Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Probabilistic Road Map Sampling Strategies For Multi-Robot Motion Planning, Christopher M. Clark

Computer Science and Software Engineering

This paper presents a Probabilistic Road Map (PRM) motion planning algorithm to be queried within Dynamic Robot Networks—a multi-robot coordination platform for robots operating with limited sensing and inter-robot communication. First, the Dynamic Robot Networks (DRN) coordination platform is introduced that facilitates centralized robot coordination across ad hoc networks, allowing safe navigation in dynamic, unknown environments. As robots move about their environment, they dynamically form communication networks. Within these networks, robots can share local sensing information and coordinate the actions of all robots in the network. Second, a fast single-query Probabilistic Road Map (PRM) to be called within the DRN …

An Evaluation Of Decision Tree And Survival Analysis Techniques For Business Failure Prediction, Adrian Gepp

Adrian Gepp

Accurate business failure prediction models would be extremely valuable to many industry sectors, particularly in financial investment and lending. The potential value of such models has been recently emphasised by the extremely costly failure of high profile businesses in both Australia and overseas, such as HIH (Australia) and Enron (USA). Consequently, there has been a significant increase in interest in business failure prediction, from both industry and academia. Statistical models attempt to predict the failure or success of a business based on publicly available information about that business (or its industry and the overall economy), such as accounting ratios from …

Foreign Migration To The Cleveland-Akron-Lorain Metropolitan Area From 1995 To 2000, Mark Salling, Ellen Cyran

All Maxine Goodman Levin School of Urban Affairs Publications

This report is one of a series on migration to and from the region using the five percent Public Use Microdata Sample (PUMS) of the 2000 Census of Population and Housing and provides a description of foreign migrants moving to the Cleveland-Akron-Lorain (CAL) Consolidated Metropolitan Area (CMSA) from 1995 to 2000.* The report identifies the countries of origin of migrants and compares the demographic, socioeconomic, and housing characteristics of the foreign migrants to the CAL with other groups, including foreign migrants to Ohio and the nation, and, at times, to domestic migrants to and from the CAL.

Learning Successful Strategies In Repeated General-Sum Games, Jacob W. Crandall

Theses and Dissertations

Many environments in which an agent can use reinforcement learning techniques to learn profitable strategies are affected by other learning agents. These situations can be modeled as general-sum games. When playing repeated general-sum games with other learning agents, the goal of a self-interested learning agent is to maximize its own payoffs over time. Traditional reinforcement learning algorithms learn myopic strategies in these games. As a result, they learn strategies that produce undesirable results in many games. In this dissertation, we develop and analyze algorithms that learn non-myopic strategies when playing many important infinitely repeated general-sum games. We show that, in …

Monitoring Pc Hardware Sounds In Linux Systems Using The Daubechies D4 Wavelet., Robert Karns Henry

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Users of high availability (HA) computing require systems that run continuously, with little or no downtime. Modern PCs address HA needs by monitoring operating system parameters such as voltage, temperature, and hard drive status in order to anticipate possible system failure. However, one modality for PC monitoring that has been underutilized is sound. The application described here uses wavelet theory to analyze sounds produced by PC hard drives during standard operation. When twenty-nine hard drives were tested with the application and the results compared with the drives' Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology (S.M.A.R.T.) data, the binomial distribution's low p-value of …

Using Prospect Theory To Investigate Decision-Making Bias Within An Information Security Context, Neil J. Schroeder

Theses and Dissertations

Information security is an issue that has increased in importance over the past decade. In this time both practitioner and academic circles have researched and developed practices and process to more effectively handle information security. Even with growth in these areas there has been little research conducted into how decision makers actually behave. This is problematic because decision makers in the Department of Defense have been observed exhibiting risk seeking behavior when making information security decisions that seemingly violate accepted norms. There are presently no models in the literature that provide sufficient insight into this phenomenon. This study used Prospect …

Conference Web Site Redesign, Steven M. Pisarski

Regis University Student Publications (comprehensive collection)

Sustainable Resources was a non-profit organization based out of Boulder, CO that, at the time of this project hosted yearly conferences to help find solutions to world poverty. Although, the previous web site had a professional appearance, it was not meeting their needs with regards to usability, extensibility, and maintainability, as they had been forced to rely heavily on a transient volunteer IT labor base. The aim of this project was to address their functional and maintenance problems. The application's front-end was built in adherence to the Model -view-Controller (MVC) design pattern and implemented using the Jakarta Struts framework and …

Trust Broker: A Defense Against Identity Theft From Online Transactions, Michael George Edvalson

Theses and Dissertations

The proliferation of online services over the years has encouraged more and more people to participate in Internet activities. Many web sites request personal and sensitive information needed to deliver the desired service. Unfortunately, it is difficult to distinguish the sites that can be trusted to protect such information from those that cannot. Many attempts to make the Internet easier to use introduce new security and privacy problems. On the other hand, most attempts at creating a safe online environment produce systems that are cryptic and hard to use. The TrustBroker system is based on a specialized online repository that …

New Graph Model For Channel Assignment In Ad Hoc Wireless Networks, Maggie Xiaoyan Cheng, S. C. Huang, X. Huang, Weili Wu

Computer Science Faculty Research & Creative Works

The channel assignment problem in ad hoc wireless networks is investigated. The problem is to assign channels to hosts in such a way that interference among hosts is eliminated and the total number of channels is minimised. Interference is caused by direct collisions from hosts that can hear each other or indirect collisions from hosts that cannot hear each other, but simultaneously transmit to the same destination. A new class of disk graphs (FDD: interFerence Double Disk graphs) is proposed that include both kinds of interference edges. Channel assignment in wireless networks is a vertex colouring problem in FDD graphs. …

Industrial Technology Education Teachers Perceptions Of National Standards For Technological Literacy In The State Of Arizona, Allan R. Mcrae

Theses and Dissertations

Today, it is becoming increasingly clear that there is a growing interest, concern, and need for technological literacy. To this end, the International Technology Education Association (ITEA) through the Technology for All Americans Project, has developed and promulgated the Standards for Technological Literacy: Content for the Study of Technology. This effort is part of the ongoing initiative to develop technology standards on a national level, and to focus on what every student in grades K-12 should know and be able to do in order to achieve technological literacy (ITEA, 2000). The purpose of this study was to investigate the perceived …

The Cherry Creek Sneak A Database Solution, Analissa Hilt

Regis University Student Publications (comprehensive collection)

The purpose of the database was to provide a repository of information about the race, the racers, the sponsors and other miscellaneous information that may in the future prove to provide a better understanding of the customers of The Sneak. This project was completed with the long-term goals that the information contained in the database will be utilized to reduce registration time, recruit prior year participants to participate in future events and provide a tool to intimately understand the customers of the race.

High Performance Parallel Approximate Eigensolver For Real Symmetric Matrices, Yihua Bai

Doctoral Dissertations

In the first-principles calculation of electronic structures, one of the most timeconsuming tasks is that of computing the eigensystem of a large symmetric nonlinear eigenvalue problem. The standard approach is to use an iterative scheme involving the solution to a large symmetric linear eigenvalue problem in each iteration. In the early and intermediate iterations, significant gains in efficiency may result from solving the eigensystem to reduced accuracy. As the iteration nears convergence, the eigensystem can be computed to the required accuracy.
Traditional real symmetric eigensolvers compute the eigensystem in three steps: 1) reduce a dense matrix to a symmetric tridiagonal …

A Framework For Management Of Semistructured Probabilistic Data, Wenzhong Zhao, Alex Dekhtyar, Judy Goldsmith

Computer Science and Software Engineering

This paper describes the theoretical framework and implementation of a database management system for storing and manipulating diverse probability distributions of discrete random variables with finite domains, and associated information. A formal Semistructured Probabilistic Object (SPO) data model and a Semistructured Probabilistic Query Algebra (SP-algebra) are proposed. The SP-algebra supports standard database queries as well as some specific to probabilities, such as conditionalization and marginalization. Thus, the Semistructured Probabilistic Database may be used as a backend to any application that involves the management of large quantities of probabilistic information, such as building stochastic models. The implementation uses XML encoding of …

A Methodology For Efficiently Sampling The Conformation Space Of Molecular Structures, Audrey Lee, Ileana Streinu, Oliver Brock

Computer Science: Faculty Publications

Motivated by recently developed computational techniques for studying protein flexibility, and their potential applications in docking, we propose an efficient method for sampling the conformational space of complex molecular structures. We focus on the loop closure problem, identified in the work of Thorpe and Lei (2004 Phil. Mag. 84 1323-31) as a primary bottleneck in the fast simulation of molecular motions. By modeling a molecular structure as a branching robot, we use an intuitive method in which the robot holds onto itself for maintaining loop constraints. New conformations are generated by applying random external forces, while internal, attractive forces pull …

Openws-Transaction: Enabling Reliable Web Service Transactions, Ivan Vasquez, John A. Miller, Kunal Verma, Amit P. Sheth

Kno.e.sis Publications

OpenWS-Transaction is an open source middleware that enables Web services to participate in a distributed transaction as prescribed by the WS-Coordination and WS-Transaction set of specifications. Central to the framework are the Coordinator and Participant entities, which can be integrated into existing services by introducing minimal changes to application code. OpenWS-Transaction allows transaction members to recover their original state in case of operational failure by leveraging techniques in logical logging and recovery at the application level. Depending on transaction style, system recovery may involve restoring key application variables and replaying uncommitted database activity. Transactions are assumed to be defined in …

Improved Peak Detection And Quantification Of Mass Spectrometry Data Acquired From Surface-Enhanced Laser Desorption And Ionization By Denoising Spectra With The Undecimated Discrete Wavelet Transform, Kevin R. Coombes, Spiros Tsavachidis, Jeffrey S. Morris, Keith A. Baggerly, Henry M. Kuerer

Jeffrey S. Morris

Background: Mass spectrometry, especially surface enhanced laser desorption and ionization (SELDI) is increasingly being used to find disease-related proteomic patterns in complex mixtures of proteins derived from tissue samples or from easily obtained biological fluids such as serum, urine, or nipple aspirate fluid. Questions have been raised about the reproducibility and reliability of peak quantifications using this technology. For example, Yasui and colleagues opted to replace continuous measures of the size of a peak by a simple binary indicator of its presence or absence in their analysis of a set of spectra from prostate cancer patients.

Methods: We collected nipple …

From Tapes To Bits: The Changing Landscape Of Broadcasting, Veronika M. Megler, Luis Estrada

Veronika M. Megler

For more than a decade, IBM has been a leader in digital media technology, helping broadcast companies worldwide transition from analog to digital environments with a full slate of end-to-end solutions and services. This white paper discusses the evolution of the digital production environment in broadcasting, why the central storage-based model is outperforming other business models as the option of choice, and how to design and implement a scalable digital media infrastructure using IBM technology that simplifies digital video sharing and management. The IT-based infrastructure for broadcast production is particularly valuable as broadcasters transition to high-definition video production, where their …

Triangle Grouping And Structure Recovery For 3d Building Modelling And Visualization, Joe Hegarty, James Carswell

Conference papers

Location based and spatial technologies research for the web has endless application for mobile/position content delivery (m-commerce or pcommerce). By exploiting the inherent location-based intelligence of the underling spatial component, relevant examples can include geometrically accurate and photo realistic virtual representations for: property assessments; land/marine information systems; routing information; on-line shopping; cultural heritage/tourist information/sites; etc. A major challenge for this technology is its reliance on professional developers when creating the virtual worlds used for web-based navigation of these services. This paper describes SAMATS, a Semi-Automated Modeling And Texturing System, which has the capability of producing geometrically accurate and photorealistic VR …

Investigation Of Egocentric And Exocentric Distance Perception In Virtual Environments: Application To Enhance Transfer Of Training In Multi-Model Ves, Cali Fidopiastis

Link Foundation Modeling, Simulation and Training Fellowship Reports

In this report we summarize the results for three experiments completed during the Link Fellowship period. The aim of the first and second experiments were to test the efficacy of a novel assessment procedure for determining visual acuity and quantifying depth errors of observers wearing an optical see-t1u·ough prototype head-mounted display. If successful, the assessments could provide an optimization procedure capable of discerning limitations attributed to separate components of the VE system or to the system as a whole. The second experiment explored the feasibility of utilizing mixed reality (a mix of real and virtual items) environments for the study …

Loss Aware Rate Allocations In H.263 Coded Video Transmissions, Xiao Su, Benjamin Wah

Faculty Publications

For packet video, information loss and bandwidth limitation are two factors that affect video playback quality. Traditional rate allocation approaches have focused on optimizing video quality under bandwidth constraint alone. However, in the best-effort Internet, packets carrying video data are susceptible to losses, which need to be reconstructed at the receiver side. In this paper, we propose loss aware rate allocations in both group-of-block (GOB) level and macroblock level, given that certain packets are lost during transmissions and reconstructed using simple interpolation methods at the receiver side. Experimental results show that our proposed algorithms can produce videos of higher quality …

Enterprise Systems Manager, Edward Aractingi

IT Research

Presentation on the need of remote systems administration.

A Combined Routing Method For Ad Hoc Wireless Networks, Zhenhui Jiang

Dartmouth College Master’s Theses

To make ad hoc wireless networks adaptive to different mobility and traffic patterns, we studied in this thesis an approach to swap from one protocol to another protocol dynamically, while routing continues. By the insertion of a new layer, we were able to make each node in the ad hoc wireless network notify each other about the protocol swap. To ensure that routing works efficiently after the protocol swap, we initialized the destination routing protocol's data structures and reused the previous routing information to build the new routing table. We also tested our approach under different network topologies and traffic …

A Steerable, Untethered, 250x60 Micron Mems Mobile Micro-Robot, Bruce R. Donald, Christopher G. Levey, Craig D. Mcgray, Igor Paprotny, Daniela Rus

Computer Science Technical Reports

We present a steerable, electrostatic, untethered, MEMS micro-robot, with dimensions of 60 µm by 250 µm by 10 µm. This micro-robot is 1 to 2 orders of magnitude smaller in size than previous micro-robotic systems. The device consists of a curved, cantilevered steering arm, mounted on an untethered scratch drive actuator. These two components are fabricated monolithically from the same sheet of conductive polysilicon, and receive a common power and control signal through a capacitive coupling with an underlying electrical grid. All locations on the grid receive the same power and control signal, so that the devices can be operated …

How Hard Is It To Cheat In The Gale-Shapley Stable Matching Algorithm, Chien-Chung Huang

Computer Science Technical Reports

We study strategy issues surrounding the stable marriage problem. Under the Gale-Shapley algorithm (with men proposing), a classical theorem says that it is impossible for every liar to get a better partner. We try to challenge this theorem. First, observing a loophole in the statement of the theorem, we devise a coalition strategy in which a non-empty subset of the liars gets a better partner and no man is worse off than before. This strategy is restricted in that not everyone has the incentive to cheat. We attack the classical theorem further by means of randomization. However, this theorem shows …

Crawdad: A Community Resource For Archiving Wireless Data At Dartmouth, David Kotz, Tristan Henderson

Dartmouth Scholarship

Wireless network researchers are seriously starved for data about how real users, applications, and devices use real networks under real network conditions. CRAWDAD (Community Resource for Archiving Wireless Data at Dartmouth) is a new National Science Foundation-funded project to build a wireless-network data archive for the research community. It will host wireless data and provide tools and documents to make collecting and using the data easy. This resource should help researchers identify and evaluate real and interesting problems in mobile and pervasive computing. To learn more about CRAWDAD and discuss its direction, about 30 interested people gathered at a workshop …

Scaling Byzantine Fault-Tolerant Replication To Wide Area Networks, Yair Amir, Claudiu Danilov, Danny Dolev, Jonathan Kirsch, John Lane, Josh Olsen, David Zage

Department of Computer Science Technical Reports

No abstract provided.

The Sbc-Tree: An Index For Run-Length Compressed Sequences, Mohamed Y. Eltabakh, Wing-Kai Hon, Rahul Shah, Walid G. Aref, Jeffrey S. Vitter

Department of Computer Science Technical Reports

No abstract provided.

A Generic Object-Oriented Tabu Search Framework, Hoong Chuin Lau, Xiaomin Jia, Wee Chong Wan

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Presently, most tabu search designers devise their applications without considering the potential of design and code reuse, which consequently prolong the development of subsequent applications. In this paper, we propose a software solution known as Tabu Search Framework (TSF), which is a generic C++ software framework for tabu search implementation. The framework excels in code recycling through the use of a well- designed set of generic abstract classes that clearly define their collaborative roles in the algorithm. Additionally, the framework incorporates a centralized process and control mechanism that enhances the search with intelligence. This results in a generic framework that …

New Efficient Mds Array Codes For Raid Part Ii: Rabin-Like Codes For Tolerating Multiple (>=4) Disk Failures, Gui-Liang Feng, Robert H. Deng, Feng Bao

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

A new class of Binary Maximum Distance Separable (MDS) array codes which are based on circular permutation matrices are introduced in this paper. These array codes are used for tolerating multiple (greater than or equal to 4) disk failures in Redundant Arrays of Inexpensive Disks (RAID) architecture. The size of the information part is m \times n, where n is the number of information disks and (m+1) is a prime integer; the size of the parity-check part is m \times r, the minimum distance is r+1, and the number of parity-check disks is r. In practical applications, m can be …

Matrix: Adaptive Middleware For Distributed Multiplayer Games, Rajesh Krishna Balan, Maria Ebling, Paul Castro, Archan Misra

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Building a distributed middleware infrastructure that provides the low latency required for massively multiplayer games while still maintaining consistency is non-trivial. Previous attempts have used static partitioning or client-based peer-to-peer techniques that do not scale well to a large number of players, perform poorly under dynamic workloads or hotspots, and impose significant programming burdens on game developers. We show that it is possible to build a scalable distributed system, called Matrix, that is easily usable by game developers. We show experimentally that Matrix provides good performance, especially when hotspots occur.