Johnson and his team, collectively known as Advanced Solutions Group (ASG), are celebrating their 10th anniversary and the $10-plus million mark in sponsored research. Johnson started ASG in 1991 with one programmer and a goal to develop new methods of extracting and managing information from existing databases. Since then, their systems have used leading-edge technology to reach into new domains.
"We bootstrapped from nothing into a research group that was awarded about $3.3 million in fiscal year 2001," said Johnson, a professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy.
Since its humble beginning, ASG has swelled to 31 professionals and student assistants, most of them housed in USC's new Devine Street Research Center. The high-powered computer and mathematics skills of this staff--which includes two theoretical physicists and two Ph.D.-level mathematicians--and a bristling array of powerful supercomputers provide the foundation for ASG's applied research.
These resources are instrumental in a $1.4 million project involving network security, funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the research arm of the U.S. Department of Defense. The project involves ASG's new research division called the Complex Problems Group and couples robust computing with advanced scientific methods, such as wavelet analysis and complexity theory.
ASG’s other projects include development of many more software systems, including:
• S.C. Integrated Criminal Records Information System, which tracks data from several state agencies including transmissions of dockets and warrants from magistrates' offices; parole, probation, and pardon datanotices; and S.C. drivers' licenses data
• Jail and Prison Inmate Database, which tracks every offenders incarcerated person in South Carolina
• Internet Victim Information System, which automatically notifies victims of crime when actions occur in their cases
• Domestic Violence Information System, which tracks orders of protection and police incident reports submitted by fax
• Summary Court and Warrant Databases, which receives electronic files from criminal, civil, and traffic courts.
"We close the seams that exist among agencies, bringing together information from multiple governmental entities and make it accessible to them by Internet," Johnson said.
ASG's pioneering work with governmental databases has in large measure helped transform the criminal justice system in South Carolina.
Ten years ago, crime victims in South Carolina often didn't know when criminals who robbed or assaulted them were up for parole or released from jail. It was impossible to see on any given day the full roster of those incarcerated in South Carolina jails.
Now, tracking those diverse and ever-changing events is routine with data information systems developed by ASG.
"The state of Colorado has come to us to develop a jail and victims information system similar to what we've done for South Carolina," Johnson said. "In the next five years, I'd like to see us do more for this state and for other states."
"Part of our success--the reason why state agencies have continued to come to us for help--is because we build the footprint and let them stand in it," Johnson said. "We develop the software system that addresses the need, then allow the appropriate state agency to take ownership of it and run it."
With 10 years elapsed since it was spawned and more than $10 million in grants counted so far, what's next for ASG?
"It took us 10 years to get to this point with all this computing power and a team of highly skilled programmers," Johnson said. "I'd like to see us continue working with state agencies and provide the kind of expertise and service they can't afford to get from anyone else."
