Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Automatic Execution Path Finding Tool, Fan Yang

Master's Projects

Today, there are many hackers trying to break software using reverse engineering tech- niques. To better protect software, we need to understand reverse engineering methods. This project presents a tool that automatically analyzes executable code in a manner simi- lar to the way an attack might analyze code.

Using reverse engineering techniques, executables can be disassembled to yield an as- sembly code representation of the program. Assembly code is much more human reada- ble than binary code. With assembly code, an attacker can attempt to modify the program to do something other than what was intended by the developer.

The …

Functional Reactive Musical Performers, Justin M. Phillips

Master's Theses

Computers have been assisting in recording, sound synthesis and other fields of music production for quite some time. The actual performance of music continues to be an area in which human players are chosen over computer performers. Musical performance is an area in which personalization is more important than consistency. Human players play with each other, reacting to phrases and ideas created by the players that they are playing with. Computer performers lack the ability to react to the changes in the performance that humans perceive naturally, giving the human players an advantage over the computer performers.

This thesis creates …

Xpath-Based Template Language For Describing The Placement Of Metadata Within A Document, Vijay Kumar Musham

Computer Science Theses & Dissertations

In the recent years, there has been a tremendous growth in Internet and online resources that had previously been restricted to paper archives. OCR (Optical Character Recognition) tools can be used for digitalizing an existing corpus and making it available online. A number of federal agencies, universities, laboratories, and companies are placing their collections online and making them searchable via metadata fields such as author, title, and publishing organization. Manually creating metadata for a large collection is an extremely time-consuming task, and is difficult to automate, particularly for collections consisting of documents with diverse layout and structure. The Extract project …

Morphogrammatics Of Reflection, Rudolf Kaehr

Rudolf Kaehr

Turning back from the studies of morphogrammatics to some open questions of reflectional programming, the recountered problematics might be put into a different light and new methods of handling formal aspects of reflection and reflectionality shall be introduced. Albeit the use of light-metaphors, morphogrammatic reflection is not sketched along the paradigm of optical metaphors. Morphograms are presenting neither propositions nor perceptions able for mirroring (representation). Exercises in defining morphogrammatic retro-grade recursion and reflection schemata are continued from the paper “Sketches to Morphogrammatic Programming”.

Model Checking A Model Checker: A Code Contract Combined Approach, Jun Sun, Yang Liu, Bin Cheng

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Model checkers, like any complex software, are subject to bugs. Unlike ordinary software, model checkers are often used to verify safety critical systems. Their correctness is thus vital. Verifying model checkers is extremely challenging because they are always complicated in logic and highly optimized. In this work, we propose a code contract combined approach for checking model checkers and apply it to a home-grown model checker PAT. In this approach, we firstly embed programming contracts (i.e., pre/post-conditions and invariants) into its source code, which can capture correctness of model checking algorithms, underlying data structures, consistency between different model checking parameters, …

Model Checking Hierarchical Probabilistic Systems, Jun Sun, Songzheng Song, Yang Liu

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Probabilistic modeling is important for random distributed algorithms, bio-systems or decision processes. Probabilistic model checking is a systematic way of analyzing finite-state probabilistic models. Existing probabilistic model checkers have been designed for simple systems without hierarchy. In this paper, we extend the PAT toolkit to support probabilistic model checking of hierarchical complex systems. We propose to use PCSP#, a combination of Hoare’s CSP with data and probability, to model such systems. In addition to temporal logic, we allow complex safety properties to be specified by non-probabilistic PCSP# model. Validity of the properties (with probability) is established by refinement checking. Furthermore, …

Inductive Inference Of Languages From Samplings, Sanjay Jain, Efim Kinber

School of Computer Science & Engineering Faculty Publications

We introduce, discuss, and study a model for inductive inference from samplings, formalizing an idea of learning different “projections” of languages. One set of our results addresses the problem of finding a uniform learner for all samplings of a language from a certain set when learners for particular samplings are available. Another set of results deals with extending learnability from a large natural set of samplings to larger sets. A number of open problems is formulated.

A Comparative Analysis Of Ascii And Xml Logging Systems, Eric C. Hanington

Theses and Dissertations

This research compares XML and ASCII based event logging systems in terms of their storage and processing efficiency. XML has been an emerging technology, even for security. Therefore, it is researched as a logging system with the mitigation of its verbosity. Each system consists of source content, the network transmission, database storage, and querying which are all studied as individual parts. The ASCII logging system consists of the text file as source, FTP as transport, and a relational database system for storage and querying. The XML system has the XML files and XML files in binary form using Efficient XML …

Enumeration Refactoring: A Tool For Automatically Converting Java Constants To Enumerated Types, Raffi T. Khatchadourian, Benjamin Muskalla

Publications and Research

Java 5 introduces several new features that significantly improve older Java technology. We consider the new enum construct, which provides language support for enumerated types. Before Java 5, programmers needed to employ various patterns to compensate for the absence of enumerated types in Java. Unfortunately, these compensation patterns lack several highly desirable properties of the enum construct, notably type-safety. We demonstrate an automated refactoring tool called Convert Constants to Enum for transforming legacy Java code to use the new enumeration construct. An interprocedural type inferencing algorithm that tracks the flow of enumerated values drives the approach, and the tool is …

Developing Model Checkers Using Pat, Yang Liu, Jun Sun, Jin Song Dong

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

During the last two decades, model checking has emerged as an effective system analysis technique complementary to simulation and testing. Many model checking algorithms and state space reduction techniques have been proposed. Although it is desirable to have dedicated model checkers for every language (or application domain), implementing one with effective reduction techniques is rather challenging. In this work, we present a generic and extensible framework PAT, which facilitates users to build customized model checkers. PAT provides a library of state-of-art model checking algorithms as well as support for customizing language syntax, semantics, state space reduction techniques, graphic user interfaces, …

Visual Occam: High Level Visualization And Design Of Process Networks, Mikolaj M. Slomka

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

With networks, multiprocessors, and multi-threaded systems becoming more common in our world it is increasingly evident that concurrent programming is not something to be ignored or marginalized even though many takes on concurrency (mainly by means of monitors or shared resources) have proven to be difficult to deal with on large scales. Thankfully, a good deal of work has already been done to combat this, through CSP, occam, and other such derivatives, to produce a scalable process oriented paradigm. Still, it is cumbersome to attempt to deal with the intricacies of such communicating networks down to every minutia; if, instead, …

Max Flow Spill Code Placement Algorithm Implemented In Gcc 4.4.3, Stephen Robert Beard

Computer Engineering

The placement of spill code plays an important role in the register allocator of an optimizing compiler. Many computer architectures possess a register linkage convention that dictates which registers are preserved across function calls and which are not. This project addresses the problem of optimizing spill code that is associated with register linkage conventions.

This algorithm was created by Dr. Chris Lupo and is described in the paper Beyond Register Allocation: a Novel Algorithm for Spill-Code Placement. The algorithm was implemented for GCC 2.5.7 for a PA-RISC architecture [4]. The work in this project will involve porting the existing code …

Guppie: A Coordination Framework For Parallel Processing Using Shared Memory Featuring A Master-Worker Relationship, Sean Christopher Mccarthy

Dissertations

Most programs can be parallelized to some extent. The processing power available in computers today makes parallel computing more desirable and attainable than ever before. Many machines today have multiple processors or multiple processing cores making parallel computing more available locally, as well as over a network. In order for parallel applications to be written, they require a computing language, such as C++, and a coordination language (or library), such as Linda. This research involves the creation and implementation of a coordination framework, Guppie, which is easy to use, similar to Linda, but provides more efficiency when dealing with large …

Memristics: Memristors, Again? – Part Ii, How To Transform Wired ‘Translations’ Between Crossbars Into Interactions?, Rudolf Kaehr

Rudolf Kaehr

The idea behind this patchwork of conceptual interventions is to show the possibility of a “buffer-free” modeling of the crossbar architecture for memristive systems on the base of a purely difference-theoretical approach. It is considered that on a nano-electronic level principles of interpretation appears as mechanisms of complementarity. The most basic conceptual approach to such a complementarity is introduced as an interchangeability of operators and operands of an operation. Therefore, the architecture of crossbars gets an interpretation as complementarity between crossbar functionality and “buffering” translation functionality. That is, the same matter functions as operator and at once, as operand – …

Information Cost Tradeoffs For Augmented Index And Streaming Language Recognition, Amit Chakrabarti, Graham Cormode, Ranganath Kondapally, Andrew Mcgregor

Dartmouth Scholarship

This paper makes three main contributions to the theory of communication complexity and stream computation. First, we present new bounds on the information complexity of AUGMENTED-INDEX. In contrast to analogous results for INDEX by Jain, Radhakrishnan and Sen [J. ACM, 2009], we have to overcome the significant technical challenge that protocols for AUGMENTED-INDEX may violate the “rectangle property” due to the inherent input sharing. Second, we use these bounds to resolve an open problem of Magniez, Mathieu and Nayak [STOC, 2010] that asked about the multi-pass complexity of recognizing Dyck languages. This results in a natural separation between the standard …

Memristics: Memristors, Again?, Rudolf Kaehr

Rudolf Kaehr

This collection gives first and short critical reflections on the concepts of memristics, memristors and memristive systems and the history of similar movements with an own focus on a possible interplay between memory and computing functions, at once, at the same place and time, to achieve a new kind of complementarity between computation and memory on a single chip without retarding buffering conditions.

Inter Spem Et Metum, Fiat Lux, Michael A. Mota

Honors Projects

Explores the design and development of a simple, 3D flight simulator. The resulting application allows users to pilot an abstract human avatar and to create free-hand strokes and physically-based explosions onto the environment through a ball discharge meta-game feature. Uses the C++ language, and the ancillary programming API libraries, OpenGL, GLEW, and Win32.

Detecting Malicious Javascript, Matthew F. Der

Honors Theses

The increased use of the World Wide Web and JavaScript as a scripting language for Web pages have made JavaScript a popular attack vector for infecting users' machines with malware. Additionally, attackers often obfuscate their code to avoid detection, which heightens the challenge and complexity of automated defense systems. We present two analyses of malicious scripts and suggest how they could be extended into intrusion detection systems. For our analyses we use a sample of deobfuscated malicious and benign scripts collected from actual Web sites. First, using our malicious sample, we perform a manual analysis of attack signatures, identifying four …

A Verification System For Interval-Based Specification Languages, Chunqing Chen, Jin Song Dong, Jun Sun, Andrew P. Martin

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Interval-based specification languages have been used to formally model and rigorously reason about real-time computing systems. This usually involves logical reasoning and mathematical computation with respect to continuous or discrete time. When these systems are complex, analyzing their models by hand becomes error-prone and difficult. In this article, we develop a verification system to facilitate the formal analysis of interval-based specification languages with machine-assisted proof support. The verification system is developed using a generic theorem prover, Prototype Verification System (PVS). Our system elaborately encodes a highly expressive set-based notation, Timed Interval Calculus (TIC), and can rigorously carry out the verification …

Creating An Immersive Game World With Evolutionary Fuzzy Cognitive Maps, Yundong Cai, Ah-Hwee Tan, Zhiqi Shen, Boyang Li

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

An increasing number of serious games have been developed to enhance the user experiences in education and training. In order to bridge the gap of game experiences in the virtual environment and in the real life, it is crucial to generate believable characters and contexts in real-time. However, the variables to be simulated for a large-scale serious game are numerous. These variables are involved in complex causal relationships and their values change over time. In view that world modeling has not been well addressed with conventional models, this paper uses a computational model Evolutionary Fuzzy Cognitive Map (EFCM) to model …

Design Of A Software Framework Prototype For Scientific Model Interoperability, Eric Fritzinger, Sohei Okamoto

2010 Annual Nevada NSF EPSCoR Climate Change Conference

19 PowerPoint slides Session 2: Infrastructure Convener: Sergiu Dascalu, UNR Abstract: -What are models? -Mathematical models used to describe a system -E.g. Atmospheric, Oceanic, Ecological, etc… -Algorithmic calculations which take input and produce estimated results -Weather forecasting, global warming predictions, sea level estimations, etc… -Models are invaluable

Overseer: A Mobile Context-Aware Collaboration And Task Management System For Disaster Response, Faisal B. Luqman, Martin L. Griss

Martin L Griss

Efficient collaboration and task management is challenging in distributed, dynamically-formed organizations such as ad hoc disaster response teams. Ineffective collaboration may result in poor performance and possible loss of life. In this paper, we present an open multi-agent system, called Overseer, that leverages context information in a mobile setting to facilitate collaboration and task allocation for disaster response. We describe our system architecture, deployment, evaluation metrics, challenges and proposed solutions. We also show how mobile context can be used to create dynamic rolebased assignments to support collaboration and effective task management

Using Python To Program Lego Mindstorms Robots: The Pynxc Project, Brian S. Blais

Science and Technology Department Faculty Journal Articles

LEGO MINDSTORMS® NXT (Lego Group, 2006) is a perfect platform for introducing programming concepts, and is generally targeted toward children from age 8-14. The language which ships with the MINDSTORMS®, called NXTg, is a graphical language based on LabVIEW (Jeff Kodosky, 2010). Although there is much value in graphical languages, such as LabVIEW, a text-based alternative can be targeted at an older audiences and serve as part of a more general introduction to modern computing. Other languages, such as NXC (Not Exactly C) (Hansen, 2010) and PbLua (Hempel, 2010), fit this description. Here we introduce PyNXC, a subset of the …

High School Microsoft Powerpoint, Ladane Du Boulay

Technology

The purpose of this lesson is for students to deepend and demonstrate their understanding of Powerpoint. The students will create a sample multimedia-rich presentation. They will be using their prior knowledge related to their social studies (i.e. Abraham Lincoln) and Science (i.e. Charles Darwin) classes.

Sketch Of A Typology Of Abstract Memristic Machines, Rudolf Kaehr

Rudolf Kaehr

A typology of memristic machines is sketched. This sketch gives an overview and orientation to the paper “Towards Abstract Memristic Machines”. It also intents to propose a concise systematization of the newly introduced terms and strategies to memristics and morphogrammatics. This sketch is introducing four types of sign-use for four types of machines of fundamentally different paradigms: 1. semiotic, 2. monomorphic, 3. polymorphic and 4. bisimilar abstract machines. Further definitions of abstract machines have to be based on those graphematic notational systems. A realization of such constructions of abstract machines, in contrast to existing abstract machines of the theory of …

Towards Abstract Memristic Machines, Rudolf Kaehr

Rudolf Kaehr

No abstract provided.

From Universe To Polyverses, Rudolf Kaehr

Rudolf Kaehr

Some thoughts about the power of speculation behind important discoveries in mathematics, physics and computer science. The exercise shows that there is no need for a compulsory ultimate unifying universe. It is speculated that just this paradigm of a single ultimate universe is unmasking itself today as the main obstacle for further development in Western science and technology.

Morphogrammatics For Dummies: The Domino Approach, Rudolf Kaehr

Rudolf Kaehr

Dominoes, morphograms, cellular automata, memristics. Topics: possible continuation, coalitions, cooperations, substitution, morphic bisimilarity.

Analysis Of Xbrl Literature: A Decade Of Progress And Puzzle, Saeed Roohani, Zhao Xianming, Ernest Capozzoli, Barbara Lamberton

Faculty and Research Publications

XBRL (eXtensible Business Reporting language) was recently, in 2008, in its 10th year. The concept was articulated in 1998 by Charles Hoffman, known as XFRML (eXtensible Financial Reporting Mark Up Language) to facilitate the business reporting process and improve financial reporting. The objective of this paper is to examine a decade (1998-2008) of XBRL articles published in various publications including trade, practitioner and academic journals to identify trends and patterns, milestones, and organizations actively contributed to this development. Another goal is to assess public perceptions of XBRL, its capabilities and its future. We examined published articles where XBRL appeared either …

Integrating Software Assurance Into The Software Development Life Cycle (Sdlc), Maurice Dawson, Darrell N. Burrell, Emad Rahim, Stephen Brewster

Maurice Dawson

This article examines the integration of secure coding practices into the overall Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC). Also detailed is a proposed methodology for integrating software assurance into the Department of Defense Information Assurance Certification & Accreditation Process (DIACAP). This method for integrating software assurance helps in properly securing the application layer as that is where more than half of the vulnerabilities lie in a system.