

• NEW: Check out the Shapes Constraint Language , RDFLib and pySHACL.

• Java Programming Source Code Examples (www.java2s.com)
• Standard and Extension Packages (i.e., packages java.* and javax.*) in Java 8.
• Java Language Specification SE8 Release 2015 ( pdf )
  This document contains a detailed description of Java SE8 (handy is you want to know exactly what Java 8 does).
• Standard and Extension Packages (i.e., packages java.* and javax.*) in Java 6 ( pdf ).
• List of Java Frameworks
• Download JAMA: A Matrix Package. JAMA is a basic linear algebra package for Java.

Real-World Datasets

• The 50 Best Free Datasets for Machine Learning
• Best Public Datasets for Machine Learning and Data Science
• Urban datasets on data.world
• PEER Hub ImageNet
• Open Data DC, District of Columbia.
• Open Data Portal , District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority
• Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority API.
• New York City OpenData Portal.
• City of Chicago Data Portal .
• Chicago: Array of Things project and data.
• Kaggle: Large collection of public datasets and notebooks.
• UCI Machine Learning Repository .

Working with Real-World Data

• Data Analysis with Pandas . Real-world data sources are nearly always very messy.
  Pandas is an open source data analysis
  and manipulation tool, built on top of Python.
• Click here to install pandas 1.1.4 (Released October, 2020).
• Python Pandas Tutorial at TutorialsPoint.com

Digital Twins

• National Digital Twin Program, Centre for Digital Built Britain, University of Cambridge, England.
  See article: Data Science and Computational Mathematics to Advance Predictive Engineering .
• Digital Twin Cloud Services for Infrastructure Engineering , Bentley Systems, 2021.
• Making Digital Twins to Monitor and Control Tomorrow's Reactor Designs, Idaho National Library, Idaho Falls.
  Also see DICE, their Digital Innovation Center of Excellence.
  Here's an article on construction and operation of their hydrogen hub prototype (December, 2022).
• Corral-Acero J., et al., Digital Twins and Vision of Precision Cardiology ,
  European Heart Journal, Volume 41, Issue 48, 21 December 2020, pp. 4556--4564.
• Inter-Professional Projects Program: Creating an IIT Digital Twin , IIT, Chicago, Fall Semester 2021.
  Students uploaded videos of their point cloud models to YouTube.
  Here is a really good example .

Last Modified: January 6, 2023.
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