Engineering Commons^™

Converting Binary Thresholds Networks Into Equivalent Symmetric Networks, Gadi Pinkas

All Computer Science and Engineering Research

We give algorithms to convert any network of binary threshold units (that does not oscillate) into an equivalent network with symmetric weight matrix (like Hopfield networks [Hopfield 82] or Boltzmann machines [Hinton, Sejnowski 88]). The motivation for the transformation is dual: a) to demonstrate the expressive power of symmetric networks; i.e. binary threshold networks (that do not oscillate) are subsumed in the energy minimization paradigm; 2) to use network modules (developed for the spreading activation paradigm for example), within the energy minimization paradigm. Thus optimization [Tank, Hopfield 88] and approximation of hard problems can be combined with efficient modules, that …

Composition, Superposition, And Encapsulation In The Formal Specification Of Distributed Systems, Kenneth J. Goldman

All Computer Science and Engineering Research

Composition, superposition, and encapsulation are important techniques that work well together for designing large distributed software systems. Composition is a symmetric operator that allows system components to communicate with each other across module boundaries. Superposition is an asymmetric relationship that allows one system component to observe the state of another. Encapsulation is the ability to define the reason about the behavior of a module in terms of a well-defined boundary between that module and its environment, while hiding the internal operations of that module. In this paper, the I/O automation model of Lynch and Tuttle is extended to permit superposition …

The Spectrum Simulation System: A Formal Approach To Distributed Algorithm Development Tools, Kenneth J. Goldman

All Computer Science and Engineering Research

We present the Spectrum Simulation System, a new research tool for the design and study of distributed algorithms. Based on the formal Input/Output Automation model of Lynch and Tuttle, Spectrum allows one to express distributed algorithms as collections of I/O automata and simulate them directly in terms of the semantics of that model. This permits integration of algorithm specification, design, debugging, analysis, and proof of correctness within a single formal framework that is natural for describing distributed algorithms. Spectrum provides a language for expressing algorithms as I/O automata, a simulator for generating algorithm executions, and a graphics interface for constructing …

An Access Protection Solution For Heavy Load Unfairness In Dqdb, Lakshmana N. Kumar, Andreas D. Bovopoulos

All Computer Science and Engineering Research

This paper discusses the unfairness issue arising in a 802.6 DQDB network at high loads-- when the traffic demand to a bus exceeds the capacity of that bus. As per the 802.6 protocol, at heavy loads, the end nodes along a bus experience longer delays than the other nodes. The origin and remedy of this heavy load unfairness is discussed. An access control scheme is proposed as a solution. The comparison of the proposed scheme with 802.6 protocol is presented. The simulation results and performance characteristics are discussed under several types of loads. With symmetric load conditions under the proposed …

Rapid Display Of Radiographic Images, Jerome R. Cox Jr., Stephen M. Moore, Robert A. Whitman, G. James Blaine, R. Gilbert Jost, L. Magnus Karlsson, Thomas L. Monsees, Gregory L. Hansen, Timothy C. David

All Computer Science and Engineering Research

The requirements for the rapid display of radiographic images exceed the capabilities of widely available display, computer and communication technologies. Computed radiography captures data with a resolution of about four megapixels. Large format displays are available that can present over four megapixels. One megapixel displays are practical for use in combination with large format displays and in areas where the viewing task does not require primary diagnosis. This paper describes an electronic radiology system that approximates the highest quality systems, but through the use of several interesting techniques allows the possibility of its widespread installation throughout hospitals. The techniques uses …

Dna Mapping Algorithms: Abstract Data Types - Concepts And Implementation, Will Gillett, Liz Hanks

All Computer Science and Engineering Research

The conceptual aspects of and the implementation details of a set of self-identifying abstract data types (ADT) are described. Each of the ADTs constitutes a specific class of object, upon which a set of well-defined access functions is available. The intent of these ADTs is to supply a paradigm in which a class of object is available for manipulation, but in which the underlying implementation is hidden from the application programmer. Specific ADTs are the described in some detail. The tagged architecture used to achieve the self-identifying property of the ADTs is presented, and a set of required system-backbone access …

The Difficulty Of Random Attribute Noise, Sally A. Goldman, Robert H. Sloan

All Computer Science and Engineering Research

This paper studies the robustness of pac learning algorithms when the instance space is {0,1}n, and the examples are corrupted by purely random noise affecting only the instances (and not the labels). In the past, conflicting results on this subject have been obtained-- the "best agreement" rule can only tolerate small amounts of noise, yet in some cases large amounts of noise can be tolerated. We show the truth lies somewhere between the two alternatives. For uniform attribute noise, in which each attribute is flipped independently at random with the same probability, we present an algorithm that pac learns monomial …

Computational Learning Theory Lecture Notes For Cs 582 Spring Semester, 1991, Sally A. Goldman

All Computer Science and Engineering Research

This manuscript is a compilation of lecture notes from the graduate level course CS 582, "Computational Learning Theory," I taught at Washington University in the spring of 1991. Students taking the course were assumed to have background in the design and analysis of algorithms as well as good mathematical background. Given that there is no text available on this subject, the course material was drawn from recent research papers. I selected the first twelve topics and the remainder were selected by the students from a list of provided topics. This list of topics is given at the end of these …

Wright State University College Of Engineering And Computer Science Bits And Pcs Newsletter, May 1991, College Of Engineering And Computer Science, Wright State University

BITs and PCs Newsletter

A six page newsletter created by the Wright State University College of Engineering and Computer Science that addresses the current affairs of the college.

Investigation Of Threaded Code, K. E. Graves, Paul D. Stigall

Computer Science Technical Reports

The design, structure and performance of threaded code are examined through the development of a threaded. code classification system and the modification of the threaded code technique used by a Forth programming language implementation. The classification system distinguishes threaded code designs by three elements: the interpreter, the code structure and the reference method to routines. Threaded code designs from the literature are described using the new classification scheme. The threaded code techniques of variable depth indirect threaded code and token indirect token threaded code are examined in a Forth programming language system on an INMOS IMS T222 transputer. Their design …

Applying Formal Verification Methods To Pure Rule-Based Programs, Rose F. Gamble, Gruia-Catalin Roman, William E. Ball, H. Conrad Cunningham

All Computer Science and Engineering Research

Reliability, defined as the guarantee that a program satisfies its specifications, is an important aspect of many applications for which rule-based expert systems are suited. Verification refer to the process used to determine the reliability of the rule-based program. Because past approaches to verification are informal, guarantees of reliability cannot fully be made without severely restricting the system. On the other hand, by constructing formal specifications for a program and showing the program satisfies those specifications, guarantees of reliability can be made. This paper presents an assertional approach to the verification of rule-based programs. The proof logical needed for verification …

Investigation Of Threaded Code, K. E. Graves, Paul D. Stigall

Computer Science Technical Reports

The design, structure and performance of threaded code are examined through the development of a threaded. code classification system and the modification of the threaded code technique used by a Forth programming language implementation. The classification system distinguishes threaded code designs by three elements: the interpreter, the code structure and the reference method to routines. Threaded code designs from the literature are described using the new classification scheme. The threaded code techniques of variable depth indirect threaded code and token indirect token threaded code are examined in a Forth programming language system on an INMOS IMS T222 transputer. Their design …

Computer Visualization Of Irrotational Flow Over Bluff And Streamlined Bodies, Nora Okong' O

Opportunities for Undergraduate Research Experience Program (OURE)

Computer programs were developed to visualize irrotational flow over bluff bodies (circular cylinders and half-bodies) and streamlined bodies (elliptical cylinders and airfoils). The method of superposition of flows was used, with stream functions or complex velocity potentials for fundamental flows being added to obtain the flows over the bodies. For the flow over the circular cylinders, half-bodies and elliptical cylinders, the stream function was calculated directly. The flow over the airfoil was obtained by Joukowski mapping of the imaginary part of the complex velocity potential for flow over a circular cylinder.

The programs developed will be valuable learning tools for …

A Computer Graphics Program For Displaying Water Molecules On A Dn3500 Apollo Workstation, Michael A. Stuller

Opportunities for Undergraduate Research Experience Program (OURE)

A computer graphics program is developed for displaying water molecule configurations on the screen of a DN3500 Apollo workstation. The motivation was to generate a fast display of output from molecular dynamics or Monte Carlo computer simulations. Input to the program consists of a listing of the Cartesian coordinates of the atomic constituents of the molecules. Options in the program include: 1) number of molecules; 2) plot size; 3) atomic radii; 4) superposition of substrate atomic positions; 5) viewing angle; and 6) color-coded and/or numbered atoms. The program is written in Fortran.

Wright State University College Of Engineering And Computer Science Bits And Pcs Newsletter, April 1991, College Of Engineering And Computer Science, Wright State University

BITs and PCs Newsletter

An eight page newsletter created by the Wright State University College of Engineering and Computer Science that addresses the current affairs of the college.

Kinematic Synthesis Of Deployable-Foldable Truss Structures Using Graph Theory, Dirk B. Warnaar

Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Theses & Dissertations

A graph theoretic approach is applied to the conceptual design of deployable truss structures. The characteristics that relate to the inter-connectivity of the elements of a deployable truss structure can be captured in a schematic representation, called a graph. A procedure is presented that enables the exhaustive generation of these graphs for structures of any given number of nodes and links and which are foldable onto a plane or onto a line.

A special type of truss structures, called truss modules, is presented. Graphs of this class of structures form a subset of the graphs of truss structures. Two procedures …

Simulator For Concurrent Processing Data Flow Architectures, Mahyar R. Malekpour

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

A software simulator capable of simulating execution of an algorithm graph on a given system under the Algorithm To Architecture Mapping Model (ATAMM) rules is presented in this thesis. ATAMM is capable of modeling the execution of large-grained algorithms on distributed data flow architectures. Investigating the behavior and determining the performance of an ATAMM based system requires the aid of software tools. The ATAMM Simulator presented in this thesis is capable of determining the behavior, performance, and reliability of a system without having to build a hardware prototype. Case studies are performed on four algorithms to demonstrate the capabilities of …

Wright State University College Of Engineering And Computer Science Bits And Pcs Newsletter, March 1991, College Of Engineering And Computer Science, Wright State University

BITs and PCs Newsletter

A twelve page newsletter created by the Wright State University College of Engineering and Computer Science that addresses the current affairs of the college.

Dna Mapping Algorithms: Topological Mapping, Kenneth Moorman, Paul Poulosky, Will Gillett

All Computer Science and Engineering Research

There are several basic approaches that can be used in attempting to produce high-resolution DNA restriction maps. A standard approach is the match/merge approach in which first the topology of the map units being mapped together is suppressed and lists of potential matches between fragments are generated, and second the topology is introduced to eliminate matchlists which are inconsistent with the topology. This technical report documents a different approach to DNA mapping, known as topological mapping. In topological mapping the precedence of the two criteria are reversed, i.e., the topology of the two map units is used as the primary …

Optimal Iterative Task Scheduling For Parallel Simulations, Joann M. Sartor

Theses and Dissertations

The ultimate purpose of this research is to reduce the time needed for execution of parallel computer simulations. In particular, the impact of task assignment strategies is determined for parallel VHDL circuit simulations. The classical scheduling problem, which assigns n precedence-constrained tasks to m processors is NP-complete in all but the simplest cases. The problem of assigning simulation tasks is further complicated by the iterative nature of computer simulations: each task is required to execute multiple times as the simulation executes. This investigation develops a polynomial-time algorithm (the level strategy) which provides optimal assignment for iterative systems with specific constraints. …

Wright State University College Of Engineering And Computer Science Bits And Pcs Newsletter, February 1991, College Of Engineering And Computer Science, Wright State University

BITs and PCs Newsletter

An eight page newsletter created by the Wright State University College of Engineering and Computer Science that addresses the current affairs of the college.

Performance Evaluation Of A Traffic Control Mechanism For Atm Networks, Andreas D. Bovopoulos

All Computer Science and Engineering Research

Future ATM networks will be required to support a plethora of services, transaction types and cell sequence behaviors with performance guarantees. Before this goal can be realized, however, some basically problems related to bandwidth allocation and traffic control in the ATM layer must be resolve. Such problems will in all likelihood defy solution as long as they studied in isolation without a unifying traffic characterization and traffic control framework. This work presented in this paper is part of an ongoing effort directed at the development of an integrated traffic characterization and control infrastructure for ATM networks. In this paper a …

Saam: The Strategic Asset Allocation Model, Judy Lewis, Todd Gamble, John Tai

All Computer Science and Engineering Research

Asset Allocation has become a dominant factor for investment strategies in recent years. It has found that by holding a strategically diversified portfolio, a high total return on investments can be maintained while, at the same time, reducing portfolio volatility. With recent federal regulations mandating pension investment responsibilities, appropriate asset allocation has become more important than ever. SAAM is a software package specifically designed to be used as a tool to aid the investment professional in determining pension portfolio allocations. SAAM uses the expect system shell CLIPS, has a user-friendly interface, displays output graphically, and runs within the confines of …

Performance Analysis Of The Ethernet Under Conditions Of Bursty Traffic, Tony Y. Mazraani, Gurudatta M. Parulkar

All Computer Science and Engineering Research

In this paper we present a simulation study of the Ethernet performance under conditions of bursty traffic. This study is motivated by two observations: Ethernet will continue to be a widely used Local Area Network (LAN), especially as an access LAN for future high speed internet (or Broadband ISDN); and future high speed applications can best be modeled as bursty sources. Bursty traffic in this study is specified using three parameters: peak bandwidth, average bandwidth, and burst factor. The simulation study shows that the inherent behavior of the Ethernet does not change with bursty traffic. That is, as long as …

Wright State University College Of Engineering And Computer Science Bits And Pcs Newsletter, January 1991, College Of Engineering And Computer Science, Wright State University

BITs and PCs Newsletter

A twelve page newsletter created by the Wright State University College of Engineering and Computer Science that addresses the current affairs of the college.

Shadow Casting Phenomena At Newgrange, Frank Prendergast

Articles

A digital model of the Newgrange passage tomb and surrounding ring of monoliths known as the Great Circle is used to investigate sunrise shadow casting phenomena at the monument. Diurnal variation in shadow directions and lengths are analysed for their potential use in the Bronze Age to indicate the passage of seasonal time. Computer-aided simulations are developed from a photogrammetric survey to accurately show how three of the largest monoliths, located closest to the tomb entrance and archaeologically coded GC1, GC-1 and GC-2, cast their shadows onto the vertical face of the entrance kerbstone, coded K1. The phenomena occur at …

Transforming A Rule-Based Program, Rose F. Gamble

All Computer Science and Engineering Research

Conflict resolution is a form of global control used in production systems to achieve an efficient sequential execution of a rule-based program. This type of control is not used to parallel production system models [6,13]. Instead, only those programs that make no assumptions regarding conflict resolution are executed in parallel. Therefore, the initial sequential rule-based programs are either executed in parallel without their conflict resolution strategy, which normally results in incorrect behavior, or the programs are transformed in an ad hoc manner to execute on an particular parallel production system model. As a result, these programs do not exhibit the …

Three Degrees Of Freedom Compliant Motion Control For Robotic Aircraft Refueling, Clayton M. Andersen

Theses and Dissertations

The Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT) supports on-going research in application of robotic technology to enhance assembly tasks. As a testbed, AFIT supports the ground-based aerial refueling project, with an emphasis on visual servoing techniques and compliant motion control. This thesis focuses on compliant motion control. Previous research developed the testing environment, which includes a PUMA-560 industrial manipulator, and a half scale mock-up of an aerial refueling system. This effort corrected and expanded the existing two degree of freedom (DOF) compliant controller to three DOF. Three DOF compliance was demonstrated by inserting the refueling nozzle into the receiver port. …

An Evaluation Of An Ada Implementation Of The Rete Algorithm For Embedded Flight Processors, F. Jesse Fanning

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this thesis was to design and develop an expert system shell in Ada, and to evaluate the shell's execution and size performance to determine its suitability for real-time operation on the MIL-STD-1750A embedded flight processor. The expert system shell uses the CLIPS/Ada inference engine, a forward-chaining Ada implementation of Rete. The expert system shell design is presented along with an overview of the target environment--the MIL-STD-1750A VHSIC Avionic Modular Processor (VAMP) running under the Ada Avionics Real-Time Software (AARTS) Operating System. Theoretical and empirical complexity analyses of the inference engine are presented and discussed in view of …

Use Of Grasp Force Focus Positioning To Enhance The Torque Resistance Capability Of Robotic Grasps, Stephen G. Edwards

Theses and Dissertations

Three-point-contact grasps are unique in that the homogeneous solution for the contact forces always produces a grasp force focus. Careful positioning of this focus point in the grasp plane can help avoid two things; slipping at the contact points, and violation of joint torque limits. The focus placement method is explored theoretically by examining two types of grasps on cylinders; 1) fingertip grasps using three independently operated fingers, and 2) single-finger power grasps with one contact point on each of three links. Constraint maps are generated for various fingertip grasps in order to show how proper placement of the grasp …