Center for Knowledge Integration and Discovery

The Center for Knowledge Integration and Discovery (CKID) is located in the University of Southern California (Information Science Institute in Marina del Rey; Computer and Electrical Engineering Departments on campus near downtown Los Angeles).

Established with funds from the Department of Homeland Security in 2007, the focus of CKID is to perform cutting-edge computer science research on problems faced by the people charged with ensuring our security against terrorism. Research focuses on three themes:

discovery and extraction of relevant information from diverse media, including text (email, news, blogs, etc.), speech, geospatial sources (maps, satellite images, etc.),
integration and storage of this information in standardized homogeneous format,
automated discovery of trends and patterns from the integrated information, across the media, in order to find interesting knowledge that may not be apparent in any single medium alone.

CKID includes world-class computer science research scientists from USC's Information Sciences Institute (ISI) in Marina del Rey and from USC's Computer Science and Electrical Engineering departments. CKID is part of the Institute for Discrete Sciences (IDS), which consists of four Department of Homeland Security University Affiliate Centers, headed by Rutgers University, and including besides CKID the MIAS Center headed by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the CERATOPS Center headed by the University of Pittsburgh.

One-page description of CKID.