Computer Sciences Commons^™

Development Of Integrated Process Simulation System Model For Spent Fuel Treatment Facility (Sftf) Design: Quarterly Report October 1-December 31, 2004, Yitung Chen, Sean Hsieh

Separations Campaign (TRP)

The Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) and Transmutation Research Program- University Participation Program (TRP-UPP) supported by Department of Energy of the United States have been developing many important technologies for the transmutation of nuclear waste to address long-term disposal issues. While successfully embedding AMUSE module into a dedicated System Engineering Model (TRPSEMPro), developed by the Nevada Center for Advanced Computational Methods (NCACM) at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas collaborating with Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), ANL is interested in further simulating the Light Water Reactor (LWR) Spent Fuel Treatment Facility (SFTF) combining commercial process simulation and analysis packages and core …

The Icdm Development Toolkit: Technical Description, Russell Leighton, Lakshmi Vempati, Alan Davis, Mark Porczak, Jens G. Pohl

Collaborative Agent Design (CAD) Research Center

This report provides a technical description of the Integrated Cooperative Decision-Making (ICDM) software toolkit for the development of intelligent decision-support applications. An overview of the transformational forces that have precipitated the need for a development toolkit capable of supporting a distributed, information-centric software environment, and the objectives of ICDM are contained in a companion CDM Technical Report (CDM-16-04) entitled: “The ICDM Development Toolkit: Purpose and Overview”.

ICDM is an application development framework and toolkit for distributed decision-support systems incorporating software agents that collaborate with each other and human users to monitor changes (i.e., events) in the state of problem situations, …

Interoperability And The Need For Intelligent Software, Jens G. Pohl

Collaborative Agent Design (CAD) Research Center

In my introduction to this year’s conference I will address six questions that I believe come to the core of our conference theme of interoperability. Do we human beings resist change? Is it in fact a human problem and not a technical problem that we are dealing with? Can non-human intelligence exist? Do we even have a need for intelligent software? How did software, particularly intelligent software (i.e., if we accept that there is such a thing) evolve over the past several decades, and what is all this talk about a Semantic Web environment? And, finally, what does the …

Airconn: A Framework For Tiered Services In Public Wireless Lan Hot Spots, A. Acharya, C. Bisdikian, Archan Misra, Y. Ko

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Access to the data services via wireless LANs at private and public hot spot sites is becoming commonplace. The goal of the airConn project is to define an architecture and a prototype implementation that enable the provision of premium and non-premium service tiers for both transient and nontransient users of wireless hot spots. airConn provides for dynamic renegotiation of service tiers and facilitates various billing modes. Thus, it enables service providers to increase their revenue opportunities via multiple flexibility manageable service offerings.

Informal Animation Sketching: Requirements And Design, Richard C. Davis, James A. Landay

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

We present an interface design for creating informal animations from sketches. Current tools for creating animation are extremely complex. This makes it difficult for designers to prototype animations and nearly impossible for novices to create them at all. Simple animation systems exist but severely restrict the types of motion that can be represented. To guide our design of an animation sketching interface, we conducted field studies into the needs of professional and novice animators. These studies show the wide variety of motions that users desire in informal animations and indicate how to prioritize these types of otion. The interface described …

Design And Analysis Of A Cooperative Medium Access Scheme For Wireless Mesh Networks, Arup Acharya, Archan Misra, Sorav Bansal

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

This paper presents the detailed design and performance analysis of MACA-P, a RTS/CTS based MAC protocol, that enables simultaneous transmissions in wireless mesh networks. The IEEE 802.11 DCF MAC prohibits any parallel transmission in the neighborhood of either a sender or a receiver (of an ongoing transmission). MACA-P is a set of enhancements to the 802.11 MAC that allows parallel transmissions in situations when two neighboring nodes are either both receivers or transmitters, but a receiver and a transmitter are not neighbors. The performance of MACA-P in terms of system throughput is obtained through a simulation of the protocol using …

Development Of A Systems Engineering Model Of The Chemical Separations Process, Yitung Chen, Sean Hsieh

Separations Campaign (TRP)

The whole chemical separation process is complex to the point that definitely requires certain level of systematic coordination. To perform smoothly and meet the target extraction rates among those processes, this research proposed a general-purpose systems engineering model.

A general purposed systems engineering model, Transmutation Research Program System Engineering Model Project (TRPSEMPro), was developed based on the above design concept. The system model includes four main parts: System Manager, Model Integration, Study Plan, and Solution Viewer. System Manager supervises all the case (problem) creation, and functionality definition. Model Integration identifies chemical extraction processes and their execution sequence. Study Plan is …

Development Of A Systems Engineering Model Of The Chemical Separations Process: Final Report, Yitung Chen, Sean Hsieh

Separations Campaign (TRP)

The whole chemical separation process is complex to the point that definitely requires certain level of systematic coordination. To perform smoothly and meet the target extraction rates among those processes, this research proposed a general-purpose systems engineering model.

A general purposed systems engineering model, Transmutation Research Program System Engineering Model Project (TRPSEMPro), was developed based on the above design concept. The system model includes four main parts: System Manager, Model Integration, Study Plan, and Solution Viewer. TRPSEMPro can apply not only to chemical separation process, but also a general system model.

Software engineering and Object Oriented Analysis and Design (OOA&D) …

Proceedings Of The 2004 Onr Decision-Support Workshop Series: Interoperability, Collaborative Agent Design Research Center

Collaborative Agent Design (CAD) Research Center

In August of 1998 the Collaborative Agent Design Research Center (CADRC) of the California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo (Cal Poly), approached Dr. Phillip Abraham of the Office of Naval Research (ONR) with the proposal for an annual workshop focusing on emerging concepts in decision-support systems for military applications. The proposal was considered timely by the ONR Logistics Program Office for at least two reasons. First, rapid advances in information systems technology over the past decade had produced distributed collaborative computer-assistance capabilities with profound potential for providing meaningful support to military decision makers. Indeed, some systems based on …

Interoperability And The Need For Intelligent Software: A Historical Perspective, Jens G. Pohl

Collaborative Agent Design (CAD) Research Center

With the objective of defining the interoperability theme of this year’s conference it is the purpose of this paper¹ to trace the evolution of intelligent software from data-centric applications that essentially encapsulate their data environment to ontology-based applications with automated reasoning capabilities. The author draws a distinction between human intelligence and component capabilities within a more general definition of intelligence; - a kind of intelligence that can be embedded in computer software. The primary vehicle in the quest for intelligent software has been the gradual recognition of the central role played by data and information, rather than the logic …

A Visual Language For Animating Sketches, Richard C. Davis, James A. Landay

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

We present our research into visual languages for animating sketches. Animation is a rich mode of communication that is currently accessible to few. Simple animation systems exist, but severely restrict the types of motion that can be represented. Our field studies are demonstrating that would-be animators need to coordinate many objects moving in a variety of ways. The visual language described here allows a variety of motions to be defined with hand gestures, and gives visual feedback for coordination of events. This may open up computerized communication to users who think in dynamic visual images.

On Software Regulation, Polk Wagner

All Faculty Scholarship

This Article develops a novel analytic framework for the evaluation of regulatory policy in cyberspace, flowing from a reconceptualization of cyberlaw’s central premise: software code as complementary to law rather than its substitute. This approach emphasizes the linkage between law and software; for every quantum of legal-regulatory impact, there is a corresponding equilibria of regulation-bysoftware. The absence of a legal right will stimulate a technological response—and such incentives will moderate with increased rights. Rather than “code is law,” this is “code meets law.” The implications of this methodological shift are explored in the context of the emerging (and intensely controversial) …

The Tirac™ Development Toolkit: Purpose And Overview, Jens G. Pohl, Kym Jason Pohl, Russell Leighton, Michael Zang, Steven Gollery, Mark Porczak

Collaborative Agent Design (CAD) Research Center

This report provides an overview description of the Toolkit for Information Representation and Agent Collaboration (TIRAC™) software framework for the development of intelligent decision-support applications. More technical descriptions of TIRAC™ are contained in a companion CDM Technical Report (CDM-19-03) entitled: ‘The TIRAC™ Development Toolkit: Technical Description’.

TIRAC™ is an application development framework and toolkit for decision-support systems incorporating software agents that collaborate with each other and human users to monitor changes (i.e., events) in the state of problem situations, generate and evaluate alternative plans, and alert human users to immediate and developing resource shortages, failures, threats, and similar adverse conditions. …

Exploiting Information Theory For Adaptive Mobility And Resource Management In Future Cellular Networks, Abhishek Roy, Sajal K. Das, Archan Misra

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

We utilize tools from information theory to develop adaptive algorithms for two key problems in cellular networks: location tracking and resource management. The use of information theory is motivated by the fundamental observation that overheads in many aspects of mobile computing can be traced to the randomness or uncertainty in an individual user's movement behavior. We present a model-independent information-theoretic approach for estimating and managing this uncertainty, and relate it to the entropy or information content of the user's movement process. Information-theoretic mobility management algorithms are very simple, yet reduce overhead by ∼80 percent in simulated scenarios by optimally adapting …

Pre-Conference Proceedings Of The Focus Symposium On Intelligent Software Systems For The New Infostructure: Baden-Baden, Germany, Collaborative Agent Design Research Center

Collaborative Agent Design (CAD) Research Center

Over the past several years the papers in this annual series of symposia have increasingly centered on the realization of a human-computer collaboration environment in which computer-based software agents with reasoning capabilities provide meaningful support to human decision makers. It is therefore quite appropriate that the first paper in the 2004 Proceedings should address the historical evolutionary path of ‘intelligent’ software leading to the goal of a semantic Web environment. The realization of this goal is now in sight, driven by public security threats that are increasingly relying on technology for effective countermeasures.

The Evolution Of Intelligent Computer Software And The Semantic Web, Jens G. Pohl

Collaborative Agent Design (CAD) Research Center

The purpose of this paper is to trace the evolution of intelligent software from data-centric applications that essentially encapsulate their data environment to ontology-based applications with automated reasoning capabilities. The author draws a distinction between human intelligence and component capabilities within a more general definition of intelligence, which may be embedded in computer software. The primary vehicle in the quest for intelligent software has been the gradual recognition of the central role played by data and information, rather than the logic and functionality of the application. The three milestones in this evolution have been: the separation of data management from …

Knowledge Management Using Semantic Web Languages And Technologies, Steven J. Gollery, Jens G. Pohl

Collaborative Agent Design (CAD) Research Center

Each organization of more than a few persons generates a number of documents containing information about the activities of the organization. The sum of these documents provides a kind of organizational memory that can be used both in evaluations of past performance and as the basis of future planning based on previous experience.

Unfortunately, the nature of these documents mitigates against the reuse of information for purposes other than those for which each document was originally intended. To locate all the information about some aspect of the organization, it frequently becomes necessary for human beings to search a mass of …

A Rate-Distortion Framework For Information-Theoretic Mobility Management, Abhishek Roy, Archan Misra, Sajal K. Das

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

A practical information theoretic framework is developed for studying the optimal tradeoff between location update and paging costs in cellular networks. The framework envisions the quantization of location information into a registration area (RA) level granularity, followed by the use of an entropy-coding technique to decrease the location update rate. The rate distortion theory of the lossy quantization is identified as an appropriate measure for capturing the optimal tradeoff between a mobile's update rate and its location uncertainty. Based on LZ-78 compression, two different RA-level location update algorithms (RA-LeZi and LeZi-RA) have been developed, both of which asymptotically approach this …

Toward A Sound Integration Of Isabelle With A Combined Decision Procedure, Tom Harke

Computer Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

I present work on a project to integrate Isabelle, an extremely versatile interactive proof assistant, with a combined decision procedure, the Cooperating Validity Checker (CVC). Isabelle is sound and flexible, however it is often tedious to use. CVC is fully automatic, but only handles decision problems expressible over a relatively weak set of theories including linear arithmetic, uninterpreted functions, data types, and firstorder quantifier-free logic. My goal is to increase the amount of automation in Isabelle, by making it use CVC as an oracle for such problems, but without compromising Isabelle’s soundness.

In this paper I report on the progress …

The Icdm Development Toolkit: Purpose And Overview, Jens G. Pohl, Kym Jason Pohl, Russell Leighton, Michael Zang, Steven Gollery, Mark Porczak

Collaborative Agent Design (CAD) Research Center

This report provides an overview description of the Integrated Cooperative Decision-Making (ICDM) software toolkit for the development of intelligent decision-support applications. More technical descriptions of ICDM are contained in a companion CDM Technical Report (CDM-18-04) entitled: ‘The ICDM Development Toolkit: Technical Description’.

ICDM is an application development framework and toolkit for decision-support systems incorporating software agents that collaborate with each other and human users to monitor changes (i.e., events) in the state of problem situations, generate and evaluate alternative plans, and alert human users to immediate and developing resource shortages, failures, threats, and similar adverse conditions. A core component of …

Toolglasses, Marking Menus, And Hotkeys: A Comparison Of One And Two-Handed Command Selection Techniques, Daniel L. Odell, Richard C. Davis, Andrew Smith, Paul K. Wright

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

This paper introduces a new input technique, bimanual marking menus, and compares its performance with five other techniques: static toolbars, hotkeys, grouped hotkeys, marking menus, and toolglasses. The study builds on previous work by setting the comparison in a commonly encountered task, shape drawing. In this context, grouped hotkeys and bimanual marking menus were found to be the fastest. Subjectively, the most pre-ferred input method was bimanual marking menus. Toolglass performance was unexpectedly slow, which hints at the importance of low-level toolglass imple-mentation choices.

Power Adaptation Based Optimization For Energy Efficient Reliable Wireless Paths, Suman Banerjee, Archan Misra

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

We define a transmission power adaptation-based routing technique that finds optimal paths for minimum energy reliable data transfer in multi-hop wireless networks. This optimal choice of the transmission power depends on the link distance between the two nodes and the channel characteristics. Typical energy efficient routing techniques use a transmission power such that the received signal power at the destination minimally exceeds a desired threshold signal strength level. In this paper we argue that such a choice of the transmission power does not always lead to optimal energy routes, since it does not consider differences in the receiver noise levels.We …

Development Of Integrated Process Simulation System Model For Spent Fuel Treatment Facility (Sftf) Design, Yitung Chen, Sean Hsieh

Separations Campaign (TRP)

The Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) and Transmutation Research Program-University Participation Program (TRP-UPP) supported by Department of Energy of the United States have been developing many important technologies for the transmutation of nuclear waste to address long-term disposal issues. While successfully embedding AMUSE module into a dedicated System Engineering Model (TRPSEMPro), developed by the Nevada Center for Advanced Computational Methods (NCACM) at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas collaborating with Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), ANL is interested in further simulating the Light Water Reactor (LWR) Spent Fuel Treatment Facility (SFTF) combining commercial process simulation and analysis packages and core calculation of …

Tool Support For Model Based Architectural Design For Automotive Control Systems, Kevin Steppe

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

In conjunction with Ford Motor Company, we built a tool to support multilevel architectural design. The tool, called Synergy, allows Ford to visually design architectures of vehicle control components. The components are imported from existing Simulink models; then the tool automatically generates a detailed view showing all required connections and ports. The resulting model is exported to Simulink for further analysis. In this paper we describe the conceptual and technical challenges encountered in building Synergy and our design choices for solving them.

Clash: A Protocol For Internet-Scale Utility-Oriented Distributed Computing, Archan Misra, Paul Castro, Jinwon Lee

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Distributed hash table (DHT) overlay networks offer an efficient and robust technique for wire-area data storage and queries. Workload from real applications that use DHT networks will likely exhibit significant skews that can result in bottlenecks and failures that limit the overall scalability of the DHT approach. We present the content and load-aware scalable hashing (CLASH) protocol that can enhance the load distribution behavior of a DHT. CLASH relies on a variable-length identifier key scheme, where the length of any individual key is a function of load. CLASH uses variable-length keys to cluster content-related objects on single nodes to achieve …

A Modeling Framework For Computing Lifetime And Information Capacity In Wireless Sensor Networks, Enrique Duarte-Melo, Mingyan Liu, Archan Misra

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

In this paper we investigate the expected lifetime and information capacity, defined as the maximum amount of data (bits) transferred before the first sensor node death due to energy depletion, of a data-gathering wireless sensor network. We develop a fluidflow based computational framework that extends the existing approach, which requires precise knowledge of the layout/deployment of the network, i.e., exact sensor positions. Our method, on the other hand, views a specific network deployment as a particular instance (sample path) from an underlying distribution of sensor node layouts and sensor data rates.

An Information-Theoretic Framework For Optimal Location Tracking In Multi-System 4g Wireless Networks, Archan Misra, Abhishek Roy, Sajal K. Das

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

An information-theoretic framework is developed for optimal location management in multisystem, fourth generation (4G) wireless networks. The framework envisions that each individual subsystem operates fairly independently, and does not require public knowledge of individual subnetwork topologies. To capture the variation in paging and location update costs in this heterogeneous environment, the location management problem is formulated in terms of a new concept of weighted entropy. The update process is based on the Lempel-Ziv compression algorithms, which are applied to a vector-valued sequence consisting of both the mobile's movement pattern and its session activity state. Three different tracking strategies which differ …

U.S. Graduate Student Travel To The Second Agentlink European Agent Systems Summer School (Easss) 2000, Thomas A. Wagner

University of Maine Office of Research Administration: Grant Reports

This award supports international travel for fifteen U.S. graduate students who would not otherwise be able to attend the Second AgentLink European Agent Systems Summer School being held in Saarbrucken, Germany, from August 14-18, 2000. AgentLink, Europe's ESPRIT-funded Network of Excellence for agent-based computing, organizes the school (http://www.agentlink.org). It is a world-class event that will bring together internationally recognized researchers in the area of autonomous agents and multi-agent systems to present introductory and advanced courses in the theoretical and practical aspects of agent-based computing. The objective of this award is to encourage and enable U.S. graduate students of outstanding merit …

Tool Support For Two-Tiered Architectural Design For Automotive Control Systems, Kevin Steppe, Greg Bylenok, David Garlan, Bradley Schmerl, Kanat Abirov, Nataliya Shevchenko

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

An attractive approach to architecture-based design is to structure the development process into two tiers. The top tier represents the abstract design (or architecture) of a system in terms of abstract components. The bottom tier refines that design by making specific implementation decisions, such as platform, middleware, and component implementations. While attractive in principle, there has been relatively little industrial-based experience to shed light on problems and solutions involved in such an approach. In this paper we describe our experience in developing tools to introduce a two-tiered model-based approach to the design of Ford Motor Company’s automotive control systems, highlighting …

Sils Mrat: A Multi-Agent Decision-Support System For Shipboard Integration Of Logistics Systems, Michael Zang, Jonathan Lee, Joyce Gaoiran, Adam Gray, Jered Gray, Charles Hayek, David Nau, Chad Pond, Michael Rutter, Zachary Speck, Jens G. Pohl

Collaborative Agent Design (CAD) Research Center

This report describes work performed by CDM Technologies Inc. on subcontract to ManTech Advanced Systems International, Inc. (Fairmont, West Virginia), and under sponsorship of the Office of Naval Research (ONR). The principal aim of the SILS (Shipboard Integration of Logistics Systems) project is to provide a decision-support capability for Navy ships that integrates shipboard logistical and tactical systems within a near real-time, automated, computer-based shipboard readiness and situation awareness facility. Specifically, SILS is intended to provide the captain of a ship and his staff with an accurate evaluation of the current condition of the ship, based on the ability of …