Digital Commons Network^™

Objective Evaluation Of Radiation Treatment Plans, Nilesh L. Jain, Michael G. Kahn

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The evaluation of radiation treatment plans involves making trade-offs among doses delivered to the tumor volumes and nearby normal tissues. Evaluating state-of-the-art three-dimensional (3D) plans is a difficult task because of the huge amount of planning data that needs to be deciphered. Multiattribute utility theory provides a methodology for specifying trade-offs and selecting the optimal plan from many competing lans. Using multiattribute utility theory, we are developing a clinically meaningful objective plan-evaluation model for 3D radiation treatment plans. Our model incorporates three of the factors involved in radiation treatment evaluation - treatment preferences of the radiation oncologist, clinical condition of …

Clinical Decision-Support Systems In Radiation Therapy, Nilesh L. Jain, Michael G. Kahn

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Computers have been used in radiation therapy since the early 1960s to perform dose calculations. In the last decade, researchers have developed computer-based clinical decision-support systems for assisting in different decision-making tasks in radiation therapy. This paper reviews eleven prototype systems developed for target volume delineation, treatment planning, treatment plan evaluation, and treatment machine diagnosis. The advent of three-dimensional (3D) conformal radiation therapy (CRT) provides radiation oncologists with the opportunity to consider innovative beam arrangements which were not possible in two-dimensional class solutions. The difficulty of manually generating the thousands of clinically plausible 3D treatment plans calls for the use …

A Characterization Of The Computational Power Of Rule-Based Visualization, Kenneth C. Cox, Gruia-Catalin Roman

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Declarative visualization is a paradigm in which the process of visualization is treated as a mapping from some domain (typically a program) to an image. One means of declaring such mappings is through the use of rules which specify the relationship between the domain and the image. This paper examines the computational power of such rule-based mappings. Computational power is measure using three separate criteria. The first of these uses the Chomsky hierarchy, in which computational power is treated as string-acceptance; with this criterion we are able to show that certain rule-based models are equivalent in power to Turing machines. …

The N-Body Problem: Distributed System Load Balancing And Performance Evaluation, Vasudha Govindan, Mark A. Franklin

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In this paper, the N-body simulation problem is considered, its parallel implementation described, its execution time performance is modeled and compared with measured results, and two alternative load balancing algorithms for enhancing performance investigated. Parallel N-body techniques are widely applied in various fields and possess characteristics that challenge the computation and communication capabilities of parallel computing systems and are therefore good candidates for use as parallel benchmarks. Performance models may be used to estimate the performance of an algorithm on a given system, identify performance bottlenecks and study the performance implications of several algorithm are system enhancements. In this paper, …

Supervised Competitive Learning With Backpropagation Network And Fuzzy Logic, Takayuki Dan Kimura, Thomas H. Fuller Jr., Ce Wang

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SCL assembles a set of learning modules into a supervised learning system to address the stability-plasticity dilemma. Each learning module acts as a similarity detector for a prototype, and includes prototype resetting (akin to that of ART) to respond to new prototypes. Here (Part I) we report SCL results using back-propagation networks as the learning modules. We used two feature extractors: about 30 energy-based features, and a combination of energy-based and graphical features (about 60). ACL recognized 96% (energy) and 99% (energy/graphical) of test digits, and 91% (energy) and 96% (energy/graphical) of test letters. In the accompanying paper (Part II), …

Approximation Algorithms For Configuring Hierarchical Nonblocking Communication Networks, J. Andrew Fingerhut

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A framework is given for specifying nonblocking traffic limits in a connection-oriented communications network. In this framework, connections may be point-to-point or mutlipoint, and the data rates may vary from one connection to another. The traffic limits may be "flat", or they may also be hierarchical, representing communities of interest within the network that have higher traffic among themselves than with the rest of the network. The communication networks are constructed from switches (or nodes) and trunks, which connect pairs of switches. This framework is intended to model Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) networks and traffic. We present a way of …

Teaching A Smarter Learner, Sally A. Goldman, H. David Mathias

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We introduce a formal model of teaching in which the teacher is tailored to a particular learner, yet the teaching protocol is designed so that no collusion is possible. Not surprisingly, such a model remedies the non-intuitive aspects of otehr models in which the teacher must successfully teach any consistent learner. We prove that any class that can be exactly identified by a deterministic polynomial-time algorithm with access to a very rich set of example-based queries is teachable by a computationally unbounded teacher and a polynomial-time learner. In addition, we present other general results relating this model of teaching to …

Dynamic Reconfiguration With I/O Abstraction, Bala Swaminathan, Kenneth J. Goldman

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Dynamic reconfiguration is explored in the context of I/O abstraction, a new programming model that defines the communication structure of a system in terms of connections among well-defined data interfaces for the modules in the system. The properties of I/O abstraction, particularly the clear separation of computation from communication and the availability of a module's state information, help simplify the reconfiguration strategy. Both logical and physical reconfiguration are discussed, with an emphasis on a new module migration mechanism that (1) takes advantage of the underlying I/O abstraction model, (2) avoids the expense and complication of state extraction techniques, (3) minimizes …

Human And Machine Cognition Workshop Papers 1989, 1991, 1993, R. P. Loui

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No abstract provided.

A Design For Reasoning With Policies, Prrecedents And Rationales, Ronald P. Loui, Jeff Norman, Jon Olson, Andrew Merrill

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No abstract provided.

Clocked And Asynchronous Instruction Pipelines, Mark A. Franklin, Tienyo Pan

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Clocked (synchronous) and self-timed (asynchronous) represent the two prinicipal methodologies associated with timing control and synchronization of digital systems. In this paper, clocked and the asynchronous instruction pipelines are modeled and compared. The approach which yields the best performance is dependent on technology parameters, operating range and pipeline algorithm characteristics. Design curves are presented which permit selection of the best approach for a given application and technology environment.

The Dim System: Turn-Taking In Dyadic Telephone Dialogues, Umesh Berry, Anne Johnstone

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The analysis of human conversations has revealed that the design of interfaces using spoken dialogue must differ radically from those using written communication. Such characteristics as prosody, confirmations, echoes, and other speech phenomena must be considered. This work is a step in that direction. Prosodic, syntactic and semantic information from actual human dialogues has been used to build a turn-taking model empirically for dydadic telephone dialogues. The ability to predict completion of turns has been the biggest motivating factor in the development of this model. The design and evaluation of the model are presented in this report.

The Dim System: Woz Simulation Results - Phase Ii, Anne Johnstone, Umesh Berry, Tina Nguyen

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We report an experiment designed to compare human-human spoken dialogues with human-computer spoken dialogue. Our primary purpose was to collect data on the kinds of protocols that were used to control the interaction. Three groups of 12 subjects each were asked to complete tasks over the phone. These tasks involved the use of custom-calling features such as call-forwarding and speed-dialing. The experimental procedure was a new variation on the Wizard of Oz (WOZ) technique that allowed much clearer comparisons to be made between human-human and human-computer interactions. Subjects in the Operator Group were told they were talking to a human …

Distributed Computing Systems And Checkpointing, Ken Wong, Mark Franklin

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This paper examines the performance of synchronous checkpointing in a distributed computing environment with and without load redistribution. Performance models are developed, and optimum checkpoint intervals are determined. The analysis extends earlier work by allowing for multiple nodes, state dependent checkpoint intervals, and a performance metric which is coupled with failure-free performance and the speedup functions associated with implementation of parallel algorithms. Expressions for the optimum checkpoint intervals for synchronous checkpointing with and without load redistribution are derived and the results are then used to determine when load redistribution is advantageous.

An Object Oriented Preemptive Multitasking Kernel, Lee Gene Shipman

Masters Theses

“This paper describes a preemptive multitasking kernel designed and coded using C++ using an object oriented paradigm. The kernel design, while implemented on an Intel 80386 based IBM PC running MS-DOS 4.01, can be ported to any platform, rewriting only the low level, hardware specific code.

The kernel, in application framework form, enables the applications developer to create real-time multitasking applications. This can be done in a systematic way by capitalizing on the power of object oriented program development.

A simulation was created to verify the correctness of the kernel against a traditional non-multitasking approach. This simulation provides the proof …

X.500 Directory Service Support For Electronic Mail, Mihai G. Sirbu

Masters Theses

"One of the difficult problems on the Internet is finding the electronic mail addresses of users. In practice, there are some indirect ways of finding these addresses such as the finger program in UNIX, but almost all of these methods require the user to know the exact host name of the destination. What is most desirable is an automated mechanism which provides the e-mail addresses of users if some minimal information about the destination site is known.

This thesis describes the design of such a directory service support system, based on the X.500 Series of CCITT Recommendation, for the elm …

Learning Unions Of Boxes With Membership And Equivalence Queries, Paul W. Goldberg, Sally A. Goldman, H. David Matthias

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We present two algorithms that use membership and equivalence queries to exactly identify the concepts given by the union of s discretized axis-parallel boxes in d-dimensional discretized Euclidean space where each coordinate can have n discrete values. The first algorithm receives at most s*d counterexamples and uses time and membership queries polynomial in s and logn for d any constant. Further, all equivalence queries made can be formulated as the union of O(s*d*log(s)) axis-parallel boxes. Next, we introduce a new complexity measure that better captures the complexity of a union of boxes than simply the number of boxes and dimensions. …

Fril - A Fractal Intermediate Language, Ron Cytron, David Shields

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This document describes the motivation, language description, and experience using FrIL, an intermediate language for a compiler's "middle-end." FrIL has subbessfully supported a two-semester compiler construction sequence, where the first semester included code generation from a C-like language and the second semester included advanced data flow analysis and program transformation.

The Pessimism Behind Optimistic Simulation, George Varghese, Roger D. Chamberlain, William E. Weihl

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In this paper we make an analogy between the time that storage must be maintained in an optimistic simulation and the blocking time in a conservative simulation. By exploring this analogy, we design two new Global Virtual Time (GVT) protocols for Time Warp systems. The first simple protocol is based on the null message scheme proposed for clock advancement in some conservative approaches; this yields what we call Local Guaranteed Time. Our main contribution is a second new protocol that is inspired by Misra's circulating marker scheme for deadlock recovery in conservative simulations, and appears to have advantages over previous …

Research Proposal: Preference Acquisition Through Reconciliation Of Inconsistencies, Nilesh L. Jain

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The quality of performance of a decision-support system (or an expert system) is determined to a large extent by its underlying preference model (or knowledge base). The difficulties in preference and knowledge acquisition make them a major focus of current research in decision-support and expert systems. Researchers have used various concepts to develop promising acquisition techniques. One of the concepts used is knowledge maintenence where the knowledge base is changed in response to incorrect or inadequate performance by the expert system. This dissertation investigates a preference acquisition technique based on the reconciliation of inconsistencies between the preference model and the …

Logical Interference In Symmetric Connectionist Networks, Gadi Pinkas

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This work delineates the relation between logic and symmetric neural networks. The motivation is two-fold: 1) to study the capabilities and limitations of connectionist networks with respect to knowledge representatoin; and 2) to develop a new kind of inference negine that is expressive, massively parallel, capable of coping with nonmonotonic or noisy knowledge and capable of learning. The thesis shows that propositional logic can be implemented efficiently in networks where hidden units allow the representation of arbitrary constraints. An inference engine is constructed which can obtain its knowledge either by compiling symbolic rules or by learning them inductively from examples. …

A Comparison Study Of The Pen And The Mouse In Editing Graphic Diagrams, Ajay Apte, Takayuki Dan Kimura

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We report the results of an experiment comparing the merits of the pen and the mouse as drawing devices. For this study a pen-based graphic diagram editor equipped with a shape recognition algorithm was developed on GO's PenPoint operating system. A commercially available drawing program on NeXT was used for mouse-based editing. Twelve CS students were chosen as subjects and asked to draw four different diagrams of similar complexity: two with a pen and the other two with a mouse. The diagrams are chosen from the categories of dataflow visual language, Petri nets, flowcharts, and state diagrams. The results indicate …

A Taxonomy Of Program Visualization Systems, Gruia-Catalin Roman, Kenneth C. Cox

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Program visualization may be viewed as a mapping from programs to graphical representations. This simple idea provides a formal framework for a new taxonomy of program visualization systems. The taxonomy is compared briefly against previous attempts to organize the program visualization field. The taxonomic principles and their motivation are explained in detail with reference to a number of existing systems, especially Balsa, Tango, and Pavane.

Asking Questions To Minimize Errors, Nader H. Bshouty, Sally A. Goldman, Thomas R. Hancock, Sleiman Matar

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A number of efficient learning algorithms achieve exact identification of an unknown function from some clas using membership and equivalence queries. Using a standard transformation such algorithms can easily be converted to on-line learning algorithms that use membership queries. Under such a transformation the number of equivalence queries made by the query algorithm directly corresponds to the number of mistakes made by the on-line algorithm. In this paper we consider several of the natural classes known to be learnable in this setting, and investigate the minimum number of equivalence queries with accompanying counterexamples (or equivalently the minimum number of mistakes …

Efficiently Computing {Phi}-Nodes On-The-Fly, Ron K. Cytron, Jeanne Ferrante

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Recently, Static Single Assignment Form and Sparse Evaluation Graphs have been advanced for the efficient solution of program optimization problems. Each method is provided with an initial set of flow graph nodes that inherently affect a problem's solution. Other relevant nodes are those where potentially disparate solutions must combine. Previously, these so-called {phi}-nodes were found by computing the iterated dominance frontiers of the initial set of nodes, a process that could take worst case quadratic time with respect to the input flow graph. In this paper we present an almost-linear algorithm for detemining exactly the same set of {phi}-nodes.

The Study Of Computer Science Concepts Through Game Play, Benjamin M. Weber

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No abstract provided.

Segmentation/Recognition Of Hand-Written Numeral Characters, Khalid Sherdil

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This thesis describes a number of techniques for segmenting non-cursive handwritten digits into individual characters. It strongly emphasizes on a recognition-segmentation algorithm, which uses the linear regression method to recognize those strokes which consist of one or more straight-lined parts. A new method of sampling the pen data according to the pen speed, hence giving a more uniform points concentratino distribution, is also introduced. It is shown how several of our segmenting techniques, such as relative stroke lengths, relative stroke positions, order of stroke entry, stroke direction, stroke intersection, etc. can be combined to yield success results of about 95%.

The Programmers' Playground: I/O Abstraction For Heterogeneous Distributed Systems, Kenneth J. Goldman, Michael D. Anderson, Bala Swaminathan

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I/O abstraction is offered as a new high-level approach to interprocess communication. Functional components of a concurrent system are written as encapsulated modules that act upon local data structures, some of which may be published for external use. Relationships among modules are specified by logical connections among their published data structures. Whenever a module updates published data, I/O takes place implicitly according to the configuration of logical connections. The Programmer's Playground, a software library and run-time system supporting I/O abstraction, is described. Design goals include high-level communication among programs written in multiple programming languages and the uniform treatment of discrete …

Real-Time Admission Control Algorithms With Delay And Loss Guarantees In Atm Networks, Apostolos Dailianas, Andreas D. Bovopoulos

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A multimedia ATM network is shared by media streams with different performance requirements. For media streams such as file transfers, the preservation of bursts and the provision of guarantees for loss probability at the burst level is of primary importance, while, for media streams such as voice, loss guarantees at the cell level are sufficient. Continuous media have stringent delay jitter requirements. Finally, some applications require loss-free transmission. In this paper, the first complete traffic management scheme for multimedia ATM networks is introduced. The traffic management scheme supports four different classes of traffic, each of which has different performance requirements …

Reasoning About Synchrony Illustrated On Three Models Of Concurrency, Gruia-Catalin Roman, Jerome Plun

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This paper presents a model of concurrency (Dynamic Synchrony) whose distinctive feature is a novel formal treatment of synchronization. Synchrony is defined as the coordinated execution of two or more actions. The dynamic aspect comes from the fact that the definition of which actions must be executed synchronously can change freely during the execution of the program. This unique modeling capability comes with a UNITY-stype assertional logic that can be applied to program verification and derivation. This paper shows that the proposed proof logic can be used to verify programs expressed using other models of foncurrency without having to translate …