Engineering Commons^™

Ceg/Ee 260 Digital Computing Hardware/Switching Circuits, Meilin Liu

Computer Science & Engineering Syllabi

We will discuss and cover basic digital, combinational and sequential logic systems. Labs will be used to gain valuable practical experience in implementing elementary circuits and logic designs.

Cs 141-01: Computer Programming - I, Michael Ondrasek

Computer Science & Engineering Syllabi

This course provides a general introduction to the fundamentals of computer programming. Examples from and applications to a broad range of problems are given. No prior knowledge of programming is assumed. The concepts covered will be applied to the Java programming language. Students must register for both lecture and one laboratory section. 4 credit hours. Prerequisite: MTH 127 (College Algebra) or equivalent.

Improving Performance And Programmer Productivity For I/O-Intensive High Performance Computing Applications, Saba Sehrish

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Due to the explosive growth in the size of scientific data sets, data-intensive computing is an emerging trend in computational science. HPC applications are generating and processing large amount of data ranging from terabytes (TB) to petabytes (PB). This new trend of growth in data for HPC applications has imposed challenges as to what is an appropriate parallel programming framework to efficiently process large data sets. In this work, we study the applicability of two programming models (MPI/MPI-IO and MapReduce) to a variety of I/O-intensive HPC applications ranging from simulations to analytics. We identify several performance and programmer productivity related …

Analyzing Instructtion Based Cache Replacement Policies, Ping Xiang

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The increasing speed gap between microprocessors and off-chip DRAM makes last-level caches (LLCs) a critical component for computer performance. Multi core processors aggravate the problem since multiple processor cores compete for the LLC. As a result, LLCs typically consume a significant amount of the die area and effective utilization of LLCs is mandatory for both performance and power efficiency. We present a novel replacement policy for last-level caches (LLCs). The fundamental observation is to view LLCs as a shared resource among multiple address streams with each stream being generated by a static memory access instruction. The management of LLCs in …

Episodic Memory Model For Embodied Conversational Agents, Miguel Elvir

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Embodied Conversational Agents (ECA) form part of a range of virtual characters whose intended purpose include engaging in natural conversations with human users. While works in literature are ripe with descriptions of attempts at producing viable ECA architectures, few authors have addressed the role of episodic memory models in conversational agents. This form of memory, which provides a sense of autobiographic record-keeping in humans, has only recently been peripherally integrated into dialog management tools for ECAs. In our work, we propose to take a closer look at the shared characteristics of episodic memory models in recent examples from the field. …

Programmable Design And Implementation Of A Chaotic System Utilizing Multiple Nonlinear Functions, Recai̇ Kiliç, Fatma Yildirim Dalkiran

Turkish Journal of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences

In addition to exhibiting a rich variety of bifurcation and chaos via tuning parameters, a chaotic system introduced by Sprott can be modeled and realized with a fixed main system block and many different changeable nonlinear function blocks such as piecewise-linear function, cubic function and other trigonometric functions. This system is very suitable for implementing a programmable chaos generator according to its changeable nonlinearity. This paper presents a FPAA (Field Programmable Analog Array)-based programmable implementation of this system. Nonlinear function blocks used in this chaotic system are modeled with FPAA programming and a model is rapidly changed for realizing other …

Defending Privacy: The Development And Deployment Of A Darknet, Conor Mcmanamon, Fredrick Mtenzi

Conference papers

New measures imposed by governments, Internet service providers and other third parties which threaten the state of privacy are also opening new avenues to protecting it. The unwarranted scrutiny of legitimate services such as file hosters and the BitTorrent protocol, once relatively unknown to the casual Internet user, is becoming more obvious. The darknet is a rising contender against these new measures and will preserve the default right to privacy of Internet users. A darknet is defined in the context of file sharing as a network which operates on top of another network such as the Internet for the purpose …

Trust Account Fraud And Effective Information Security Management, Sameera Mubarak

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

The integrity of lawyers’ trust accounts has come under scrutiny in the last few years. There are strong possibilities of information technology security breaches happening within the firms, either accidental or deliberate. The damage caused by these security breaches could be extreme. For example, a trust account fund in an Australian law firm was misused in a security breach in which Telstra charged A$50,000 for phone usage, mainly for ISD calls to Hong Kong. Our study involved interviewing principals of ten law companies to find out solicitors’ attitudes to computer security and the possibility of breaches of their trust accounts. …

Forensic Analysis Of The Windows 7 Registry, Khawla A. Alghafli, Andrew Jones, Thomas A. Martin

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

The recovery of digital evidence of crimes from storage media is an increasingly time consuming process as the capacity of the storage media is in a state of constant growth. It is also a difficult and complex task for the forensic investigator to analyse all of the locations in the storage media. These two factors, when combined, may result in a delay in bringing a case to court. The concept of this paper is to start the initial forensic analysis of the storage media in locations that are most likely to contain digital evidence, the Windows Registry. Consequently, the forensic …

Reeling In Big Phish With A Deep Md5 Net, Brad Wardman, Gary Warner, Heather Mccalley, Sarah Turner, Anthony Skjellum

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Phishing continues to grow as phishers discover new exploits and attack vectors for hosting malicious content; the traditional response using takedowns and blacklists does not appear to impede phishers significantly. A handful of law enforcement projects — for example the FBI's Digital PhishNet and the Internet Crime and Complaint Center (ic3.gov) — have demonstrated that they can collect phishing data in substantial volumes, but these collections have not yet resulted in a significant decline in criminal phishing activity. In this paper, a new system is demonstrated for prioritizing investigative resources to help reduce the time and effort expended examining this …

The 2009 Analysis Of Information Remaining On Disks Offered For Sale On The Second Hand Market, Andy Jones, Craig Valli, Glenn S. Dardick, Iain Sutherland, G. Dabibi, Gareth Davies

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

The ever increasing use and reliance upon computers in both the public and private sector has led to enormous numbers of computers being disposed of at the end of their useful life within an organisation. As the cost of computers has dropped, their use in the home has also continued to increase. In most organisations, computers have a relatively short life and are replaced on a regular basis with the result that, if not properly cleansed of data, they are released into the public domain containing data that can be relatively up to date. This problem is exacerbated by the …

Using Jackknife To Assess The Quality Of Gene Order Phylogenies, Jian Shi, Yiwei Zhang, Haiwei Luo, Jijun Tang

Faculty Publications

Background
In recent years, gene order data has attracted increasing attention from both biologists and computer scientists as a new type of data for phylogenetic analysis. If gene orders are viewed as one character with a large number of states, traditional bootstrap procedures cannot be applied. Researchers began to use a jackknife resampling method to assess the quality of gene order phylogenies.

Results
In this paper, we design and conduct a set of experiments to validate the performance of this jackknife procedure and provide discussions on how to conduct it properly. Our results show that jackknife is very useful to …

High-Performance Heterogeneous Computing With The Convey Hc-1, Jason D. Bakos

Faculty Publications

Unlike other socket-based reconfigurable coprocessors, the Convey HC-1 contains nearly 40 field-programmable gate arrays, scatter-gather memory modules, a high-capacity crossbar switch, and a fully coherent memory system.

Social Networking Sites: Evaluating And Investigating Their Use In Academic Research, Fiona Redmond

Dissertations

Researchers must collect and analyse new data that will enhance the body of knowledge. It is for this reason that data is of major importance to researchers. All aspects of a research project involve data, from navigating existing data, to understanding how data is used in the world and why it is important to learn to collect data and make predictions. Researchers need to consider the types of data that are possible and examine and weight each option so they can determine what sources of data will answer the research questions or hypotheses.

Researchers, who require a large amount of …

Computer Forensics For Graduate Accountants: A Motivational Curriculum Design Approach, Grover S. Kearns

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Computer forensics involves the investigation of digital sources to acquire evidence that can be used in a court of law. It can also be used to identify and respond to threats to hosts and systems. Accountants use computer forensics to investigate computer crime or misuse, theft of trade secrets, theft of or destruction of intellectual property, and fraud. Education of accountants to use forensic tools is a goal of the AICPA (American Institute of Certified Public Accountants). Accounting students, however, may not view information technology as vital to their career paths and need motivation to acquire forensic knowledge and skills. …

Table Of Contents

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

No abstract provided.

Security In Ad Hoc Networks And Pervasive Computing, Isaac Z. Wu, X.-Y. Li, M. Song, C.-M. Liu

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

Pervasive computing is an exciting and blooming research field, in which innovative techniques and applications are continuously emerging and aim to provide ambient and personalized services to users with high quality. Ad hoc networks are wireless, self-organizing systems formed by cooperating nodes within communication range of each other that form temporary networks. Their topology is dynamic, decentralized, ever changing and the nodes may move around arbitrarily. The last few years have witnessed a wealth of research ideas on ad hoc networking that are moving rapidly into implemented standards. Technology under development for ad hoc networks and pervasive computing is making …

Harvesting Single Ferroelectric Domain Stressed Nanoparticles For Optical And Ferroic Applications, Gary Cook, J. L. Barnes, S. A. Basun, Dean R. Evans, Ron F. Ziolo, Arturo Ponce, Victor Yu. Reshetnyak, Anatoliy Glushchenko, Partha P. Banerjee

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

We describe techniques to selectively harvest single ferroelectric domain nanoparticles of BaTiO3 as small as 9 nm from a plethora of nanoparticles produced by mechanical grinding. High resolution transmission electron microscopy imaging shows the unidomain atomic structure of the nanoparticles and reveals compressive and tensile surface strains which are attributed to the preservation of ferroelectric behavior in these particles.

We demonstrate the positive benefits of using harvested nanoparticles in disparate liquid crystal systems.

Characterization Of Atmospheric Turbulence Effects Over 149 Km Propagation Path Using Multi-Wavelength Laser Beacons, Mikhail Vorontsov, Gary W. Carhart, Venkata S. Rao Gudimetla, Thomas Weyrauch, Eric Stevenson, Svetlana Lachinova, Leonid A. Beresnev, Jony Jiang Liu, Karl Rehder, Jim F. Riker

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

We describe preliminary results of a set of laser beam propagation experiments performed over a long (149 km) near-horizontal propagation path between Mauna Loa (Hawaii Island) and Haleakala (Island of Maui) mountains in February 2010. The distinctive feature of the experimental campaign referred to here as the Coherent Multi-Beam Atmospheric Transceiver (COMBAT) experiments is that the measurements of the atmospheric-turbulence induced laser beam intensity scintillations at the receiver telescope aperture were obtained simultaneously using three laser sources (laser beacons) with different wavelengths (λ1 = 0.53 μm, λ2 = 1.06 μm, and λ3 = 1.55 μm). The presented experimental results on …

Fpga Implementation Of Pso Algorithm And Neural Networks, Parviz Palangpour

Masters Theses

"This thesis describes the Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) implementations of two powerful techniques of Computational Intelligence (CI), the Particle Swarm Optimization algorithm (PSO) and the Neural Network (NN). Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) is a popular population-based optimization algorithm. While PSO has been shown to perform well in a large variety of problems, PSO is typically implemented in software. Population-based optimization algorithms such as PSO are well suited for execution in parallel stages. This allows PSO to be implemented directly in hardware and achieve much faster execution times than possible in software. In this thesis, a pipelined architecture for hardware …

Embedded Optimal Control Of Mobile Robot Formations Using Neural Networks, Bryan M. Brenner

Masters Theses

"This work first presents the development of a nearly-optimal control scheme and then evaluates the effectiveness of this nearly-optimal control scheme by comparing it to a non optimal controller in Paper I. It is shown that the proposed nearly-optimal scheme is a significant improvement over the non optimal one in both simulation and hardware tests. The test was carried out on a differentially driven robotic vehicle in both obstacle free and obstacle ridden environments. On the other hand, the controller introduced for the obstacle avoidance in Paper II will also function in the absence of obstacles so that no switching …

Automatic Detection Of Malignant Melanoma Using Boundary Gradient Information In Dermoscopy Images, Yogesh Ajit Dandekar

Masters Theses

"This thesis demonstrates an algorithm which uses local border features, primarily derived from the border gradient, to help determine whether the lesion is a malignant melanoma or a benign lesion. Although this algorithm uses manually-marked lesion borders, it could be included in a fully automatic routine. A Prewitt algorithm with a window size proportional to the area of the lesion is used to calculate the gradient over the entire lesion boundary. This gradient value is used to calculate various boundary features, such as mean, standard deviation, and direction of maximum gradient. The dark and white areas inside the lesion combined …

Adaptive User Interface For Vehicle Swarm Control, Paul Robinette

Masters Theses

"An algorithm to automatically generate behaviors for robotic vehicles has been created and tested in a laboratory setting. This system is designed to be applied in situations where a large number of robotic vehicles must be controlled by a single operator. The system learns what behaviors the operator typically issues and offers these behaviors to the operator in future missions. This algorithm uses the symbolic clustering method Gram-ART to generate these behaviors. Gram-ART has been shown to be successful at clustering such standard symbolic problems as the mushroom dataset and the Unix commands dataset. The algorithm was tested by having …

Target Detection And Feature Evaluation Of Airborne Mine Target Images, Deepika Kamakshi Timmavajjula

Masters Theses

"Target segmentation and detection problem is one of the preliminary approaches in analyzing an image. Many edge, region and texture based techniques have been proposed in literature. These techniques often have limitations based on types of image data, kind of segmentation of interest and the problem domain. Mine detection problem dealt with for this thesis has mine target images which have a center target consisting of false alarm or mine patch which has to be detected and features evaluated to evaluate various parameter performances. Thus, segmenting the mine patch becomes the first step of analyzing these images. This thesis is …

Computational Thinking Across The Curriculum: A Conceptual Framework, Amber Settle, Ljubomir Perkovic

Technical Reports

We describe a framework for implementing computational thinking in a broad variety of general education courses. The framework is designed to be used by faculty without formal training in information technology in order to understand and integrate computational thinking into their own general education courses. The framework includes examples of computational thinking in a variety of general education courses, as well as sample in-class activities, assignments, and other assessments for the courses. The examples in the different courses are related and differentiated using categories taken from Peter Denning’s Great Principles of Computing, so that similar types of computational thinking appearing …

Super Special Codes Using Super Matrices, Florentin Smarandache, W.B. Vasantha Kandasamy, K. Ilanthenral

Branch Mathematics and Statistics Faculty and Staff Publications

The new classes of super special codes are constructed in this book using the specially constructed super special vector spaces. These codes mainly use the super matrices. These codes can be realized as a special type of concatenated codes. This book has four chapters. In chapter one basic properties of codes and super matrices are given. A new type of super special vector space is constructed in chapter two of this book. Three new classes of super special codes namely, super special row code, super special column code and super special codes are introduced in chapter three. Applications of these …

Data Compression Concepts And Algorithms And Their Applications To Bioinformatics, Ozkan U. Nalbantoglu, David J. Russell, Khalid Sayood

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering: Faculty Publications

Data compression at its base is concerned with how information is organized in data. Understanding this organization can lead to efficient ways of representing the information and hence data compression. In this paper we review the ways in which ideas and approaches fundamental to the theory and practice of data compression have been used in the area of bioinformatics. We look at how basic theoretical ideas from data compression, such as the notions of entropy, mutual information, and complexity have been used for analyzing biological sequences in order to discover hidden patterns, infer phylogenetic relationships between organisms and study viral …

E-Quality: Using Dimensional Index Values Towards Improving Classification Accuracy, Prashanth Devaram

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

E-quality is a process through which inspection of the process and quality of the part produced is done online resulting in the improvement of the process and reduction in the amount of time consumed for the overall process. Automated quality control involves using a methodology to classify the parts based on the dimensions of the features on a part. However, achieving 100% classification accuracy is not an easy task, especially in area of quality control where small differences in dimensions result in part fall into a different category. In this study, a novel approach for modifying the data before being …

Understanding User-Generated Content On Social Media, Bala Meenakshi Nagarajan

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

Over the last few years, there has been a growing public and enterprise fascination with 'social media' and its role in modern society. At the heart of this fascination is the ability for users to participate, collaborate, consume, create and share content via a variety of platforms such as blogs, micro-blogs, email, instant messaging services, social network services, collaborative wikis, social bookmarking sites, and multimedia sharing sites.

This dissertation is devoted to understanding informal user-generated textual content on social media platforms and using the results of the analysis to build Social Intelligence Applications.

The body of research presented in this …

Simulating 3d With Mono Video, James J. Hooker

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

There are different techniques to manipulate certain characteristics within mono videos to create a 3D effect when rendered and viewed. One is to display a selected frame to one eye and a different frame to the other eye so that movement of scene parts on the retina between different frames is interpreted by the viewer as visual disparity and, as a result, creates a 3D scene. Testing using StereoDisplay, a custom developed application using this technique, showed that it is effective in providing a 3D effect with some videos. Motion of the camera is required for a 3-D effect, restricting …