Digital Commons Network^™

Sap Implementation At The University Of Nebraska, T. Sieber, Keng Siau, Fiona Fui-Hoon Nah, M. Sieber

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The University Community will have access to information, including human, physical, and financial, through an integrated administrative system. The system will be user-driven and flexible in a seamless and distributed environment to support efficient and effective business processes necessary to accommodate the mission of the University and its campuses.

Extracting Mission Semantics From Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Telemetry And Flight Plans, Walter T. Berridge

Theses and Dissertations

With the acceptance of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) as a primary platform within the Department of Defense (DOD) for gathering intelligence data, the amount of video information being recorded, analyzed, and archived continues to grow. Mechanisms for quickly locating and retrieving video segments of interest amongst the many hours of recorded video are required to accommodate the rapid turnaround expected in today's wartime planning environments. This research demonstrates that text-based data accompanying UAV video yields sufficient information to identify and create data items that can be indexed to provide for rapid identification and retrieval of video segments of interest. Four …

Stochastic Modeling-Based Dgps Estimation Algorithm, James T. Broaddus

Theses and Dissertations

A Kinematic Differential Global Positioning System (KDGPS) algorithm is developed. A number of mobile receivers is considered, one of which will be designated the reference station' which will have known position and velocity information at the beginning of the time interval examined. Satellite clock biases are used to model Selective Availability. The measurement situation on hand is properly modeled and a centralized estimation algorithm processing several epochs of data. The effect of uncertainty in the reference receiver's position and the level of receiver noise is examined. Monte Carlo simulations are performed to examine the ability of the algorithm to correctly …

Generating Executable Persistent Data Storage/Retrieval Code From Object-Oriented Specifications, Steven R. Buckwalter

Theses and Dissertations

This research creates a methodology and corresponding prototype for the transformation of object-oriented (OO) specifications to represent the corresponding relational schemas that are used to automatically generate database design language (DDL). The transformation design decisions and specifications are then used to generate database manipulation language (DML) that can be embedded within the software application code generated from the same OO specifications. This concept of developing a model for producing compilable and executable code from formal software specifications has long been a goal of software engineers. Previous research at the Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT) has not focused on the …

Extensible Markup Language As A Weather Tool, Michael J. Calidonna

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is a proof of concept work that will extend the Core Mapping Application Program Interface (CMAPI) components to include weather data. The CMAPI project is headed by Air Force Research Lab (AFRL)/Information Directorate Information Handling Branch (IFEB) at Rome labs in Rome, New York. This work extends the CMAPI project in two distinct areas. The first goal is to figure out how to overlay and display weather data on a dynamically linked Internet platform. This was accomplished by incorporating existing data from the Air Force Weather Agency (AFWA) into the CMAPI program in a static environment. The other …

An Object-Oriented Repository-Based Software Synthesis System, Gary L. Cornn Jr.

Theses and Dissertations

This research provides a repository on which various Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT) transformational software synthesis tools can store, share, and manage data using a common repository information model. This information model was created by integrating a variety of separately developed AFIT software synthesis object models into a "wide-spectrum" model. Additionally, a methodology for describing complex relationships between artifacts in the repository is described. These relationships can be used to relate software synthesis artifacts created in a variety of formats, including text, binary, and the AFIT Wide-Spectrum Object Modeling Environment (AWSOME) information model. The relationships can be exploited for …

A 3d Display System For Lightning Detection And Ranging (Ldar) Data, Michael W. Darwin

Theses and Dissertations

Lightning detection is an essential part of safety and resource protection at Cape Canaveral. In order to meet the unique needs of launching space vehicles in the thunderstorm prone Florida environment, Cape Canaveral has the only operational three- dimensional (3D) lightning detection network in the world, the Lightning Detection and Ranging (LDAR) system. Although lightning activity is detected in three dimensions, the current LDAR display, developed 20 years ago, is two-dimensional. This thesis uses modern three-dimensional graphics, object-oriented software design, and innovative visualization techniques to develop a 3D visualization application for LDAR data.

Distributed Object System Engineering For Terminal Aerodrome Forecast Validation And Metrics Processing, James S. Douglas

Theses and Dissertations

Distributed object systems are a very complex intertwining of heterogeneous hardware, software, and operating systems coupled with communication networks of varying protocols and capacities. Distributed components offer improved performance through parallel processing, improved expansion and scalability opportunities through modularity, improved availability through replication, and improved resource sharing and interoperability through interconnection. This research provides a distributed system design methodology to validate terminal forecasts and gather metrics for the Air Force Weather Agency. Proven principles such as component reuse and architectural development are applied through the use of parameterized types and design patterns. A client/server measurement model is developed to show …

Global Positioning System (Gps) Error Source Prediction, Marcus G. Ferguson

Theses and Dissertations

With the initiation of the navigation accuracy prediction algorithm used to estimate the amount of GPS solution (location and time) error for receivers, the capability to accurately predict solution errors due to the major GPS error sources is growing. Although some sources of error within the GPS solution have been previously analyzed, modeled, and/or accounted for within various modeling efforts, a formal evaluation of the seven major error sources that distort GPS activity has not been officially conducted up until this point. This research offers a logical assessment of all the major GPS error sources and their definitive impact on …

A Comparative Analysis Of Cockpit Display Development Tools, Matthew J. Gebhardt

Theses and Dissertations

Currently, no standard methodology exists that enables cockpit display engineers to evaluate software tools used in the development of graphical cockpit displays. Furthermore, little research has been accomplished in comparing current software development tools with traditional hand-coded methods, This research effort discusses a framework for analyzing cockpit display software development tools and follows through with a detailed analysis comparing today's hand-coding standard, OpenGL, with two of today's cockpit display software development suites, Virtual Application Prototyping System (VAPS) and Display Editor. The comparison exploits the analysis framework establishing the advantages and disadvantages of the three software development suites. The analysis framework …

Three-Dimensional Data Visualization Of Electronic Military Intelligence Using The Project Broadsword System, Michael L. Goeringer

Theses and Dissertations

Today's military electronic infrastructure solves many problems while creating others. Using computers, battlefield and global awareness is brought to bear through the near real-time linking of sensor platforms from around the globe. These intelligence networks produce vast amounts of data that must be parsed, interpreted, digested and stored by information gathering systems. As the amount of intelligence data continues to increase, these text-based systems become cumbersome and inadequate. To ensure vital information is not overlooked or discovered too late, other forms of intelligence product management and data navigation need to be investigated. This thesis explores procedures for enhancing the capabilities …

A Distributed Agent Architecture For A Computer Virus Immune System, Paul K. Harmer

Theses and Dissertations

Information superiority is identified as an Air Force core competency and is recognized as a key enabler for the success of future missions. Information protection and information assurance are vital components required for achieving superiority in the Infosphere, but these goals are threatened by the exponential birth rate of new computer viruses. The increased global interconnectivity that is empowering advanced information systems is also increasing the spread of malicious code and current anti-virus solutions are quickly becoming overwhelmed by the burden of capturing and classifying new viral stains. To overcome this problem, a distributed computer virus immune system (CVIS) based …

Data Warehouse Techniques To Support Global On-Demand Weather Forecast Metrics, Meriellen C. Joga

Theses and Dissertations

Air Force pilots and other operators make crucial mission planning decisions based on weather forecasts; therefore, the ability to forecast the weather accurately is a critical issue to Air Force Weather (AFW) and its customers. The goal of this research is to provide Air Force Weather with a methodology to automate statistical data analysis for the purpose of providing on-demand metrics. A data warehousing methodology is developed and applied to the weather metrics problem in order to present an option that will facilitate on-demand metrics. On-line analytical processing (OLAP) and data mining solutions are also discussed.

A Human-Centered Approach For Designing Decision Support Systems, Sean G. Kern

Theses and Dissertations

The choice to include the human in the decision process affects four key areas of system design: problem representation, system analysis and design, solution technique selection, and interface requirements specification. I introduce a design methodology that captures the necessary choices associated with each of these areas. In particular I show how this methodology is applied to the design of an actual decision Support system for satellite operations scheduling. Supporting the user's ability to monitor the actions of the system and to guide the decision process of the system are two key considerations in the successful design of a decision support …

An Information Visualization Solution For The Analysis Of The Afm Simulation Output Data, Stuart H. Kurkowski

Theses and Dissertations

With the advancement of computer hardware and software computer simulations are now able to run faster and track more elements than ever before burdening the analyst with more and more data to analyze. Air Mobility Command's (AMC) Airlift Flow Model (AFM) is the Air Force's logistics simulator that simulates multi-day mobility scenarios in a matter of minutes producing megabytes of output data. Because the analysts' needs for summaries, trends, and comparisons of the data have surpassed the capabilities of current desktop spreadsheet analysis techniques new tools are needed.

A Formal Methodology And Technique For Verifying Communication Protocols In A Multi-Agent Environment, Timothy H. Lacey

Theses and Dissertations

As network bandwidth increases, distributed applications are becoming increasingly prevalent. Systems using these applications are very complicated to build and must be dependable. Software agents are ideal for breaking complicated problems into manageable subtasks. Agent conversations, a series of messages passed between agents, are the cornerstone of multi-agent systems and must be deemed correct before being placed into service. The purpose of this research was to develop a formal methodology and technique to verify that the communication protocols defined in a multi-agent environment were valid. This was accomplished by examining agent conversations before deploying the system. An additional goal of …

An Intelligent User Interface To Support Air Force Weather Product Generation And Automated Metrics, Darryl N. Leon

Theses and Dissertations

Air Force pilots require dependable weather reports so they may avoid unsafe flying conditions. In order to better gauge the accuracy of its weather products, Air Force Weather has established the requirement for an Air Force-wide automated weather metrics program. Under the guidelines for this program, forecasts will automatically be compared to observed weather to determine their accuracy. Statistics will be collected in the hopes of determining forecast error trends that can be corrected through education and training. In order for the statistical data produced by such a program to draw reliable conclusions about forecast accuracy, however, the correct format …

Formal Object State Model Transformations For Automated Agent System Synthesis, David W. Marsh

Theses and Dissertations

Automated agent system synthesis is the process of generating code from a requirements specification with appropriate inputs from the software engineer. Object-oriented (OO) specifications are frequently used to model intelligent software agent systems and software requirements in general; formal representations capture precisely the intentions of the specifier. Portions of OO specifications can be classified as the structural, functional, and state (or dynamic) models; major strides have been taken in the development of transformations for creating code from formal OO specifications, specifically the structural and functional aspects, and are captured within the AFIT Wide-Spectrum Object Modeling Environment (AWSOME). This research creates …

Knowledge Base Support For Design And Synthesis Of Multi-Agent Systems, Marc J. Raphael

Theses and Dissertations

AgentTool is an AFIT-produced, AFOSR-sponsored multi-agent system (MAS) development tool intended for production of MASs that meet military requirements. This research focuses on enabling MAS design and synthesis tools like agentTool to store, retrieve, and filter persistent, reusable, and reliable agent domain knowledge. This "enabling" is vital if such tools are expected to produce consistent, maintainable, and verifiable agent applications on short timetables. Enabling requires: 1) modeling the agent knowledge domain, 2) designing and employing a persistent knowledge base, and 3) bridging that domain model to the knowledge base with an extensible domain interchange grammar. The achieved interchange grammar, called …

A Component Based Approach To Agent Specification, David J. Robinson

Theses and Dissertations

The Air Force, as well as all of industry, is currently faced with the problem of having to produce larger and more complex software systems that run efficiently and reliably as well as being extensible and maintainable. This research addresses this problem by developing a knowledge representation language that can be used to unambiguously specify and design software systems in a verifiable, efficient, and understandable manner. The language is a combination of object-oriented and component-based methodologies and makes use of both graphics and text to represent information. Although designed for the development of any type of software system, the language …

Improving The Analyst And Decision-Maker’S Perspective Through Uncertainty Visualization, Evan T. Watkins

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis constructs the Taxonomy of Uncertainty and an approach for enhancing the information in decision support systems. The hierarchical categorization of numerous causes for uncertainty defines the taxonomy, which fostered the development of a technique for visualizing uncertainty. This technique is fundamental to expressing the multi-dimensional uncertainty that can be associated with any object. By including and intuitively expressing uncertainty, the approach facilitates and enhances intuition and decision-making without undue information overload. The resulting approach for enhancing the information involves recording uncertainty, identifying the relevant items, computing and visualizing uncertainty, and providing interaction with the selection of uncertainty. A …

Explicitly Modeling Hierarchically Heterogeneous Software Architectures In An Object-Oriented Formal Transformation System, Darin L. Williams

Theses and Dissertations

Formal software transformation systems are software development environments typified by the semi-automated application of a series of correctness-preserving transformations to formal data models. The range of software architectures such systems are capable of producing is often restricted by the limited ability to accept high-level design inputs as constraints on the transformation process. When architectural inputs are acceptable, often the modeling language excludes the explicit representation of architectural constructs and provides, at best, an extremely limited architectural analysis capability. This research defines a high-level taxonomy of software architectures and proposes a way to explicitly model a broad class of architectures by …

Designing Human-Centered Automation: Tradeoffs In Collision Avoidance System Design, Michael A. Goodrich, Erwin R. Boer

Faculty Publications

Technological advances have made plausible the design of automated systems that share responsibility with a human operator. The decision to use automation to assist or replace a human operator in safety-critical tasks must account for not only the technological capabilities of the sensor and control subsystems, but also the autonomy, capabilities, and preferences of the human operator. By their nature, such human-centered automation problems have multiple attributes: an attribute reflecting human goals and capabilities, and an attribute reflecting automation goals and capabilities. Although good theories exist that describe portions of human behavior generation, in the absence of a general theory …

Crop Updates 2000 Cereals - Part 4, C. Tang, Z. Rengel, E. Diatloff, B. Mcgann, Mehmet Cakir, Nick Galwey, David Poulsen, M. Carter, A. Briney, R. Wilson, R. H. Potter, M. G. K. Jones, Ian Barclay, Robyn Mclean, Dean A. Diepeveen, Rob Loughman, Ross Kingwell, Michael O'Connell, Simone Blennerhasset, Benjamin Michael Tiller, Senthold Asseng, Holger Meinke, Bill Bowden, Jeff Russell, Ivan Lee, Clare Johnson, Chris Newman, Robert Emery, Romolo Tassone, Ernestos Kostas, Graeme Ralph, Robert Sudmeyer, David Hall, Harvey Jones

Crop Updates

This session covers twelve papers from different authors:

BREEDING

1.Response to subsoil acidity of wheat genotypes differing in Al-tolerance, C. Tang, Z. Rengel, E. Diatloff and B. McGann, Soil Science and Plant Nutrition/CLIMA, University of Western Australia

2. Application of molecular markers in Barley Improvement, Mehmet Cakir¹, Nick Galwey¹ and David Poulsen^{2, 1}Plant Sciences, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Western Australia, ²Queensland Department of Primary Industries, Hermitage Research Station, Queensland

3. Implementation of molecular markers for wheat improvement in the Western Region, M. Carter¹, A. Briney¹, …

Infofilter: Supporting Quality Of Service For Fresh Information Delivery, Ling Liu, Calton Pu, Karsten Schwan, Jonathan Walpole

Computer Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

With the explosive growth of the Internet and World Wide Web comes a dramatic increase in the number of users that compete for the shared resources of distributed system environments. Most implementations of application servers and distributed search software do not distinguish among requests to different web pages. This has the implication that the behavior of application servers is quite unpredictable. Applications that require timely delivery of fresh information consequently suffer the most in such competitive environments. This paper presents a model of quality of service (QoS) and the design of a QoS-enabled information delivery system that implements such a …

Cataloging Expert Systems: Optimism And Frustrated Reality, William Olmstadt

E-JASL: Electronic Journal of Academic and Special Librarianship (1999-2009, Volumes 1-10)

There is little question that computers have profoundly changed how information professionals work. The process of cataloging and classifying library materials was one of the first activities transformed by information technology. The introduction of the MARC format in the 1960s and the creation of national bibliographic utilities in the 1970s had a lasting impact on cataloging. In the 1980s, the affordability of microcomputers made the computer accessible for cataloging, even to small libraries. This trend toward automating library processes with computers parallels a broader societal interest in the use of computers to organize and store information. Following World War II, …

Gasturbnlab: A Problem Solving Environment For Simulating Gas Turbines, Sanford Fleeter, Elias N. Houstis

Department of Computer Science Technical Reports

No abstract provided.

Validation Methodology For Gasturbnlab, S. Fleeter, Elias N. Houstis, John R. Rice, C. Zhou

Department of Computer Science Technical Reports

No abstract provided.

Resource Management In Software Programmable Router Operating Systems, David K.Y. Yau, Xiangjing Chen

Department of Computer Science Technical Reports

No abstract provided.

An Agent-Based Netcentric Framework For Multidisciplinary Problem Solving Environments (Mpse), S. Markus, Elias N. Houstis, A. C. Catlin, John R. Rice, P. Tsompanopoulou, D. Gottfried, Ke Su, G. Balakrishnan

Department of Computer Science Technical Reports

No abstract provided.