Computer Engineering Commons^™

Statistical Hypothesis Testing Under Interval Uncertainty: An Overview, Vladik Kreinovich, Hung T. Nguyen, Sa-Aat Niwitpong

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

An important part of statistical data analysis is hypothesis testing. For example, we know the probability distribution of the characteristics corresponding to a certain disease, we have the values of the characteristics describing a patient, and we must make a conclusion whether this patient has this disease. Traditional hypothesis testing techniques are based on the assumption that we know the exact values of the characteristic(s) x describing a patient. In practice, the value X comes from measurements and is, thus, only known with uncertainty: X =/= x. In many practical situations, we only know the upper bound D on the …

A Fitness Function To Find Feasible Sequences Of Method Calls For Evolutionary Testing Of Object-Oriented Programs, Myoung Yee Kim, Yoonsik Cheon

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

In evolutionary testing of an object-oriented program, the search objective is to find a sequence of method calls that can successfully produce a test object of an interesting state. This is challenging because not all call sequences are feasible; each call of a sequence has to meet the assumption of the called method. The effectiveness of an evolutionary testing thus depends in part on the quality of the so-called fitness function that determines the degree of the fitness of a candidate solution. In this paper, we propose a new fitness function based on assertions such as method preconditions to find …

How To Estimate, Take Into Account, And Improve Travel Time Reliability In Transportation Networks, Ruey L. Cheu, Vladik Kreinovich, Francois Modave, Gang Xiang, Tao Li, Tanja Magoc

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

Many urban areas suffer from traffic congestion. Intuitively, it may seem that a road expansion (e.g., the opening of a new road) should always improve the traffic conditions. However, in reality, a new road can actually worsen traffic congestion. It is therefore extremely important that before we start a road expansion project, we first predict the effect of this project on traffic congestion.

Traditional approach to this prediction is based on the assumption that for any time of the day, we know the exact amount of traffic that needs to go from each origin city zone A to every …

Are There Rearrangement Hotspots In The Human Genome?, Max A. Alekseyev, Pavel A. Pevzner

Faculty Publications

In a landmark paper, Nadeau and Taylor [18] formulated the random breakage model (RBM) of chromosome evolution that postulates that there are no rearrangement hotspots in the human genome. In the next two decades, numerous studies with progressively increasing levels of resolution made RBM the de facto theory of chromosome evolution. Despite the fact that RBM had prophetic prediction power, it was recently refuted by Pevzner and Tesler [4], who introduced the fragile breakage model (FBM), postulating that the human genome is a mosaic of solid regions (with low propensity for rearrangements) and fragile regions (rearrangement hotspots). However, the rebuttal …

Detecting And Segmenting Un-Occluded Items By Actively Casting Shadows, Tze K Koh, Amit Agrawal, Ramesh Raskar, Steve Morgan, Nicholas Miles, Barrie Hayes-Gill

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

We present a simple and practical approach for segmenting un-occluded items in a scene by actively casting shadows. By ‘items’, we refer to objects (or part of objects) enclosed by depth edges. Our approach utilizes the fact that under varying illumination, un-occluded items will cast shadows on occluded items or background, but will not be shadowed themselves.We employ an active illumination approach by taking multiple images under different illumination directions, with illumination source close to the camera. Our approach ignores the texture edges in the scene and uses only the shadow and silhouette information to determine the occlusions. We show …

Optical Reading And Playing Of Sound Signals From Vinyl Records, Arnold Hensman, Kevin Casey

Conference Papers

While advanced digital music systems such as compact disk players and MP3 have become the standard in sound reproduction technology, critics claim that conversion to digital often results in a loss of sound quality and richness. For this reason, vinyl records remain the medium of choice for many audiophiles involved in specialist areas. The waveform cut into a vinyl record is an exact replica of the analogue version from the original source. However, while some perceive this media as reproducing a more authentic quality then its digital counterpart, there is an absence a safe playback system. Contact with the stylus …

Usability Inspection Methods After 15 Years Of Research And Practice, David G. Novick, Tasha Hollingsed

Departmental Papers (CS)

Usability inspection methods, such as heuristic evaluation, the cognitive walkthrough, formal usability inspections, and the pluralistic usability walkthrough, were introduced fifteen years ago. Since then, these methods, analyses of their comparative effectiveness, and their use have evolved in different ways. In this paper, we track the fortunes of the methods and analyses, looking at which led to use and to further research, and which led to relative methodological dead ends. Heuristic evaluation and the cognitive walkthrough appear to be the most actively used and researched techniques. The pluralistic walkthrough remains a recognized technique, although not the subject of significant further …

Toward A More Accurate View Of When And How People Seek Help With Computer Applications, David G. Novick, Edith Elizalde, Nathaniel Bean

Departmental Papers (CS)

Based on 40 interviews and 11 on-site workplace observations of people using computer applications at work, we confirm that use of printed and on-line help is very low and find that providing greater detail of categories solution methods can present a more realistic picture of users’ behaviors. Observed study participants encountered a usability problem on average about once every 75 minutes and typically spent about a minute looking for a solution. Participants consumed much more time when they were unaware of a direct way of doing something and instead used less effective methods. Comparison of results from different data-collection methods …

Use Of Ellipsometry And Surface Plasmon Resonance In Monitoring Thin Film Deposition Or Removal From A Substrate Surface, John A. Woollam, Blaine D. Johs, Thomas E. Tiwald, Martin M. Liphardt, James D. Welch

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering: Faculty Publications

Improved methodology for monitoring deposition or removal of material to or from a process and/or Wittness substrate Which demonstrates a negative e1 at some Wave length. The method involves detection of changes in P-polarized electromagnetism ellipsometric DELTA at SPR Resonance Angle-of-lncidence (A01) to monitor deposition of and/or removal of minute amounts of materials onto, or from, said process and/or Witness substrate. The methodology can optionally monitor ellipsometric PS1, and involves simultaneously or sequentially applying non-P-polarized electromagnetism at the same angle of incidence, or electromagnetic radiation of any polarization at a different angle-of-incidence and Wavelength to the process or Witt ness …

A Two-Phase Approach To Interactivity Enhancement For Large-Scale Distributed Virtual Environments, Nguyen Binh Duong Ta, Suiping Zhou

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Distributed virtual environments (DVEs) are distributed systems that allow multiple geographically distributed clients (users) to interact simultaneously in a computer-generated, shared virtual world. Applications of DVEs can be seen in many areas nowadays, such as online games, military simulations, collaborative designs, etc. To support large-scale DVEs with real-time interactions among thousands or even more distributed clients, a geographically distributed server architecture (GDSA) is generally needed, and the virtual world can be partitioned into many distinct zones to distribute the load among the servers. Due to the geographic distributions of clients and servers in such architectures, it is essential to efficiently …

Flying Mobile On-Board Ellipsometer, Polarimeter, Reflectometer And The Like Systems, Blaine D. Johs,, Ping He, Martin M. Liphardt, Christopher A. Goeden, John A. Woollam, James D. Welch

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering: Faculty Publications

A substantially self-contained “on-boar ” material system investigation system functionally mounted on a three dimen sional locational system to enable positioning at desired locations on, and distances from, the surface of a large sample, including the capability to easily and conveniently change the angle-of-incidence of a beam of electromagnetic radiation onto a sample surface.

Learning Navigation For Recharging A Self-Sufficient Colony Robot, Gary Parker, Richard Zbeda

Computer Science Faculty Publications

It is advantageous for colony robots to be autonomous and self-sufficient. This requires them to perform their duties while maintaining enough energy to operate. Previously, we reported the equipping of power storage for legged robots with high capacitance capacitors, the configuration of one of these robots to effectively use its power storage in a colony recharging system, and the learning of a control program that enabled the robot to navigate to a charging station in simulation. In this work, we report the learning of a control program that allowed the simulated robot to perform area coverage in a self-sufficient framework …

Aggregation In Biological Systems: Computational Aspects, Vladik Kreinovich, Max Shpak

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

Many biologically relevant dynamical systems are aggregable, in the sense that one can divide their (micro) variables x1,...,xn into several (k) non-intersecting groups and find functions y1,...,yk (k < n) from these groups (macrovariables) whose dynamics only depend on the initial state of the macrovariable. For example, the state of a population genetic system can be described by listing the frequencies xi of different genotypes, so that the corresponding dynamical system describe the effects of mutation, recombination, and natural selection. The goal of aggregation approaches in population genetics is to find macrovariables y1,...,yk to which aggregated mutation, recombination, and selection functions could be applied. Population genetic models are formally equivalent to genetic algorithms, and are therefore of wide interest in the computational sciences.

Another example of a multi-variable biological system of interest arises in ecology. Ecosystems contain many interacting species, and because of the complexity of multi-variable nonlinear systems, it would be of value to derive a formal description that reduces the number of variables to some macrostates that are weighted sums of the densities of individual species.

In this chapter, we explore different computational aspects of aggregability for linear and non-linear systems. Specifically, we …

Fast Algorithms For Computing Statistics Under Interval Uncertainty: An Overview, Vladik Kreinovich, Gang Xiang

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

In many areas of science and engineering, it is desirable to estimate statistical characteristics (mean, variance, covariance, etc.) under interval uncertainty. For example, we may want to use the measured values x(t) of a pollution level in a lake at different moments of time to estimate the average pollution level; however, we do not know the exact values x(t) -- e.g., if one of the measurement results is 0, this simply means that the actual (unknown) value of x(t) can be anywhere between 0 and the detection limit DL. We must therefore modify the existing statistical algorithms to process such …

Web Site Personalization Based On Link Analysis And Navigational Patterns, Magdalini Eirinaki, M. Varzirgiannis

Faculty Publications

The continuous growth in the size and use of the World Wide Web imposes new methods of design and development of on-line information services. The need for predicting the users’ needs in order to improve the usability and user retention of a web site is more than evident and can be addressed by personalizing it. Recommendation algorithms aim at proposing “next” pages to users based on their current visit and the past users’ navigational patterns. In the vast majority of related algorithms, however, only the usage data are used to produce recommendations, disregarding the structural properties of the web graph. …

Estimating Quality Of Support Vector Machines Learning Under Probabilistic And Interval Uncertainty: Algorithms And Computational Complexity, Canh Hao Nguyen, Tu Bao Ho, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

Support Vector Machines (SVM) is one of the most widely used technique in machines leaning. After the SVM algorithms process the data and produce some classification, it is desirable to learn how well this classification fits the data. There exist several measures of fit, among them the most widely used is kernel target alignment. These measures, however, assume that the data are known exactly. In reality, whether the data points come from measurements or from expert estimates, they are only known with uncertainty. As a result, even if we know that the classification perfectly fits the nominal data, this same …

Trade-Off Between Sample Size And Accuracy: Case Of Static Measurements Under Interval Uncertainty, Hung T. Nguyen, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

In many practical situations, we are not satisfied with the accuracy of the existing measurements. There are two possible ways to improve the measurement accuracy:

first, instead of a single measurement, we can make repeated measurements; the additional information coming from these additional measurements can improve the accuracy of the result of this series of measurements;

second, we can replace the current measuring instrument with a more accurate one; correspondingly, we can use a more accurate (and more expensive) measurement procedure provided by a measuring lab -- e.g., a procedure that includes the use of a higher quality reagent.

In …

Trade-Off Between Sample Size And Accuracy: Case Of Dynamic Measurements Under Interval Uncertainty, Hung T. Nguyen, Olga Kosheleva, Vladik Kreinovich, Scott Ferson

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

In many practical situations, we are not satisfied with the accuracy of the existing measurements. There are two possible ways to improve the measurement accuracy:

first, instead of a single measurement, we can make repeated measurements; the additional information coming from these additional measurements can improve the accuracy of the result of this series of measurements;

second, we can replace the current measuring instrument with a more accurate one; correspondingly, we can use a more accurate (and more expensive) measurement procedure provided by a measuring lab -- e.g., a procedure that includes the use of a higher quality reagent.

In …

How To Avoid Gerrymandering: A New Algorithmic Solution, Gregory B. Lush, Esteban Gamez, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

Subdividing an area into voting districts is often a very controversial issue. If we divide purely geographically, then minority groups may not be properly represented. If we start changing the borders of the districts to accommodate different population groups, we may end up with very artificial borders -- borders which are often to set up in such a way as to give an unfair advantage to incumbents. In this paper, we describe redistricting as a precise optimization problem, and we propose a new algorithm for solving this problem.

The Effects Of Contention Among Stations On Video Streaming Applications Over Wireless Local Area Networks: An Experimental Approach, Nicola Cranley, Tanmoy Debnath

Conference papers

Multimedia streaming applications have a large impact on the resource requirements of the WLAN. There are many variables involved in video streaming, such as the video content being streamed, how the video is encoded and how it is sent. This makes the role of radio resource management and the provision of QoS guarantees extremely difficult. For video streaming applications, packet loss and packets dropped due to excessive delay are the primary factors that affect the received video quality. In this paper, we experimentally analyse the effects of contention on the performance of video streaming applications with a given delay constraint …

Ceg 220: Introduction To C Programming For Engineers I, Jay Dejongh

Computer Science & Engineering Syllabi

This course provides a general introduction to computers as a problem-solving tool using the C programming language. Emphasis is on algorithms and techniques useful to engineers. Topics include data representation, debugging, and program verification. 4 credit hours. Prerequisite: MTH 229 (Calculus I) or EGR 101 (Engineering Mathematics).

Cs 405/605: Introduction To Database Management Systems, Soon M. Chung

Computer Science & Engineering Syllabi

Survey of logical and physical aspects of database management systems. Entity Relationship, relational, object-oriented models for databases are presented. Physical implementation methods are discussed.

Cs 240: Computer Programming I, Dale E. Nelson

Computer Science & Engineering Syllabi

Basic concepts of programming and programming languages are introduced. Emphasis is on structured programming and stepwise refinement. Prerequisite: MTH 130 or MPL 5.

Cs 400/600: Computer Science, Eric Maston

Computer Science & Engineering Syllabi

This is the initial course in the understanding of data structures. This course focuses on data structures with abstract data types, such as trees, stacks, queues and graphs. The course will use projects, developed on UNIX, to create a deeper understanding of data structure and their use.

Cs 466/666: Introduction To Formal Languages, Guozhu Dong

Computer Science & Engineering Syllabi

CS 466/666 is an introduction to formal language and automata theory. In this course we will examine methods for defining syntax of languages and recognizing patterns: the syntax of languages can be defined using grammars and patterns accepted by finite state machines. Along with presenting the fundamentals of these two topics, the course will develop and investigate the relationships between language definition and pattern recognition. The text will be the third edition of Languages and Machines: An Introduction to the Theory of Computer Science, by Thomas Sudkamp.

Cs 208: Computer Programming For Business I, Dennis Kellermeier

Computer Science & Engineering Syllabi

CS 208 is the first of a two quarter sequence in programming for business students. It is required for Management Information Science majors. The courses are designed to help students achieve a high degree of facility in intermediate level programming. This course assumes students have never written a program before.

Cs 141: Computer Programming - I, Michael Ondrasek

Computer Science & Engineering Syllabi

This course provides a general introduction to the fundamentals of computer programming. Examples from and applications to a broad range of problems are given. No prior knowledge of programming is assumed. The concepts covered will be applied to the Java programming language. Students must register for both lecture and one laboratory section. 4 credit hours. Prerequisite: MTH 127 (College Algebra) or equivalent.

Cs 790: Information Theory, Machine Learning And Statistics, Shaojun Wang

Computer Science & Engineering Syllabi

Information theory deals with encoding data in order to transmit it correctly and effectively. Statistics and machine learning deal with estimating models of data and predicting future observations. ls there any relationship between the two? It turns out, perhaps not surprisingly, that the most compact encoding of the data is by the probabilistic model that describes it best. In other words, there is a fundamental link between information and probability.

This course starts with the basic notions of information theory and explores its relationship to machine learning and statistics. The course will have a strong theoretical component, but will also …

Cs 214: Visual Basic Programming, Michael Ondrasek

Computer Science & Engineering Syllabi

This course provides a general introduction to the fundamentals of object computer programming. Examples from and applications to a broad range of problems are given. No prior knowledge of programming is assumed. However, students should have a familiarity with programming concepts. The concepts covered will be applied in the Visual Basic programming language. 4 credit hours.

Cs 209: Computer Programming For Business Ii, Dennis Kellermeier

Computer Science & Engineering Syllabi

CS 209 is the second of a two quarter sequence in programming for business students. It is required for Management Information Science majors. The courses are designed to help students achieve a high degree of facility in intermediate level programming.