Computer Sciences Commons^™

Incorporating Memory And Learning Mechanisms Into Meta-Raps, Arif Arin

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Due to the rapid increase of dimensions and complexity of real life problems, it has become more difficult to find optimal solutions using only exact mathematical methods. The need to find near-optimal solutions in an acceptable amount of time is a challenge when developing more sophisticated approaches. A proper answer to this challenge can be through the implementation of metaheuristic approaches. However, a more powerful answer might be reached by incorporating intelligence into metaheuristics.

Meta-RaPS (Metaheuristic for Randomized Priority Search) is a metaheuristic that creates high quality solutions for discrete optimization problems. It is proposed that incorporating memory and learning …

Kinematic Analysis Of Gesture In Aphasia, Haroon Osmanzada

Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Individuals who have experienced a left hemispheric stroke often develop aphasia, which results in a loss of effective verbal communication and reliance on gesturing to communicate. In this study we combined these two aspects of aphasic word retrieval difficulties and gesturing with three-dimensional kinematics. The purposes of this study were: 1) to develop a preliminary database of upper extremity movements for two common gestures used in gestural facilitation of naming (GES) training, slicing and hammering, in participants who experienced a left-hemisphere stroke and compare them to age-matched healthy controls, and 2) to perform a case study consisting of a single …

Cs 242: Computer Programming Iii, Yong Pei

Computer Science & Engineering Syllabi

No abstract provided.

Cs 142: Computer Programming Ii, Vanessa Starkey

Computer Science & Engineering Syllabi

Concepts introduced in CS 141 are developed in greater detail and depth. Emphasis on verification and testing of programs. Three hours of lecture, two hours lab.

Cs 206: Advanced Concepts/Techniques And Software Productivity Tools, Terri Bauer

Computer Science & Engineering Syllabi

By the end of this course, the students will have a greater depth of understanding in the areas of spreadsheets, databases, and presentation software and web design using Microsoft Excel, Access, and PowerPoint covering the following topics.
Microsoft Excel 2010: Chapters 5 – 7
Microsoft Access 2010: Chapters 5 - 7
Microsoft PowerPoint 2010: Chapter 3 & 4

Cs 766: Evolutionary Computation, John C. Gallagher

Computer Science & Engineering Syllabi

This course explores evolutionary computation from a historical, theoretical, and application viewpoint. An overview of the most common evolutionary search techniques is presented. Specific topics include in the overview are: genetic algorithms, evolutionary programming, evolutionary strategies, and genetic programming. The fundamental issues driving the choice of problem representation and specific genetic operators are discussed. Various applications of evolutionary computation to problems in control, optimization, and pattern recognition are examined.

Cs 205: Introduction To Computers And Office Productivity Software, Terri Bauer

Computer Science & Engineering Syllabi

Focus on learning MS Office software applications including intermediate word processing, spreadsheets, database and presentation graphics using a case study approach where critical thinking and problem solving skills are required. Computer concepts are integrated throughout the course to provide an understanding of the basics of computing, the latest technological advances and how they are used in industry. Ethics and issues encountered in business are discussed to challenge students on societal impact of technology.

Cs 480/680: Comparative Languages, Krishnaprasad Thirunarayan

Computer Science & Engineering Syllabi

This course will introduce fundamental concepts and paradigms underlying the design of modern programming languages. For concreteness, we study the details of an object-oriented language (e.g. Java), and a functional language (e.g., Scheme). The overall goal is to enable comparison and evaluation of existing languages. The programming assignments will be coded in Java and in Scheme.

Cs 415: Social Implications Of Computing, Leo Finkelstein

Computer Science & Engineering Syllabi

CS 415 is a communication skills course using as its subject matter current salient issues associated with the social implications of computing. In addition to the course text, you will need to use certain reading materials in the library and elsewhere, and you will be responsible for using concepts and theories provided in class lectures and discussions.

Cs 205-02: Introduction To Computers And Office Productivity Software, John P. Herzog

Computer Science & Engineering Syllabi

Focus on learning MS Office software applications including intermediate word processing, spreadsheets, database and presentation graphics using a case study approach where critical thinking and problem solving skills are required. Computer concepts are integrated throughout the course to provide an understanding of the basics of computing, the latest technological advances and how they are used in industry. Ethics and issues encountered in business are discussed to challenge students on societal impact of technology.

Ceg 720-01: Computer Architecture, Jack Jean

Computer Science & Engineering Syllabi

No abstract provided.

Ceg 220-01: Introduction To C Programming For Engineers - I, Ronald F. Taylor

Computer Science & Engineering Syllabi

This course provides a general introduction to computers as a problem-solving tool using the C programming language. Emphasis is on algorithms and techniques useful to engineers. Topics include data representation, debugging, and program verification. Some programming assignments may involve complex arithmetic and trigonometric and exponential functions. 4 credit hours. The course includes a scheduled laboratory section for which you must register.

Egr 335/535-01: Technical Communications For Engineers And Computer Scientists, Leo Finkelstein

Computer Science & Engineering Syllabi

No abstract provided.

Cs 206: Advanced Concepts/Techniques And Software Productivity Tools, Terri Bauer

Computer Science & Engineering Syllabi

By the end of this course, the students will have a greater depth of understanding in the areas of spreadsheets, databases, and presentation software and web design using Microsoft Excel, Access, and PowerPoint covering the following topics.

Microsoft Excel 2010:
Chapters 5 – 7

Microsoft Access 2010:
Chapters 5 - 7

Microsoft PowerPoint 2010:
Chapter 3 & 4

Ceg 403/603-01: Personal Area Networks, Yong Pei

Computer Science & Engineering Syllabi

No abstract provided.

Ceg 730-01: Distributed Computing Principles, Soon M. Chung

Computer Science & Engineering Syllabi

Communicating sequential processes, clients and servers, remote procedure calls, stub generation, weak and strong semaphores, split-binary semaphores, and distributed termination. 3 hours lecture and 2 hours lab.

Ceg 434-01: Concurrent Software Design, Bin Wang

Computer Science & Engineering Syllabi

No abstract provided.

Cs 1000: Technology And Society, John A. Reisner

Computer Science & Engineering Syllabi

What impact does technology have on society? As technology plays a greater role in our everyday lives, this becomes an increasingly important question. We have seen unprecedented advances over the past few decades, but sometimes benefits can be offset by unforeseen consequences and repercussions (such as privacy concerns, identity theft, or safety). The goal of this course is to evaluate the consequences of technological advances on individuals, organizations, and society, and identify potential benefits and limitations, by examining and discussing and how social, ethical, legal and philosophical repercussion impact society.

A Multi-Paradigm Modeling Framework For Modeling And Simulating Problem Situations, Christopher James Lynch

Computational Modeling & Simulation Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Problem situations are problems whose specifications are not universally agreed upon making them a challenge to be modeled and simulated. Models of problem situations depart from the premise of well-defined problems, problems where stakeholders disagree, but also modelers' interpretations play a role in their design and computer implementation.

This thesis proposes a multi-paradigm modeling framework for modeling and simulating problem situations in order to explore the problem space of the problem situations and answer specific modeling questions.

The proposed framework implements the Modeling and Simulation (M&S) System Development Framework (MS-SDF), which is a methodology for modeling a problem situation while …

Using Modeling And Simulation To Examine The Benefits Of A Network Tasking Order, Matthew D. Compton, Kenneth M. Hopkinson, Gilbert L. Peterson, James T. Moore

Faculty Publications

The Global Information Grid (GIG) is the military’s computer and communications network which supports the myriad of military missions. Military missions are highly planned, passing through many hands in the strategy-to-task methodology to ensure completeness, accuracy, coordination, cohesion, and appropriateness. A benefit of this planning is the possibility to collect knowledge of future conditions that could be of use to network designers whose goals include optimizing and protecting the GIG. This advanced knowledge includes which networked military equipment will be involved, what their capabilities are, where they will be, when they will be there, and particulars on the required data …

Decision Support For Agent Populations In Uncertain And Congested Environments, Pradeep Reddy Varakantham, Shih-Fen Cheng, Geoff Gordon, Asrar Ahmed

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

This research is motivated by large scale problems in urban transportation and labor mobility where there is congestion for resources and uncertainty in movement. In such domains, even though the individual agents do not have an identity of their own and do not explicitly interact with other agents, they effect other agents. While there has been much research in handling such implicit effects, it has primarily assumed deterministic movements of agents. We address the issue of decision support for individual agents that are identical and have involuntary movements in dynamic environments. For instance, in a taxi fleet serving a city, …

Logistics Orchestration Modeling And Evaluation For Humanitarian Relief, Hoong Chuin Lau, Zhengping Li, Xin Du, Heng Jiang, Robert De Souza

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

This paper proposes an orchestration model for post-disaster response that is aimed at automating the coordination of scarce resources that minimizes the loss of human lives. In our setting, different teams are treated as agents and their activities are "orchestrated" to optimize rescue performance. Results from simulation are analysed to evaluate the performance of the optimization model.

Identifying And Attributing Similar Traces With Greatest Common Factor Analysis, Fred Cohen

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

This paper presents an algorithm for comparing large numbers of traces to each other and identifying and presenting groups of traces with similar features. It is applied to forensic analysis in which groups of similar traces are automatically identified and presented so that attribution and other related claims may be asserted, and independently confirmed or refuted. The approach of this paper is to identify an approximate algorithm that will find a large subset of greatest common factor similar groups of arbitrary factors in far less time and space than an exact algorithm using examiner-provided selection criteria for factor definition.

A Location-Aware Architecture Supporting Intelligent Real-Time Mobile Applications, Sean J. Barbeau

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation presents LAISYC, a modular location-aware architecture for intelligent real-time mobile applications that is fully-implementable by third party mobile app developers and supports high-precision and high-accuracy positioning systems such as GPS. LAISYC significantly improves device battery life, provides location data authenticity, ensures security of location data, and significantly reduces the amount of data transferred between the phone and server. The design, implementation, and evaluation of LAISYC using real mobile phones include the following modules: the GPS Auto-Sleep module saves battery energy when using GPS, maintaining acceptable movement tracking (approximately 89% accuracy) with an approximate average doubling of battery life. …

Lagrangian Relaxation For Large-Scale Multi-Agent Planning, Geoff Gordon, Pradeep Reddy Varakantham, William Yeoh, Ajay Srinivasan, Hoong Chuin Lau, Shih-Fen Cheng

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Multi-agent planning is a well-studied problem with applications in various areas. Due to computational constraints, existing research typically focuses either on unstructured domains with many agents, where we are content with heuristic solutions, or domains with small numbers of agents or special structure, where we can find provably near-optimal solutions. In contrast, here we focus on provably near-optimal solutions in domains with many agents, by exploiting influence limits. To that end, we make two key contributions: (a) an algorithm, based on Lagrangian relaxation and randomized rounding, for solving multi-agent planning problems represented as large mixed-integer programs; (b) a proof of …

Multi-Dimensional Modeling Of Charring Ablators, Haoyue Weng, Huaibao Zhang, Ovais U. Khan, Alexandre Martin

Mechanical Engineering Faculty Publications

Re-entry of a spacecraft occurs at the hypersonic regime where the flow field is extremely complex: high temperature gradients occurring in the shock-layer region ionize and dissociate the air. Even if a large portion of heat generated during this process is convected away in the surrounding air, a fraction of it is still transferred to the vehicle. Therefore, it is important to protect the vehicle with a suitable kind of shielding. Of the many techniques available today, use of ablative material is gaining popularity. The basic idea behind an ablating heat shield is that the energy incident on the spacecraft …

Software Engineering Education Needs More Engineering, A. Frank Ackerman, Ph.D., Sushil Acharua, D.Eng.

Computer Science & Software Engineering

To what extent is “software engineering” really “engineering” as this term is commonly understood? A hallmark of the products of the traditional engineering disciplines is trustworthiness based on dependability. But in his keynote presentation at ICSE 2006 Barry Boehm pointed out that individuals’, systems’, and peoples’ dependency on software is becoming increasingly critical, yet that dependability is generally not the top priority for software intensive system producers. Continuing in an uncharacteristic pessimistic vein, Professor Boehm said that this situation will likely continue until a major software-induced system catastrophe similar in impact to the 9/11 World Trade Center catastrophe stimulates action …

Wireless Sensor Network For Wine Fermentation, Kerry Scharfglass, Andrew Lehmer

Computer Engineering

This project implements an automated temperature monitoring system for wine fermentation which is affordable, easy to use, and scalable to typical small winery setups. To realize these requirements, we implemented the system as a wireless sensor network utilizing commercial off-the-shelf hardware. Temperature and system diagnostic information is communicated wirelessly in a peer-to-peer network topology such that all information flows toward an aggregating server. The server makes the temperature information available over the Internet via a web application and alerts the winemaker by email when the temperature has left acceptable bounds that the winemaker may configure. This project also involved materials …

Beaglebone Webcam Server, Alexander Corcoran

Computer Engineering

The Beaglebone Webcam Server is a Linux based IP webcam, based on an inexpensive ARM development board, which hosts its own web server to display the webcam feed. The server has the ability to either connect to a wired router, or to act as a wireless access point in order for users to connect and control its functions via any Wi-Fi enabled device.

Energy-Efficient Continuous Activity Recognition On Mobile Phones: An Activity-Adaptive Approach, Zhixian Yan, Vigneshwaran Subbaraju, Dipanjan Chakraborty, Archan Misra, Karl Aberer

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Power consumption on mobile phones is a painful obstacle towards adoption of continuous sensing driven applications, e.g., continuously inferring individual’s locomotive activities (such as ‘sit’, ‘stand’ or ‘walk’) using the embedded accelerometer sensor. To reduce the energy overhead of such continuous activity sensing, we first investigate how the choice of accelerometer sampling frequency & classification features affects, separately for each activity, the “energy overhead” vs. “classification accuracy” tradeoff. We find that such tradeoff is activity specific. Based on this finding, we introduce an activity-sensitive strategy (dubbed “A3R” – Adaptive Accelerometer-based Activity Recognition) for continuous activity recognition, where the choice of …