Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

The Use Of A Factory Simulation To Evaluate A Flexible Control Structure For Integrated Manufacturing, Ling Ling Pan

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Once a control structure for an integrated manufacturing system is decided upon, manufacturing activities are limited by that structure. A flexible control structure is presented as an approach for accommodating a variety of manufacturing activities, without being limited to a single control structure. A flexible control structure is one that allows multiple types of control structure in the manufacturing process. For example, both hierarchical and non-hierarchical structures may be used in a flexible structure. The properties of a flexible control structure are discussed from the point of view of graph theory.

Control structures for automated manufacturing are difficult to evaluate …

X.500 Directory Service Support For Electronic Mail, Mihai G. Sirbu

Masters Theses

"One of the difficult problems on the Internet is finding the electronic mail addresses of users. In practice, there are some indirect ways of finding these addresses such as the finger program in UNIX, but almost all of these methods require the user to know the exact host name of the destination. What is most desirable is an automated mechanism which provides the e-mail addresses of users if some minimal information about the destination site is known.

This thesis describes the design of such a directory service support system, based on the X.500 Series of CCITT Recommendation, for the elm …

End-To-End Analysis Of Hexagonal Vs Rectangular Sampling In Digital Imaging Systems, John Clifton Burton Ii

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

The purpose of this study was to compare two common methods for image sampling in digital image processing: hexagonal sampling and rectangular sampling. The two methods differ primarily in the arrangement of the sample points on the image focal plane. In order to quantitatively compare the two sampling methods, a mathematical model of an idealized digital imaging system was used to develop a set of mean-squared-error fidelity loss metrics. The noiseless continuous/discrete/continuous end-to-end digital imaging system model consisted of four independent components: an input scene, an image formation point spread function, a sampling function, and a reconstruction function. The metrics …

The Dynamics Of Growth-Factor-Modified Immune-Response To Cancer Growth: One-Dimensional Models, J. A. Adam

Mathematics & Statistics Faculty Publications

By characterizing the effect of tumor growth factors as deviations from normal logistic-type growth rates, the spatio-temporal dynamics for a one-dimensional model of cancer growth incorporating immune response are studied. The growth rates considered are classified respectively as normal, activated, inhibited and delay activated. The homogeneous steady states are defined by relative extrema of a ''free energy'' function V(x) for each of the above four cases. This function is of particular importance in studying the coexistence of tumoral and cancer-free steady states, and in identifying the nature (progressive or regressive) of travelling wave solutions to the nonlinear partial differential equation …

The Extent Of Multimedia Computer Applications In The Business World, Mei Yee Lim

Honors Theses

The world, or at least I, was all agog when touch screens arrived. My initial contact with touch screens was at a science exhibition in Menara MPPJ, Petaling Jaya, Malaysia in July 1987. That particular exhibit, which encouraged visitors to participate and to experiment with, was a graphic program. Visitors could use their fingers to select the drawing tool or the color they want (which is something like the tools on a MacDraw screen on a Macintosh) and use their fingers to move around the screen to draw anything they want. That added to my fascination with the world of …

Monitoring Shared Memory: A Toolset Prototype For The Informix Online Administrator, Eric Gronholz

Honors Theses, 1963-2015

The "Monitor" Program was developed to assist system administrators for the INFORMIX OnLine Database Server with their evaluation of shared memory components used on their system. Using the Open Software Foundation (OSF)/Motif Widget set for Xt Intrinsics on the X Window System, this program creates scaled dials and pop-up windows to display system information at regular intervals. The program is surprisingly simple to operate and is general enough that with just a few modifications, it can be used to monitor any system information, not just shared memory information for OnLine. This program marks a new way to look at systems …

Development Of A Classification System For Computer Viruses In The Ibm Pc Environment Using The Dos Operating System, Hugh R. Browne

Theses : Honours

The threat to computers worldwide from computer viruses is increasing as new viruses and variants proliferate. Availability of virus construction tools to facilitate 'customised' virus production and wider use of more sophisticated means of evading detection, such as encryption, polymorphic transformation and memory resident 'stealth' techniques increase this problem. Some viruses employ methods to guard against their own eradication from an infected computer, whilst other viruses adopt measures to prevent disassembly of the virus for examination and analysis. Growth in computer numbers and connectivity provide a growing pool of candidate hosts for infection. Standardised and flexible systems for classification and …

Flush Communication Channels: Effective Implementation And Verification, Tracy Kay Camp

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

Flush communication channels, or F-channels, generalize more conventional asynchronous communication paradigms. A distributed system which uses an F-channel allows a programmer to define the delivery order of each message in relation to other messages transmitted on the channel. Unreliable datagrams and FIFO (first-in-first-out) communication channels have strictly defined delivery semantics. No restrictions are allowed on message delivery order with unreliable datagrams--message delivery is completely unordered. FIFO channels, on the other hand, insist messages are delivered in the order of their transmission. Flush channels can provide either of these delivery order semantics; in addition, F-channels allow the user to define the …

Repository Evaluation Of Software Reuse: An Empirical Study, R. D. Banker, Robert J. Kauffman, D. Zweig

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The use and benefits of repository evaluation of software reuse are illustrated through an analysis of the evolving repositories of two large firms that recently implemented integrated CASE development tools. The analysis shows that these tools have supported high levels of software reuse, but it also suggests that there remains considerable unexploited reuse potential. The findings indicate that organizational changes will be required before the full potential of the new technology can be realized.

Search For Τ-→Γμ-: A Test Of Lepton Number Conservation, A. Bean, M. Thulasidas

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

A search for the lepton mumber violating decay of the τ lepton to the γμ final state has been performed with the CLEO II detector at the Cornell e+e− storage ring CESR. In a data sample that corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 1.55 fb−1, we observe no candidates in the signal region. We thus determine an upper limit of B(τ−→γμ−)

Functional Representation And Reasoning About The F/A-18 Aircraft Fuel System, M. Pegah, J. Sticklen, William E. Bond

Computer Science Faculty Research & Creative Works

Functional reasoning, a subfield of model-based reasoning, is discussed. This approach uses abstractions of a device's purpose to index behaviors that achieve that purpose. Functional modeling, a variation on this method, also uses simulation as a core reasoning strategy. The complex causal knowledge of a device along functional lines is decomposed, then a causal story of how the device will operate in a particular situation given stated boundary conditions is composed. The application of the functional approach to modeling the fuel system of a F/A-18 aircraft is described. The representation of the F/A-18 fuel system includes 89 component devices, 92 …

Detection Of Skin Tumor Boundaries In Color Images, Fikret Erçal, M. Moganti, William V. Stoecker, Randy Hays Moss

Computer Science Faculty Research & Creative Works

A simple and yet effective method for finding the borders of tumors is presented as an initial step towards the diagnosis of skin tumors from their color images. The method makes use of an adaptive color metric from the red, green, and blue planes that contains information for discriminating the tumor from the background. Using this suitable coordinate transformation, the image is segmented. The tumor portion is then extracted from the segmented image and borders are drawn. Experimental results that verify the effectiveness of this approach are given

A-Hohfeld: A Language For Robust Structural Representation Of Knowledge In The Legal Domain To Build Interpretation-Assistance Expert Systems, Layman E. Allen, Charles S. Saxon

Book Chapters

The A-Hohfeld language is presented as a set of definitions; it can be used to precisely express legal norms. The usefulness of the AHohfeld language is illustrated in articulating 2560 alternative structural interpretations of the four-sentence 1982 Library Regulations of Imperial College and constructing an interpretation-assistance legal expert system for these regulations by means of the general-purpose Interpretation-Assistance legal expert system builder called MINT. The logical basis for A-Hohfeld is included as an appendix.

Tau Decays With One Charged Particle Plus Multiple Π0'S, M. Procario, Manoj Thulasidas

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

With the CLEO-II detector at the Cornell Electron Storage Ring, we have measured branching fractions for tau lepton decay into one-prong final states with multiple π0’s B0hnπ, normalized to the branching fraction for tau decay into one charged particle and a single π0. We find B0h2π/B0hπ=0.345±0.006±0.016, B0h3π/B0hπ=0.041 ±0.003±0.005, and B0h4π/B0hπ=0.006±0.002±0.002.

Integrated Computer Controlled Sensor Monitor, Tariq Hafeez Malik

Theses : Honours

This research has developed an Integrated Computer Controlled Sensor Monitor (ICCSM) environment, to monitor and analyse alarm events associated with sensors, including an interface between a PC and a number of detectors. Such an environment will help the security industry analyse the factors causing false alarms at particular locations. The ICCSM environment monitors, and records, alarm data. Knowing exactly which sensor has been activated, and its location, is of paramount importance to the effective deployment of response forces and making the identification of causes of spurious alarms easier. The lCCSM environment is a combination of software and general purpose hardware, …

The Effect Of Subliminal Learning: Using A Direct Manipulation Computer Interface, Tammy P. Campbell

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Research to determine what subliminal presentation accomplishes and its effects upon the learning process is very limited. The possibility of presenting subliminal information in a passive manner to reinforce the learning process and the possibility that this presentation can aid in the absorption of the information needed to learn is examined. A previous study examined this possibility using a text editor as the test instrument. In this thesis, a direct manipulation interface using a spreadsheet which visually presents tasks is examined to determine if this environment might be more effective with a learning medium using subliminal perception, then was the …

Measurement Of Charmless Semileptonic Decays Of B Mesons, Bartelt; J.; Et Al., M. Thulasidas

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

No abstract provided.

Observation Of The Charmed Baryon C+ And Measurement Of The Isospin Mass Splittings Of The C, Crawford, G.; Et Al., M. Thulasidas

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

No abstract provided.

An Investigation Of Methodologies For Software Development Prototyping, Susan M. Jones

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

The computer industry has a poor record of system development using the traditional life-cycle approach. The main cause of user dissatisfaction is the unacceptably large amount of time between specification and delivery of a system. In addition, users have limited opportunity to influence how the system will look when implemented once development has commenced. With the advent of 4GLs, system development using a prototyping approach has become a viable option. This has reduced the development tlme significantly and, together with the use of prototyping, has allowed users to become more involved in the development process. However, this change in the …

When Will A Genetic Algorithm Outperform Hill-Climbing?, Melanie Mitchell, John H. Holland

Computer Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

In this paper we review some previously published experimental results in which a simple hillclimbing algorithm-Random Mutation Hill-Climbing (RMHC)-significantly outperforms a genetic algorithm on a simple "Royal Road" function. vVe present an analysis of RMHC followed by an analysis of an "idealized" genetic algorithm (IGA) that is in turn significantly faster than RMHC. We isolate the features of the IGA that allow for this speedup, and discuss how these features can be incorporated into a real GA and a fitness landscape, making the GA better approximate the IGA. We use these features to design a modified version of the previously …

A Study Of Dynamic Optimization Techniques: Lessons And Directions In Kernel Design, Calton Pu, Jonathan Walpole

Computer Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

The Synthesis kernel [21,22,23,27,28] showed that dynamic code generation, software feedback, and fine-grain modular kernel organization are useful implementation techniques for improving the performance of operating system kernels. In addition, and perhaps more importantly, we discovered that there are strong interactions between the techniques. Hence, a careful and systematic combination of the techniques can be very powerful even though each one by itself may have serious limitations. By identifying these interactions we illustrate the problems of applying each technique in isolation to existing kernels. We also highlight the important common under-pinnings of the Synthesis experience and present our ideas on …

Revisiting The Edge Of Chaos: Evolving Cellular Automata To Perform Computations, Melanie Mitchell, Peter T. Hraber, James P. Crutchfield

Computer Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

No abstract provided.

Intelligent, Integrated, Interactive Design, David Brown, R. Sisson, D. Zenger, J. Bausch, J. O'Shaughnessy

David C. Brown

No abstract provided.

Robust Reinforcement Learning In Motion Planning, Satinder P. Singh, Andrew G. Barto, Roderic Grupen, Christopher Connolly

Roderic Grupen

While exploring to find better solutions, an agent performing on-line reinforcement learning (RL) can perform worse than is acceptable. In some cases, exploration might have unsafe, or even catastrophic, results, often modeled in terms of reaching 'failure' states of the agent's environment. This paper presents a method that uses domain knowledge to reduce the number of failures during exploration. This method formulates the set of actions from which the RL agent composes a control policy to ensure that exploration is conducted in a policy space that excludes most of the unacceptable policies. The resulting action set has a more abstract …

Purification And Characterization Of Porin From Corn (Zea Mays L.) Mitochondria, Philadelphia University

Philadelphia University, Jordan

No abstract provided.