Computer Engineering Commons^™

Hidra: Hierarchical Inter-Domain Routing Architecture, Bryan Clevenger

Master's Theses

As the Internet continues to expand, the global default-free zone (DFZ) forwarding table has begun to grow faster than hardware can economically keep pace with. Various policies are in place to mitigate this growth rate, but current projections indicate policy alone is inadequate. As such, a number of technical solutions have been proposed. This work builds on many of these proposed solutions, and furthers the debate surrounding the resolution to this problem. It discusses several design decisions necessary to any proposed solution, and based on these tradeoffs it proposes a Hierarchical Inter-Domain Routing Architecture - HIDRA, a comprehensive architecture with …

Application Of Temporal Difference Learning To The Game Of Snake., Christopher Lockhart

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The game of Snake has been selected to provide a unique application of the TD( ) algorithm as proposed by Sutton. A reinforcement learning technique for producing computer controlled players is documented. Using value function approximation with multilayer artificial neural networks and the actor-critic architecture, computer players capable of playing the game of Snake can be created. The adaptation to the standard neural network backpropagation procedure will be documented. Not only does the proposed technique provide reasonable player performance, its application is unique; this approach to Snake has never been documented. By performing sets of trials, the performance of the …

Constraint Programming Techniques For Generating Efficient Hardware Architectures For Field Programmable Gate Arrays, Atul Kumar Shah

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This thesis presents an approach for modeling and generating efficient hardware architectures using constraint programming techniques, targeting field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). The focus of this thesis is the derivation of optimal or near-optimal schedules for streaming applications from data flow graphs (DFGs). The resulting schedules are then used to facilitate the architecture generation process. Most streaming applications, like digital singal processing (DSP) algorithms, are repetitive in nature: the same computation is performed on different data items. This repetitive nature of streaming applications can be used to expose additional parallelism available across different iterations, by creating multiple instances of the …

Improved Framework For Fast And Efficient Memory-Based Frame Data Reconfiguration For Multi-Row Spanning Designs On Field Programmable Gate Arrays, Rohan Sreeram

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Reconfigurable computing is an evolving paradigm in computer architecture where the ability to load different designs onto a field programmable gate array (FPGA) at execution time has proven useful in adapting FPGA prototypes to a wide range of applications. Reconfiguration techniques can be primarily categorized as Partial Dynamic Reconfiguration (PDR) and Partial Bitstream Relocation (PBR). PDR involves reconfiguring a single Partial Reconfiguration Region (PRR) with a partial bitstream, while PBR is targeted at reconfiguring multiple PRRs on the FPGA with a partial bitstream. Previous techniques have primarily focused on using either slower off-chip memory or on-chip memory-based solutions to store …

The Pursuit Of An Unequivocal Primary Representation, Delroy A. Brinkerhoff

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

A chief human characteristic is the desire and ability to change the world. Prior planning is crucial when those changes are complex and extensive, and require the cooperation of many people. To satisfy this need, many disciplines have developed specialized notations for representing the plans. Developers in one discipline, computer-based instruction, are burdened by the current need to use two separate notations. Instructional experts design the instruction and represent the design with a primary representation. The instruction described in a primary representation is easy to see, which makes the representation suitable for evaluation, communication, and enhancement. Programmers translate the primary …

Fpga Based Timing Module And Optical Communication Card Design For Spallation Neutron Source, Biswa Singh

All Theses

The Timing Module and Optical Communication Card (OCC) are used for acquisition of neutron event data by the instrument systems at the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) neutron scattering facility. The instrument systems produce a very large flux of neutrons of varying energies over a short time period through the spallation process. The Timing Module and OCC require high-bandwidth communication to ensure high-speed data movement to the memory in the data collection system without loss of neutron data. The existing implementations use a standard PCI-X bus interface to transfer the data between the cards and the host computer. The data processing …

Traffic Analysis Of Anonymity Systems, Ryan Craven

All Theses

This research applies statistical methods in pattern recognition to test the privacy capabilities of a very popular anonymity tool used on the Internet known as Tor.
Using a recently developed algorithm known as Causal State Splitting and Reconstruction (CSSR), we can create hidden Markov models of network processes proxied through Tor. In contrast to other techniques, our CSSR extensions create a minimum entropy model without any prior knowledge of the underlying state structure. The inter-packet time delays of the network process, preserved by Tor, can be symbolized into ranges and used to construct the models.
After the construction of training …

Acceleration Of Biomolecular Simulations Using Fpga-Based Reconfigurable Computing, Ananth Nallamuthu

All Theses

A paradigm shift is occurring in the way compute-intensive scientific applications are developed. Thanks to advancements in commercially viable hybrid architectures for High-Performance Computing (HPC), the focus has shifted from improving performance by merely scaling algorithms on von Neumann computing nodes to fully exploiting additional computational capabilities provided by accelerators such as FPGAs (Field Programmable Gate Arrays) and GPGPUs (General Purpose Graphical Processing Units).
Computational chemists use Molecular Dynamics (MD) simulations like LAMMPS (Large Scale Atomic Molecular Massively Parallel Systems) and NAMD (NAnoscale Molecular Dynamics) to simulate biomolecular behaviour such as protein folding and small molecule docking to proteins. MD …

Naked Object File System (Nofs): A Framework To Expose An Object-Oriented Domain Model As A File System, Joseph P. Kaylor, Konstantin Läufer, George K. Thiruvathukal

Computer Science: Faculty Publications and Other Works

We present Naked Objects File System (NOFS), a novel framework that allows a developer to expose a domain model as a file system by leveraging the Naked Objects design principle. NOFS allows a developer to construct a file system without having to understand or implement all details related to normal file systems development. In this paper we explore file systems frameworks and object-oriented frameworks in a historical context and present an example domain model using the framework. This paper is based on a fully-functional implementation that is distributed as free/open source software, including virtual machine images to demonstrate and study …

Open Innovation In Platform Competition, Mei Lin

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

We examine the competition between a proprietary platform and an open platform,where each platform holds a two-sided market consisted of app developers and users.The open platform cultivates an innovative environment by inviting public efforts todevelop the platform itself and permitting distribution of apps outside of its own appmarket; the proprietary platform restricts apps sales solely within its app market. Weuse a game theoretic model to capture this competitive phenomenon and analyze theimpact of growth of the open source community on the platform competition. We foundthat growth of the open community mitigates the platform rivalry, and balances the developernetwork sizes on …

Cooperative Remote Sensing And Actuation Using Networked Unmanned Vehicles, Haiyang Chao

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This dissertation focuses on how to design and employ networked unmanned vehicles for remote sensing and distributed control purposes in the current information-rich world. The target scenarios are environmental or agricultural applications such as river/reservoir surveillance, wind profiling measurement, and monitoring/control of chemical leaks, etc. AggieAir, a small and low-cost unmanned aircraft system, is designed based on the remote sensing requirements from environmental monitoring missions. The state estimation problem and the advanced lateral flight controller design problem are further attacked focusing on the small unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) platform. Then the UAV-based remote sensing problem is focused with further flight …

Accelerated Frame Data Relocation On Xilinx Field Programmable Gate Array, Ramachandra Kallam

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Emerging reconfiguration techniques that include partial dynamic reconfiguration and partial bitstream relocation have been addressed in the past in order to expose the flexibility of field programmable gate array at runtime. Partial bitstream relocation is a technique used to target a partial bitstream of a partial reconfigurable region (PRR) onto other identical reconfigurable regions inside an FPGA, while partial dynamic reconfiguration is used to target a single reconfigurable region. Prior works in this domain aim to minimize "relocation time" with the help of on-chip or on-line processing. In this thesis, a novel PRR-PRR relocation algorithm is proposed and implemented both …

Decentralized Coordination Of Multiple Autonomous Vehicles, Yongcan Cao

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This dissertation focuses on the study of decentralized coordination algorithms of multiple autonomous vehicles. Here, the term decentralized coordination is used to refer to the behavior that a group of vehicles reaches the desired group behavior via local interaction. Research is conducted towards designing and analyzing distributed coordination algorithms to achieve desired group behavior in the presence of none, one, and multiple group reference states.

Decentralized coordination in the absence of any group reference state is a very active research topic in the systems and controls society. We first focus on studying decentralized coordination problems for both single-integrator kinematics and …

Bio-Inspired Distributed Constrained Optimization Technique And Its Application In Dynamic Thermal Management, Saranya Chandrasekaran

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The stomatal network in plants is a well-characterized biological system that hypothetically solves the constrained optimization problem of maximizing CO₂ uptake from the air while constraining evaporative water loss during the process of photosynthesis. There are numerous such constrained optimization problems present in the real world as well as in computer science. This thesis work attempts to solve one such constrained optimization problem in a distributed manner by taking a cue from the dynamics of stomatal networks. The problem considered here is Dynamic Thermal Management (DTM) in a multi-processing element system in computing. There have been several approaches in …

A Finite Domain Constraint Approach For Placement And Routing Of Coarse-Grained Reconfigurable Architectures, Rohit Saraswat

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Scheduling, placement, and routing are important steps in Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI) design. Researchers have developed numerous techniques to solve placement and routing problems. As the complexity of Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs) increased over the past decades, so did the demand for improved place and route techniques. The primary objective of these place and route approaches has typically been wirelength minimization due to its impact on signal delay and design performance. With the advent of Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs), the same place and route techniques were applied to FPGA-based design. However, traditional place and route techniques may …

An Exploration Of Formal Methods And Tools Applied To A Small Satellite Software System, Russell J. Grover

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Formal system modeling has been a topic of interest in the research community for many years. Modeling a system helps engineers understand it better and enables them to check different aspects of it to ensure that there is no undesired or unexpected behavior and that it does what it was designed to do. This thesis takes two existing tools that were created to aid in the designing of spacecraft systems and creates a layer to connect them together and allow them to be used jointly. The first tool is a library of formal descriptions used to specify spacecraft behavior in …

Developing A Filter Kit System Database: Procedure And Analysis, He Shi

Morehead State Theses and Dissertations

A thesis presented to the faculty of the College of Science and Technology at Morehead State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree Master of Science by He Shi on April 30, 2010.

A Computer Vision Application To Accurately Estimate Object Distance, Kayton B. Parekh

Mathematics, Statistics, and Computer Science Honors Projects

Scientists have been working to create robots that perform manual work for years. However, creating machines that can navigate themselves and respond to their environment has proven to be difficult. One integral task to such research is to estimate the position of objects in the robot's visual field.

In this project we examine an implementation of computer vision depth perception. Our application uses color-based object tracking combined with model-based pose estimation to estimate the depth of specific objects in the view of our Pioneer 2 and Power Wheels robots. We use the Camshift algorithm for color-based object tracking, which uses …

Rapport: Semantic-Sensitive Namespace Management In Large-Scale File Systems, Yu Hua, Hong Jiang, Yifeng Zhu, Dan Feng

School of Computing: Technical Reports

Explosive growth in volume and complexity of data exacerbates the key challenge to effectively and efficiently manage data in a way that fundamentally improves the ease and efficacy of their use. Existing large-scale file systems rely on hierarchically structured namespace that leads to severe performance bottlenecks and renders it impossible to support real-time queries on multi-dimensional attributes. This paper proposes a novel semantic-sensitive scheme, called Rapport, to provide dynamic and adaptive namespace management and support complex queries. The basic idea is to build files’ namespace by utilizing their semantic correlation and exploiting dynamic evolution of attributes to support namespace management. …

Channel Characterization For Wireless Underground Sensor Networks, Agnelo Rocha Da Silva

School of Computing: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Wireless Underground Sensor Networks (WUSNs) are natural extensions of the established Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) phenomenon and consist of sensors buried underground which communicate through soil. WUSNs have the potential to impact a wide variety of applications including precision agriculture, environmental monitoring, border patrol, and infrastructure monitoring. The main difference between WUSNs and traditional wireless networks is the communication medium. However, a comprehensive wireless underground channel model for WUSNs has not been developed so far. In this thesis, the Soil Subsurface Wireless Communication (SSWC) channel model is developed based on an extensive empirical study in a large agriculture field. The …

Integrating Perception And Problem Solving To Predict Complex Object Behaviors, Damian M. Lyons, Sirhan Chaudhry, Marius Agica, John Vincent Monaco

Faculty Publications

One of the objectives of Cognitive Robotics is to construct robot systems that can be directed to achieve realworld goals by high-level directions rather than complex, low-level robot programming. Such a system must have the ability to represent, problem-solve and learn about its environment as well as communicate with other agents. In previous work, we have proposed ADAPT, a Cognitive Architecture that views perception as top-down and goaloriented and part of the problem solving process.

Our approach is linked to a SOAR-based problem-solving and learning framework. In this paper, we present an architecture for the perceptive and world modelling components …

Towards A Natural Proof Of Metrization Theorem For Space-Times, Vladik Kreinovich, Olga Kosheleva

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

In the early 1920s, Pavel Urysohn proved his famous lemma (sometimes referred to as "first non-trivial result of point set topology"). Among other applications, this lemma was instrumental in proving that under reasonable conditions, every topological space can be metrized.

A few years before that, in 1919, a complex mathematical theory was experimentally proven to be extremely useful in the description of real world phenomena: namely, during a solar eclipse, General Relativity theory -- that uses pseudo-Riemann spaces to describe space-time -- has been (spectacularly) experimentally confirmed. Motivated by this success, Urysohn started working on an extension of his lemma …

Selecting The Best Location For A Meteorological Tower: A Case Study Of Multi-Objective Constraint Optimization, Aline James, Craig Tweedie, Tanja Magoc, Vladik Kreinovich, Martine Ceberio

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

Using the problem of selecting the best location for a meteorological tower as an example, we show that in multi-objective optimization under constraints, the traditional weighted average approach is often inadequate. We also show that natural invariance requirements lead to a more adequate approach -- a generalization of Nash's bargaining solution.

How To Relate Spectral Risk Measures And Utilities, Songsak Sriboonchitta, Hung T. Nguyen, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

Traditional decision theory describes human behavior and human preferences in terms of utility functions. In the last decades, it was shown that in many economic situations, a reasonable description of the actual decisions can be found if we use a different approach -- of spectral risk measures. In each of these approaches, we first need to empirically find the corresponding function: utility function in the traditional approach and the weighting function for spectral risk measures. Since both approaches provide a reasonable description of the same actual behavior (in particular, of the same actual economic behavior), it is desirable to be …

Why Polynomial Formulas In Soft Computing, Decision Making, Etc.?, Olga Kosheleva, Martine Ceberio, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

We show that in many application areas including soft constraints reasonable requirements of scale-invariance lead to polynomial formulas for combining degrees (of certainty, of preference, etc.)

Contributors’ Preference In Open Source Software Usability: An Empirical Study, Arif Raza, Luiz Fernando Capretz

Electrical and Computer Engineering Publications

The fact that the number of users of open source software (OSS) is practically un-limited and that ultimately the software quality is determined by end user’s experience, makes the usability an even more critical quality attribute than it is for proprietary software. With the sharp increase in use of open source projects by both individuals and organizations, the level of usability and related issues must be addressed more seriously. The research model of this empirical investigation studies and establishes the relationship between the key usability factors from contributors’ perspective and OSS usability. A data set of 78 OSS contributors that …

Towards Improved Trapezoidal Approximation To Intersection (Fusion) Of Trapezoidal Fuzzy Numbers: Specific Procedure And General Non-Associativity Theorem, Gang Xiang, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

In some cases, our uncertainty about a quantity can be described by an interval of its possible values. If we have two or more pieces of interval information about the same quantity, then we can conclude that the actual value belongs to the intersection of these intervals.

In general, we may need a fuzzy number to represent our partial knowledge. A fuzzy number can be viewed as a collection of intervals (alpha-cuts) corresponding to different degrees alpha from [0,1]. In practice, we can only store finitely many alpha-cuts. Usually, we only store the lower and upper alpha-cuts (corresponding to alpha …

Access Control Contracts For Java Program Modules, Carlos E. Rubio-Medrano, Yoonsik Cheon

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

Application-level security has become an issue in recent years; for example, errors, discrepancies and omissions in the specification of access control constraints of security-sensitive software components are recognized as an important source for security vulnerabilities. We propose to formally specify access control assumptions or constraints of a program module and enforce them at run-time. We call such specifications access control contracts. To realize access control contracts, we extended the JML language, a formal interface specification language for Java, and developed a prototype support tool that translates access control contracts to runtime checks. The access control contract reduces the vulnerability that …

Pretty Lights, Nicholas (Nick) Delmas, Matthew (Matt) Maniaci

Computer Engineering

Digital media players often include a visualization component that allows a user to watch a visualization synchronized to their music or videos. This project uses the visualization plugin API of an existing media playback program (WinAmp) but it displays its visuals using physical LED lights. Instead of outputting visuals to the computer screen, data is sent over USB to a micro controller that runs the LED lights. This project aims to give users a more visceral visual experience than traditional visualizations on the computer screen.

Providing Location Security In Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks, Gongjun Yan

Computer Science Theses & Dissertations

Location is fundamental information in Vehicular Ad-hoc Networks (VANETs). Almost all VANET applications rely on location information. Therefore it is of importance to ensure location information integrity, meaning that location information is original (from the generator), correct (not bogus or fabricated) and unmodified (value not changed). We present validation mechanisms to provide location integrity for VANETs. In the initial mechanism, we assume that all vehicles are equipped with a radar, a GPS receiver, and a transceiver. Since radar has a limited radar range and transceiver has a limited transmission range, we build network cells as a security unit as well …