While we celebrate the dramatic increase in women's undergraduate enrollment at computer science programs around the country, to see this surge translate into career-long outcomes, we cannot ignore ongoing gendered and racialized disparities in computing, particularly as they relate to a student's sense of belonging. Even in times of high enrollment, fostering a sense of belonging cannot occur just through ad-hoc methods, the goodwill of a few faculty, or a standalone mentoring program. Policies and structures must be put into place and enacted holistically. We report on a multi-phase, 10-year case study of undergraduate student experiences at the University of Illinois (2007, n=61; 2017, n=339). Our 2017 study explores the policies and structures enacted over a decade and their impact on departmental culture. We report on three areas: i) Inclusive classroom experiences; ii) Quality of mentorship opportunities; iii) Student sense of identity. While there have been significant departmental improvements, there are some cultural, policy, and structural issues to be addressed in order to foster a sense of belonging and success for all students.

Computer science is seeing a decline in enrollment at all levels of education. One key strategy for reversing this decline is to improve methods of student retention. This paper, based on a 10-month case study at the Department of Computer Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, examines two aspects of student retention at both the graduate and undergraduate levels: community identity and community relationships. Our data shows that students feel isolated from each other, faculty, and members of the greater computer science community. Given our findings, we highlight existing programs and propose new programs which improve student-community interactions. While the lessons learned might not apply at every institution, they constitute a valuable case study for improving conditions for students at large research universities.

Cyber-physical systems are networked, component-based, real-time systems that control and monitor the physical world. We need software architectures that limit fault-propagation across unreliable components. This paper introduces our simplex reference model which is distinguished by: a plant being controlled in an external context, a machine performing the control, a domain model that estimates the plant state, and the safety requirements that must be met. The simplex reference model assists with constructing CPS architectures which limit fault-propagation. We present a representative case study to highlight the ideas behind the model and our particular decomposition.

Advances in wireless technology have brought us closer to extensive deployment of distributed real-time embedded systems connected through a wireless channel. The medium-access control (MAC) layer protocol is critical in providing a real-time guarantee. We have devised a real-time wireless MAC protocol, robust implicit earliest deadline first, or RI-EDF. Packets are transmitted according to EDF scheduling rules, offering a protocol that implicitly avoids contention. In the event of a packet loss or a node failure, every node has the opportunity to recover the schedule based on a static recovery priority, offering a protocol that is robust with no central point of failure. We demonstrate in simulations that RI-EDF provides better goodput and lower packet loss than existing protocols like 802.11 PCF and EDCF. In our implementation and distributed control test-bed, we show that RI-EDF provides better throughput than the TinyOS MAC-layer protocol. Overall, RI-EDF provides predictable temporal behavior with minimal impact on node failures, packet losses, and noise in the channel.

Patterns are a valuable method for communicating software engineering expertise about proven solutions for common problems. This paper evaluates the use of domain-independent patterns in a case study of Etherware, a middleware for networked control with a real-time, safety-critical applications model. The case study illustrates the positive and negative impact that four existing patterns have on availability, reliability, and robustness for real-time, safety-critical systems. In particular, we observe Etherware's specialized usage of the filter pattern, confirm this usage among other middleware technologies, and subsequently present the adaptive control filter, a design pattern for real-time, safety-critical middleware which can mitigate timing dependencies in networked control

Advances in wireless technology have brought us closer to extensive deployment of distributed real-time embedded systems connected through a wireless channel. The medium access control (MAC) layer protocol is critical in providing a real-time guarantee. We have devised a real-time wireless MAC protocol which, demonstrated in: both simulations and implementation, provides better throughput than existing protocols and predictable temporal behavior with minimal impact on node failures, packet losses and noise in the channel.