Computer Engineering Commons^™

Flexible Tuning Software: Beyond Equal Temperament, Erica Sponsler

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

The premise of this creative Capstone project was to develop a computer instrument that is capable of tuning itself flexibly in such a way as to not require a tempering of the Western scale, as is necessary for fixedly tuned instruments. The difficulty in creating such a system of tuning arises from the mathematical paradox of the musical harmonic series, which is the sequence of frequencies that sound naturally as overtones over a fundamental pitch. They follow a proportional pattern of 1:2, 2:3, 3:4, etc. These small-integer ratios of frequencies represent the consonant (in-tune) harmonic intervals. When an interval does …

Growndswell Iphone Application Development, Arti Chandok

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

GrowndSwell is a location-based social networking service developed to primarily solve the problem of trying to text several friends in order to convey a simple piece of information: “What are you planning to do today?” This capstone project is focused on developing an iPhone application as a tool for users to convey this information in an efficient and fun manner. The problem requires several tools to capture the market through development of phone applications that are compatible on several platforms and creating an attractive website for brand awareness. This capstone project has focused its attention on the product development of …

Optical Network-On-Chip Architectures And Designs, Lei Zhang

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

As indicated in the latest version of ITRS roadmap, optical wiring is a viable interconnection technology for future SoC/SiC/SiP designs that can provide broad band data transfer rates unmatchable by the existing metal/low-k dielectric interconnects. In this dissertation study, a set of different optical interconnection architectures are presented for future on-chip optical micro-networks.

Three Optical Network-on-Chip (ONoC) architectures, i.e., Wavelength Routing Optical Network-on-Chip (WRON), Redundant Wavelength Routed Optical Network (RDWRON) and Recursive Wavelength Routed Optical Network (RCWRON) are proposed. They are fully connected networks designed based on passive switching Microring Resonator (MRR) optical switches. Given enough different routing optical wavelengths, …

Design And Performance Analysis Of Mac Schemes For Wireless Sensor Networks Powered By Ambient Energy Harvesting, Zhi Ang Eu, Hwee-Pink Tan, Winston K. G. Seah

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Energy consumption is a perennial issue in the design of wireless sensor networks (WSNs) which typically rely on portable sources like batteries for power. Recent advances in ambient energy harvesting technology have made it a potential and promising alternative source of energy for powering WSNs. By using energy harvesters with supercapacitors, WSNs are able to operate perpetually until hardware failure and in places where batteries are hard or impossible to replace. In this paper, we study the performance of different medium access control (MAC) schemes based on CSMA and polling techniques for WSNs which are solely powered by ambient energy …

Reconfigurable Systems: A Potential Solution To The Von Neumann Bottleneck, Damian L. Miller

Senior Honors Theses

The difficulty of overcoming the disparity between processor speeds and data access speeds, a condition known as the von Neumann bottleneck, has been a source of consternation for computer hardware developers for many years.  Although a number of temporary solutions have been proposed and implemented in modern machines, these solutions have only managed to treat the major symptoms, rather than solve the root problem.  As the number of transistors on a chip roughly doubles every two years, the von Neumann bottleneck has continued to tighten in spite of these solutions, prompting some computer hardware professionals to advocate a paradigm shift …

A Cost-Benefit Analysis Of A Campus Computing Grid, Preston M. Smith

Purdue Polytechnic Masters Theses

Any major research institution has a substantial number of computer systems on its campus, often in the scale of tens of thousands. Given that a large amount of scientific computing is appropriate for execution in an opportunistic environment, a campus grid is an inexpensive way to build a powerful computational resource. What is missing, though, is a model for making an informed decision on the cost-effectives of a campus grid. In this thesis, the author describes a model for measuring the costs and benefits of building a campus computing resource based on the institution’s existing investment in computing hardware.

For …

Interactivity-Constrained Server Provisioning In Large-Scale Distributed Virtual Environments, Nguyen Binh Duong Ta, Thang Nguyen, Suiping Zhou, Xueyan Tang, Wentong Cai, Rassul Ayani

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Maintaining interactivity is one of the key challenges in distributed virtual environments (DVE), e.g., online games, distributed simulations, etc., due to the large, heterogeneous Internet latencies; and the fact that clients in a DVE are usually geographically separated. In this paper, we consider a new problem, termed the interactivity-constrained server provisioning problem, whose goal is to minimize the number of distributed servers needed to achieve a pre-determined level of interactivity. We identify and formulate two variants of this new problem and show that they are both NP-hard via reductions to the set covering problem. We then propose several computationally efficient …

Propeller: A Scalable Metadata Organization For A Versatile Searchable File System, Lei Xu, Hong Jiang, Xue Liu, Lei Tian, Yu Hua, Jian Hu

School of Computing: Technical Reports

The exponentially increasing amount of data in file systems has made it increasingly important for users, administrators and applications to be able to fast retrieve files using file-search services, instead of replying on the standard file system API to traverse the hierarchical namespaces.  The quality of the file-search services  is significantly affected by the file-indexing overhead, the file-search performance and the accuracy of search results.  Unfortunately, the existing file-search solutions either are so poorly scalable that their performance degrades unacceptably when the systems scale up, or incur so much crawling delays that they produce acceptably inaccurate results.  We believe that …

Increasing Efficiency In Boundary Security With Wireless Sensor Networks And Geospatial Information Systems Using Homology Theory, Luis Berumen^, Eric Chaidez^, Hamide Dogan*, Jose Gerardo Rosiles**

COURI Symposium Abstracts, Spring 2011

As part of an institutional investigation, we attempt to address the challenges the US customs and Border protection agency faces in the El Paso region. Our research focuses on defining a system for the surveillance application, and the use of mathematical models employed to achieve a greater efficiency of such architecture. With the use of the defined system, we apply homology theory through the algebraic process of topology, to accomplish an independent coordinate-free based system, which covers the surveillance area, with lesser quantity of sensor nodes. Our architecture makes the use of an operating system for wireless sensor networks; TinyOS, …

Dynamic Polymorphic Reconfiguration To Effectively “Cloak” A Circuit’S Function, Jeffrey L. Falkinburg

Theses and Dissertations

Today's society has become more dependent on the integrity and protection of digital information used in daily transactions resulting in an ever increasing need for information security. Additionally, the need for faster and more secure cryptographic algorithms to provide this information security has become paramount. Hardware implementations of cryptographic algorithms provide the necessary increase in throughput, but at a cost of leaking critical information. Side Channel Analysis (SCA) attacks allow an attacker to exploit the regular and predictable power signatures leaked by cryptographic functions used in algorithms such as RSA. In this research the focus on a means to counteract …

A Multi Agent System For Flow-Based Intrusion Detection Using Reputation And Evolutionary Computation, David Hancock

Theses and Dissertations

The rising sophistication of cyber threats as well as the improvement of physical computer network properties present increasing challenges to contemporary Intrusion Detection (ID) techniques. To respond to these challenges, a multi agent system (MAS) coupled with flow-based ID techniques may effectively complement traditional ID systems. This paper develops: 1) a scalable software architecture for a new, self-organized, multi agent, flow-based ID system; and 2) a network simulation environment suitable for evaluating implementations of this MAS architecture and for other research purposes. Self-organization is achieved via 1) a reputation system that influences agent mobility in the search for effective vantage …

Adaptive Quality Of Service Engine With Dynamic Queue Control, James D. Haught

Theses and Dissertations

While the current routing and congestion control algorithms in use today are often sufficient for networks with relatively static topology, these algorithms may not be sufficient for military networks where a certain level of quality of service (QoS) needs to be achieved to complete a mission. Current networking technology limits a network's ability to adapt to changes and interactions in the network, often resulting in sub-optimal performance. This research investigates the use of queue size predictions to create a network controller to optimize computer networks. These queue size predictions are made possible through the use of Kalman filters to detect …

Covert Channels Within Irc, Wayne C. Henry

Theses and Dissertations

The exploration of advanced information hiding techniques is important to understand and defend against illicit data extractions over networks. Many techniques have been developed to covertly transmit data over networks, each differing in their capabilities, methods, and levels of complexity. This research introduces a new class of information hiding techniques for use over Internet Relay Chat (IRC), called the Variable Advanced Network IRC Stealth Handler (VANISH) system. Three methods for concealing information are developed under this framework to suit the needs of an attacker. These methods are referred to as the Throughput, Stealth, and Baseline scenarios. Each is designed for …

An Architecture For Improving Timeliness And Relevance Of Cyber Incident Notifications, James L. Miller

Theses and Dissertations

This research proposes a communications architecture to deliver timely and relevant cyber incident notifications to dependent mission stakeholders. This architecture, modeled in Unified Modeling Language (UML), eschews the traditional method of pushing notifications via message as dictated in Air Force Instruction 33-138. It instead shifts to a pull or publish and subscribe method of making notifications. Shifting this paradigm improves the notification process by empowering mission owners to identify those resources on which they depend for mission accomplishment, provides a direct conduit between providing and dependent mission owners for notifications when an incident occurs, and provides a shared representation for …

Defensive Cyber Battle Damage Assessment Through Attack Methodology Modeling, Ryan T. Ostler

Theses and Dissertations

Due to the growing sophisticated capabilities of advanced persistent cyber threats, it is necessary to understand and accurately assess cyber attack damage to digital assets. This thesis proposes a Defensive Cyber Battle Damage Assessment (DCBDA) process which utilizes the comprehensive understanding of all possible cyber attack methodologies captured in a Cyber Attack Methodology Exhaustive List (CAMEL). This research proposes CAMEL to provide detailed knowledge of cyber attack actions, methods, capabilities, forensic evidence and evidence collection methods. This product is modeled as an attack tree called the Cyber Attack Methodology Attack Tree (CAMAT). The proposed DCBDA process uses CAMAT to analyze …

Spear Phishing Attack Detection, David T. Merritt

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis addresses the problem of identifying email spear phishing attacks, which are indicative of cyber espionage. Spear phishing consists of targeted emails sent to entice a victim to open a malicious file attachment or click on a malicious link that leads to a compromise of their computer. Current detection methods fail to detect emails of this kind consistently. The SPEar phishing Attack Detection system (SPEAD) is developed to analyze all incoming emails on a network for the presence of spear phishing attacks. SPEAD analyzes the following file types: Windows Portable Executable and Common Object File Format (PE/COFF), Adobe Reader, …

Trust Management And Security In Satellite Telecommand Processing, Mark C. Duncan

Theses and Dissertations

New standards and initiatives in satellite system architecture are moving the space industry to more open and efficient mission operations. Primarily, these standards allow multiple missions to share standard ground and space based resources to reduce mission development and sustainment costs. With the benefits of these new concepts comes added risk associated with threats to the security of our critical space assets in a contested space and cyberspace domain. As one method to mitigate threats to space missions, this research develops, implements, and tests the Consolidated Trust Management System (CTMS) for satellite flight software. The CTMS architecture was developed using …

Scalable Correct Memory Ordering Via Relativistic Programming, Josh Triplett, Philip William Howard, Paul E. Mckenney, Jonathan Walpole

Computer Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

We propose and document a new concurrent programming model, relativistic programming. This model allows readers to run concurrently with writers, without blocking or using expensive synchronization. Relativistic programming builds on existing synchronization primitives that allow writers to wait for current readers to finish with minimal reader overhead. Our methodology models data structures as graphs, and reader algorithms as traversals of these graphs; from this foundation we show how writers can implement arbitrarily strong ordering guarantees for the visibility of their writes, up to and including total ordering.

Generalized Construction Of Scalable Concurrent Data Structures Via Relativistic Programming, Josh Triplett, Paul E. Mckenney, Philip W. Howard, Jonathan Walpole

Computer Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

We present relativistic programming, a concurrent programming model based on shared addressing, which supports efficient, scalable operation on either uniform shared-memory or distributed shared- memory systems. Relativistic programming provides a strong causal ordering property, allowing a series of read operations to appear as an atomic transaction that occurs entirely between two ordered write operations. This preserves the simple immutable-memory programming model available via mutual exclusion or transactional memory. Furthermore, relativistic programming provides joint-access parallelism, allowing readers to run concurrently with a writer on the same data. We demonstrate a generalized construction technique for concurrent data structures based on relativistic programming, …

Rough Consensus And Running Code: Integrating Engineering Principles Into Internet Policy Debates, Christopher S. Yoo

Federal Communications Law Journal

Symposium: Rough Consensus and Running Code: Integrating Engineering Principles into Internet Policy Debates, held at the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Technology Innovation and Competition on May 6-7, 2010.

The End-To-End Argument And Application Design: The Role Of Trust, David D. Clark, Marjory S. Blumenthal

Federal Communications Law Journal

Symposium: Rough Consensus and Running Code: Integrating Engineering Principles into Internet Policy Debates, held at the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Technology Innovation and Competition on May 6-7, 2010.

Policy debates about the evolution of the Internet show varying degrees of understanding about the underlying technology. A fundamental principle of the design of the Internet, from the early 1980s, is the so-called "end-to-end argument" articulated in a seminal technical paper. Intended to provide guidance for what kind of capability is built into a network as opposed to the devices that use the network, the end-to-end argument has been invoked in …

Universal Engineering Programmer – An In-House Development Tool For Developing And Testing Implantable Medical Devices In St. Jude Medical, Khoa Tat Do

Master's Theses

During development and testing of the functionality of the pacemaker and defibrillator device, engineers in the St. Jude Medical Cardiac Rhythm Management Division use an in-house development tool called Universal Engineering Programmer (UEP) to ensure the device functions as expected, before it can be used to test on an animal or a human during the implantation process.  In addition, some applications of UEP are incorporated into the official releases of the device product.  UEP has been developed and used by engineers across departments in the St. Jude Medical Cardiac Rhythm Management Division (CRMD).  This thesis covers the flexible and reusable …

Interoperable Credentials Management For Wholesale Banking, Glenn Benson, Shiu-Kai Chin, Sean Croston, Karthick Jayaraman, Susan Older

Electrical Engineering and Computer Science - All Scholarship

A gap exists between wholesale-banking business practices and security best practices: wholesale banks operate within the boundaries of contract law, while security best practices often relies upon a benevolent trusted party outside the scope of straightforward contracts. While some business domains may be able to bridge this gap, the ultra-high-value transactions used in business-to-business banking substantially increase the size of the gap. The gap becomes most apparent when regarded from the perspective of interoperability. If a single user applies the same credential to sign high-value transactions at multiple banks, then the trusted-party model becomes overly cumbersome and conflicts with an …

Enhancing Simulation Composability And Interoperability Using Conceptual/Semantic/Ontological Models, Andreas Tolk, John A. Miller

Computational Modeling & Simulation Engineering Faculty Publications

(First paragraph) Two emerging trends in Modeling and Simulation (M&S) are beginning to dovetail in a potentially highly productive manner, namely conceptual modeling and semantic modeling. Conceptual modeling has existed for several decades, but its importance has risen to the forefront in the last decade (Taylor and Robinson, 2006; Robinson, 2007). Also, during the last decade, progress on the Semantic Web has begun to influence M&S, with the development of general modeling ontologies (Miller et al, 2004), as well as ontologies for modeling particular domains (Durak, 2006). An ontology, which is a formal specification of a conceptualization (Gruber et al, …

Software Reuse For Modeling And Simulation, Emily Andrew, Charles D. Turnitsa, Andreas Tolk

Computational Modeling & Simulation Engineering Faculty Publications

In Modeling and Simulation, as a distinct area of software engineering, there is much interest in being able to reuse software components. However, the practice of simulation development and maintenance is different from software engineering because of several factors. In this paper, a brief overview of the foundations of interoperability, and how they apply to the reuse of model based software is explored, as well as examination of current practices to include M&S software repositories. Some recommendations, based on research at the Virginia Modeling Analysis and Simulation Center (VMASC) and practice at the Raytheon Company Network Centric Services, are made.

Executable Architecture Research At Old Dominion University, Andreas Tolk, Johnny J. Garcia, Edwin A. Shuman

Computational Modeling & Simulation Engineering Faculty Publications

Executable Architectures allow the evaluation of system architectures not only regarding their static, but also their dynamic behavior. However, the systems engineering community do not agree on a common formal specification of executable architectures. To close this gap and identify necessary elements of an executable architecture, a modeling language, and a modeling formalism is topic of ongoing PhD research. In addition, systems are generally defined and applied in an operational context to provide capabilities and enable missions. To maximize the benefits of executable architectures, a second PhD effort introduces the idea of creating an executable context in addition to the …

Ua3/9/2 I.T. Division Annual Report + Tactical Plan, Wku Information Technology

WKU Administration Documents

Annual report of WKU Information Technology Division submitted to WKU President Gary Ransdell. Report is housed in UA3/9/2 Subject Files.

Relativistic Red-Black Trees, Philip William Howard, Jonathan Walpole

Computer Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

Operating system performance and scalability on sharedmemory many-core systems depends critically on efficient access to shared data structures. Scalability has proven difficult to achieve for many data structures. In this paper we present a novel and highly scalable concurrent red-black tree. Red-black trees are widely used in operating systems, but typically exhibit poor scalability. Our red-black tree has linear read scalability, uncontended read performance that is at least 25% faster than other known approaches, and deterministic lookup times for a given tree size, making it suitable for realtime applications.

Technology Management Trends In Law Schools, Carol A. Watson, Larry Reeves

Articles, Chapters and Online Publications

Discusses the role of librarians in law school technology management and analyzes technology staffing survey results for 2002, 2006, and 2010. While survey results indicate a trend toward establishing separate information technology departments within law schools, librarians are and will continue to be actively involved in law school technology.

Parallelizing Scale Invariant Feature Transform On A Distributed Memory Cluster, Stanislav Bobovych

Inquiry: The University of Arkansas Undergraduate Research Journal

Scale Invariant Feature Transform (SIFT) is a computer vision algorithm that is widely-used to extract features from images. We explored accelerating an existing implementation of this algorithm with message passing in order to analyze large data sets. We successfully tested two approaches to data decomposition in order to parallelize SIFT on a distributed memory cluster.