Digital Commons Network^™

The Patrol Scheduling Problem, Hoong Chuin Lau, Aldy Gunawan

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

This paper presents the problem of scheduling security teams to patrol a mass rapid transit rail network of a large urban city. The main objective of patrol scheduling is to deploy security teams to stations at varying time periods of the network subject to rostering as well as security-related constraints. We present a mathematical programming model for this problem. We then discuss the aspect of injecting randomness by varying the start times, the break times for each team as well as the number of visits required for each station according to their reported vulnerability. Finally, we present results for the …

Logistics Orchestration Modeling And Evaluation For Humanitarian Relief, Hoong Chuin Lau, Zhengping Li, Xin Du, Heng Jiang, Robert De Souza

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

This paper proposes an orchestration model for post-disaster response that is aimed at automating the coordination of scarce resources that minimizes the loss of human lives. In our setting, different teams are treated as agents and their activities are "orchestrated" to optimize rescue performance. Results from simulation are analysed to evaluate the performance of the optimization model.

Lagrangian Relaxation Techniques For Scalable Spatial Conservation Planning, Akshat Kumar, Xiaojian Wu, Shlomo Zilberstein

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

We address the problem of spatial conservation planning in which the goal is to maximize the expected spread of cascades of an endangered species by strategically purchasing land parcels within a given budget. This problem can be solved by standard integer programming methods using the sample average approximation (SAA) scheme. Our main contribution lies in exploiting the separable structure present in this problem and using Lagrangian relaxation techniques to gain scalability over the flat representation. We also generalize the approach to allow the application of the SAA scheme to a range of stochastic optimization problems. Our iterative approach is highly …

Decision Support For Agent Populations In Uncertain And Congested Environments, Pradeep Reddy Varakantham, Shih-Fen Cheng, Geoff Gordon, Asrar Ahmed

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

This research is motivated by large scale problems in urban transportation and labor mobility where there is congestion for resources and uncertainty in movement. In such domains, even though the individual agents do not have an identity of their own and do not explicitly interact with other agents, they effect other agents. While there has been much research in handling such implicit effects, it has primarily assumed deterministic movements of agents. We address the issue of decision support for individual agents that are identical and have involuntary movements in dynamic environments. For instance, in a taxi fleet serving a city, …

Incorporating Memory And Learning Mechanisms Into Meta-Raps, Arif Arin

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Due to the rapid increase of dimensions and complexity of real life problems, it has become more difficult to find optimal solutions using only exact mathematical methods. The need to find near-optimal solutions in an acceptable amount of time is a challenge when developing more sophisticated approaches. A proper answer to this challenge can be through the implementation of metaheuristic approaches. However, a more powerful answer might be reached by incorporating intelligence into metaheuristics.

Meta-RaPS (Metaheuristic for Randomized Priority Search) is a metaheuristic that creates high quality solutions for discrete optimization problems. It is proposed that incorporating memory and learning …

Foundations Of Inference, Kevin H. Knuth, John Skilling

Physics Faculty Scholarship

We present a simple and clear foundation for finite inference that unites and significantly extends the approaches of Kolmogorov and Cox. Our approach is based on quantifying lattices of logical statements in a way that satisfies general lattice symmetries. With other applications such as measure theory in mind, our derivations assume minimal symmetries, relying on neither negation nor continuity nor differentiability. Each relevant symmetry corresponds to an axiom of quantification, and these axioms are used to derive a unique set of quantifying rules that form the familiar probability calculus. We also derive a unique quantification of divergence, entropy and information.

A Location-Aware Architecture Supporting Intelligent Real-Time Mobile Applications, Sean J. Barbeau

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation presents LAISYC, a modular location-aware architecture for intelligent real-time mobile applications that is fully-implementable by third party mobile app developers and supports high-precision and high-accuracy positioning systems such as GPS. LAISYC significantly improves device battery life, provides location data authenticity, ensures security of location data, and significantly reduces the amount of data transferred between the phone and server. The design, implementation, and evaluation of LAISYC using real mobile phones include the following modules: the GPS Auto-Sleep module saves battery energy when using GPS, maintaining acceptable movement tracking (approximately 89% accuracy) with an approximate average doubling of battery life. …

Lagrangian Relaxation For Large-Scale Multi-Agent Planning, Geoff Gordon, Pradeep Reddy Varakantham, William Yeoh, Ajay Srinivasan, Hoong Chuin Lau, Shih-Fen Cheng

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Multi-agent planning is a well-studied problem with applications in various areas. Due to computational constraints, existing research typically focuses either on unstructured domains with many agents, where we are content with heuristic solutions, or domains with small numbers of agents or special structure, where we can find provably near-optimal solutions. In contrast, here we focus on provably near-optimal solutions in domains with many agents, by exploiting influence limits. To that end, we make two key contributions: (a) an algorithm, based on Lagrangian relaxation and randomized rounding, for solving multi-agent planning problems represented as large mixed-integer programs; (b) a proof of …

Lagrangian Relaxation For Large-Scale Multi-Agent Planning, Geoffrey J. Gordon, Pradeep Varakantham, William Yeoh, Hoong Chuin Lau, Ajay Srinivasan Aravamudhan, Shih-Fen Cheng

LARC Research Publications

Multi-agent planning is a well-studied problem with applications in various areas. Due to computational constraints, existing research typically focuses either on unstructured domains with many agents, where we are content with heuristic solutions, or domains with small numbers of agents or special structure, where we can find provably near-optimal solutions. In contrast, here we focus on provably near-optimal solutions in domains with many agents, by exploiting influence limit. To that end, we make two key contributions: (a) an algorithm, based on Lagrangian relaxation and randomized rounding, for solving multi-agent planning problems represented as large mixed-integer programs; (b) a proof of …

Active Malware Analysis Using Stochastic Games, Simon Williamson, Pradeep Reddy Varakantham, Debin Gao, Chen Hui Ong

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Cyber security is increasingly important for defending computer systems from loss of privacy or unauthorised use. One important aspect is threat analysis - how does an attacker infiltrate a system and what do they want once they are inside. This paper considers the problem of Active Malware Analysis, where we learn about the human or software intruder by actively interacting with it with the goal of learning about its behaviours and intentions, whilst at the same time that intruder may be trying to avoid detection or showing those behaviours and intentions. This game-theoretic active learning is then used to obtain …

Delayed Observation Planning In Partially Observable Domains, Pradeep Reddy Varakantham, Janusz Marecki

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Traditional models for planning under uncertainty such as Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) or Partially Observable MDPs (POMDPs) assume that the observations about the results of agent actions are instantly available to the agent. In so doing, they are no longer applicable to domains where observations are received with delays caused by temporary unavailability of information (e.g. delayed response of the market to a new product). To that end, we make the following key contributions towards solving Delayed observation POMDPs (D-POMDPs): (i) We first provide an parameterized approximate algorithm for solving D-POMDPs efficiently, with desired accuracy; and (ii) We then propose …

A Biologically-Inspired Affective Model Based On Cognitive Situational Appraisal, Feng Shu, Ah-Hwee Tan

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Although various emotion models have been proposed based on appraisal theories, most of them focus on designing specific appraisal rules and there is no unified framework for emotional appraisal. Moreover, few existing emotion models are biologically-inspired and are inadequate in imitating emotion process of human brain. This paper proposes a bio-inspired computational model called Cognitive Regulated Affective Architecture (CRAA), inspired by the cognitive regulated emotion theory and the network theory of emotion. This architecture is proposed by taking the following positions: (1) Cognition and emotion are not separated but interacted systems; (2) The appraisal of emotion depends on and should …

Stochastic Dominance In Stochastic Dcops For Risk-Sensitive Applications, Nguyen Duc Thien, William Yeoh, Hoong Chuin Lau

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Distributed constraint optimization problems (DCOPs) are well-suited for modeling multi-agent coordination problems where the primary interactions are between local subsets of agents. However, one limitation of DCOPs is the assumption that the constraint rewards are without uncertainty. Researchers have thus extended DCOPs to Stochastic DCOPs (SDCOPs), where rewards are sampled from known probability distribution reward functions, and introduced algorithms to find solutions with the largest expected reward. Unfortunately, such a solution might be very risky, that is, very likely to result in a poor reward. Thus, in this paper, we make three contributions: (1) we propose a stricter objective for …

Memory Formation, Consolidation, And Forgetting In Learning Agents, Budhitama Subagdja, Wenwen Wang, Ah-Hwee Tan, Yuan-Sin Tan, Loo-Nin Teow

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Memory enables past experiences to be remembered and acquired as useful knowledge to support decision making, especially when perception and computational resources are limited. This paper presents a neuropsychological-inspired dual memory model for agents, consisting of an episodic memory that records the agent’s experience in real time and a semantic memory that captures factual knowledge through a parallel consolidation process. In addition, the model incorporates a natural forgetting mechanism that prevents memory overloading by removing transient memory traces. Our experimental study based on a real-time first-person-shooter video game has indicated that the memory consolidation and forgetting processes are not only …

Prioritized Shaping Of Models For Solving Dec-Pomdps, Pradeep Reddy Varakantham, William Yeoh, Prasanna Velagapudi, Paul Scerri

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

An interesting class of multi-agent POMDP planning problems can be solved by having agents iteratively solve individual POMDPs, find interactions with other individual plans, shape their transition and reward functions to encourage good interactions and discourage bad ones and then recompute a new plan. D-TREMOR showed that this approach can allow distributed planning for hundreds of agents. However, the quality and speed of the planning process depends on the prioritization scheme used. Lower priority agents shape their models with respect to the models of higher priority agents. In this paper, we introduce a new prioritization scheme that is guaranteed to …

Memory Formation, Consolidation, And Forgetting In Learning Agents, Budhitama Susnagdja, Wenwen Wang, Ah-Hwee Tan, Yuan-Sin Tan, Loo-Nin Teow

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Memory enables past experiences to be remembered and acquired as useful knowledge to support decision making, especially when perception and computational resources are limited. This paper presents a neuropsychological- inspired dual memory model for agents, consisting of an episodic memory that records the agent's experience in real time and a semantic memory that captures factual knowledge through a parallel consolidation process. In addition, the model incorporates a natural forgetting mechanism that prevents memory overloading by removing transient memory traces. Our experimental study based on a real-time first-person-shooter video game has indicated that the memory consolidation and forgetting processes are not …

The Interacting Multiple Models Algorithm With State-Dependent Value Assignment, Rastin Rastgoufard

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

The value of a state is a measure of its worth, so that, for example, waypoints have high value and regions inside of obstacles have very small value. We propose two methods of incorporating world information as state-dependent modifications to the interacting multiple models (IMM) algorithm, and then we use a game's player-controlled trajectories as ground truths to compare the normal IMM algorithm to versions with our proposed modifications. The two methods involve modifying the model probabilities in the update step and modifying the transition probability matrix in the mixing step based on the assigned values of different target states. …

A Location-Based Incentive Mechanism For Participatory Sensing Systems With Budget Constraints, Luis Gabriel Jaimes

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Participatory Sensing (PS) systems rely on the willingness of mobile users to participate in the collection and reporting of data using a variety of sensors either embedded or integrated in their

cellular phones. Users agree to use their cellular phone resources to sense and transmit the data of interest because these data will be used to address a collective problem that otherwise would

be very difficult to assess and solve. However, this new data collection paradigm has not been very successful yet mainly because of the lack of incentives for participation and privacy concerns. Without adequate incentive and privacy guaranteeing …

Quest Hierarchy For Hyperspectral Face Recognition, David M. Ryer, Trevor J. Bihl, Kenneth W. Bauer Jr., Steven K. Rogers

Faculty Publications

A qualia exploitation of sensor technology (QUEST) motivated architecture using algorithm fusion and adaptive feedback loops for face recognition for hyperspectral imagery (HSI) is presented. QUEST seeks to develop a general purpose computational intelligence system that captures the beneficial engineering aspects of qualia-based solutions. Qualia-based approaches are constructed from subjective representations and have the ability to detect, distinguish, and characterize entities in the environment Adaptive feedback loops are implemented that enhance performance by reducing candidate subjects in the gallery and by injecting additional probe images during the matching process. The architecture presented provides a framework for exploring more advanced integration …

A Spatially Explicit Agent Based Model Of Muscovy Duck Home Range Behavior, James Howard Anderson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

ABSTRACT

Research in GIScience has identified agent-based simulation methodologies as effective in the study of complex adaptive spatial systems (CASS). CASS are characterized by the emergent nature of their spatial expressions and by the changing relationships between their constituent variables and how those variables act on the system's spatial expression over time. Here, emergence refers to a CASS property where small-scale, individual action results in macroscopic or system-level patterns over time. This research develops and executes a spatially-explicit agent based model of Muscovy Duck home range behavior. Muscovy duck home range behavior is regarded as a complex adaptive spatial system …

Provable De-Anonymization Of Large Datasets With Sparse Dimensions, Anupam Datta, Divya Sharma, Arunesh Sinha

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

There is a significant body of empirical work on statistical de-anonymization attacks against databases containing micro-dataabout individuals, e.g., their preferences, movie ratings, or transactiondata. Our goal is to analytically explain why such attacks work. Specifically, we analyze a variant of the Narayanan-Shmatikov algorithm thatwas used to effectively de-anonymize the Netflix database of movie ratings. We prove theorems characterizing mathematical properties of thedatabase and the auxiliary information available to the adversary thatenable two classes of privacy attacks. In the first attack, the adversarysuccessfully identifies the individual about whom she possesses auxiliaryinformation (an isolation attack). In the second attack, the adversarylearns additional …

Message Passing Algorithms For Map Estimation Using Dc Programming, Akshat Kumar, Shlomo Zilberstein, Marc Toussaint

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

We address the problem of finding the most likely assignment or MAP estimation in a Markov random field. We analyze the linear programming formulation of MAP through the lens of difference of convex functions (DC) programming, and use the concave-convex procedure (CCCP) to develop efficient message-passing solvers. The resulting algorithms are guaranteed to converge to a global optimum of the well-studied local polytope, an outer bound on the MAP marginal polytope. To tighten the outer bound, we show how to combine it with the mean-field based inner bound and, again, solve it using CCCP. We also identify a useful relationship …

Motivated Learning For The Development Of Autonomous Agents, Janusz A. Starzyk, James T. Graham, Pawel Raif, Ah-Hwee Tan

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

A new machine learning approach known as motivated learning (ML) is presented in this work. Motivated learning drives a machine to develop abstract motivations and choose its own goals. ML also provides a self-organizing system that controls a machine’s behavior based on competition between dynamically-changing pain signals. This provides an interplay of externally driven and internally generated control signals. It is demonstrated that ML not only yields a more sophisticated learning mechanism and system of values than reinforcement learning (RL), but is also more efficient in learning complex relations and delivers better performance than RL in dynamically changing environments. In …

Coordinating Occupant Behavior For Building Energy And Comfort Management Using Multi-Agent Systems, Laura Klein, Jun Young Kwak, Geoffrey Kavulya, Farrokh Jazizadeh, Burcin Becerik-Gerber, Pradeep Varakantham, Milind Tambe

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

There is growing interest in reducing building energy consumption through increased sensor data and increased computational support for building controls. The goal of reduced building energy is often coupled with the desire for improved occupant comfort. Current building systems are inefficient in their energy usage for maintaining occupant comfort as they operate according to fixed schedules and maximum design occupancy assumptions, and they rely on code defined occupant comfort ranges. This paper presents and implements a multi-agent comfort and energy system (MACES) to model alternative management and control of building systems and occupants. MACES specifically improves upon previous multi-agent systems …

Trust And Reputation For Successful Software Self-Organisation, Pierpaolo Dondio, Jean Marc Seigneur

Books/Book Chapters

Abstract An increasing number of dynamic software evolution approaches is com- monly based on integrating or utilising new pieces of software. This requires reso- lution of issues such as ensuring awareness of newly available software pieces and selection of most appropriate software pieces to use. Other chapters in this book dis- cuss dynamic software evolution focusing primarily on awareness, integration and utilisation of new software pieces, paying less attention on how selection among different software pieces is made. The selection issue is quite important since in the increasingly dynamic software world quite a few new software pieces occur over time, …

Online Path Planning And Control Solution For A Coordinated Attack Of Multiple Unmanned Aerial Vehicles In A Dynamic Environment, Juan Vega-Nevarez

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The role of the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) has significantly expanded in the military sector during the last decades mainly due to their cost effectiveness and their ability to eliminate the human life risk. Current UAV technology supports a variety of missions and extensive research and development is being performed to further expand its capabilities. One particular field of interest is the area of the low cost expendable UAV since its small price tag makes it an attractive solution for target suppression. A swarm of these low cost UAVs can be utilized as guided munitions or kamikaze UAVs to attack …

Comparing Ai Archetypes And Hybrids Using Blackjack, Robert Edward Noonan

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

The discipline of artificial intelligence (AI) is a diverse field, with a vast variety of philosophies and implementations to consider. This work attempts to compare several of these paradigms as well as their variations and hybrids, using the card game of blackjack as the field of competition. This is done with an automated blackjack emulator, written in Java, which accepts computer-controlled players of various AI philosophies and their variants, training them and finally pitting them against each other in a series of tournaments with customizable rule sets. In order to avoid bias towards any particular implementation, the system treats each …

Using Self Organizing Maps To Analyze Demographics And Swing State Voting In The 2008 U.S. Presidential Election, Paul T. Pearson, Cameron I. Cooper

Faculty Publications

Emergent self-organizing maps (ESOMs) and k-means clustering are used to cluster counties in each of the states of Florida, Pennsylvania, and Ohio by demographic data from the 2010 United States census. The counties in these clusters are then analyzed for how they voted in the 2008 U.S. Presidential election, and political strategies are discussed that target demographically similar geographical regions based on ESOM results. The ESOM and k-means clusterings are compared and found to be dissimilar by the variation of information distance function.

Cross-Talk: A Shared Parameter Space For Gesturally Extended Human/Machine Improvisation, William Brent, Adam James Wilson

Publications and Research

This paper describes Cross-talk, a piece of music and performance system for two instruments augmented with infrared motion-tracking capability, and an artificial software improviser. Cross-talk was commissioned by the Ammerman Center for Arts and Technology at Connecticut College, for the 13th Biennial Symposium on Arts and Technology. The work is part of an ongoing collaboration focused on developing integrated hardware and software performance systems to extend the timbral and expressive capabilities of traditional musical instruments and to generate musical structure in response to information retrieved from human performers in real-time. Artistic motivations and prior related work are presented here, along …

Model Individualization For Real-Time Operator Functional State Assessment, Guangfan Zhang, Roger Xu, Wei Wang, Aaron A. Pepe, Feng Li, Jiang Li, Frederick Mckenzie, Tom Schnell, Nick Anderson, Dean Heitkamp

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

Proper assessment of Operator Functional State (OFS) and appropriate workload modulation offer the potential to improve mission effectiveness and aviation safety in both overload and under-load conditions. Although a wide range of research has been devoted to building OFS assessment models, most of the models are based on group statistics and little or no research has been directed towards model individualization, i.e., tuning the group statistics based model for individual pilots. Moreover, little emphasis has been placed on monitoring whether the pilot is disengaged during low workload conditions. The primary focus of this research is to provide a real-time engagement …