Engineering Commons^™

Cs 790-02: Statistical Natural Language Processing: Models And Methods, Shaojun Wang

Computer Science & Engineering Syllabi

This course is designed to introduce students to the current statistical techniques for the automatic analysis of natural (human) language data. It develops an in-depth understanding of both the algorithms available for the processing of linguistic information and the underlying computational properties of natural languages. Potential topics include language modeling, finite state models, stochastic grammars, latent semantic analysis, log-linear models in natural language processing. We will explore how these core techniques can be applied to user applications such as information extraction, question answering, automatic speech recognition, statistical machine translation.

Cs/Mth 316/516: Numerical Methods For Digital Computers - I, Ronald F. Taylor

Computer Science & Engineering Syllabi

Introduction to numerical methods used in the sciences. Methods of interpolation, data smoothing, functional approximation, numerical differentiation and integration. Solution techniques for linear and nonlinear equations. Discussion of sources of error in numerical methods. Applications to engineering, science, and applied mathematics are an integral part of the course. Special topics presented as schedule permits. 4 credit hours.

Cs 705: Introduction To Data Mining, Guozhu Dong

Computer Science & Engineering Syllabi

Data mining is concerned with the extraction of novel knowledge from large amounts of data. This course introduces and studies the concepts, issues, tasks and techniques of data mining. Topics include data preparation and feature selection, association rules, classification, clustering, evaluation and validation, scalability, spatial and sequence mining, privacy, and data mining applications. 3 hours lecture, 2 hours lab.

Cs 410/610: Theoretical Foundations Of Computing, Thomas Sudkamp

Computer Science & Engineering Syllabi

This course is an introduction to one of the fundamental topics in the theory of computer science: computability theory. Computability theory is concerned with determining whether there is an algorithmic solution to a problem. The study of computability uses the Turing machine as the basic computational model. A Turing machine is a random access, read-write, finite state automaton. Although the Turing machine provides a simple computational framework, the Church-Turing thesis asserts that any problem that can be solved in any algorithmic manner can be solved by a Turing machine.

Ceg 476/676: Computer Graphics I, Thomas Wischgoll

Computer Science & Engineering Syllabi

By the end of this quarter, you will have learnt techniques for constructing 2-D and 3-D obects as well as manipulating and rendering the objects using OpenGL.

The outline of the course is as follows:

• Introduction

• Geometric primitives

• Attributes of geometric primitives

• Antialiasing techniques

• Homogeneous coordinate system

• 2-D and 3-D viewing transformations

• Structures and hierarchical modeling

• 2-D and 3-D viewing transformations

• Input devices and interactive techniques •

Visible surface detection methods

Ceg 420/620: Computer Architecture, Jack Jean

Computer Science & Engineering Syllabi

No abstract provided.

Ceg 720: Computer Architecture I, Soon M. Chung

Computer Science & Engineering Syllabi

Review of sequential computer architecture and study of parallel computers. Topics include memory hierarchy, reduced instruction set computer, pipeline processing, multiprocessing, various parallel computers, interconnection networks, and fault-tolerant computing. 3 hours lecture and 2 hours lab.

Ceg 724: Computer Vision I, Arthur A. Goshtasby

Computer Science & Engineering Syllabi

This course covers basic techniques for low-level and some mid-level vision processes. The techniques include: camera geometry and calibration, image filtering and edge detection, image segmentation, 2-D shape analysis, 2-D texture analysis, model-based recognition and template matching, and video understanding and tracking.

Ceg 760: Advanced Software Computer Engineering, Thomas C. Hartrum

Computer Science & Engineering Syllabi

This course covers advanced topics in software engineering. Aspects of problem specification, design, verification, and evaluation are discussed. We will focus on design methods, including software patterns and software architecture, plus some advanced topics involving formal methods of software specification or evaluation using software metrics. Students will participate in team projects to apply the methods discussed.

Cs 480/680: Comparative Programming Languages, Michael L. Raymer

Computer Science & Engineering Syllabi

No abstract provided.

Cs 415: Social Implications Of Computing, Leo Finkelstein

Computer Science & Engineering Syllabi

CS 415 is a communication skills course using as its subject matter current salient issues associated with the social implications of computing. In addition to the course text, you will need to use certain reading materials in the library and elsewhere, and you will be responsible for using concepts and theories provided in class lectures and discussions.

Fault Modeling In Wireless Sensor Networks, Ahmed A. Elmiligui

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

A large amount of research has been done in the area of wireless sensor networks (WSN), but not much work has been done in modeling the fault tolerance and reliability of these networks. In this thesis, the fault tolerance of a WSN to node failures is studied and an analytical reliability model of the network is derived. A valid reliability model of a network could reveal an estimate of the network's performance before it is deployed.

A wireless sensor network was modeled as a k-out-of-n system and a generic fault tolerant framework for the network in terms of node losses …

Fault Arrangements And Their Effect On The Performance Of Wireless Sensor Networks, Dwayne Sayone Blai

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Wireless sensor networks face many reliability challenges. The networks are deployed in open, hostile environments, making them easily susceptible to network failure. As a result, there are countless faults that can occur in sensor networks, from component failure to outside attacks. Outside attacks take place when an adversary gains control over a node or set of nodes in the network. Outside attackers can destroy a network in numerous ways such as random attacks, clustering attacks, search-based attacks, etc. The method and strategy used in each of these attacks directly affects the network's reliability. Understanding how these adversaries are positioned is …

Analysis Of Gait Characteristics In Mentally Handicapped Individuals, Prakriti Parijat, Jian Liu, Thurmon E. Lockhart, Courtney Haynes

Computer Sciences and Electrical Engineering Faculty Research

Physical and motor dysfunctions in mentally handicapped individuals predispose them to a higher risk of slip and fall accidents. It is estimated that over 60 million people are currently suffering with some level of developmentally related cognitive impairment (American Disability Act ADA, 2000). Mental retardation occurs in 2.5-3% of the general population. About 6-7.5 million mentally retarded individuals live in the United States alone (ADA, 2000). Slip induced fall accidents are a primary source of injury in people with mental retardation (MR). Often, the incidence of falls among this population is compounded by other disabilities such as autism, seizure, and …

Comppknots: A Framework For Parallel Prediction And Comparison Of Rna Secondary Structures With Pseudoknots, Trilce Estrada, Abel Licon, Michela Taufer

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

Codes for RNA structure prediction based on energy minimization are usually very time and resource intensive. For this reason several codes have been significantly simplified: in some cases they are unable to predict complex secondary structures such as pseudoknots, while at other times they are able to predict structures with reduced lengths, or they are only able to predict some elementary and simple pseudoknots. Each of the existing codes has its strengths and weaknesses. Providing scientists with tools that are able to combine the strengths of the several codes is a worthwhile objective.

To address this need, we present compPknots, …

What’S The Hang Up? The Future Of Voip Regulation And Taxation In New Hampshire, Kate Winstanley

The University of New Hampshire Law Review

Alice in Austria wishes to call her friend Bob in Boston, using a Boston area code to avoid charges for an international call. Using VoIP, Alice may initiate her call from any location in Austria where she may find Internet access. Once Alice connects to the Internet, she can transmit her call with the aid of a VoIP service provider, such as Skype. In order to hear and communicate with Bob, Alice can rely on a microphone and a headset that she can plug into her computer. Through VoIP, not only may Alice carry on a telephone conversation, but most …

Using System-On-A-Programmable-Chip Technology To Design Embedded Systems, Tyson S. Hall, James O. Hamblen

Faculty Works

This paper describes the tools, techniques, and devices used to design embedded products with system–on-a-chip (SoC) type solutions using a large Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) with an internal processor core. This new FPGA-based approach is called system-on-a-programmable-chip (SoPC ). The performance tradeoffs present in SoPC systems is compared to more traditional design approaches. Commercial devices, processor cores, and CAD tool flows are described.

The issues in SoPC hardware/software design tradeoffs are examined and three example SoPC designs are presented as case studies.

Fault And Defect Tolerant Computer Architectures: Reliable Computing With Unreliable Devices, George R. Roelke Iv

Theses and Dissertations

This research addresses design of a reliable computer from unreliable device technologies. A system architecture is developed for a "fault and defect tolerant" (FDT) computer. Trade-offs between different techniques are studied and yield and hardware cost models are developed. Fault and defect tolerant designs are created for the processor and the cache memory. Simulation results for the content-addressable memory (CAM)-based cache show 90% yield with device failure probabilities of 3 x 10(-6), three orders of magnitude better than non fault tolerant caches of the same size. The entire processor achieves 70% yield with device failure probabilities exceeding 10(-6). The required …

On Mitigating Distributed Denial Of Service Attacks, Zhiqiang Gao

Dissertations

Denial of service (DoS) attacks and distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks are probably the most ferocious threats in the Internet, resulting in tremendous economic and social implications/impacts on our daily lives that are increasingly depending on the wellbeing of the Internet. How to mitigate these attacks effectively and efficiently has become an active research area. The critical issues here include 1) IP spoofing, i.e., forged source lIP addresses are routinely employed to conceal the identities of the attack sources and deter the efforts of detection, defense, and tracing; 2) the distributed nature, that is, hundreds or thousands of compromised …

A Wireless Method For Monitoring Medication Compliance, Jeffrey Scott Jonas

Theses

There are many devices on the market to help remind patients to take their pills, but most require observation by a caregiver to assure medication compliance. This project demonstrates three modes to detect pill removal from a pillbox: a switch under the pills, a reflective type photointerrupter and a transmissive "electric eye" photosensor. Each mode exhibited blind spots or other failures to detect pill presence, but by combining modes with complementary characteristics, the accuracy of pill detection is greatly increased.

Two methods of caregiver notification are demonstrated: text messages transmitted via an attached cellular phone, or the status is collected …

Fpga-Based Implementation Of Parallel Graph Partitioning, Mohammad Kharashgeh

Theses

Graph partitioning is a very important application that can be found in numerous areas, from finite element methods to data processing and VLSI circuit design. Many algorithms have been developed to solve this problem. Of special interest is multilevel graph partitioning that provides a very efficient solution. This method can also be parallelized and implemented on various multiprocessor architectures. Unfortunately, the target of such implementations is often unavailable high-end multiprocessor systems. Here a parallel version of this method for an in-house developed multiprocessor system is implemented on an FPGA. The system designed provides a cost-effective solution.

The design is based …

Investigation Of Negative Refractive Index In Reciprocal Chiral Materials, Monish Ranjan Chatterjee, Partha P. Banerjee, Pradeep R. Anugula

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

It is well known that there exist both natural materials (such as milk or sugar solution) possessing chiral (or handed) properties, as well as an increasing list of man-made materials (such as sodium bromate) that exhibit chirality. One of the principal properties of chirality is that light of any arbitrary polarization, when propagating through a chiral material, splits up into two circular polarizations propagating in different directions. In the past decade or longer, researchers have investigated electromagnetic transverse (plane) wave propagation across a non-chiral/chiral interface, and determined the electromagnetic Fresnel coefficients for such propagation. Traditionally, such coefficients are derived under …

Canica: An Ide For The Java Modeling Language, Angelica B. Perez, Yoonsik Cheon, Ann Q. Gates

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

Canica is an integrated development environment for the Java Modeling Language (JML), a formal behavioral interface specification language for Java. The JML distribution includes several support tools, such as a syntax checker, a compiler, and a document generator, and there are several third-party tools available for JML. However, most of these tools are command-line-based and work in isolation. Canica glues and streamlines these tools to provide a GUI-based, integrated environment for JML; for example, it automates unit testing completely from test data generation to test execution and test result determination. In this paper, we describe the key features of Canica …

A Model-Based Workflow Approach For Scientific Applications, Leonardo Salayandia, Paulo Pinheiro Da Silva, Ann Q. Gates, Alvaro Rebellon

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

Productive design of scientific workflows often depends on the effectiveness of the communication between the discipline domain experts and computer scientists, including their ability to share their specific needs in the design of the workflow. Discipline domain experts and computer scientists, however, tend to have distinct needs for designing workflows including terminology, level of abstraction, workflow aspects that should be included in the design. This paper discusses the use of a Model-Based Workflow (MBW) approach as an abstract way to specify workflows that conciliate the needs of domain and computer scientists. Within the context of GEON, an NSF cyberinfrastructure for …

Workflow-Driven Ontologies: An Earth Sciences Case Study, Leonardo Salayandia, Paulo Pinheiro Da Silva, Ann Q. Gates, Flor Salcedo

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

A goal of the Geosciences Network (GEON) is to develop cyber-infrastructure that will allow earth scientists to discover access, integrate and disseminate knowledge in distributed environments such as the Web, changing the way in which research is conducted. The earth sciences community has begun the complex task of creating ontologies to support this effort. A challenge is to coalesce the needs of the earth scientists, who wish to capture knowledge in a particular discipline through the ontology, with the need to leverage the knowledge to support technology that will facilitate computation, for example, by helping the composition of services. This …

Finding Least Expensive Tolerance Solutions And Least Expensive Tolerance Revisions: Algorithms And Computational Complexity, Inna Pivkina, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

For an engineering design, tolerances in design parameters are selected so that within these tolerances, we guarantee the desired functionality. Feasible algorithms are known for solving the corresponding computational problems: the problem of finding tolerances that guarantee the given functionality, and the problem of checking whether given tolerances guarantee this functionality.

In this paper, we show that in many practical problems, the problem of choosing the optimal tolerances can also be solved by a feasible algorithm. We prove that a slightly different problem of finding the optimal tolerance revision is, in contrast, computationally difficult (namely, NP-hard). We also show that …

Wavesurfer: A Tool For Sound Analysis, Ernesto Medina, Thamar Solorio

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

Researchers in the Interactive Systems Group at UTEP have been using a research tool called Didi for some time now. It was originally designed to be easily adaptable. This tool has proven to be adaptable as it has been changed by different researchers to suit particular needs. As a result, multiple versions of the program exist. In addition to this, the tool only works in Linux and has grown quite a bit. To solve these problems, the different versions could have been consolidated into one program and modified to produce a version that worked on other platforms, or another program …

Detecting Filled Pauses In Tutorial Dialogs, Gaurav Garg, Nigel Ward

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

As dialog systems become more capable, users tend to talk more spontaneously and less formally. Spontaneous speech includes features which convey information about the user's state. In particular, filled pauses, such as `um' and `uh', can indicate that the user is having trouble, wants more time, wants to hold the floor, or is uncertain. In this paper we present a first study of the acoustic characteristics of filled pauses in tutorial dialogs. We show that in this domain, as in other domains, filled pauses typically have flat pitch and fairly constant energy. We present a simple algorithm based on these …

Fast Computation Of Exact Ranges Of Symmetric Convex And Concave Functions Under Interval Uncertainty, Gang Xiang

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

Many statistical characteristics y=f(x1,...,xn) are continuous, symmetric, and either concave or convex; examples include population variance V=(1/n)*(x1^2+...+xn^2)-E^2 (where E=(1/n)*(x1+...+xn), Shannon's entropy S=-p1*log(p1)-..-pn*log(pn), and many other characteristics. In practice, often, we often only know the intervals Xi=[xi-,xi+] that contain the (unknown) actual inputs xi. Since different values xi from Xi lead, in general, to different values of f(x1,...,xn), we need to find the range Y={f(x1,...,xn):x1 in X1,...,xn in Xn}, i.e., the maximum and the minimum of f(x1,...,xn) over the box X1 x ... x Xn. It is known that for convex functions, there exists a feasible (polynomial-time) algorithm for computing its …

The Effectiveness Of Threshold-Based Scheduling Policies On Boinc Projects, Trilce Estrada, David A. Flores, Michela Taufer, Patricia J. Teller, Andre Kerstens, David P. Anderson

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

Several scientific projects use BOINC (Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing) to perform large-scale simulations using volunteers� computers (workers) across the Internet. In general, the scheduling of tasks in BOINC uses a First-Come-First-Serve policy and no attention is paid to workers� past performance, such as whether they have tended to perform tasks promptly and correctly. In this paper we use SimBA, a discrete-event simulator of BOINC applications, to study new threshold-based scheduling strategies for BOINC projects that use availability and reliability metrics to classify workers and distribute tasks according to this classification. We show that if availability and reliability thresholds …