Engineering Commons^™

Most Progress Made Algorithm: Combating Synchronization Induced Performance Loss On Salvaged Chip Multi-Processors, Jacob J. Dutson

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Most modern personal computers come with processors which contain multiple cores. Often, one or more of these cores is damaged during manufacturing. These faults are increasing as manufacturers try to make processors run faster. Many processor designs allow a damaged core to continue working after manufacturing, but these salvaged cores run slower than a fully functional core.

In an attempt to make software run as fast as possible for its users, software designers write applications that are split into multiple parts called threads. These threads can be run on separate cores at the same time and get more work done …

Minimizing The Disruption Of Traffic Flow Of Automated Vehicles During Lane Changes, Divya Desiraju

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

In intelligent transportation systems, most of the research work has focused on lane change assistant systems. No existing work considers minimizing the interruption of traffic flow by maximizing the number of lane changes while eliminating the collisions. In this thesis, we develop qualitative and quantitative approaches for minimizing the interruption of traffic flow for three lane scenarios and show that we can extend our approach to any random number of lanes. The algorithm we propose in this thesis is able to achieve the maximum number of lane changes provided that only one vehicle per group (novel concept which is described …

Communication Artifacts And Interaction Evaluation For Requirements Engineering, Miloslava Plachkinova

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This paper aims to answer an important question regarding the development of new information systems (IS): "What is the predominant factor for the selection of communication artifacts for requirements engineering (RE)?". Many researchers have focused on the RE and communication as separate disciplines, but little or no research addressed the RE communication issues. These problems are important because they often lead to misunderstanding and misinterpretation of the gathered requirements. We develop expectations about the RE communication process based on prior literature from both disciplines and we test them through several case studies. Our methodology consists of analysis of six case …

An Online Algorithm For The 2-Server Problem On The Line With Improved Competitiveness, Lucas Adam Bang

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

In this thesis we present a randomized online algorithm for the 2-server problem on the line, named R-LINE (for Randomized Line). This algorithm achieves the lowest competitive ratio of any known randomized algorithm for the 2-server problem on the line.

The competitiveness of R-LINE is less than 1.901. This result provides a significant improvement over the previous known competitiveness of 155/78 (approximately 1.987), by Bartal, Chrobak, and Larmore, which was the first randomized algorithm for the 2-server problem one the line with competitiveness less than 2. Taking inspiration from this algorithm,we improve this result by utilizing ideas from T-theory, game …

Energy-Neutral Scheduling And Forwarding In Environmentally-Powered Wireless Sensor Networks, Alvin Cerdena Valera, Weng Seng Soh, Hwee-Pink Tan

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

In environmentally-powered wireless sensor networks (EPWSNs), low latency wakeup scheduling and packet forwarding is challenging due to dynamic duty cycling, posing time-varying sleep latencies and necessitating the use of dynamic wakeup schedules. We show that the variance of the intervals between receiving wakeup slots affects the expected sleep latency: when the variance of the intervals is low (high), the expected latency is low (high). We therefore propose a novel scheduling scheme that uses the bit-reversal permutation sequence (BRPS) – a finite integer sequence that positions receiving wakeup slots as evenly as possible to reduce the expected sleep latency. At the …

Study Of Inkjet Printing As An Ultra-Low-Cost Antenna Prototyping Method And Its Application To Conformal Wraparound Antennas For Sounding Rocket Sub-Payload, Maimaitirebike Maimaiti

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Inkjet printing is a type of computer printing that creates an image by propelling droplets of ink onto paper. It is an attractive patterning technology that has received tremendous interest as a mass fabrication method for a variety of electronic devices due to its manufacturing flexibility and low-cost feature. However, the printing facilities that are being used, especially the inkjet printer, are very expensive. This thesis introduces an extremely cost-friendly inkjet printing method using a printer that costs less than $100. In order to verify its reliability, linearly and circularly polarized planar and conformal microstrip antennas were fabricated using the …

Delivering Consistent Network Performance In Multi-Tenant Data Centers, Mart Albert Haitjema

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

Data centers are growing rapidly in size and have recently begun acquiring a new role as cloud hosting platforms, allowing outside developers to deploy their own applications on large scales. As a result, today's data centers are multi-tenant environments that host an increasingly diverse set of applications, many of which have very demanding networking requirements. This has prompted research into new data center architectures that offer increased capacity by using topologies that introduce multiple paths between servers. To achieve consistent network performance in these networks, traffic must be effectively load balanced among the available paths. In addition, some form of …

Modeling And Architectural Simulations Of The Statistical Static Timing Analysis Of The Variation Sources For Vlsi Circuits, Abu M. Baker

College of Engineering: Graduate Celebration Programs

As CMOS technology scales down, process variation introduces significant uncertainty in power and performance to VLSI circuits and significantly affects their reliability. Although Static-Timing Analysis (STA) remains an excellent tool, current trends in process scaling have imposed significant difficulties to STA. As one of the promising solutions, Statistical static timing analysis (SSTA) has become the frontier research topic in recent years in combating such variation effects. This poster will be focusing on two aspects of SSTA and its applications in VLSI designs: (1) Statistical timing modeling and analysis; and (2) Architectural implementations of the atomic operations (max and add) using …

On High-Performance Parallel Decimal Fixed-Point Multiplier Designs, Ming Zhu

College of Engineering: Graduate Celebration Programs

Decimal computations are required in finance, and etc.

• Precise representation for decimals (E.g. 0.2, 0.7… )
• Performance Requirements (Software simulations are very slow)

Optimization Of Eigenvalue Calculations Within Quantum-Dot Cellular Automata Stray Charge Simulations, Taylor Baldwin

Symposium on Research and Creative Expression (SORCE)

Simulations for quantum computing typically involve the computation of a large number of eigenvalues of large matrices. This effort focuses on optimization of these calculations using algorithms tailored to the specific characteristics of typical matrices found in these simulations. Currently, computations which heretofore required over 30 hours of simulation time have been reduced to less than 3 hours.

Vsfs: A Versatile Searchable File System For Hpc Analytics, Lei Xu, Ziling Huang, Hong Jiang, Lei Tian, David Swanson

School of Computing: Technical Reports

Big-data/HPC analytics applications have urgent needs for file-search services to drastically reduce the scale of the input data to accelerate analytics. Unfortunately, the existing solutions either are poorly scalable for large-scale systems, or lack well-integrated interface to allow applications to easily use them. We propose a distributed searchable file system, VSFS, which provide a novel and flexible POSIX-compatible searchable file system namespace that can be seamlessly integrate with any legacy code without modification. Additionally, to provide real-time indexing and searching performance, VSFS uses DRAM-based distributed consistent hashing ring to manages all file-index. The results of our evaluation show that VSFS …

Fastlane: Flow-Based Channel Assignment In Dense Wireless Networks, Dane N. Seaberg

School of Computing: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Wireless communication in dense networks is becoming more apparent and presents challenges in achieving reliable and near real-time communication. While some works have begun to address dense wireless networks, few address both reliability and latency. In this work we introduce FastLane, a method of ow-based channel assignment for dense wireless networks, which works to achieve reliable, near real-time communication in a dense environment with single-radio devices. FastLane uses an assignment mechanism that assigns channels at a ow-level granularity, rather than a tree-level or link-level granularity. Our scheme also takes into account channel quality and can adapt as the quality changes …

Design And Implementation Of A Hybrid Technology Networking System, Sushanta Mohan Rakshit

Department of Computer Electronics and Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The safety of rail transport has always been the top priority for the Federal
Railroad Administration (FRA). Legacy technology, like wayside monitoring, is still
in place and is largely relied upon for detection of faults. Modern technology like
Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) has been introduced recently. However, this
is largely used to detect a particular railcar rather than to monitor it for problems.
Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) technology is being evaluated by the railroads for real-time or near real-time monitoring of the status of railcars for timely response to problems and also for trend analysis.

ZigBee has been the networking …

Strong Location Privacy: A Case Study On Shortest Path Queries [Invited Paper], Kyriakos Mouratidis

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The last few years have witnessed an increasing availability of location-based services (LBSs). Although particularly useful, such services raise serious privacy concerns. For example, exposing to a (potentially untrusted) LBS the client's position may reveal personal information, such as social habits, health condition, shopping preferences, lifestyle choices, etc. There is a large body of work on protecting the location privacy of the clients. In this paper, we focus on shortest path queries, describe a framework based on private information retrieval (PIR), and conclude with open questions about the practicality of PIR and other location privacy approaches.

Formation Of Multiscale Surface Structures On Nickel Via Above Surface Growth And Below Surface Growth Mechanisms Using Femtosecond Laser Pulses, Craig A. Zuhlke, Troy P. Anderson, Dennis R. Alexander

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering: Faculty Publications

The formation of self-organized micro- and nano-structured surfaces on nickel via both above surface growth (ASG) and below surface growth (BSG) mechanisms using femtosecond laser pulse illumination is reported. Detailed stepped growth experiments demonstrate that conical mound-shaped surface structure development is characterized by a balance of growth mechanisms including scattering from surface structures and geometric effects causing preferential ablation of the valleys, flow of the surface melt, and redeposition of ablated material; all of which are influenced by the laser fluence and the number of laser shots on the sample. BSG-mound formation is dominated by scattering, while ASG-mound formation is …

Data Mining The Harness Track And Predicting Outcomes, Robert P. Schumaker

Journal of International Technology and Information Management

This paper presented the S&C Racing system that uses Support Vector Regression (SVR) to predict harness race finishes and analyzed it on fifteen months of data from Northfield Park. We found that our system outperforms the most common betting strategies of wagering on the favorites and the mathematical arbitrage Dr. Z system in five of the seven wager types tested. This work would suggest that an informational inequality exists within the harness racing market that is not apparent to domain experts.

Fusion Of Ranging Data From Robot Teams Operating In Confined Areas, Damian M. Lyons, Karma Shrestha, Tsung-Ming Liu

Faculty Publications

We address the problem of fusing laser ranging data from multiple mobile robots that are surveying an area as part of a robot search and rescue or area surveillance mission. We are specifically interested in the case where members of the robot team are working in close proximity to each other. The advantage of this teamwork is that it greatly speeds up the surveying process; the area can be quickly covered even when the robots use a random motion exploration approach. However, the disadvantage of the close proximity is that it is possible, and even likely, that the laser ranging …

A Cognitive Approach To Vision For A Mobile Robot, Paul Benjamin, Christopher Funk, Damian M. Lyons

Faculty Publications

We describe a cognitive vision system for a mobile robot. This system works in a manner similar to the human vision system, using saccadic, vergence and pursuit movements to extract information from visual input. At each fixation, the system builds a 3D model of a small region, combining information about distance, shape, texture and motion. These 3D models are embedded within an overall 3D model of the robot's environment. This approach turns the computer vision problem into a search problem, with the goal of constructing a physically realistic model of the entire environment. At each step, the vision system selects …

Energy-Efficient Soft Real-Time Scheduling For Parameter Estimation In Wsns, Senlin Zhang, Zixiang Wang, Meikang Qiu, Meiqin Liu

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

In wireless sensor networks (WSNs), homogeneous or heterogenous sensor nodes are deployed at a certain area to monitor our curious target. The sensor nodes report their observations to the base station (BS), and the BS should implement the parameter estimation with sensors’ data. Best linear unbiased estimation (BLUE) is a common estimator in the parameter estimation. Due to the end-to-end packet delay, it takes some time for the BS to receive sufficient data for the estimation. In some soft real-time applications, we expect that the estimation can be completed before the deadline with a probability. The existing approaches usually guarantee …

An Probability-Based Energy Model On Cache Coherence Protocol With Mobile Sensor Network, Jihe Wang, Bing Guo, Meikang Qiu

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

Mobile sensor networks (MSNs) are widely used in various domains to monitor, record, compute, and interact the information within an environment. To prolong the life time of each node in MSNs, energy model and conservation should be considered carefully when designing the data communication mechanism in the network. The limited battery volume and high workload on channels worsen the life times of the busy nodes. In this paper, we propose a new energy evaluating methodology of packet transmissions in MSNs, which is based on redividing network layers and describing the synchronous data flow with matrix form. We first introduce the …

Imprecise Probabilities In Engineering Analyses, Michael Beer, Scott Ferson, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

Probabilistic uncertainty and imprecision in structural parameters and in environmental conditions and loads are challenging phenomena in engineering analyses. They require appropriate mathematical modeling and quantification to obtain realistic results when predicting the behavior and reliability of engineering structures and systems. But the modeling and quantification is complicated by the characteristics of the available information, which involves, for example, sparse data, poor measurements and subjective information. This raises the question whether the available information is sufficient for probabilistic modeling or rather suggests a set-theoretical approach. The framework of imprecise probabilities provides a mathematical basis to deal with these problems which …

Analysis Of Hole Lifetime In Soi Mosfet Single-Photon Detector, Dedy Septono Catur Putranto, Wei Du, Hiroaki Satoh, Atsushi Ono, Purnomo Sidi Priambodo, Djoko Hartanto, Hiroshi Inokawa

Makara Journal of Technology

Hole lifetime in the silicon-on-insulator (SOI) metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET) singlephoton detector was evaluated by the analysis of drain current histograms for different light intensities and substrate voltages. It was found that the peaks in the histogram corresponding to the larger number of stored holes grew as the gate bias decreased. This was attributed not to the increased light absorption efficiency or collection efficiency of the photo-generated holes, but to the prolonged hole lifetime presumably caused by the higher transverse electric field inside the body of SOI MOSFET.

Enhanced Diagnostic Accuracy Of Mammograms On A Mobile Device, Sharanya Padmanabhan

Open Access Theses

With the death of a woman every 13 minutes in the US, and one every minute worldwide, due to breast cancer, the need for early detection cannot be overstated. Mammography is a boon for both early detection and screening of breast tumors. It is an imaging system that uses low dose (9mrem) x-rays for examining the breasts, by the electrons reflected from the tissues (thermoelectric effect). However, there are 20% false positives and 10% false negatives in current practice. Hence, there is a critical need for enhancing the accuracy of these mammograms. Towards this, this thesis was aimed at enhancing …

Predicting Sql Injection And Cross Site Scripting Vulnerabilities Through Mining Input Sanitization Patterns, Lwin Khin Shar, Hee Beng Kuan Tan

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

ContextSQL injection (SQLI) and cross site scripting (XSS) are the two most common and serious web application vulnerabilities for the past decade. To mitigate these two security threats, many vulnerability detection approaches based on static and dynamic taint analysis techniques have been proposed. Alternatively, there are also vulnerability prediction approaches based on machine learning techniques, which showed that static code attributes such as code complexity measures are cheap and useful predictors. However, current prediction approaches target general vulnerabilities. And most of these approaches locate vulnerable code only at software component or file levels. Some approaches also involve process attributes that …

Arraytrack: A Fine-Grained Indoor Location System, Jie Xiong, Kyle Jamieson

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

With myriad augmented reality, social networking, and retail shopping applications all on the horizon for the mobile handheld, a fast and accurate location technology will become key to a rich user experience. When roaming outdoors, users can usually count on a clear GPS signal for accurate location, but indoors, GPS often fades, and so up until recently, mobiles have had to rely mainly on rather coarse-grained signal strength readings. What has changed this status quo is the recent trend of dramatically increasing numbers of antennas at the indoor access point, mainly to bolster capacity and coverage with multiple-input, multiple-output (MIMO) …

Analysis Of The Feasibility Of Utilizing Wakeup Radios To Optimize Energy And Latency Performance Of Wireless Sensor Networks, Benjamin D. Parks

Department of Computer Electronics and Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) have the potential to radically improve our lives by pervasive environmental monitoring in many applications. However, there are many applications that would be ideal for WSNs, but where reportable events occur with long (days, weeks) or unpredictable durations between occurrences. These uses are hampered by the high energy and latency costs of always-on and periodic wakeup networks, which waste energy on node synchronization and idle monitoring of the RF channel, and exhibit unacceptably high latency for urgent events, e.g., alarms. This thesis proposes, designs, assembles and tests, in a multi-hop WSN test bed, a wakeup receiver …

Energy-Efficient Failure Recovery In Hadoop Cluster, Weiyue Xu

School of Computing: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Based on U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s estimation, only in U.S., billions of dollars are spent on the electricity cost of data centers each year, and the cost is continually increasing very quickly. Energy efficiency is now used as an important metric for evaluating a computing system. However, saving energy is a big challenge due to many constraints. For example, in one of the most popular distributed processing frameworks, Hadoop, three replicas of each data block are randomly distributed in order to improve performance and fault tolerance, but such a mechanism limits the largest number of machine that can be turned …

Cs 1160-03: Introduction To Computer Programming I, David M. Hutchison

Computer Science & Engineering Syllabi

CS 1160 is the first in a sequence of two programming classes. This course will introduce students to the basic concepts of programming. Examples are from business applications with an emphasis on problem-solving with the computer as a tool.

Cs 1160: Introduction To Computer Programming I, Vanessa Starkey

Computer Science & Engineering Syllabi

Basic concepts of computer programming with an emphasis on structured programming techniques. Includes an introduction to object-oriented programming. Integrated lecture/lab.

Cs 1161: Introduction To Computer Programming Ii, Vanessa Starkey

Computer Science & Engineering Syllabi

Introduction to advanced programming concepts and techniques. Emphasis is on object-oriented programming and graphical user interfaces. Integrated lecture/lab.