Engineering Commons^™

Dynamic Modeling, Parameter Estimation And Control Of A Leg Prosthesis Test Robot, Hanz Richter, Daniel Simon, William Smith, Sergey Samorezov

Hanz Richter

Robotic testing can facilitate the development of new concepts, designs and control systems for prosthetic limbs. Human subject test clearances, safety and the lack of repeatability associated with human trials can be reduced or eliminated with automated testing, and test modalities are possible which are dangerous or inconvenient to attempt with patients. This paper describes the development, modeling, parameter estimation and control of a robot capable of reproducing two degree-of-freedom hip motion in the sagittal plane. Hip vertical displacement and thigh angle motion profiles are applied to a transfemoral prosthesis attached to the robot. A treadmill is used as walking …

Can Declared Strategy Voting Be An Effective Instrument For Group Decision-Making?, Lorrie Cranor

Lorrie F Cranor

The goal of this research is to determine whether declared strategy voting can be an effective tool for group decision-making. Declared strategy voting is a novel group decision-making procedure in which preference is specified using voting strategies - first-order mathematical functions that specify a choice in terms of zero or more parameters. This research will focus on refining the declared strategy voting concept, developing an accessible implementation of declared strategy voting that can be used for mock elections, assessing the potential impacts of declared strategy voting, and evaluating the effectiveness of declared strategy voting for group decision-making. This proposal describes …

Design And Implementation Of A Practical Security-Conscious Electronic Polling System, Lorrie Cranor, Ron Cytron

Lorrie F Cranor

We present the design and implementation of Sensus, a practical, secure and private system for conducting surveys and elections over computer networks. Expanding on the work of Fujioka, Okamoto, and Ohta, Sensus uses blind signatures to ensure that only registered voters can vote and that each registered voter only votes once, while at the same time maintaining voters' privacy. Sensus allows voters to verify independently that their votes were counted correctly, and anonymously challenge the results should their votes be miscounted. We outline seven desirable properties of voting systems and show that Sensus satisfied these properties well, in some cases …

Answer Credibility: A Language Modeling Approach To Answer Validation, Protima Banerjee, Hyoil Han

Hyoil Han

Answer Validation is a topic of significant interest within the Question Answering community. In this paper, we propose the use of language modeling methodologies for Answer Validation, using corpus-based methods that do not require the use of external sources. Specifically, we propose a model for Answer Credibility which quantifies the reliability of a source document that contains a candidate answer and the Question’s Context Model.

Survey Of Word Sense Disambiguation Approaches, Xiaohua Zhou, Hyoil Han

Hyoil Han

Word Sense Disambiguation (WSD) is an important but challenging technique in the area of natural language processing (NLP). Hundreds of WSD algorithms and systems are available, but less work has been done in regard to choosing the optimal WSD algorithms. This paper summarizes the various knowledge sources used for WSD and classifies existing WSD algorithms according to their techniques. The rationale, tasks, performance, knowledge sources used, computational complexity, assumptions, and suitable applications for each class of WSD algorithms are also discussed. This paper will provide users with general knowledge for choosing WSD algorithms for their specific applications or for further …

Dense And Switched Modular Primitives For Bond Graph Model Design, K. Seo, Z. Fan, Jianjun Hu, E. Goodman, R. Rosenberg

Jianjun Hu

No abstract provided.

Automated Synthesis Of Mechanical Vibration Absorbers Using Genetic Programming, Jianjun Hu, E. Goodman, S. Li, R. Rosenberg

Jianjun Hu

No abstract provided.

System-Level Synthesis Of Mems Via Genetic Programming And Bond Graphs, Z. Fan, K. Seo, Jianjun Hu, R. Rosenberg, E. Goodman

Jianjun Hu

No abstract provided.

Towards Synthesis Of Platform-Aware Attack-Resilient Control Systems: Extended Abstract, Miroslav Pajic, Nicola Bezzo, James Weimer, Rajeev Alur, Rahul Mangharam, Nathan Michael, George Pappas, Oleg Sokolsky, Paulo Tabuada, Stephanie Weirich, Insup Lee

Stephanie Weirich

No abstract provided.

Parallel Computation In Communication And Signal Processing, Amean Al_Safi, Bradley Bazuin, Liqaa Alhafadhi

Amean S Al_Safi

The powerful computation of GPU has increased the computation speed up of many systems. This paper summarize some of the most important work in the field of communication and signal processing using GPU

Performance Analysis Of A New Computer Aided Detection System For Identifying Lung Nodules On Chest Radiographs, Russell Hardie, Steven Rogers, Terry Wilson, Adam Rogers

Russell C. Hardie

A new computer aided detection (CAD) system is presented for the detection of pulmonary nodules on chest radiographs. Here, we present the details of the proposed algorithm and provide a performance analysis using a publicly available database to serve as a benchmark for future research efforts. All aspects of algorithm training were done using an independent dataset containing 167 chest radiographs with a total of 181 lung nodules. The publicly available test set was created by the Standard Digital Image Database Project Team of the Scientific Committee of the Japanese Society of Radiological Technology (JRST). The JRST dataset used here …

A Collaborative Adaptive Wiener Filter For Multi-Frame Super-Resolution, Khaled Mohamed, Russell Hardie

Russell C. Hardie

Factors that can limit the effective resolution of an imaging system may include aliasing from under-sampling, blur from the optics and external factors, and sensor noise. Image restoration and super-resolution (SR) techniques can be used to improve image resolution. One SR method, developed recently, is the adaptive Wiener filter (AWF) SR algorithm. This is a multi-frame SR method that combines registered temporal frames through a joint nonuniform interpolation and restoration process to provide a high-resolution image estimate. Variations of this method have been demonstrated to be effective for multi-frame SR, as well demosaicing RGB and polarimetric imagery. While the AWF …

Direction Of Slip Detection For A Biomimetic Tactile Sensor, Erik Engeberg, Morteza Vatani, Jae-Won Choi

Dr. Jae-Won Choi

A biomimetic tactile sensor (BTS) is developed from strips of electrically conductive carbon nanotubes (CNTs) mixed in a polymer matrix that is embedded within a flexible polyurethane shell. The mechanical compliance of the BTS is similar to the human fingertip. Experiments are performed which show that the BTS can be used to detect slip and the direction that slip occurs by examining the relative timing among force signals from adjacent strips of CNTs and the frequency content of the force signals. The BTS can also detect forces applied at distinct points on the surface of the BTS.

Diversified Users' Satisfaction With Advanced Mobile Phone Features, Chen Ling, Wonil Hwang, Gavriel Salvendy

Dr. Chen Ling

Mobile phones are widely used all over the world, and with their increasing number of value-added features, they are becoming far more than a mere mobile voice communication device. Rather, they provide a powerful platform for accessing information universally. This paper reports a study which scrutinized users’ preference levels with five new mobile phone design features facilitating universal information access through mobile phones: camera, colour screen, voice-activated dialing, Internet browsing, and wireless connectivity (e.g. Bluetooth, infrared, etc.). The survey study involved college students and investigated the degree to which each of the above features impacts the users’ overall satisfaction and …

Validating Information Complexity Questionnaires Using Travel Web Sites, Chen Ling, Miguel Lopez, Jing Xing

Dr. Chen Ling

With the prevalent use of visual interfaces and the increasing demand to display more information, information complexity becomes a major concern for designers. Complex interfaces affect the system effectiveness, efficiency, and even safety. Researchers at the Federal Aviation Administration have developed two sets of psychometric questionnaires to evaluate information complexity of air traffic control displays. This study adapted the questionnaires for commercial visual interfaces and validated them with directed and exploratory tasks on three travel websites. The results confirmed that both complexity questionnaires have satisfactory reliability, validity, and sensitivity. But questionnaire B demonstrated higher sensitivity than Questionnaire A.

A Comparison Between Single And Dual Monitor Productivity And The Effects Of Window Management Styles On Performance, Alex Stegman, Chen Ling, Randa Shehab

Dr. Chen Ling

Several research studies have been published on user opinion and productivity of using dual monitor systems. These studies found that users typically enjoy using multiple monitors, but none found a strong increase in performance and productivity. Other researchers have focused on improving multiple monitor usability, but often without any statistical framework. This study compared single and dual monitor productivity measures: task time, cursor movement, and number of window switches. Additionally, window management styles (WMS) were studied in order to help designers understand user behavior better. WMS were broken into two categories, toggler and resizer, and then compared to the WMS …

Effect Of Aircraft Datablock Complexity And Exposure Time On Performance Of Change Detection Task, Chen Ling, Lesheng Hua

Dr. Chen Ling

Air traffic controllers constantly perform tasks of monitoring traffic situation and searching for conflict between aircrafts. One requirement for these tasks is being able to detect any changes in the aircraft status presented by aircraft datablock. In this study, we investigated the effects of aircraft datablock complexity and exposure time on the change detection task performance. Two types of datablock, six field datablock (6F-DB) and nine field datablock (9F-DB), were artificially designed. Ten participants learned the change detection taskwith aircraft datablocks for four days. Our results showed that datablock complexity and exposure time in the change detection task had direct …

Effect Of Glance Duration On Perceived Complexity And Segmentation Of User Interfaces, Yifei Dong, Chen Ling, Lesheng Hua

Dr. Chen Ling

Computer users who handle complex tasks like air traffic control (ATC) need to quickly detect updated information from multiple displays of graphical user interface. The objectives of this study are to investigate how much computer users can segment GUI display into distinctive objects within very short glances and whether human perceives complexity differently after different durations of exposure. Subjects in this empirical study were presented with 20 screenshots of web pages and software interfaces for different short durations (100ms, 500ms, 1000ms) and were asked to recall the visual objects and rate the complexity of the images. The results indicate that …

Users' Attitude And Strategies In Information Management With Multiple Computers, Guangfeng Song, Chen Ling

Dr. Chen Ling

This article reports the result of a survey study on how users utilize multiple computers in personal information management tasks. Two hundred ninety-five experienced computer users answered questions regarding the selective use of computers in three usage scenarios in managing multiple types of information: files, bookmarks, and e-mails. Results showed that users pursue simple computing environment by simplifying multiple computer configurations, avoiding distribution of information among multiple computers, and avoiding conceptual distinction of multiple computers. Selective use of a computer was based on the characteristics of the computers and the tasks to be performed. Information retrieval was still primarily done …

Physical Intelligent Sensors, Pavan Bandhil, Sanjeevi Chitikeshi, Ajay Mahajan, Fernando Figueroa

Dr. Ajay Mahajan

This paper proposes the development of intelligent sensors as part of an integrated systems approach, i.e. one treats the sensors as a complete system with its own sensing hardware (the traditional sensor), A/D converters, processing and storage capabilities, software drivers, self-assessment algorithms, communication protocols and evolutionary methodologies that allow them to get better with time. Under a project being undertaken at the NASA s Stennis Space Center, an integrated framework is being developed for the intelligent monitoring of smart elements. These smart elements can be sensors, actuators or other devices. The immediate application is the monitoring of the rocket test …

A Novel Method To Create Intelligent Sensors With Learning Capabilities, Ajay Mahajan, Fernando Figueroa

Dr. Ajay Mahajan

A formal theory for the development of a generic model of an autonomous sensor is proposed and implemented. An autonomous sensor not only interprets the acquired data in accordance with an embedded expert system knowledge base, but is also capable of using this data to modify and enhance this knowledge base. Hence, the system is capable of learning and thereby improving its performance over time. The main objective of the model is to combine the capabilities of the physical sensor and an expert operator monitoring the sensor in real-time. The system has been successfully tested using various simulated data sets …

Crowdsourced Earthquake Early Warning, Sarah Minson, Benjamin Brooks, Craig Glennie, Jessica Murray, John Langbein, Susan Owen, Thomas Heaton, Robert Iannucci, Darren Hauser

Robert A Iannucci

Earthquake early warning (EEW) can reduce harm to people and infrastructure from earthquakes and tsunamis, but it has not been implemented in most high earthquake-risk regions because of prohibitive cost. Common consumer devices such as smartphones contain low-cost versions of the sensors used in EEW. Although less accurate than scientific-grade instruments, these sensors are globally ubiquitous. Through controlled tests of consumer devices, simulation of an Mw (moment magnitude) 7 earthquake on California’s Hayward fault, and real data from the Mw 9 Tohoku-oki earthquake, we demonstrate that EEW could be achieved via crowdsourcing.

A Memristor Device Model, Chris Yakopcic, Tarek Taha, Guru Subramanyam

Guru Subramanyam

This letter proposes a new mathematical model for memristor devices. It builds on existing models and is correlated against several published device characterizations. This letter identifies significant discrepancies between the existing models and published device characterization data. The proposed model addresses these discrepancies. In particular, it allows modeling of memristor-based neuromorphic systems.

A Map Estimator For Simultaneous Superresolution And Detector Nonunifomity Correct, Russell Hardie, Douglas Droege

Russell C. Hardie

During digital video acquisition, imagery may be degraded by a number of phenomena including undersampling, blur, and noise. Many systems, particularly those containing infrared focal plane array (FPA) sensors, are also subject to detector nonuniformity. Nonuniformity, or fixed pattern noise, results from nonuniform responsivity of the photodetectors that make up the FPA. Here we propose a maximuma posteriori (MAP) estimation framework for simultaneously addressing undersampling, linear blur, additive noise, and bias nonuniformity. In particular, we jointly estimate a superresolution (SR) image and detector bias nonuniformity parameters from a sequence of observed frames. This algorithm can be applied to video in …

High-Resolution Image Reconstruction From Digital Video By Exploitation Of Nonglobal Motion, Timothy Tuinstra, Russell Hardie

Russell C. Hardie

Many imaging systems utilize detector arrays that do not sample the scene according to the Nyquist criterion. As a result, the higher spatial frequencies admitted by the optics are aliased. This creates undesirable artifacts in the imagery. Furthermore, the blurring effects of the optics and the finite detector size also degrade the image quality. Several approaches for increasing the sampling rate of imaging systems have been suggested in the literature. We propose an algorithm for resolution enhancement that exploits object motion in digital video sequences. Unlike previously defined techniques, we use an automated segmentation method to isolate rigid moving objects. …

Supporting Teacher Orchestration In Ubiquitous Learning Environments: A Study In Primary Education, Juan Muñoz Cristóbal, Ivan Jorrín Abellán, Juan Asensio Perez, Alejandra Martínez Monés, Luis Prieto, Yannis Dimitriadis

Ivan M. Jorrín Abellán

During the last decades, educational contexts have transformed into complex technological and social ecologies, with mobile devices expanding the scope of education beyond the traditional classroom, creating so-called Ubiquitous Learning Environments (ULEs). However, these new technological opportunities entail an additional burden for teachers, who need to manage and coordinate the resources involved in such complex educational scenarios in a process known as “orchestration”. This paper presents the evaluation of the orchestration support provided by GLUEPS-AR, a system aimed to help teachers in the coordination of across-spaces learning situations carried out in ULEs. The evaluation, following an interpretive research perspective, relied …

Coming Down To Earth: Helping Teachers Use 3d Virtual Worlds In Across-Spaces Learning Situations, Juan Muñoz Cristóbal, Luis Prieto, Juan Asensio Pérez, Alejandra Martínez Monés, Ivan Jorrín Abellán, Yannis Dimitriadis

Ivan M. Jorrín Abellán

Different approaches have explored how to provide seamless learning across multiple ICT-enabled physical and virtual spaces, including three-dimensional virtual worlds (3DVW). However, these approaches present limitations that may reduce their acceptance in authentic educational practice: The difficulties of authoring and sharing teacher-created designs across different 3DVW platforms, or the lack of integration of 3DVWs with existing technologies in the classroom ecosystem (e.g., widespread web-based learning platforms such as Moodle, or mobile augmented reality applications). Focusing on a specific kind of 3DVW (virtual globes, such as Google Earth, used like 3DVWs), we propose a system that enables teachers to deploy across-spaces …

Wikis For Group Work: Encouraging Transparency, Benchmarking And Feedback, Amir Abdekhodaee, Dini Kourosh, Farnaz Modarres, Anne-Marie Chase, Bella Ross

Dr Anne-Marie Chase