Computer Sciences Commons^™

Dynamic Network Formation Using Ant Colony Optimization, Steven C. Oimoen

Theses and Dissertations

Military and industry are moving toward every device being network enabled and connected for reliable availability of communication and information. To make this type of system a reality, the devices must be capable of forming a network topology on their own in a dynamic environment to ensure that the correct information reaches a desired location and on-time. This research presents three contributions for solving highly dynamic (i.e. drastic change within the network) Multi-commodity Capacitated Network Design Problems (MCNDPs) resulting in a distributed multi-agent network design algorithm. The first contribution incorporates an Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) algorithm Ant Colony System (ACS) …

A Taxonomy For And Analysis Of Anonymous Communications Networks, Douglas J. Kelly

Theses and Dissertations

Any entity operating in cyberspace is susceptible to debilitating attacks. With cyber attacks intended to gather intelligence and disrupt communications rapidly replacing the threat of conventional and nuclear attacks, a new age of warfare is at hand. In 2003, the United States acknowledged that the speed and anonymity of cyber attacks makes distinguishing among the actions of terrorists, criminals, and nation states difficult. Even President Obama’s Cybersecurity Chief-elect recognizes the challenge of increasingly sophisticated cyber attacks. Now through April 2009, the White House is reviewing federal cyber initiatives to protect US citizen privacy rights. Indeed, the rising quantity and ubiquity …

Blind Deconvolution Through Polarization Diversity Of Long Exposure Imagery, Steven P. James

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of the algorithm developed in this thesis was to create a post processing method that could resolve objects at low signal levels using polarization diversity and no knowledge of the atmospheric seeing conditions. The process uses a two-channel system, one unpolarized image and one linearly polarized image, in a GEM algorithm to reconstruct the object. Previous work done by Strong showed that a two-channel system using polarization diversity on short exposure imagery could produce images up to twice the diffraction limit. In this research, long exposure images were simulated and a simple Kolmogorov model used. This allowed for …

Using Covert Means To Establish Cybercraft Command And Control, Bradley D. Sevy

Theses and Dissertations

With the increase in speed and availability of computers, our nation's computer and information systems are being attacked with increased sophistication. The Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) Information Directorate (RI) is researching a next generation network defense architecture, called Cybercraft, that provides automated and trusted cyber defense capabilities for AF network assets. This research we consider the issues to protect or obfuscate command and control aspects of Cybercraft. In particular, we present a methodology to hide aspects of Cybercraft platform initialization in context to formation of hierarchical, peer-to-peer groups that collectively form the Cybercraft network. Because malicious code networks (known …

Cooperative Unmanned Aerial Surveillance Control System Architecture, Theodore T. Diamond, Adam L. Rutherford, Jonathan B. Taylor

Theses and Dissertations

Intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) is a high-demand Department of Defense mission performed by unmanned aircraft systems (UASs) at the tactical and theater levels. Coordinating UASs through cooperative control offers the advantages of persistence, distributed and adaptable sensor coverage, and reduced revisit time on points of interest. The purpose of this thesis is to apply systems engineering principles to the problem of developing a flexible, common control system for cooperative UAS surveillance at the tactical level. The AFIT team developed a concept of operations (CONOPS) encompassing various users and surveillance tasks. The team then used the scenarios in the CONOPS …

Waypoint Generation Based On Sensor Aimpoint, Shannon M. Farrell

Theses and Dissertations

Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates has emphasized a need for a greater number of intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) assets to support combatant commanders and military operations globally. Unmanned systems, especially MAVs, used as ISR platforms provide the ability to maintain covertness during missions and help reduce the risk to human life. This research develops waypoint generation algorithms required to keep a point of interest (POI) in the field of view (FOV) of a fixed sensor on a micro air vehicle (MAV) in the presence of a constant wind.
Fixed sensors, while cheaper and less prone to mechanical failure …

Architecting Human Operator Trust In Automation To Improve System Effectiveness In Multiple Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (Uav), Eric A. Cring, Adam G. Lenfestey

Theses and Dissertations

Current Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) designs require multiple operators for each vehicle, partly due to imperfect automation matched with the complex operational environment. This study examines the effectiveness of future UAS automation by explicitly addressing the human/machine trust relationship during system architecting. A pedigreed engineering model of trust between human and machine was developed and applied to a laboratory-developed micro-UAS for Special Operations. This unprecedented investigation answered three primary questions. Can previous research be used to create a useful trust model for systems engineering? How can trust be considered explicitly within the DoD Architecture Framework? Can the utility of architecting …

Host-Based Multivariate Statistical Computer Operating Process Anomaly Intrusion Detection System (Paids), Glen R. Shilland

Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Image Processing For Multiple-Target Tracking On A Graphics Processing Unit, Michael A. Tanner

Theses and Dissertations

Multiple-target tracking (MTT) systems have been implemented on many different platforms, however these solutions are often expensive and have long development times. Such MTT implementations require custom hardware, yet offer very little flexibility with ever changing data sets and target tracking requirements. This research explores how to supplement and enhance MTT performance with an existing graphics processing unit (GPU) on a general computing platform. Typical computers are already equipped with powerful GPUs to support various games and multimedia applications. However, such GPUs are not currently being used in desktop MTT applications. This research explores if and how a GPU can …

The Modular Clock Algorithm For Blind Rendezvous, Nicholas C. Theis

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the problem in initializing communications whereby cognitive radios need to find common spectrum with other cognitive radios, a process known as frequency rendezvous. It examines the rendezvous problem as it exists in a dynamic spectrum access cognitive network. Specifically, it addresses the problem of rendezvous in an infrastructureless environment. A new algorithm, the modular clock algorithm, is developed and analyzed as a solution for the simple rendezvous environment model, coupled with a modified version for environment models with less information. The thesis includes a taxonomy of commonly used environment models, and analysis of previous efforts to solve …

Low Probability Of Intercept Waveforms Via Intersymbol Dither Performance Under Multipath Conditions, Jonathan K. Keen

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the effects of multipath interference on Low Probability of Intercept (LPI) waveforms generated using intersymbol dither. LPI waveforms are designed to be difficult for non-cooperative receivers to detect and manipulate, and have many uses in secure communications applications. In prior research, such a waveform was designed using a dither algorithm to vary the time between the transmission of data symbols in a communication system. This work showed that such a method can be used to frustrate attempts to use non-cooperative receiver algorithms to recover the data. This thesis expands on prior work by examining the effects of …

A Hybrid Templated-Based Composite Classification System, Michael A. Turnbaugh

Theses and Dissertations

An automatic target classification system contains a classifier which reads a feature as an input and outputs a class label. Typically, the feature is a vector of real numbers. Other features can be non-numeric, such as a string of symbols or alphabets. One method of improving the performance of an automatic classification system is through combining two or more independent classifiers that are complementary in nature. Complementary classifiers are observed by finding an optimal method for partitioning the problem space. For example, the individual classifiers may operate to identify specific objects. Another method may be to use classifiers that operate …

Numerical Analysis For Relevant Features In Intrusion Detection (Narfid), Jose Andres Gonzalez

Theses and Dissertations

Identification of cyber attacks and network services is a robust field of study in the machine learning community. Less effort has been focused on understanding the domain space of real network data in identifying important features for cyber attack and network service classification. Motivations for such work allow for anomaly detection systems with less requirements on data “sniffed” off the network, extraction of features from the traffic, reduced learning time of algorithms, and ideally increased classification performance of anomalous behavior. This thesis evaluates the usefulness of a good feature subset for the general classification task of identifying cyber attacks and …

Using Predictive Rendering As A Vision-Aided Technique For Autonomous Aerial Refueling, Adam D. Weaver

Theses and Dissertations

This research effort seeks to characterize a vision-aided approach for an Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) to autonomously determine relative position to another aircraft in a formation, specifically to address the autonomous aerial refueling problem. A system consisting of a monocular digital camera coupled with inertial sensors onboard the UAS is analyzed for feasibility of using this vision-aided approach. A three-dimensional rendering of the tanker aircraft is used to generate predicted images of the tanker as seen by the receiver aircraft. A rigorous error model is developed to model the relative dynamics between an INS-equipped receiver and the tanker aircraft. A …

A Neutral Network Based Vehicle Classification System For Pervasive Smart Road Security, Naixue Xiong, Jing (Selena) He, Jong Hyuk Park, Donald Cooley

Faculty Articles

Pervasive smart computing environments make people get accustomed to convenient and secure services. The overall goal of this research is to classify vehicles along the I215 freeway in Salt Lake City, USA. This information will be used to predict future roadway needs and the expected life of a roadway. The classification of vehicles will be performed by a synthesis of multiple sets of features. All feature sets have not yet been determined; however, one such set will be the reduced wavelet transform of the image of a vehicle. In order to use such a feature, it is necessary that the …

The Importance Of Being Neural-Symbolic - A Wilde Position, Pascal Hitzler, Kai-Uwe Kuhnberger

Computer Science and Engineering Faculty Publications

We argue that Neural-Symbolic Integration is a topic of central importance for the advancement of Artificial General Intelligence.

Visual Word Proximity And Linguistics For Semantic Video Indexing And Near-Duplicate Retrieval, Yu-Gang Jiang, Chong-Wah Ngo

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Bag-of-visual-words (BoW) has recently become a popular representation to describe video and image content. Most existing approaches, nevertheless, neglect inter-word relatedness and measure similarity by bin-to-bin comparison of visual words in histograms. In this paper, we explore the linguistic and ontological aspects of visual words for video analysis. Two approaches, soft-weighting and constraint-based earth mover’s distance (CEMD), are proposed to model different aspects of visual word linguistics and proximity. In soft-weighting, visual words are cleverly weighted such that the linguistic meaning of words is taken into account for bin-to-bin histogram comparison. In CEMD, a cross-bin matching algorithm is formulated such …

Generalized Neuron Based Secure Media Access Control Protocol For Wireless Sensor Networks, Raghavendra V. Kulkarni, Ganesh K. Venayagamoorthy, Abhishek V. Thakur, Sanjay Kumar Madria

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Security plays a pivotal role in most applications of wireless sensor networks. It is common to find inadequately secure networks confined only to controlled environments. The issue of security in wireless sensor networks is a hot research topic for over a decade. This paper presents a compact generalized neuron (GN) based medium access protocol that renders a CSMA/CD network secure against denial-of-service attacks launched by adversaries. The GN enhances the security by constantly monitoring multiple parameters that reflect the possibility that an attack is launched by an adversary. Particle swarm optimization, a popular bio-inspired evolutionary-like optimization algorithm is used for …

Automated Virtual Machine Introspection For Host-Based Intrusion Detection, Brett A. Pagel

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines techniques to automate configuration of an intrusion detection system utilizing hardware-assisted virtualization. These techniques are used to detect the version of a running guest operating system, automatically configure version-specific operating system information needed by the introspection library, and to locate and monitor important operating system data structures. This research simplifies introspection library configuration and is a step toward operating system independent introspection. An operating system detection algorithm and Windows virtual machine system service dispatch table monitor are implemented using the Xen hypervisor and a modified version of the XenAccess library. All detection and monitoring is implemented from …

Simulation Scoring Systems, Raynald Bedard

Publications

Simulation scoring systems including software, methods of use, and related methods that provide for simulating and scoring of aircraft flight and other missions, particularly where such simulating is purely electronic and particularly where such scoring is objective and particularly where such scoring has a plurality of gradations, as to distinguish a plurality of skill levels.

An Fpga-Based System For Tracking Digital Information Transmitted Via Peer-To-Peer Protocols, Karl R. Schrader

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis addresses the problem of identifying and tracking digital information that is shared using peer-to-peer file transfer and Voice over IP (VoIP) protocols. The goal of the research is to develop a system for detecting and tracking the illicit dissemination of sensitive government information using file sharing applications within a target network, and tracking terrorist cells or criminal organizations that are covertly communicating using VoIP applications. A digital forensic tool is developed using an FPGA-based embedded software application. The tool is designed to process file transfers using the BitTorrent peer-to-peer protocol and VoIP phone calls made using the Session …

Is Parallel Programming Hard, And If So, Why?, Paul E. Mckenney, Maged M. Michael, Manish Gupta, Philip William Howard, Josh Triplett, Jonathan Walpole

Computer Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

Of the 200+ parallel-programming languages and environments created in the 1990s, almost all are now defunct. Given that parallel systems are now well within the budget of the typical hobbyist or graduate student, it is not unreasonable to expect a new cohort in excess of several thousand parallel languages and environments to appear in the 2010s. If this expected new cohort is to have more practical impact than did its 1990s counterpart, a robust and widely applicable framework will be required that encompasses exactly what, if anything, is hard about parallel programming. This paper revisits the fundamental precepts of concurrent …

Programmer Friendly Refactoring Tools, Emerson Murphy-Hill

Dissertations and Theses

Tools that perform semi-automated refactoring are currently under-utilized by programmers. If more programmers adopted refactoring tools, software projects could make enormous productivity gains. However, as more advanced refactoring tools are designed, a great chasm widens between how the tools must be used and how programmers want to use them. This dissertation begins to bridge this chasm by exposing usability guidelines to direct the design of the next generation of programmer-friendly refactoring tools, so that refactoring tools fit the way programmers behave, not vice-versa.

Learning Image‐Text Associations, Tao Jiang, Ah-Hwee Tan

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Web information fusion can be defined as the problem of collating and tracking information related to specific topics on the World Wide Web. Whereas most existing work on Web information fusion has focused on text-based multidocument summarization, this paper concerns the topic of image and text association, a cornerstone of cross-media Web information fusion. Specifically, we present two learning methods for discovering the underlying associations between images and texts based on small training data sets. The first method based on vague transformation measures the information similarity between the visual features and the textual features through a set of predefined domain-specific …

Resources - Thinking Small: Nano Small, David Stricker

Publications

The article provides information on the "Nanooze" magazine publication. It notes the significance of nanotechnology to the development of latest innovations that come from materials at smallest dimensions or at the nanoscale levels. It presents resources published within the publication that explore the emerging issues in nanotechnology.

Archetype Alignment: A Two-Level Driven Semantic Matching Approach To Interoperability In The Clinical Domain, Damon Berry, Jesus Bisbal

Conference Papers

Semantic interoperability between electronic health record systems and other information systems in the health domain implies agreement about the structure and the meaning of the information that is communicated. There are still a number of similar but different EHR system approaches. Some of the newer approaches adopt the two-layer model approach where a generic reference model is constrained by archetypes into valid clinical concepts which can be exchanged. The meaning of the concepts that are represented by an archetype can be conveyed by embedding codes from a commonly recognised terminology at appropriate points in the archetype. However, as the number …

The Impact Of Communication Medium On Team Performance Patterns, Pilar Pazos, Mario G. Beruvides

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Faculty Publications

The increased impact of globalization and rapidly changing technologies are some of the biggest challenges facing 21st century organizations. Remote teams supported through computer-based systems have been identified as a key lever to help organizations adapt to this turbulent environment. This study sheds some light on how teams perform and adapt by evaluating performance and synergy over time for teams in two different settings: computer supported and face-to-face. Participants in the study were randomly assigned either to a computer-supported or a face-to face group. Each group met over three sessions to perform a series of tasks that were evaluated using …

A Protocol Suite For Wireless Personal Area Networks, Karl E. Persson

University of Kentucky Doctoral Dissertations

A Wireless Personal Area Network (WPAN) is an ad hoc network that consists of devices that surround an individual or an object. Bluetooth^® technology is especially suitable for formation of WPANs due to the pervasiveness of devices with Bluetooth^® chipsets, its operation in the unlicensed Industrial, Scientific, Medical (ISM) frequency band, and its interference resilience. Bluetooth^® technology has great potential to become the de facto standard for communication between heterogeneous devices in WPANs.

The piconet, which is the basic Bluetooth^® networking unit, utilizes a Master/Slave (MS) configuration that permits only a single master and up to …

Efficient Techniques For Relevance Feedback Processing In Content-Based Image Retrieval, Danzhou Liu

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In content-based image retrieval (CBIR) systems, there are two general types of search: target search and category search. Unlike queries in traditional database systems, users in most cases cannot specify an ideal query to retrieve the desired results for either target search or category search in multimedia database systems, and have to rely on iterative feedback to refine their query. Efficient evaluation of such iterative queries can be a challenge, especially when the multimedia database contains a large number of entries, and the search needs many iterations, and when the underlying distance measure is computationally expensive. The overall processing costs, …

Learning Semantic Features For Visual Recognition, Jingen Liu

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Visual recognition (e.g., object, scene and action recognition) is an active area of research in computer vision due to its increasing number of real-world applications such as video (image) indexing and search, intelligent surveillance, human-machine interaction, robot navigation, etc. Effective modeling of the objects, scenes and actions is critical for visual recognition. Recently, bag of visual words (BoVW) representation, in which the image patches or video cuboids are quantized into visual words (i.e., mid-level features) based on their appearance similarity using clustering, has been widely and successfully explored. The advantages of this representation are: no explicit detection of objects or …