Computer Engineering Commons^™

Communications And Energy-Harvesting In Nanosensor Networks, Michele C. Weigle

Computer Science Presentations

PDF of a powerpoint presentation from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Workshop on Biological Computations and Communications in Boston, Massachusetts, November 9, 2012. Also available on Slideshare.

Semi-Automatic Simulation Initialization By Mining Structured And Unstructured Data Formats From Local And Web Data Sources, Olcay Sahin

Computational Modeling & Simulation Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Initialization is one of the most important processes for obtaining successful results from a simulation. However, initialization is a challenge when 1) a simulation requires hundreds or even thousands of input parameters or 2) re-initializing the simulation due to different initial conditions or runtime errors. These challenges lead to the modeler spending more time initializing a simulation and may lead to errors due to poor input data.

This thesis proposes two semi-automatic simulation initialization approaches that provide initialization using data mining from structured and unstructured data formats from local and web data sources. First, the System Initialization with Retrieval (SIR) …

An Extensible Framework For Creating Personal Archives Of Web Resources Requiring Authentication, Matthew Ryan Kelly

Computer Science Theses & Dissertations

The key factors for the success of the World Wide Web are its large size and the lack of a centralized control over its contents. In recent years, many advances have been made in preserving web content but much of this content (namely, social media content) was not archived, or still to this day is not being archived,for various reasons. Tools built to accomplish this frequently break because of the dynamic structure of social media websites. Because many social media websites exhibit a commonality in hierarchy of the content, it would be worthwhile to setup a means to reference this …

Visualizing Digital Collections At Archive-It, Kalpesh Padia

Computer Science Theses & Dissertations

Archive-It, a subscription service from the Internet Archive, allows users to create,maintain, and view digital collections of web resources. The current interface of Archive-It is largely text-based, supporting drill-down navigation using lists of URIs.While this interface provides good searching capabilities, it is not efficient for browsing. In the absence of keywords, a user has to spend large amount of time trying to locate a web page of interest. In order to provide a better visual experience to the user, we have studied the underlying characteristics of Archive-It collections and implemented six different visualizations (treemap, time cloud, bubble chart, image plot, …

Image-Guided Robotic Dental Implantation With Natural-Root-Formed Implants, Xiaoyan Sun

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Dental implantation is now recognized as the standard of the care for tooth replacement. Although many studies show high short term survival rates greater than 95%, long term studies (> 5 years) have shown success rates as low as 41.9%. Reasons affecting the long term success rates might include surgical factors such as limited accuracy of implant placement, lack of spacing controls, and overheating during the placement.

In this dissertation, a comprehensive solution for improving the outcome of current dental implantation is presented, which includes computer-aided preoperative planning for better visualization of patient-specific information and automated robotic site-preparation for superior …

Exploring The Components Of Dynamic Modeling Techniques, Charles Daniel Turnitsa

Computational Modeling & Simulation Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Upon defining the terms modeling and simulation, it becomes apparent that there is a wide variety of different models, using different techniques, appropriate for different levels of representation for any one system to be modeled. Selecting an appropriate conceptual modeling technique from those available is an open question for the practitioner. Existing methods for describing techniques do not capture enough information about the expressive potential of those techniques such that an appropriate selection decision can be made. A formal method to describe conceptual modeling techniques that captures enough about the technique to distinguish it from others is identified as a …

An Efficient Boosted Classifier Tree-Based Feature Point Tracking System For Facial Expression Analysis, Adam Redd Livingston

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The study of facial movement and expression has been a prominent area of research since the early work of Charles Darwin. The Facial Action Coding System (FACS), developed by Paul Ekman, introduced the first universal method of coding and measuring facial movement. Human-Computer Interaction seeks to make human interaction with computer systems more effective, easier, safer, and more seamless. Facial expression recognition can be broken down into three distinctive subsections: Facial Feature Localization, Facial Action Recognition, and Facial Expression Classification. The first and most important stage in any facial expression analysis system is the localization of key facial features. Localization …

A Vision-Based Automatic Safe Landing-Site Detection System, Yufei Shen

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

An automatic safe landing-site detection system is proposed for aircraft emergency landing, based on visible information acquired by aircraft-mounted cameras. Emergency landing is an unplanned event in response to emergency situations. If, as is unfortunately usually the case, there is no airstrip or airfield that can be reached by the un-powered aircraft, a crash landing or ditching has to be carried out. Identifying a safe landing-site is critical to the survival of passengers and crew. Conventionally, the pilot chooses the landing-site visually by looking at the terrain through the cockpit. The success of this vital decision greatly depends on the …

Health Nexus: A Serious Game Prototype For Prevention And Treatment Of Obesity And Diabetes, Joseph C. Miller

Computational Modeling & Simulation Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Electronic games are a prevalent phenomenon of American culture and entertainment. Serious games are video games that take advantage of games' intrinsic entertaining and challenging characteristics for serious purposes, such as education, training, advertisement, and political campaigns. A significant number of serious games have been developed for a variety of diverse purposes. The last few years have witnessed the inception and growth of motion sensing technologies for games, including Nintendo Wii, Sony PlayStation Move, and Microsoft Kinect. These motion sensing technologies usually require game players' physical body movement in order to perform and achieve in the games, such as playing …

Simulation Visualization Rhetoric And It's Practical Implications, D'An Knowles Ball, Andrew J. Collins

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Faculty Publications

Modeling and simulation has moved far beyond simple data representation into the world of visual communication over the past 15 years; ultimately, the acceptance of M&S within mainstream science and society will depend on the results that are produced visually. A simulation’s function is of primary importance to its end result, but it cannot be denied that the discipline of M&S now prizes fancy graphics to communicate. Rhetorical methodological decisions have the greatest impact on the end user, and considerations that bring visual rhetoric to modeling and simulation should be examined as a necessity to application. This paper will expose …

How Is M&S Interoperability Different From Other Interoperability Domains?, Andreas Tolk, Saikou Y. Diallo, Jose J. Padilla, Charles D. Turnitsa

Computational Modeling & Simulation Engineering Faculty Publications

During every standard workshop or event, the examples of working interoperability solutions are used to motivate for 'plug and play' standards for M&S as well, like standardized batteries for electronics, or the use of XML to exchange data between heterogeneous systems. While these are successful applications of standards, they are off the mark regarding M&S interoperability. The challenge of M&S is that the product that needs to be made interoperable is not the service or the system alone, but the model behind it as well. The paper shows that the alignment of conceptualizations is the real problem that is not …