Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

An Empirical Study Of Semantic Similarity In Wordnet And Word2vec, Abram Handler

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This thesis performs an empirical analysis of Word2Vec by comparing its output to WordNet, a well-known, human-curated lexical database. It finds that Word2Vec tends to uncover more of certain types of semantic relations than others -- with Word2Vec returning more hypernyms, synonomyns and hyponyms than hyponyms or holonyms. It also shows the probability that neighbors separated by a given cosine distance in Word2Vec are semantically related in WordNet. This result both adds to our understanding of the still-unknown Word2Vec and helps to benchmark new semantic tools built from word vectors.

Human Action Classification Based On Sequential Bag-Of-Words Model, Hong Liu, Qiaoduo Zhang, Qianru Sun

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Recently, approaches utilizing spatial-temporal features have achieved great success in human action classification. However, they typically rely on bag-of-words (BoWs) model, and ignore the spatial and temporal structure information of visual words, bringing ambiguities among similar actions. In this paper, we present a novel approach called sequential BoWs for efficient human action classification. It captures temporal sequential structure by segmenting the entire action into sub-actions. Each sub-action has a tiny movement within a narrow range of action. Then the sequential BoWs are created, in which each sub-action is assigned with a certain weight and salience to highlight the distinguishing sections. …

Online Learning On Incremental Distance Metric For Person Re-Identification, Yuke Sun, Hong Liu, Qianru Sun

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Person re-identification is to match persons appearing across non-overlapping cameras. The matching is challenging due to visual ambiguities and disparities of human bodies. Most previous distance metrics are learned by off-line and supervised approaches. However, they are not practical in real-world applications in which online data comes in without any label. In this paper, a novel online learning approach on incremental distance metric, OL-IDM, is proposed. The approach firstly modifies Self-Organizing Incremental Neural Network (SOINN) using Mahalanobis distance metric to cluster incoming data into neural nodes. Such metric maximizes the likelihood of a true image pair matches with a smaller …

Fresh Bytes - Connected Hydroponics For Small-Scale Growing, Jack Bowen

Liberal Arts and Engineering Studies

Many users are now transitioning to small-scale hydroponics and aquaponics at home. There can be a barrier to entry with these systems as there is a delicate balance of chemicals, pH, etc. that must be maintained. There are sensors for these various components but they are either aimed at commercial production or are un-automated. Fresh Bytes is a microcomputer with sensors to detect all of these unseen components in a hydroponic system. A prototype of this microcomputer is produced along with CAD plans for more professional versions of it. The sensors are verified and future development is contemplated.

Security Issues In Data Warehouse, Saiqa Aleem, Luiz Fernando Capretz, Faheem Ahmed Dr.

Electrical and Computer Engineering Publications

Data Warehouse (DWH) provides storage for huge amounts of historical data from heterogeneous operational sources in the form of multidimensional views, thus supplying sensitive and useful information which help decision-makers to improve the organization’s business processes. A data warehouse environment must ensure that data collected and stored in one big repository are not vulnerable. A review of security approaches specifically for data warehouse environment and issues concerning each type of security approach have been provided in this paper.

Simulation, And Overload And Stability Analysis Of Continuous Time Sigma Delta Modulator, Kyung Kang

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The ever increasing demand for faster and more powerful digital applications requires high speed, high resolution ADCs. Currently, sigma delta modulators ADCs are extensively used in broadband telecommunication systems because they are an effective solution for high data-rate wireless communication systems that require low power consumption, high speed, high resolution, and large signal bandwidths.

Because mixed-signal integrated circuits such as Continuous Time sigma delta modulators contain both analog and digital circuits, mixed signal circuits are not as simple to model and simulate as all discrete or all analog systems. In this dissertation, the delta transform is used to simulate CT …

Split-Step Approach To Electromagnetic Propagation Through Atmospheric Turbulence Using The Modified Von Karman Spectrum And Planar Apertures, Monish Ranjan Chatterjee, Fathi H.A. Mohamed

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

The impact of atmospheric phase turbulence on Gaussian beam propagation along propagation paths of varying lengths is examined using multiple random phase screens. The work is motivated by research involving generation and encryption of acousto-optic chaos, and the interest in examining propagation of such chaotic waves through atmospheric turbulence. A phase screen technique is used to simulate perturbations to the refractive index of the medium through the propagation path. A power spectral density based on the modified von Karman spectrum model for turbulence is used to describe the random phase behavior of the medium.

In recent work, results for the …

Improved Performance Of Analog And Digital Acousto-Optic Modulation With Feedback Under Profiled Beam Propagation For Secure Communication Using Chaos, Fares S. Almehmadi, Monish Ranjan Chatterjee

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

Using intensity feedback, the closed-loop behavior of an acousto-optic hybrid device under profiled beam propagation has been recently shown to exhibit wider chaotic bands potentially leading to an increase in both the dynamic range and sensitivity to key parameters that characterize the encryption. In this work, a detailed examination is carried out vis-à-vis the robustness of the encryption/decryption process relative to parameter mismatch for both analog and pulse code modulation signals, and bit error rate (BER) curves are used to examine the impact of additive white noise.

The simulations with profiled input beams are shown to produce a stronger encryption …

Is The Smartphone Smart In Kathmandu?, Seth Bird

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This is the extensive study of the smartphone in the developing country of Nepal, specifically the Kathmandu valley. Throughout my research I conducted various interviews with businesses, Tibetan refugees, and Nepali millennials (18yrs-33yrs) with the goal of identifying how the smartphone is used and understood. I chose the Kathmandu valley as my main area of research because the usage of smartphones in rural Nepal is extremely limited, and the valley represents the economic hub where progressive thinking flourishes. As a main objective I sought to understand how, if at all, the smartphone is used differently between Nepal and America. All …

Scientific Application Acceleration Utilizing Heterogeneous Architectures, Edwin Weill

All Theses

Within the past decade, there have been substantial leaps in computer architectures to exploit the parallelism that is inherently present in many applications. The scientific community has benefited from the emergence of not only multi-core processors, but also other, less traditional architectures including general purpose graphical processing units (GPGPUs), field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), and Intel's many integrated cores (MICs) architecture (i.e. Xeon Phi). The popularity of the GPGPU has increased rapidly because of their ability to perform massive amounts of parallel computation quickly and at low cost with an ease of programmability. Also, with the addition of high-level programming …

Data Transport System, Rahav Dor

All Computer Science and Engineering Research

To facilitate the WU Smart Home research [21] we built a system that collects data from sensors and uploads the data to the cloud. The system supports data collection from multiple locations (typically apartments) that are independent from each other, endowing the system with two benefit: distributed data collection and alleviating privacy concerns. Each location is managed by a local micro-server (μServer) that is responsible for receiving data packets from sensors and managing their transient storage. Periodically the μServer triggers a data transport process that moves the data to a cloud server where it is stored in a centralized database. …

Study Of Parallel Programming Models On Computer Clusters With Accelerators, Chenggang Lai

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In order to reach exascale computing capability, accelerators have become a crucial part in developing supercomputers. This work examines the potential of two latest acceleration technologies, Intel Many Integrated Core (MIC) Architecture and Graphics Processing Units (GPUs). This thesis applies three benchmarks under 3 different configurations, MPI+CPU, MPI+GPU, and MPI+MIC. The benchmarks include intensely communicating application, loosely communicating application, and embarrassingly parallel application. This thesis also carries out a detailed study on the scalability and performance of MIC processors under two programming models, i.e., offload model and native model, on the Beacon computer cluster.

According to different benchmarks, the results …

A Deep Search Architecture For Capturing Product Ontologies, Tejeshwar Sangameswaran

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis describes a method to populate very large product ontologies quickly. We discuss a deep search architecture to text-mine online e-commerce market places and build a taxonomy of products and their corresponding descriptions and parent categories. The goal is to automatically construct an open database of products, which are aggregated from different online retailers. The database contains extensive metadata on each object, which can be queried and analyzed. Such a public database currently does not exist; instead the information currently resides siloed within various organizations. In this thesis, we describe the tools, data structures and software architectures that allowed …

Design And Implementation Of An Instruction Set Architecture And An Instruction Execution Unit For The Rez9 Coprocessor System, Daniel Spencer Anderson

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

While the use of RNS has provided groundbreaking theory and progress in this field, the applications still lack viable testing platforms to test and verify the theory. This Thesis outlines the processing of developing an instruction set architecture (ISA) and an instruction execution unit (IEU) to help make the first residue based general processor a viable testing platform to address the mentioned problems.

Consider a 32-bit ripple adder. The delay on this device will be 32N where N is the delay for each adder to complete its operation. The delay of this process is due to the need to propagate …

Designing A Biomimetic Testing Platform For Actuators In A Series-Elastic Co-Contraction System, Ryan Tyler Schroeder

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Actuators determine the performance of robotic systems at the most intimate of levels. As a result, much work has been done to assess the performance of different actuator systems. However, biomimetics has not previously been utilized as a pretext for tuning a series elastic actuator system with the purpose of designing an empirical testing platform. Thus, an artificial muscle tendon system has been developed in order to assess the performance of two distinct actuator types: (1) direct current electromagnetic motors and (2) ultrasonic rotary piezoelectric motors. Because the design of the system takes advantage of biomimetic operating principles such as …

Exploring User-Provided Connectivity, Mohammad H. Afrasiabi, Roch Guerin

All Computer Science and Engineering Research

Network services often exhibit positive and negative externalities that affect users' adoption decisions. One such service is "user-provided connectivity" or UPC. The service offers an alternative to traditional infrastructure-based communication services by allowing users to share their "home base" connectivity with other users, thereby increasing their access to connectivity. More users mean more connectivity alternatives, i.e., a positive externality, but also greater odds of having to share one's own connectivity, i.e., a negative externality. The tug of war between positive and negative externalities together with the fact that they often depend not just on how many but also which users …

Techniques For Efficient Execution Of Large-Scale Scientific Workflows In Distributed Environments, Selim Kalayci

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Scientific exploration demands heavy usage of computational resources for large-scale and deep analysis in many different fields. The complexity or the sheer scale of the computational studies can sometimes be encapsulated in the form of a workflow that is made up of numerous dependent components. Due to its decomposable and parallelizable nature, different components of a scientific workflow may be mapped over a distributed resource infrastructure to reduce time to results. However, the resource infrastructure may be heterogeneous, dynamic, and under diverse administrative control. Workflow management tools are utilized to help manage and deal with various aspects in the lifecycle …

Low Cost Infrared And Near Infrared Sensors For Uavs, Samuel T. Aden, James P. Bialas, Zachary Champion, Eugene Levin, Jessica L. Mccarty

Michigan Tech Research Institute Publications

Thermal remote sensing has a wide range of applications, though the extent of its use is inhibited by cost. Robotic and computer components are now widely available to consumers on a scale that makes thermal data a readily accessible resource. In this project, thermal imagery collected via a lightweight remote sensing Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) was used to create a surface temperature map for the purpose of providing wildland firefighting crews with a cost-effective and time-saving resource. The UAV system proved to be flexible, allowing for customized sensor packages to be designed that could include visible or infrared cameras, GPS, …

A New Transfer Impedance Based System Equivalent Model For Voltage Stability Analysis, Yang Wang, Caisheng Wang, Feng Lin, Wenyuan Li, Le Yi Wang, Junhui Zhao

Electrical & Computer Engineering and Computer Science Faculty Publications

This paper presents a new transfer impedance based system equivalent model (TISEM) for voltage stability analysis. The TISEM can be used not only to identify the weakest nodes (buses) and system voltage stability, but also to calculate the amount of real and reactive power transferred from the generator nodes to the vulnerable node causing voltage instability. As a result, a full-scale view of voltage stability of the whole system can be presented in front of system operators. This useful information can help operators take proper actions to avoid voltage collapse. The feasibility and effectiveness of the TISEM are further validated …

Designing A Bayer Filter With Smooth Hue Transition Interpolation Using The Xilinx System Generator, Zhiqiang Li, Peter Revesz

CSE Conference and Workshop Papers

This paper describes the design of a Bayer filter with smooth hue transition using the System Generator for DSP. We describe and compare experimentally two different designs, one based on a MATLAB implementation and the other based on a modification of the Bayer filter using bilinear interpolation.

A Game-Theoretic Analysis Of The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Peter Revesz

CSE Conference and Workshop Papers

Although nuclear non-proliferation is an almost universal human desire, in practice, the negotiated treaties appear unable to prevent the steady growth of the number of states that have nuclear weapons. We propose a computational model for understanding the complex issues behind nuclear arms negotiations, the motivations of various states to enter a nuclear weapons program and the ways to diffuse crisis situations.

Estimating The Flight Path Of Moving Objects Based On Acceleration Data, Peter Revesz

CSE Conference and Workshop Papers

Inertial navigation is the problem of estimating the flight path of a moving object based on only acceleration measurements. This paper describes and compares two approaches for inertial navigation. Both approaches estimate the flight path of the moving object using cubic spline interpolation, but they find the coefficients of the cubic spline pieces by different methods. The first approach uses a tridiagonal matrix, while the second approach uses recurrence equations. They also require different boundary conditions. While both approaches work in O(n) time where n is the number of given acceleration measurements, the recurrence equation-based method can be easier updated …

Cubic Spline Interpolation By Solving A Recurrence Equation Instead Of A Tridiagonal Matrix, Peter Revesz

CSE Conference and Workshop Papers

The cubic spline interpolation method is proba- bly the most widely-used polynomial interpolation method for functions of one variable. However, the cubic spline method requires solving a tridiagonal matrix-vector equation with an O(n) computational time complexity where n is the number of data measurements. Even an O(n) time complexity may be too much in some time-ciritical applications, such as continuously estimating and updating the flight paths of moving objects. This paper shows that under certain boundary conditions the tridiagonal matrix solving step of the cubic spline method could be entirely eliminated and instead the coefficients of the unknown cubic polynomials …

Cama: Efficient Modeling Of The Capture Effect For Low Power Wireless Networks, Behnam Dezfouli, Marjan Radi, Kamin Whitehouse, Shukor Abd Razak, Hwee-Pink Tan

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Network simulation is an essential tool for the design and evaluation of wireless network protocols, and realistic channel modeling is essential for meaningful analysis. Recently, several network protocols have demonstrated substantial network performance improvements by exploiting the capture effect, but existing models of the capture effect are still not adequate for protocol simulation and analysis. Physical-level models that calculate the signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) for every incoming bit are too slow to be used for large-scale or long-term networking experiments, and link-level models such as those currently used by the NS2 simulator do not accurately predict protocol performance. In this article, …

Organizing Video Search Results To Adapted Semantic Hierarchies For Topic-Based Browsing, Jiajun Wang, Yu-Gang Jiang, Qiang Wang, Kuiyuan Yang, Chong-Wah Ngo

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Organizing video search results into semantically structured hierarchies can greatly improve the efficiency of browsing complex query topics. Traditional hierarchical clustering techniques are inadequate since they lack the ability to generate semantically interpretable structures. In this paper, we introduce an approach to organize video search results to an adapted semantic hierarchy. As many hot search topics such as celebrities and famous cities have Wikipedia pages where hierarchical topic structures are available, we start from the Wikipedia hierarchies and adjust the structures according to the characteristics of the returned videos from a search engine. Ordinary clustering based on textual information of …

Vireo @ Trecvid 2014: Instance Search And Semantic Indexing, Wei Zhang, Hao Zhang, Ting Yao, Yijie Lu, Jingjing Chen, Chong-Wah Ngo

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

This paper summarizes the following two tasks participated by VIREO group: instance search and semantic indexing. We will present our approaches and analyze the results obtained in TRECVID 2014 benchmark evaluation

Click-Through-Based Subspace Learning For Image Search, Yingwei Pan, Ting Yao, Xinmei Tian, Houqiang Li, Chong-Wah Ngo

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

One of the fundamental problems in image search is to rank image documents according to a given textual query. We address two limitations of the existing image search engines in this paper. First, there is no straightforward way of comparing textual keywords with visual image content. Image search engines therefore highly depend on the surrounding texts, which are often noisy or too few to accurately describe the image content. Second, ranking functions are trained on query-image pairs labeled by human labelers, making the annotation intellectually expensive and thus cannot be scaled up. We demonstrate that the above two fundamental challenges …

Strategies For Sensor Data Aggregation In Support Of Emergency Response, X. Wang, A. Walden, M. Weigle, S. Olariu

Computer Science Presentations

PDF of a powerpoint presentation from the Military Communications Conference (MILCOM), Baltimore, Maryland, October 7, 2014. Also available on Slideshare.

Digital Provenance - Models, Systems, And Applications, Salmin Sultana

Open Access Dissertations

Data provenance refers to the history of creation and manipulation of a data object and is being widely used in various application domains including scientific experiments, grid computing, file and storage system, streaming data etc. However, existing provenance systems operate at a single layer of abstraction (workflow/process/OS) at which they record and store provenance whereas the provenance captured from different layers provide the highest benefit when integrated through a unified provenance framework. To build such a framework, a comprehensive provenance model able to represent the provenance of data objects with various semantics and granularity is the first step. In this …

Image Analysis Using Visual Saliency With Applications In Hazmat Sign Detection And Recognition, Bin Zhao

Open Access Dissertations

Visual saliency is the perceptual process that makes attractive objects "stand out" from their surroundings in the low-level human visual system. Visual saliency has been modeled as a preprocessing step of the human visual system for selecting the important visual information from a scene. We investigate bottom-up visual saliency using spectral analysis approaches. We present separate and composite model families that generalize existing frequency domain visual saliency models. We propose several frequency domain visual saliency models to generate saliency maps using new spectrum processing methods and an entropy-based saliency map selection approach. A group of saliency map candidates are then …