Computer Engineering Commons^™

The Design And Performance Of A Pluggable Protocols Framework For Object Request Broker Middleware, Fred Kuhns, Carlos O'Ryan, Douglas C. Schmidt, Jeff Parsons

All Computer Science and Engineering Research

To be an effective platform for performance-sensitive real-time and embedded applications, off-the-shelf OO middleware like CORBA, DCOM, and Java RMI must preserve communication-layer quality of service (QoS) properties to applications end-to-end. However, conventional OO middleware interoperability protocols, such as CORBA's GIOP/IIOP or DCOM's MS-RPC, are not well suited for applications that cannot tolerate the message footprint size, latency, and jitter associated with general-purpose messaging and transport protocols. It is essential, therefore, to develop standard plugable protocols frameworks that allow custom messaging and transport protocols to be configured flexibly and used transparently by applications. This paper provides three contributions to research …

Constructing Speculative Demand Functions In Equilibrium Markets, Tuomas Sandholm, Fredrik Ygge

All Computer Science and Engineering Research

In computational markets utilizing algorithms that establish a general equilibrium, competitive behavior is usually assumed: each agent makes its demand (supply) decisions so as to maximize its utility (profit) assuming that it has no impact on market prices. However, there is a potential gain from strategic behavior via speculating about others because an agent does affect the market prices, which affect the supply/demand decisions of others, which again affect the market prices that the agent faces. Determining the optimal strategy when the speculator has perfect knowledge about the other agents is a well known problem which has been studied in …

Reliable Communication For Highly Mobile Agents, Amy L. Murphy, Gian Pietro Picco

All Computer Science and Engineering Research

The provision of a reliable communication infrastructure for mobile agents is still an open research issue. The challenge to reliability we address in this work does not come from the possibility of faults, but rather from the mere presence of mobility, which slightly complicates the problem of ensuring the delivery of information even in a fault-free network. For instance, the asynchronous nature of message passing and agent migration may cause situations where messages forever chase a mobile agent that moves frequently from one host to another. Current solutions rely on conventional technologies that either do not provide a solution for …

A Proposal For A High-Performance Active Hardware Architecture, Tilman Wolf

All Computer Science and Engineering Research

Current research in Active Networking is focused on developing software architectures and defining funtionality of Execution Environments. While active network systems show superior functionality compared to traditional networks, they only operate at substantially lower link speeds. To increase the acceptance of Active Network in environments where link speeds of several Gb/s are common, we propose a hardware architecture that performs high-speed packet handling while providing the same flexibility as a common software system. The design exploits the independence between data streams for parallel processing. To measure the impact of different design decisions on the performance of the system, we also …

Multiway Range Trees: Scalable Ip Lookup With Fast Updates, Subhash Suri, George Varghese, Piryank Ramesh Warkhede

All Computer Science and Engineering Research

Internet routers forward packets based on the destination address of a packet. A packet's address is matched against the destination prefixes stored in the router's forwarding table, and the packet is sent to the output interface determined by the longest matching prefix. While some existing schemes work well for IPv4 addresses, we believe that none of the current schemes scales well to IPv6, especially when fast updates are required. As the Internet evolves into a global communication medium, requiring multiple addresses per user, the switch to longer addresses (e.g. IPv6) seems inevitable despite temporary measures such as network addres translation …

Assembly And Analysis Of Extended Human Genomic Contig Regions, Eric C. Rouchka, David J. States

All Computer Science and Engineering Research

The Human Genome Project (HGP) has led to the deposit of human genomic sequence in the form of sequenced clones into various databases such as the DNA Data Bank of Japan (DDBJ) (Tateno and Gojobori, 1997), the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) Nucleotide Sequence Database (Stoesser, et. al., 1999), and GenBank (Benson, et. al., 1998). Many of these sequenced clones occur in regions where sequencing has taken place either within the same sequencing center or other centers throughout the world. The assembly of extended segments of genomic sequence by looking at overlapping end segments is desired and is currently availabel …

Anmac: A Novel Architectural Framework For Network Management And Control Using Active Networks, Samphel Norden

All Computer Science and Engineering Research

In this paper, we propose a new framework called Active Network Management and Control (ANMAC) for the management and control of high speed networks. The software architecture in ANMAC allows routers to execute dynamically loadable kernel plug-in modules which perform diagnostic functions for network management. ANMAC uses mobile probe packets to perform efficient resource reservation (using our novel reservation scheme), facilitate feedback-based congestion control, and to provide "distributed debugging" of complex anomalous network behavior. ANMAC also provides security measures against IP spoofing, and other security attacks. The network manager has the flexibility to install custom scripts in routers for tracking …

Optimal Flow Aggregation, Subhash Suri, Tuomas Sandholm, Priyank Warkhede

All Computer Science and Engineering Research

Current IP routers are stateless: they forward individual packets based on the destination address contained in the packet header, but maintain no information about the application or flow to which a packet belongs. This stateless service model works well for best effort datagram delivery, but is grossly inadequate for applications that require quality of service guarantees, such as audio, video, or IP telephony. Maintaining state for each flow is expensive because the number of concurrent flows at a router can be in the hundreds of thousands. Thus, stateful solutions such as Intserv (integrated services) have not been adopted for their …

Graduate Catalog The School Of Computer And Info Sciences 1999-2000, Nova Southeastern University

College of Engineering and Computing Course Catalogs

No abstract provided.

School Of Computer And Information Sciences--Master Of Science Degree Programs 1999, Nova Southeastern University

College of Engineering and Computing Course Catalogs

No abstract provided.

Emediator: A Next Generation Electronic Commerce Server, Tuomas Sandholm

All Computer Science and Engineering Research

This paper presents eMediator, a next generation electronic commerce server that demonstrates some ways in which AI, algorithmic support, and game theoretic incentive engineering can jointly improve the efficiency of ecommerce. First, its configurable auction house includes a variety of generalized combinatorial auctions, price setting mechanism, novel bid types, mobile agents, and user support for choosing an auction type. Second, its leveled commitment contract optimizer determines the optimal contract price and decommitting penalties for a variety of leveled commitment contracting protocols, taking into account that rational agents will decommit insincerely in taking into account that rational agents will decommit insincerely …

A Fine-Grained Model For Code Mobility, Cecilia Mascolo, Gian Pietro Picco, Gruia-Catalin Roman

All Computer Science and Engineering Research

In this paper, we take the extreme view that every line of code is potentially mobile, i.e., may be duplicated and/or moved from one program context to another on the same host or across the network. Our motivation is to gain a better understanding of the range of constructs and issues facing the designer of a mobile code system, in a setting that is abstract and unconstrained by compilation and performance considerations traditionally associated with programming language design. Incidental to our study is an evaluatoin of the expressive power of Mobile UNITY, a notation and proof logic for mobile computing.

Pattern Matching Techniques And Their Applications To Computational Molecular Biology - A Review, Eric C. Rouchka

All Computer Science and Engineering Research

Pattern matching techniques have been useful in solving many problems associated with computer science, including data compression (Chrochemore and Lecroq, 1996), data encryption (RSA Laboratories, 1993), and computer vision (Grimson and Huttenlocher, 1990). In recent years, developments in molecular biology have led to large scale sequencing of genomic DNA. Since this data is being produced in such rapid fasion, tools to analyze DNA segments are desired. The goal here is to discuss various techniques and tools for solving various pattern matching questions in computational biology, including optimal sequence alignment, multiple sequence alignment, and buidling models to describe sequence families using …

A Rapid Development Of Dependable Applications In Ad Hoc Mobility, Amy L. Murphy

All Computer Science and Engineering Research

Advances in wireless communication and network computing technologies make possible new kinds of applications involving transient interactions among physical components that move across a wide range of spaces, from the confines of a room to the airspace across an ocean, and require no fixed networking infrastructure to communicate with one another. Such components may come together to form ad hoc networks for the purpose of exchanging information or in order to engage in cooperative task-oriented behaviors. Ad hoc networks are assembled, reshaped and taken apart as components move in and out of communication range; all interactions are transient; computations become …

Terabit Burst Switching Progress Report (12/98-6-99), Jonathan S. Turner

All Computer Science and Engineering Research

This report summarizes progress on Washington University's Terabit Burst Switching Project, supported by DARPA and Rome Air Force Laboratory. This project seeks to demonstrate the feasibility of Burst Switching, a new data communication service which can more effectively exploit the large bandwidths becoming available in WDM transmission systems, than conventional communication technologies like ATM and IP-based packet switching. Burst switching systems dynamically assign data bursts to channels in optical data links, using routing information carried in parallel control channels. The project will lead to the construction of a demonstration switch with throughput exceeding 200 Gb/s and scalable to over 10 …

Commbench - A Telecommunications Benchmark For Network Processors, Tilman Wolf, Mark Franklin

All Computer Science and Engineering Research

This paper presents a benchmark, CommBench, for use in evaluating and designing telecommunications network processors. The benchmark applications focus on small, computationally intense program kernels typical of the network processor environment. The benchmark is composed of eight programs, four of them oriented towards packet header processing and four oriented towards data stream procesing. The benchmark is defined and various characteristics of the benchmark are presented. These include instruction frequencies, computational complexity, and cache performance. These measured characteristics are compared to the SPEC benchmark which has traditionally been used in evaluating workstation processors. Three examples are presented indicating how CommBench can …

Exploiting Expertise Through Knowledge Networks, Michael N. Huhns, Larry M. Stevens

Faculty Publications

The paper discusses the necessary capabilities of knowledge networks: categorizing (the ability to classify Web pages and other unstructured data automatically); hyperlinking (the ability to add to each item of information appropriate pointers to other relevant items of information); alerting (the automatic notification of users and agents to new information that might be of interest to them); and profiling (the construction of models of users and agents to describe their interests and expertise).

Personal Ontologies, Michael N. Huhns, Larry M. Stevens

Faculty Publications

Corporations can suffer from too much information, and it is often inaccessible, inconsistent, and incomprehensible. The corporate solution entails knowledge management techniques and data warehouses. The paper discusses the use of the personal ontology. The promising approach is an organization scheme based on a model of an office and its information, an ontology, coupled with the proper tools for using it.

Benevolent Agents, Michael N. Huhns, Abdulla Mohamed

Faculty Publications

Some agents roaming the Web these days are benevolent-for example, they may clean up stalled or failed database transactions, or share query results that may have cost substantial resources to acquire and might consume more to share. The Agent Behavior Testbed is a tool for studying the economics of agent altruism. As more agents hit the Internet, benevolence and cooperation will help with overall efficiency and productivity. The paper discusses benevolent agents on the Web.

Networking Embedded Agents, Michael N. Huhns

Faculty Publications

Most of us will soon be managing an intranet in our homes, though we might not realize it. We might also be surprised at the devices that will be networked together. Just about every electrical device now contains one or more microprocessors. Designers typically find this a cost-effective way to provide device functionality, even when much of a processor's power is unnecessary or unused. For example, my coffee maker contains a processor, even though the appliance needn't be very smart and wastes most of its CPU cycles. Nevertheless, it is cheaper to include a general-purpose microprocessor than to incorporate custom …

Negotiating For Goods And Services, Michael N. Huhns, Anuj K. Malhotra

Faculty Publications

Can a negotiation protocol be both fair and “envy-free” when more than two agents are involved? The authors consider how envy-free apportioning is more difficult than fair apportioning, but both can help to manage critical resources. They discuss an envy-free protocol and agent-based Web auctions.

A Process For Appraising Commerical Usability Evaluation Methods., Ronan Fitzpatrick, Alan Dix

Conference papers

Recent international quality standards and European Community legislation have identified new software quality factors. These new factors include suitability, installability and adaptability. Other quality factors need to be reviewed in the light of these developments. This has impacted on established commercial usability evaluation methods to the extent that it is appropriate to ask if these evaluation methods comply with the new standards and legislation. In order to answer this question the commercial evaluation methods need to be appraised (meta-evaluation) using a suitable method appraisal process. This paper describes such an appraisal process which specifically addresses the many considerations raised by …

Enterprise Business Objects : Design And Implementation Of A Business Object Framework, Kai-Uwe Schafer

Theses

Software components representing business entities like customer or purchase order introduce a new way of Online Transaction Processing to business applications. Collaborating business objects allow to complete whole business processes as a single distributed transaction, instead of dividing it into queued steps, which sometimes even require user intervention. This IS due to the fact that business objects contain both business data and logic and that they incorporate multiple databases from different vendors and different geographic locations in a single transaction.

Business objects cannot be used as stand-alone components, but require a framework of services that manage persistence, concurrent transactions, and …

Complete Maps Of The Aspect Sensitivity Of Vhf Atmospheric Radar Echoes, R. M. Worthington, R. D. Palmer, S. Fukao

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering: Faculty Publications

Using the MU radar at Shigaraki, Japan (34.85°N, 136.10°E), we measure the power distribution pattern of VHF radar echoes from the mid-troposphere. The large number of radar beam-pointing directions (320) allows the mapping of echo power from 0° to 40° from zenith, and also the dependence on azimuth, which has not been achieved before at VHF wavelengths. The results show how vertical shear of the horizontal wind is associated with a definite skewing of the VHF echo power distribution, for beam angles as far as 30° or more from zenith, so that aspect sensitivity cannot be assumed negligible at any …

Search For Charged Higgs Bosons In E+E- Collisions At √S = 181-184 Gev, Barate, R.; Et Al., M. Thulasidas

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

No abstract provided.

(Ω, Ξ)-Logic: On The Algebraic Extension Of Coalgebraic Specifications, Rolf Hennicker, Alexander Kurz

Engineering Faculty Articles and Research

We present an extension of standard coalgebraic specification techniques for statebased systems which allows us to integrate constants and n-ary operations in a smooth way and, moreover, leads to a simplification of the coalgebraic structure of the models of a specification. The framework of (Ω,Ξ)-logic can be considered as the result of a translation of concepts of observational logic (cf. [9]) into the coalgebraic world. As a particular outcome we obtain the notion of an (Ω, Ξ)- structure and a sound and complete proof system for (first-order) observational properties of specifications.

Developing Database Applications By Using Software Components, Nusret Conk

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations (1964–2006)

Today, the software application development process is more assembly work than a "build from scratch" approach. By placing pre-existing software components together, it is possible to create a complete application. Such components provide interfaces so that programs use them for their intended purposes. The objective of this thesis is to illustrate how software components work together to make a complete application. To illustrate the ideas and the components, this project presents a three-tiered web database application. This application, as a whole, is made up of the client side web browser, a database and the actual application programs which are Java …

An Algorithm For Optimal Winner Determination In Combinatorial Auctions, Tuomas Sandholm

All Computer Science and Engineering Research

Combinatorial auctions, i.e. auctions where bidders can bid on combinations of items, tend to lead to more efficient allocations than traditional auctions in multi-item auctions where the agents' valuations of the items are not additive. However, determining the winners so as to maximize revenue is NP-complete. First, existing approaches for tackling this problem are reviewed: exhaustive enumeration, dynamic programming, approximation algorithms, and restricting the alloable combinations. Then we present our search algorithm for optimal winner determination. Experiments are shown on several bid distributions. The algorithm allows combinatorial auctions to scale up to significantly larger numbers of items and bids than …

Auctions Without Common Knowledge, Sviatoslav B. Brainov, Tuomas W. Sandholm

All Computer Science and Engineering Research

This paper proves that the revenue equivalence theorem ceases to hold for auctions without common knowledge about the agents' prior beliefs. That is, different auction forms yield different expected revenue. To prove this, an auction game is converted to a Bayesian decision problem with an infinite hierarchy of beliefs. A general solution for such Bayesian decision problems is proposed. The solution is a generalization of the standard Bayesian solution and coincides with it for finite belief trees and for trees representing common knowledge. It is shown how the solution generalizes the frequently used technique of backward induction for infinite belief …

Design Issues For High Performance Active Routers, Tilman Wolf, Jonathan Turner

All Computer Science and Engineering Research

Active networking is a general approach to incorporating general-purpose computational capabilities within the communications infrastructure of data networks. This paper proposes a design of a scalable, high performance active router. This is used as a vehicle for studying the key design issues that must be resolved to allow active networking to become a mainstream technology.