Computer Engineering Commons^™

Forecasting Natural Gas Demand For Electric Power Generation, Ronald H. Brown, George Corliss, Richard J. Povinelli

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Performance Evaluation Of Linq To Hpc And Hadoop For Big Data, Ravishankar Sivasubramaniam

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

There is currently considerable enthusiasm around the MapReduce paradigm, and the distributed computing paradigm for analysis of large volumes of data. The Apache Hadoop is the most popular open source implementation of MapReduce model and LINQ to HPC is Microsoft's alternative to open source Hadoop. In this thesis, the performance of LINQ to HPC and Hadoop are compared using different benchmarks.

To this end, we identified four benchmarks (Grep, Word Count, Read and Write) that we have run on LINQ to HPC as well as on Hadoop. For each benchmark, we measured each system’s performance metrics (Execution Time, Average CPU …

Directed Test Suite Augmentation, Zhihong Xu

School of Computing: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Test suite augmentation techniques are used in regression testing to identify code elements affected by changes and to generate test cases to cover those elements. Whereas methods and techniques to find affected elements have been extensively researched in regression testing, the problem of generating new test cases to cover these elements cost-effectively has rarely been studied. We believe that reusing existing test cases will help us achieve this task. This research develops test suite augmentation techniques that reuse existing test cases to automatically generate new test cases to cost-effectively cover affected elements. We begin by using two dynamic test case …

Performance Evaluation Of Data Intensive Computing In The Cloud, Bhagavathi Kaza

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Big data is a topic of active research in the cloud community. With increasing demand for data storage in the cloud, study of data-intensive applications is becoming a primary focus. Data-intensive applications involve high CPU usage for processing large volumes of data on the scale of terabytes or petabytes. While some research exists for the performance effect of data intensive applications in the cloud, none of the research compares the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) and Google Compute Engine (GCE) clouds using multiple benchmarks. This study performs extensive research on the Amazon EC2 and GCE clouds using the TeraSort, …

Querie: Collaborative Database Exploration, Magdalini Eirinaki, S. Abraham, N. Polyzotis, N. Shaikh

Faculty Publications

Interactive database exploration is a key task in information mining. However, users who lack SQL expertise or familiarity with the database schema face great difficulties in performing this task. To aid these users, we developed the QueRIE system for personalized query recommendations. QueRIE continuously monitors the user’s querying behavior and finds matching patterns in the system’s query log, in an attempt to identify previous users with similar information needs. Subsequently, QueRIE uses these “similar” users and their queries to recommend queries that the current user may find interesting. In this work we describe an instantiation of the QueRIE framework, where …

Accuracy, Cost And Performance Trade-Offs For Streaming Set-Wise Floating Point Accumulation On Fpgas, Krishna Kumar Nagar

Theses and Dissertations

The set-wise summation operation is perhaps one of the most fundamental and widely used operations in scientific applications. In these applications, maintaining the accuracy of the summation is also important as floating point operations have inherent errors associated with them. Designing floating-point accumulators presents a unique set of challenges: double-precision addition is usually deeply pipelined and without special micro-architectural or data scheduling techniques, the data hazard that exists. There have been several efforts to design floating point accumulators and accurate summation architecture using different algorithms on FPGAs but these problems have been dealt with separately. In this dissertation, we present …

Book Review: Placing The Suspect Behind The Keyboard: Using Digital Forensics And Investigative Techniques To Identify Cybercrime Suspects, Thomas Nash

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

In this must read for any aspiring novice cybercrime investigator as well as the seasoned professional computer guru alike, Brett Shaver takes the reader into the ever changing and dynamic world of Cybercrime investigation. Shaver, an experienced criminal investigator, lays out the details and intricacies of a computer related crime investigation in a clear and concise manner in his new easy to read publication, Placing the Suspect behind the Keyboard. Using Digital Forensics and Investigative techniques to Identify Cybercrime Suspects. Shaver takes the reader from start to finish through each step of the investigative process in well organized …

Automating Vendor Fraud Detection In Enterprise Systems, Kishore Singh, Peter Best, Joseph Mula

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Fraud is a multi-billion dollar industry that continues to grow annually. Many organizations are poorly prepared to prevent and detect fraud. Fraud detection strategies are intended to quickly and efficiently identify fraudulent activities that circumvent preventative measures. In this paper, we adopt a DesignScience methodological framework to develop a model for detection of vendor fraud based on analysis of patterns or signatures identified in enterprise system audit trails. The concept is demonstrated by developing prototype software. Verification of the prototype is achieved by performing a series of experiments. Validation is achieved by independent reviews from auditing practitioners. Key findings of …

Book Review: Professional Penetration Testing: Creating And Learning In A Hacking Lab 2e, Joshua Bartolomie

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Organizations often strive for proactive information security programs in an effort to limit occurrence and impact of security breaches. However, traditional security programs run the risk of being unable to provide adequate insight and proactive awareness into real attack vectors that may exist within their organizations. With attack methods and efforts becoming increasingly aggressive, and effective, organizations must take equally assertive measures to protect their critical information and assets. Penetration testing is one of those tools that is often misunderstood, overlooked, and undervalued. A true adversary would not hesitate to exploit every potential to gain entry or cause a disruption …

Technology Corner: Calculating The Number Of Android Lock Patterns: An Unfinished Study In Number Theory, Gary C. Kessler

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Although one is unlikely to ever want to brute-force an Android lock pattern, many do wonder about the relative strength of the lock pattern versus a multidigit personal identification number (PIN). It becomes obvious pretty quickly that there are many more lock patterns than the 10,000 possible four-digit PINs.

Science Column: Reconstruction: The Experimental Side Of Digital Forensics, Fred Cohen

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Many in digital forensics seem to forget that the science part of digital forensics means experimentation and that implies a whole lot of things that most practitioners never learned.

Book Review: Iphone And Ios Forensic: Investigation, Analysis And Mobile Security For Apple Iphone, Ipad And Ios Devices, Simson Garfinkel

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

In April 2011 news outlets around the world revealed shocking news about Apple’s iPhone: for reasons that were not apparently clear, every iPhone contained a small SQLite database that logged where and when the user had been whenever the phone was turned on, and those records went back for pretty much as long as the user had owned their phone. Apple eventually declared that the data cache was the result of a bug and issued a software update to prune the database (it had previously grown without limit). Privacy activists rejoiced that their beloved iPhones were once again trustworthy. But …

Table Of Contents

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

No abstract provided.

Classification Models In Clinical Decision Making, Eleazar Gil-Herrera

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation, we present a collection of manuscripts describing the development of prognostic models designed to assist clinical decision making. This work is motivated by limitations of commonly used techniques to produce accessible prognostic models with easily interpretable and clinically credible results. Such limitations hinder prognostic model widespread utilization in medical practice.

Our methodology is based on Rough Set Theory (RST) as a mathematical tool for clinical data anal- ysis. We focus on developing rule-based prognostic models for end-of life care decision making in an effort to improve the hospice referral process. The development of the prognostic models is …

Prevention And Detection Of Intrusions In Wireless Sensor Networks, Ismail Butun

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) continue to grow as one of the most exciting and challenging research areas of engineering. They are characterized by severely constrained computational and energy

resources and also restricted by the ad-hoc network operational

environment. They pose unique challenges, due to limited power

supplies, low transmission bandwidth, small memory sizes and limited energy. Therefore, security techniques used in traditional networks cannot be directly adopted. So, new ideas and approaches are needed, in order to increase the overall security of the network. Security applications in such resource constrained WSNs with minimum overhead provides significant challenges, and is the …

Dynamics And Control Of Higher-Order Nonholonomic Systems, Jaime Rubio HerváS

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

A theoretical framework is established for the control of higher-order nonholonomic systems, defined as systems that satisfy higher-order nonintegrable constraints. A model for such systems is developed in terms of differential-algebraic equations defined on a higher-order tangent bundle. A number of control-theoretic properties such as nonintegrability, controllability, and stabilizability are presented. Higher-order nonholonomic systems are shown to be strongly accessible and, under certain conditions, small time locally controllable at any equilibrium. There are important examples of higher-order nonholonomic systems that are asymptotically stabilizable via smooth feedback, including space vehicles with multiple slosh modes and Prismatic-Prismatic-Revolute (PPR) robots moving open liquid …

Nonlinear Control For Dual Quaternion Systems, William D. Price

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

The motion of rigid bodies includes three degrees of freedom (DOF) for rotation, generally referred to as roll, pitch and yaw, and 3 DOF for translation, generally described as motion along the x, y and z axis, for a total of 6 DOF. Many complex mechanical systems exhibit this type of motion, with constraints, such as complex humanoid robotic systems, multiple ground vehicles, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), multiple spacecraft vehicles, and even quantum mechanical systems. These motions historically have been analyzed independently, with separate control algorithms being developed for rotation and translation. The goal of this research is to study …

Time Resolved Gain And Excess Noise Properties Of Ingaas/Inalas Avalanche Photodiodes With Cascaded Discrete Gain Layer Multiplication Regions, Georges M. Williams, David A. Ramirez, Majeed M. Hayat, Andrew S. Huntington

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research and Publications

To predict pulse detection performance when implemented in high speed photoreceivers, temporally resolved measurements of a 10-stage InAlAs/InGaAs single carrier multiplication (SCM) avalanche photodiode (APD)'s avalanche response to short multi-photon laser pulses were explained using instantaneous (time resolved) pulse height statistics of the device's impulse response. Numeric models of the junction carrier populations as a function of the time following injection of a primary photo-electron were used to create the probability density functions (pdfs) of the instances of the avalanche buildup process. The numeric pdfs were used to generate low frequency gain and excess noise models, which were in good …

Design Of A Highly Portable Data Logging Embedded System For Naturalistic Motorcycle Study, Noureddine Elmehraz

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

According to Motorcycle Industrial Council (MIC), in USA the number of owned

motorcycle increased during last few years and most likely will keep increasing. However, the

number of the deadly crash accidents associated with motorcycles is on the rise. Although MIC

doesn't explain why the accident rate has increased, the unprotected motorcyclist gear can be one

of the reasons. The most recent National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)

annual report stated that its data analyses are based on their experiences and the best judgment is

not based on solid scientific experiment [3]. Thus, building a framework for the data acquisition …

Human Intention Recognition Based Assisted Telerobotic Grasping Of Objects In An Unstructured Environment, Karan Hariharan Khokar

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation work, a methodology is proposed to enable a robot to identify an object to be grasped and its intended grasp configuration while a human is teleoperating a robot towards the desired object. Based on the detected object and grasp configuration, the human is assisted in the teleoperation task. The environment is unstructured and consists of a number of objects, each with various possible grasp configurations. The identification of the object and the grasp configuration is carried out in real time, by recognizing the intention of the human motion. Simultaneously, the human user is assisted to preshape over …

Indirect Measures Of Learning Transfer Between Real And Virtual Environments, Michael J. Garrett, Mark T. Mcmahon

Research outputs 2013

This paper reports on research undertaken to determine the effectiveness of a 3D simulation environment used to train mining personnel in emergency evacuation procedures, designated the Fires in Underground Mines Evacuation Simulator (FUMES). Owing to the operational constraints of the mining facility, methods for measuring learning transfer were employed which did not require real world performance evaluation. Transfer measures that examined simulator performance relative to real world experience, fidelity assessment, and appraisal of the training value of the platform were utilised. Triangulation of results across all three measures indicated the presence of learning transfer, suggesting the viability of indirect measures …

Automated Color Calibration Of Display Devices, Andrew Shulman

All Computer Science and Engineering Research

If you compare two identical images on two different monitors, they will likely appear different. Every display device is supposed to adhere to a particular set of standards regulating the color and intensity of the image it outputs. However, in practice, very few do. Color calibration is the practice of modifying the signal path such that the colors produced more closely match reference standards. This is essential for graphics professionals who are mastering original content. They must ensure that the source material appears correct when viewed on a reference monitor. When viewed on a consumer panel, however, some error will …

A Method For Identifying Personalized Representations In Web Archives, Mat Kelly, Justin F. Brunelle, Michele C. Weigle, Michael L. Nelson

Computer Science Faculty Publications

Web resources are becoming increasingly personalized — two different users clicking on the same link at the same time can see content customized for each individual user. These changes result in multiple representations of a resource that cannot be canonicalized in Web archives. We identify characteristics of this problem by presenting a potential solution to generalize personalized representations in archives. We also present our proof-of-concept prototype that analyzes WARC (Web ARChive) format files, inserts metadata establishing relationships, and provides archive users the ability to navigate on the additional dimension of environment variables in a modified Wayback Machine.

Investigation On The Mobile Robot Navigation In An Unknown Environment, Ahmed S. Khusheef

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Mobile robots could be used to search, find, and relocate objects in many types of manufacturing operations and environments. In this scenario, the target objects might reside with equal probability at any location in the environment and, therefore, the robot must navigate and search the whole area autonomously, and be equipped with specific sensors to detect objects. Novel challenges exist in developing a control system, which helps a mobile robot achieve such tasks, including constructing enhanced systems for navigation, and vision-based object recognition. The latter is important for undertaking the exploration task that requires an optimal object recognition technique.

In …

Online State Of Charge And Electrical Impedance Estimation For Multicell Lithium-Ion Batteries, Taesic Kim, Wei Qiao, Liyan Qu

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering: Faculty Publications

This paper proposes a hybrid battery model-based high-fidelity state of charge (SOC) and electrical impedance estimation method for multicell lithium-ion batteries. The hybrid battery model consists of an enhanced Coulomb counting algorithm for SOC estimation and an electrical circuit battery model. A particle swarm optimization (PSO)-based online parameter identification algorithm is designed to estimate the electrical parameters of the cells sequentially. An SOC compensator is designed to correct the errors of the enhanced Coulomb counting SOC estimations for the cells sequentially. This leads to an accurate, robust online SOC estimation for individual cells of a battery pack. The proposed method …

An Ultra-Low Power Communication Protocol For A Self-Powered Wireless Sensor Based Animal Monitoring System, Tao Ma

Department of Computer Electronics and Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

To prevent and control the outbreak of contagious animal disease, many countries have developed animal identification and tracking systems. However, the current animal identification and tracking system, which is based on passive RFID technology, has many limitations such as the short communication range and incapability of automatically monitoring the animal. To overcome these limitations, our Advanced Telecommunications Engineering Laboratory (TEL) in Department of Computer and Electronics Engineering (CEEN), University of Nebraska-Lincoln took the mission of developing a more advanced monitoring system for animal identification and tracking. This dissertation work as a part of this mission was focusing on developing an …

A Smartphone Design Approach To User Communication Interface For Administering Storage System Network, Weider Yu, Xiao Su, Jason Hansen

Faculty Publications

This paper investigates the feasibility and potential of using a mobile smartphone as a user administration control for storage system network. It includes the design and implementation of a mobile smartphone software system that can be used to perform system administration activities on the storage system without the need of using a laptop or desktop system. In the paper the design of some effective metaphors to present the storage system on the limited display area of a mobile smartphone device and the set of system features chosen for implementation are presented. Current storage system administration is limited to using storage …

Spatiotemporal Capacity Management For The Last Level Caches Of Chip Multiprocessors, Dongyuan Zhan

School of Computing: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Judicious management of on-chip last-level caches (LLC) is critical to alleviating the memory wall of chip multiprocessors (CMP). Although there already exist many LLC management proposals, belonging to either the spatial or temporal dimension, they fail to capture and utilize the inherent interplays between the two dimensions in capacity management. Therefore, this dissertation is targeted at exploring and exploiting the spatiotemporal interactions in LLC capacity management to improve CMPs' performance. Based on this general idea, we address four specific research problems in the dissertation.

For the private LLC organization, prior-art proposals can improve the efficacy of inter-core cooperative caching at …

Predicting Stock Market Using Online Communities Raw Web Traffic Streams, Pierpaolo Dondio

Articles

This paper investigates the predictive power of online communities traffic in regard to stock prices. Using the largest dataset to date, spanning 8 years and almost the complete set of SP500 stocks, we analyze the predictive power of raw unstructured traffic by filtering stock daily returns with traffic features. Our results partially challenge the assumption that raw traffic simply trails stock prices, as expected from a noisy signal without the sentiment direction. Raw traffic is shown to predict prices with statistical significance but with small economic impact. Anyway, this impact rises to moderate under the following conditions: 3 to 7 …

Pc-Based Automated Control System For Jordan Northern Grain Silo, Salem Al-Agtash

Computer Science and Engineering

This paper presents a PC-based automated control system operation of the Northern Grain Silo of Jordan. The system connects to a PLC (programmable logic controller) device, and combines operator interface, PLC programming and monitoring functions into one platform. The PLC portion handles direct operations control, while the PC portion handles interfacing and data intensive functions. A simulation package is developed. The package generates a graphical user interface for real-time graphic animations of the Grain Silo operation. We discuss anticipated benefits of such a system and phases of implementation.