Computer Engineering Commons^™

Communication Artifacts And Interaction Evaluation For Requirements Engineering, Miloslava Plachkinova

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This paper aims to answer an important question regarding the development of new information systems (IS): "What is the predominant factor for the selection of communication artifacts for requirements engineering (RE)?". Many researchers have focused on the RE and communication as separate disciplines, but little or no research addressed the RE communication issues. These problems are important because they often lead to misunderstanding and misinterpretation of the gathered requirements. We develop expectations about the RE communication process based on prior literature from both disciplines and we test them through several case studies. Our methodology consists of analysis of six case …

An Online Algorithm For The 2-Server Problem On The Line With Improved Competitiveness, Lucas Adam Bang

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

In this thesis we present a randomized online algorithm for the 2-server problem on the line, named R-LINE (for Randomized Line). This algorithm achieves the lowest competitive ratio of any known randomized algorithm for the 2-server problem on the line.

The competitiveness of R-LINE is less than 1.901. This result provides a significant improvement over the previous known competitiveness of 155/78 (approximately 1.987), by Bartal, Chrobak, and Larmore, which was the first randomized algorithm for the 2-server problem one the line with competitiveness less than 2. Taking inspiration from this algorithm,we improve this result by utilizing ideas from T-theory, game …

Modeling And Architectural Simulations Of The Statistical Static Timing Analysis Of The Variation Sources For Vlsi Circuits, Abu M. Baker

College of Engineering: Graduate Celebration Programs

As CMOS technology scales down, process variation introduces significant uncertainty in power and performance to VLSI circuits and significantly affects their reliability. Although Static-Timing Analysis (STA) remains an excellent tool, current trends in process scaling have imposed significant difficulties to STA. As one of the promising solutions, Statistical static timing analysis (SSTA) has become the frontier research topic in recent years in combating such variation effects. This poster will be focusing on two aspects of SSTA and its applications in VLSI designs: (1) Statistical timing modeling and analysis; and (2) Architectural implementations of the atomic operations (max and add) using …

On High-Performance Parallel Decimal Fixed-Point Multiplier Designs, Ming Zhu

College of Engineering: Graduate Celebration Programs

Decimal computations are required in finance, and etc.

• Precise representation for decimals (E.g. 0.2, 0.7… )
• Performance Requirements (Software simulations are very slow)

Post Processing Of Optically Recognized Text Using First Order Hidden Markov Model, Spandana Malreddy

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

In this thesis, we report on our design and implementation of a post processing system for Optically Recognized text. The system is based on first order Hidden Markov Model (HMM). The Maximum Likelihood algorithm is used to train the system with over 150 thousand characters. The system is also tested on a file containing 5688 characters. The percentage of errors detected and corrected is 11.76% with a recall of 10.16% and precision of 100%

Hardware-Software Co-Design, Acceleration And Prototyping Of Control Algorithms On Reconfigurable Platforms, Desta Kumsa Edosa

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Differential equations play a significant role in many disciplines of science and engineering. Solving and implementing Ordinary Differential Equations (ODEs) and partial Differential Equations (PDEs) effectively are very essential as most complex dynamic systems are modeled based on these equations. High Performance Computing (HPC) methodologies are required to compute and implement complex and data intensive applications modeled by differential equations at higher speed. There are, however, some challenges and limitations in implementing dynamic system, modeled by non-linear ordinary differential equations, on digital hardware. Modeling an integrator involves data approximation which results in accuracy error if data values are not considered …

Non-Blocking Concurrent Operations On Heap, Mahesh Acharya

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

We present a non-blocking implementation for the concurrent Heap data structure in the asynchronous shared memory system. The system may be a traditional one with a single processor with multiple threads, or it may be the one with multiple processors each possibly with multiple threads. Our implementation supports readMin, deleteMin, and insert operations on the heap. The deleteMin and insert operations are non-blocking operations, whereas the readMin is wait-free. One easy approach of using a heap in multi-threading environment could be by locking the entire heap before performing any operation. This would make the implementation very slow to have any …

Node Filtering And Face Routing For Sensor Network, Umang Amatya

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Greedy forward routing and face routing algorithms have been extensively used for sending messages in sensor networks. In this thesis, we consider the problem of filtering redundant nodes in a sensor network as a pre-processing step for face routing. We propose two algorithms for identifying redundant nodes. We test the performance of proposed filtering algorithms on generated networks. The prototype algorithm for testing the proposed algorithms has been implemented in the Java programming language. Experimental investigation shows that the proposed filtering algorithms are effective in removing redundant nodes without compromising the network connectivity.

Cpu Scheduling For Power/Energy Management On Heterogeneous Multicore Processors, Rajesh Patel

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Power and energy have become increasingly important concerns in the design and implementation of today's multicore/manycore chips. Many methods have been proposed to reduce a microprocessor's power usage and associated heat dissipation, including scaling a core's operating frequency. However, these techniques do not consider the dynamic performance characteristics of an executing process at runtime, the execution characteristics of the entire task to which this process belongs, the process's priority, the process's cache miss/cache reference ratio, the number of context switches and CPU migrations generated by the process, nor the system load. Also, many of the techniques that employ dynamic frequency …

Traffic Counter Mobile Application, Victor Molano

College of Engineering: Graduate Celebration Programs

INTRODUCTION

Manual Counters:

•The vehicles counts and characteristics at signalized intersections and others transportation facilities are usually made using manual counters. These manual counters are mechanical or digital boards in which the user can record the different observations from the field. The use of these devices is usually required when more sophisticated methods are not available, when expensive equipment is not justified and for scholastic practices.

Node Filtering And Face Routing For Sensor Network, Umang Amatya

College of Engineering: Graduate Celebration Programs

Main Contributions

•Efficient Algorithms for identifying Redundant Sensor Nodes

•New Technique for Filtering Redundant Nodes in Sensor Network

•Reliable Algorithm for Message Routing - Forwarding

•User Friendly Prototype Implementation in Java

•Results of Experimental Investigation

Architecture For An Interactive Motion-Based Traffic Simulation Environment, Romesh Khaddar, Naveen Veeramisti, Alexander Paz, Pushkin Kachroo

College of Engineering: Graduate Celebration Programs

In simple words, the objective of this research is to identify the effect of human behavior on traffic To enhance the traffic simulation modeling realism by involving actual human beings navigating the system along with simulated entities in an immersive environment

Understanding The Influence Of Blog On The Development Of Social Capital, Reza Vaezi, Gholamreza Torkzadeh, Jerry Cha-Jan Chang

Management, Entrepreneurship and Technology Faculty Publications

The rapid use and application of blogs in diverse areas such as education, marketing, journalism, and human resource management in recent years underlines the need for a better understanding of the impact of this new technology on social capital. Social capital reflects the norm of reciprocity and the level of trust among individuals who connect, interact, and benefit from one another. Blog is expected to influence the extent and the scope of this interaction by providing new means of networking among people. This paper examines the relationship between blog use and social capital and reports on the results of an …

Development Of Visualization Facility At The Gis And Remote Sensing Core Lab, University Of Nevada, Las Vegas, Haroon Stephen, William J. Smith, Zhongwei Liu

Public Policy and Leadership Faculty Presentations

Visualization using advanced computational and graphic equipment has become a standard way of present day research. Availability of low cost and fast processing units, high resolution displays with graphic processing units, and specialized software has brought complex visualization capabilities to an office desktop. Nevertheless, when dealing with large datasets such as, global climate, geospatial, and social data the office desktop falls short and calls for a centralized visualization facility with high end computing and graphics equipment.

Visualization Facility at GIS and Remote Sensing Core Lab would be a useful and important addition to the UNLV IT infrastructure. It would provide …

Self-Stabilizing Leader Election In Dynamic Networks, Hema Piniganti

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The leader election problem is one of the fundamental problems in distributed computing. It has applications in almost every domain. In dynamic networks, topology is expected to change frequently. An algorithm A is self-stabilizing if, starting from a completely arbitrary configuration, the network will eventually reach a legitimate configuration.

Note that any self-stabilizing algorithm for the leader election problem is also an algorithm for the dynamic leader election problem, since when the topology of the network changes, we can consider that the algorithm is starting over again from an arbitrary state. There are a number of such algorithms in the …

Self-Stabilizing Group Membership Protocol, Mahesh Subedi

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

In this thesis, we consider the problem of partitioning a network into groups of bounded diameter.

Given a network of processes X and a constant D, the group partition problem is the problem of finding a D-partition of X, that is, a partition of X into disjoint connected subgraphs, which we call groups, each of diameter no greater than D. The minimal group partition problem is to find a D-partition {G1, ... Gm} of X such that no two groups can be combined; that is, for any Gi and Gj, where i ≠ j, either Gi U Gj is disconnected …

Dynamic Distributed Programming And Applications To Swap Edge Problem, Feven Z. Andemeskel

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Link failure is a common reason for disruption in communication networks. If communication between processes of a weighted distributed network is maintained by a spanning tree T, and if one edge e of T fails, communication can be restored by finding a new spanning tree, T’. If the network is 2-edge connected, T’ can always be constructed by replacing e by a single edge, e’, of the network. We refer to e’ as a swap edge of e.

The best swap edge problem is to find the best choice of e’, that is, that e which causes the new spanning …

A Secure On-Line Credit Card Transaction Method Based On Kerberos Authentication Protocol, Jung Eun Kim

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Nowadays, electronic payment system is an essential part of modern business. Credit cards or debit cards have been widely used for on-site or remote transactions, greatly reducing the need for inconvenient cash transactions. However, there have been a huge number of incidents of credit card frauds over the Internet due to the security weakness of electronic payment system. A number of solutions have been proposed in the past to prevent this problem, but most of them were inconvenient and did not satisfy the needs of cardholders and merchants at the same time.

In this thesis, we present a new secure …

Architecture And Usability Aspects Of Environmental Data Portals, Michael Mcmahon, Jr.

2010 Annual Nevada NSF EPSCoR Climate Change Conference

12 PowerPoint slides Session 2: Infrastructure Convener: Sergiu Dascalu, UNR Abstract: -Web Portal: A web site that acts as a starting point or gateway to Internet content, services, and information. Portals expose this information via a consistent set of visual elements and organizational constructs that improve the user experience and may relate, unify, or otherwise enhance the content. -Data Portal: A web site that acts as a starting point or gateway to Internet content, web/data services, and related information. Portals expose this information via a consistent set of visual elements and organizational constructs that improve the user experience and relate, …

Survey Of Environmental Data Portals: Features, Characteristics, And Reliability Issues, Shahram Latifi, David Walker

2010 Annual Nevada NSF EPSCoR Climate Change Conference

24 PowerPoint slides Session 2: Infrastructure Convener: Sergiu Dascalu, UNR Abstract: -What is a Data Portal? -Presents information from diverse sources in a unified way -Enables instant, reliable and secure exchange of information over the Web -The "portal" concept is to offer a single web page that aggregates content from several systems or servers.

Goals, Plans, And Strategies Of The Cyberinfrastructure Project Component, Sergiu Dascalu

2010 Annual Nevada NSF EPSCoR Climate Change Conference

15 PowerPoint slides Session 2: Infrastructure Convener: Sergiu Dascalu, UNR Abstract: -Team -Goal and Targets -Strategies and Activities -Progress: Activities & Milestones -Plans

Research Poster: Software Frameworks For Improved Productivity In Climate Change Research, Sohei Okamoto

2010 Annual Nevada NSF EPSCoR Climate Change Conference

Research poster

Hierarchical Routing In Manets Using Simple Clustering, Adam Carnine

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This thesis presents both a review of current MANET routing protocols and a new MANET routing algorithm. The routing protocols reviewed include representative samples from the three primary forms of routing found in MANETS: proactive routing, reactive routing and hybrid routing. Secure algorithms are given special treatment in the review. In addition several protocol enhancements are discussed.

The proposed routing protocol is designed to support networks of a medium size, containing over 200 nodes but less than 3,000 nodes. The design is intentionally simple to allow ease of implementation in comparison with other MANET protocols that provide similar functionality.

A Fuzzy Logic Controller For Autonomous Wheeled Vehicles, Mohamed Trabia, Linda Z. Shi, Neil Eugene Hodge

Mechanical Engineering Faculty Research

Autonomous vehicles have potential applications in many fields, such as replacing humans in hazardous environments, conducting military missions, and performing routine tasks for industry. Driving ground vehicles is an area where human performance has proven to be reliable. Drivers typically respond quickly to sudden changes in their environment. While other control techniques may be used to control a vehicle, fuzzy logic has certain advantages in this area; one of them is its ability to incorporate human knowledge and experience, via language, into relationships among the given quantities. Fuzzy logic controllers for autonomous vehicles have been successfully applied to address various …

Efficient Scheduling For Sdmg Cioq Switches, Mei Yang, S. Q. Zheng

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Research

Combined input and output queuing (CIOQ) switches are being considered as high-performance switch architectures due to their ability to achieve 100% throughput and perfectly emulate output queuing (OQ) switch performance with a small speedup factor S. To realize a speedup factor S, a conventional CIOQ switch requires the switching fabric and memories to operate S times faster than the line rate. In this paper, we propose to use a CIOQ switch with space-division multiplexing expansion and grouped input/output ports (SDMG CIOQ switch for short) to realize speedup while only requiring the switching fabric and memories to operate at the line …

A Fast And Simple Algorithm For Computing M-Shortest Paths In State Graph, M. Sherwood, Laxmi P. Gewali, Henry Selvaraj, Venkatesan Muthukumar

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Research

We consider the problem of computing m shortest paths between a source node s and a target node t in a stage graph. Polynomial time algorithms known to solve this problem use complicated data structures. This paper proposes a very simple algorithm for computing all m shortest paths in a stage graph efficiently. The proposed algorithm does not use any complicated data structure and can be implemented in a straightforward way by using only array data structure. This problem appears as a sub-problem for planning risk reduced multiple k-legged trajectories for aerial vehicles.

Comparison Of Two Distributed Fuzzy Logic Controllers For Flexible-Link Manipulators, Linda Z. Shi, Mohamed Trabia

Mechanical Engineering Faculty Presentations

The paper suggests that fuzzy logic controllers present a computationally efficient and robust alternative to conventional controllers. The paper presents two possible structures for the distributed fuzzy logic controller of a single-link flexible manipulator. A linear quadratic regulator method is used to prove the effectiveness of fuzzy logic controllers.