Computer Engineering Commons^™

A Machine Learning Approach For Enhancing Security And Quality Of Service Of Optical Burst Switching Networks, Adel Dabash A. Rajab

Theses and Dissertations

The Optical Bust Switching (OBS) network has become one of the most promising switching technologies for building the next-generation of internet backbone infrastructure. However, OBS networks still face a number of security and Quality of Service (QoS) challenges, particularly from Burst Header Packet (BHP) flooding attacks. In OBS, a core switch handles requests, reserving one of the unoccupied channels for incoming data bursts (DB) through BHP. An attacker can exploit this fact and send malicious BHP without the corresponding DB. If unresolved, threats such as BHP flooding attacks can result in low bandwidth utilization, limited network performance, high burst loss …

Underwater Cave Mapping And Reconstruction Using Stereo Vision, Nicholas Weidner

Theses and Dissertations

This work presents a systematic approach for 3-D mapping and reconstruction of underwater caves. Exploration of underwater caves is very important for furthering our understanding of hydrogeology, managing efficiently water resources, and advancing our knowledge in marine archaeology. Underwater cave exploration by human divers however, is a tedious, labor intensive, extremely dangerous operation, and requires highly skilled people. As such, it is an excellent fit for robotic technology. The proposed solution employs a stereo camera and a video-light. The approach utilizes the intersection of the cone of video-light with the cave boundaries resulting in the construction of a wire frame …

Blind Change Point Detection And Regime Segmentation Using Gaussian Process Regression, Sourav Das

Theses and Dissertations

Time-series analysis is used heavily in modeling and forecasting weather, economics, medical data as well as in various other fields. Change point detection (CPD) means finding abrupt changes in the time-series when the statistical property of a certain part of it starts to differ. CPD has attracted a lot of attention in the artificial intelligence, machine learning and data mining communities. In this thesis, a novel CPD algorithm is introduced for segmenting multivariate time-series data. The proposed algorithm is a general pipeline to process any high dimensional multivariate time-series data using nonlinear non-parametric dynamic system. It consists of manifold learning …

Mobile Application For Shipping Goods For Individuals And Truckers In India, Sendurr Selvaraj

Theses and Dissertations

India is a vast country with majority of its cities and towns connected through roads. Road transportation contributes to 86% share of the freight transport of the country with trucking companies dominating the entire space. With growing economy and demands raising, the quality of service of the trucking company remains poor. The major reasons are unorganized practice and lack of transparency. Moreover, limited access for customers to reach out to truckers to transport their goods.

This thesis aims to create a platform for customers and truckers to realize their needs with a help of a mobile application. Customers can search …

Improving Peptide Identification By Considering Ordered Amino Acid Usage, Ahmed Al-Qurri

Theses and Dissertations

Proteomics has made major progress in recent years after the sequencing of the genomes of a substantial number of organisms. A typical method for identifying peptides uses a database of peptides identified using tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS). The profile of accurate mass and elution time (AMT) for peptides that need to be identified will be compared with this database. Restricting the search to those peptides detectable by MS will reduce processing time and more importantly increase accuracy. In addition, there are significant impacts for clinical studies. Proteotypic peptides are those peptides in a protein sequence that are most likely to …

Improving Facial Action Unit Recognition Using Convolutional Neural Networks, Shizhong Han

Theses and Dissertations

Recognizing facial action units (AUs) from spontaneous facial expression is a challenging problem, because of subtle facial appearance changes, free head movements, occlusions, and limited AU-coded training data. Most recently, convolutional neural networks (CNNs) have shown promise on facial AU recognition. However, CNNs are often overfitted and do not generalize well to unseen subject due to limited AU-coded training images. In order to improve the performance of facial AU recognition, we developed two novel CNN frameworks, by substituting the traditional decision layer and convolutional layer with the incremental boosting layer and adaptive convolutional layer respectively, to recognize the AUs from …

Investigate Genomic 3d Structure Using Deep Neural Network, Yan Zhang

Theses and Dissertations

The 3D structures of the chromosomes play fundamental roles in essential cellular functions, e.g., gene regulation, gene expression, evolution and Hi-C technique provides the interaction density between loci on chromosomes. In this dissertation, we developed multiple algorithms, focusing the deep learning approach, to study the Hi-C datasets and the genomic 3D structures.

Building 3D structure of the genome one of the most critical purpose of the Hi-C technique. Recently, several approaches have been developed to reconstruct the 3D model of the chromosomes from HiC data. However, all of the methods are based on a particular mathematical model and lack of …

Visibility-Based Pursuit-Evasion In The Plane, Nicholas Michael Stiffler

Theses and Dissertations

As technological advances further increase the amount of memory and computing power available to mobile robots, we are seeing an unprecedented explosion in the utilization of deployable robots for various tasks. The speed at which robots begin to enter various domains is largely dependent on the availability of robust and efficient algorithms that are capable of solving the complex planning problems inherent to the given domain. One such domain which is experiencing unprecedented growth in recent years requires a robot to detect and/or track a mobile agent or group of agents.

In these scenarios, there are typically two players with …

Dynamic 3d Zverse Models On The Web, Alexa Ann Breeland, Ming Wong

Senior Theses

ZVerse is a 3D printing company that is responsible for converting 2D objects into 3D objects. This company specializes in generating 3D collegiate products. Whenever a customer orders a 3D model, such as an alumni brick, it is often helpful to allow customers to see what the object looks like before the purchase. Unfortunately, previewing the brick at runtime is quite a challenging task. The purpose of our project is to create a shopping website that models the existing ZVerse company website and incorporates dynamic 3D rendering of the brick model with the user­input text. The project can be divided …

Revealing Malicious Contents Hidden In The Internet, Muhammad Nazmus Sakib

Theses and Dissertations

In this age of ubiquitous communication in which we can stay constantly connected with the rest of the world, for most of the part, we have to be grateful for one particular invention - the Internet. But as the popularity of Internet connectivity grows, it has become a very dangerous place where objects of malicious content and intent can be hidden in plain sight. In this dissertation, we investigate different ways to detect and capture these malicious contents hidden in the Internet. First, we propose an automated system that mimics high-risk browsing activities such as clicking on suspicious online ads, …

A Hierarchical Framework For Phylogenetic And Ancestral Genome Reconstruction On Whole Genome Data, Lingxi Zhou

Theses and Dissertations

Gene order gets evolved under events such as rearrangements, duplications, and losses, which can change both the order and content along the genome, through the long history of genome evolution. Recently, the accumulation of genomic sequences provides researchers with the chance to handle long-standing problems about the phylogenies, or evolutionary histories, of sets of species, and ancestral genomic content and orders. Over the past few years, such problems have been proven so interesting that a large number of algorithms have been proposed in the attempt to resolve them, following different standards. The work presented in this dissertation focuses on algorithms …

Positioning Commuters And Shoppers Through Sensing And Correlation, Rufeng Meng

Theses and Dissertations

Positioning is a basic and important need in many scenarios of human daily activities. With position information, multifarious services could be vitalized to benefit all kinds of users, from individuals to organizations. Through positioning, people are able to obtain not only geo-location but also time related information. By aggregating position information from individuals, organizations could derive statistical knowledge about group behaviors, such as traffic, business, event, etc.

Although enormous effort has been invested in positioning related academic and industrial work, there are still many holes to be filled. This dissertation proposes solutions to address the need of positioning in people’s …

Internet Of Things To Smart Iot Through Semantic, Cognitive, And Perceptual Computing, Amit P. Sheth

Publications

Rapid growth in the Internet of Things (IoT) has resulted in a massive growth of data generated by these devices and sensors put on the Internet. Physical-cyber-social (PCS) big data consist of this IoT data, complemented by relevant Web-based and social data of various modalities. Smart data is about exploiting this PCS big data to get deep insights and make it actionable, and making it possible to facilitate building intelligent systems and applications. This article discusses key AI research in semantic computing, cognitive computing, and perceptual computing. Their synergistic use is expected to power future progress in building intelligent systems …

Regular Expression Synthesis For Blast Two-Hit Filtering, Jordan Bradshaw

Theses and Dissertations

Genomic databases are exhibiting a growth rate that is outpacing Moore's Law, which has made database search algorithms a popular application for use on emerging processor technologies. NCBI BLAST is the standard tool for performing searches against these databases, which operates by transforming each database query into a filter that is subsequently applied to the database. This requires a database scan for every query, fundamentally limiting its performance by I/O bandwidth. In this dissertation we present a functionally-equivalent variation on the NCBI BLAST algorithm that maps more suitably to an FPGA implementation. This variation of the algorithm attempts to reduce …

Efficient Partitioning And Allocation Of Data For Workflow Compositions, Annamaria Victoria Kish

Theses and Dissertations

Our aim is to provide efficient partitioning and allocation of data for web service compositions. Web service compositions are represented as partial order database transactions. We accommodate a variety of transaction types, such as read-only and write-oriented transactions, to support workloads in cloud environments. We introduce an approach that partitions and allocates small units of data, called micropartitions, to multiple database nodes. Each database node stores only the data needed to support a specific workload. Transactions are routed directly to the appropriate data nodes. Our approach guarantees serializability and efficient execution.

In Phase 1, we cluster transactions based on data …

Hydro-Geological Flow Analysis Using Hidden Markov Models, Chandrahas Raj Venkat Gurram

Theses and Dissertations

Hidden Markov Models a class of statistical models used in various disciplines for understanding speech, finding different types of genes responsible for cancer and much more. In this thesis, Hidden Markov Models are used to obtain hidden states that can correlate the flow changes in the Wakulla Spring Cave. Sensors installed in the tunnels of Wakulla Spring Cave have recorded huge correlated changes in the water flows at numerous tunnels. Assuming the correlated flow changes are a consequence of system being in a set of discrete states, a Hidden Markov Model is calculated. This model comprising all the sensors installed …

Nd − Pdpa: N Dimensional Probability Density Profile Analysis, Arjang Fahim

Theses and Dissertations

Proteins are often referred as working molecule of a cell, performing many structural, functional and regulatory processes. Revealing the function of proteins still remains a challenging problem. Advancement in genomics sequence projects produces large protein sequence repository, but due to technical difficulty and cost related to structure determination, the number of identified protein structure is far behind. Novel structures identification are particularly important for a number of reasons: they generate models of similar proteins for comparison; identify evolutionary relationships; further contribute to our understanding of protein function and mechanism; and allow for the fold of other family members to be …

Brand Positioning Map And Analysis Using Web Scraping And Advertisement Analysis, Surya Bhatt

Theses and Dissertations

There’s a significant increase in online consumer forums. When customers set out to buy a product they use these forums to form an opinion. Our research focuses on comparing Brand positioning maps based on consumer reviews. We also analyse the impact of advertisements and expert reviews. Our goal is to show that combining consumer reviews with ads and electronic media will help us analyze the effectiveness of advertising on brand positioning maps. This approach shall also help us in making association graphs for a brand using words of perception/opinion associated with that brand/product. Which may in turn assist companies in …

High-Performance Meta-Genomic Gene Identification, Ibrahim Savran

Theses and Dissertations

Computational Genomics, or Computational Genetics, refers to the use of computational and statistical analysis for understanding the structure and the function of genetic material in organisms. The primary focus of research in computational genomics in the past three decades has been the understanding of genomes and their functional elements by analyzing biological sequence data. The high demand for low-cost sequencing has driven the development of highthroughput sequencing technologies, next-generation sequencing (NGS), that parallelize the sequencing process, producing thousands or millions of sequences concurrently. Moore’s Law is the observation that the number of transistors on integrated circuits doubles approximately every two …

Automated Scratchpad Mapping And Allocation For Embedded Processors, Yang Gao

Theses and Dissertations

Embedded system-on-chip processors such as the Texas Instruments C66 DSP and the IBM Cell provide the programmer with a software controlled on-chip memory to supplement a traditional but simple two-level cache. By decomposing data sets and their corresponding workload into small subsets that fit within this on-chip memory, the processor can potentially achieve equivalent or better performance, power efficiency, and area efficiency than with its sophisticated cache. However, program controlled on chip memory requires a shift in the responsibility for management and allocation from the hardware to the programmer. Specifically, this requires the explicit mapping of program arrays to specific …

Practical Concurrency Support For Web Service Transactions, Emad Alsuwat

Theses and Dissertations

Traditional database concurrency control methods use locking, timestampordering, and optimistic-ordering to achieve DB consistency. However, these approaches are not suitable for long-running Web Service Compositions (WSCs) due to associated performance degradation. Our hypothesis asserts that, using transactional semantic and ordering information, the execution time of a WSC can be reduced, thus allowing the use of traditional database concurrency control methods while avoiding unacceptable performance degradation. Our solution is based on the following approaches: § We model a WSC as WS-BPEL specification, i.e., a partial order of WS transactions. § We allow some of the WS transactions in the WSC to …

Automatic Loop Tuning And Memory Management For Stencil Computations, Fan Zhang

Theses and Dissertations

The Texas Instruments C66x Digital Signal Processor (DSP) is an embedded processor technology that is targeted at real time signal processing. It is also developed with a high potential to become the new generation of coprocessor technology for high performance embedded computing. Of particular interest is its performance for stencil computations, such as those found in signal processing and computer vision tasks. A stencil is a loop in which the output value is updated at each position of an array by taking a weighted function of its neighbors. Efficiently mapping stencil-based kernels to the C66x device presents two challenges. The …

Benefits Of Video Games In Multidisciplinary Scientific Research, Jeremiah Jeffrey Shepherd

Theses and Dissertations

In recent years, computer-based games have been shown to be effective both as a tool for conducting research in a variety of domains and for research on games itself. In this work, we show that implementing games that have a basis in theory and that are combined with the most recent gaming practices result in effective research tools. We demonstrate this via game implementations for three domains. The first implementation is based on new theories in speech pedagogy, and demonstrates the effectiveness of our approach. The second implementation shows that using a game that simulates therapeutic speech practices can aid …

Lost In The Middle Kingdom: Teaching New Languages Using Serious Games And Language Learning Methodologies, Renaldo Justin Doe

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis focuses on the design and development of a serious video game for language learning entitled Lost in the Middle Kingdom. Our game utilizes several language learning methodologies including second language acquisition theory, content-based instruction, and task-based language teaching. This thesis examines previous language learning games and their drawbacks in order to create a more effective experience. Lost in the Middle Kingdom seeks to balance language learning with fun and intuitive gameplay in order to deliver a form of interactive media that is accepted by both the gaming and research communities. Our test data illustrates the strengths and weaknesses …

Vocab4me: A Tool That Provides Vocabulary Recommendations For Publishing Linked Data, Srikar Nadipally

Theses and Dissertations

The web before linked data was a database of html documents. These documents were meant for human consumption and it was hard for machines to make sense of data in html documents. The linked data was introduced with the aim of making the web a global database of data that is machine processable. Linked Data describes a method of publishing structured data so that it can be interlinked and become more useful. Realizing the promise of linked data a lot of people started publishing linked data. But the process of publishing the huge amount of existing data is cumbersome and …

Document Image Analysis Techniques For Handwritten Text Segmentation, Document Image Rectification And Digital Collation, Dhaval Salvi

Theses and Dissertations

Document image analysis comprises all the algorithms and techniques that are utilized to convert an image of a document to a computer readable description. In this work we focus on three such techniques, namely (1) Handwritten text segmentation (2) Document image rectification and (3) Digital Collation.

Offline handwritten text recognition is a very challenging problem. Aside from the large variation of different handwriting styles, neighboring characters within a word are usually connected, and we may need to segment a word into individual characters for accurate character recognition. Many existing methods achieve text segmentation by evaluating the local stroke geometry and …

Ghosts Of The Horseshoe: A Mobilization Of A Critical Interactive, Richard Lee Walker

Theses and Dissertations

Critical Interactives (CIs) are designed to harness the voluntary, reality-bending excitement of discovery as afforded by play, but to do so in the context of rules that mobilize procedural rhetoric to instantiate critical awareness. Critical interactives are not just about improving lives through code or education; rather, they establish a methodology for generating more aesthetic and reflective interactive experiences. To grasp more fully the logic underpinning CIs, we need to understand the powerful nature of interactivity and outline how such interactivity involves a notion of ethics, i.e., a way of living, in and through media practice.

Ghosts of the Horseshoe …

Growth, Fabrication And Characterization Of Cu2Znsn(SXSe1-X)4 Photovoltaic Absorber And Thin-Film Heterojunction Solar Cells, Sandip Das

Theses and Dissertations

Current thin-film solar cell technologies based on CuIn_xGa1_-xSe₂ (CIGS) and CdTe photo-absorber materials use rare and expensive elements, such as In, Te, Ga, and toxic Cd which severely limit the mass production and deployment of these solar cells. Thus, a major research effort is focused toward the development of new photovoltaic (PV) absorber materials comprising of earth-abundant, low-cost, and environmentally benign constituent elements that can support terawatt (TW)-scale PV generation in the near future and be economically sustainable. Cu-based I₂-II-IV-VI₄ quaternary kesterite compound Cu₂ZnSn(S_xSe_1-x)4 (CZTSS_{e …}

Using Genetic Algorithm To Solve Median Problem And Phylogenetic Inference, Nan Gao

Theses and Dissertations

Genome rearrangement analysis has attracted a lot of attentions in phylogenetic com- putation and comparative genomics. Solving the median problems based on various distance definitions has been a focus as it provides the building blocks for maximum parsimony analysis of phylogeny and ancestral genomes. The Median Problem (MP) has been proved to be NP-hard and although there are several exact or heuristic al- gorithms available, these methods all are difficulty to compute distant three genomes containing high evolution events. Such as current approaches, MGR[1] and GRAPPA [2], are restricted on small collections of genomes and low-resolution gene order data of …

Memory Interface Synthesis For Fpga-Based Computing, Zheming Jin

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation describes a methodology for the generation of a custom memory interface and associated direct memory access (DMA) controller for FPGA-based kernels that have a regular access pattern. The interface provides explicit support for the following features: (1) memory latency hiding, (2) static access scheduling, and (3) data reuse. The target platform is a multi-FPGA platform, the Convey HC-1, which has an advanced memory system that presents the user logic with three critical design challenges: the memory system itself does not perform caching or prefetching, memory operations are arbitrarily reordered, and the memory performance depends on the access order …