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Research is a part of learning, and I have
developed an interest for a variety of topics during my time
spent in academia. The one great aspect about continuing my
education was that I was able to form a close relationship
with my professors and learn from their experience. I have
compiled a list of the topics that I am most interested/experienced
in.
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Web design has been a passion
of mine for years and only recently have I come to form
a formal understanding of the language. HTML in its
simplest form is a very easy to learn language, but
to use it properly is a true art. I have spent the last
two years trying to gain a formal understanding of the
document object model so that I can use HTML the way
it was intended. I also have a passion for the graphical
side of design, and I am a novice photographer to fuel
my web designs.
My web design skills do not stop at well formed HTML
code... I have also grown to be very good at scripting
languages like ASP.net using both VB.net and C# as the
scripting language. A few of the projects that I have
worked on required UNIX based languages and so I have
also gained strong skills with CGI based languages like
Perl and ASP. |
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My work with the RAPAI
project opened my eyes to the concept of documents and
XML. During the course of the project I had to rapidly
learn how to retrieve data from a database, wrap it
in XML tags, and then use a transformer to turn the
data into an html page.
Most of my XML/XSLT experience had been through JAVA,
but recently I have been testing the waters of RSS through
the .net framework. The result of that work is I have
found that the integration of RSS/XML in, net to be
very simple to incorporate. |
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Radio Frequency Identification
is a relatively new field, but the applications are
enumerable. My research in this field also stemmed from
my work on the RAPAI project. I was able to experience
first hand how the technology works and I also worked
with a team to develop a role base authentication using
the radio tags.
The hardware that we used was developed in a computer
engineering lab at the University of Pittsburgh and
was remarkably easy to work with. The tags basically
emit a unique signal that can be integrated into software
to perform a wide variety of tasks. The most recognizable
application of this hardware will soon be unveiled by
Wal-Mart in their inventory management process. |
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In the fall of 2003 I had
my first formal exposure to database management systems
in a database management course that I took for my master's
degree. Database design is not horribly complicated,
but doing it right takes a bit of logical reasoning.
In the class I learned about relational database design,
querying, and data warehousing. I completed an in class
project which can be found in my portfolio, and I have
also designed about 25 separate databases at my position
with the Admissions office. I am well versed in creating
complex views, complex querying, writing stored procedures
and normalizing data. |
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Two years ago when
I started working as a graduate student assistant, I
was told that a lot of the programming that I would
be doing would be in the ,net framework and that I should
try and learn it on my own. My academic department at
the University did, and still does not, offer any formal
classes in .net so I started reading on my own. After
a few months of learning by trial I have formed a strong
bond with the .net framework. I have become proficient
with both visual basic and C# and I can now say that
I am as experienced in the language as much as a seasoned
programmer. Web based applications are my passion and
.net is the most robust language that I have ever worked
with. |
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I spent a great deal
of time reading through online journals to try and hash
out what search engine spiders look for in a web site.
My results have been moderately successful. I have found
that search engines are volatile and are of course updated
and changed regularly. At the time of publishing this
page, my website was listed as the first result when
searching on the keyword "Fossi" at the following
search engines: Google,
MSN,
Lycos,
Yahoo,
Vivisimo,
DogPile.
My research has left me with a clear idea of how to
design my pages to optimize keyword indexing. The most
difficult part of search engine optimization is deciding
which keywords are most important. Since my research
was focused on this portfolio, I felt that my name was
the most important idea. It was pretty easy to get "Adam
Fossi" high on the list, but my last name alone
was quite an accomplishment. If you have specific questions
about my techniques I would be glad to speak with you
in person; otherwise I consider them trade secrets and
do not like to discuss what I have found to be successful
via email. Thank you for understanding the terrible
competitiveness of this field! |
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