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Articles 181 - 210 of 823

Full-Text Articles in Computer Sciences

Bdd Based Tautology Checker, Michael Jones Feb 2014

Bdd Based Tautology Checker, Michael Jones

Journal of Undergraduate Research

As computer systems become an integral part of society, ensuring that systems perform correctly will become more important. Proofs of correctness based on formal logic are one approach to the correctness problem in computer system design. Unfortunately, these proofs are often large and difficult for industrial size projects. The Higher-Order Logic (HOL) [GM93) automated proof assistant helps manage the details and validate the accuracy of large proofs.


Hyperdimensional Julia Set Generation System Software, Kevin Steele Feb 2014

Hyperdimensional Julia Set Generation System Software, Kevin Steele

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Chaos theory and fractal science is a recently developed technology. Julia Sets, a class of deterministic fractals, have been defined and rendered using computer software in only two and four dimensions. In my Research and Creative Work Scholarship application, I proposed to develop a software system to create and render Julia Sets in more than two and four dimensions. I have completed the software, and used it to verify my definition of and render hyperdimensional Julia Sets, the images of which I have included with this report.


Evaluation And Elimination Of Internet Web Server Bottlenecks, Alen Peacock, Dr. J. Kelly Flanagan Feb 2014

Evaluation And Elimination Of Internet Web Server Bottlenecks, Alen Peacock, Dr. J. Kelly Flanagan

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Popular Internet web sites experience a common problem: as the number of people trying to access a site grows, the wait for page downloads for each of those users grows accordingly. In extreme cases, the site becomes completely inaccessible as the server refuses connections over a certain threshold (1).


Mica-Morph Interpolated Character Animation, Mike D. Smith, Dr. Thomas W. Sederberg Feb 2014

Mica-Morph Interpolated Character Animation, Mike D. Smith, Dr. Thomas W. Sederberg

Journal of Undergraduate Research

In conventional two-dimensional or flat animation, an artist called a character animator will draw key poses for a cartoon that specify movement and expression. Generally, one or more additional artists will take these key frames of animation and draw more images to insert between them. This creates the illusion of the cartoon moving from one key pose to the next. What the additional artists do is called inbetweening. Inbetweening is not only labor intensive and very costly, but because of production budgets and time constraints, the level of detail in the animated characters must be kept very low.


Exploring Hyperspace With Raytracing And Transparency, Adam Wayment, Dr. Robert P. Burton Feb 2014

Exploring Hyperspace With Raytracing And Transparency, Adam Wayment, Dr. Robert P. Burton

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Raytracing is a technique used by artists and scientists to generate computer imagery with a high degree of realism. Mathematicians have long established the ease and elegance of generating mathematical objects that exist in four or more dimensions. Because raytracing is an elegant abstraction of the process of representation, my aim is to show that raytracing may be extended to more than three dimensions so as to produce images that are consistent with the properties of dimensional space and vision.


Using A Reinforcement Learning Controller To Overcome Simulator/Environment Discrepancies, Nancy Owens, Todd Peterson Feb 2014

Using A Reinforcement Learning Controller To Overcome Simulator/Environment Discrepancies, Nancy Owens, Todd Peterson

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Robotic controllers often fail to perform well when transferred from a simulated environment to a real-world situation. Such failures are caused by discrepancies between a simulator and the real-world system which it is intended to model. Traditional approaches to this problem attempt to reduce the number and severity of simulator/environment discrepancies by using calibration, by designing more accurate simulations, or by controlling the specifications of the real-world environment. These approaches, although often effective, are limited in that they require the designer to successfully anticipate the types of discrepancies the controller is likely to encounter.


Thoughtweaver: Intelligent Agents Boosting Thought And Memory, Michael P. Holmes, Dr. Bryan Morse Feb 2014

Thoughtweaver: Intelligent Agents Boosting Thought And Memory, Michael P. Holmes, Dr. Bryan Morse

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Imagine going through your late father’s belongings and finding that he had recorded many of his thoughts, ideas, and experiences in a special computer program. As you begin to use the program, recording the thoughts of your mind, the program brings to your attention various insights of your father’s that relate to what you are thinking. Thus a priceless part of his mind is retained and explored, even after he is gone. Suppose you are a lawyer at trial, and the opposing side brings up some evidence or arguments to which you had previously designed thorough refutations, but now you …


Using Online Data Sources To Make Recommendations On Reading Material For K-12 And Advanced Readers, Maria Soledad Pera Feb 2014

Using Online Data Sources To Make Recommendations On Reading Material For K-12 And Advanced Readers, Maria Soledad Pera

Theses and Dissertations

Reading is a fundamental skill that each person needs to develop during early childhood and continue to enhance into adulthood. While children/teenagers depend on this skill to advance academically and become educated individuals, adults are expected to acquire a certain level of proficiency in reading so that they can engage in social/civic activities and successfully participate in the workforce. A step towards assisting individuals to become lifelong readers is to provide them adequate reading selections which can cultivate their intellectual and emotional growth. Turning to (web) search engines for such reading choices can be overwhelming, given the huge volume of …


Automatic Image Correspondence For Video Clips, Adam Helps, Dr. Thomas Sederberg Jan 2014

Automatic Image Correspondence For Video Clips, Adam Helps, Dr. Thomas Sederberg

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Image correspondence is a powerful method for matching features in two images. It has a wide variety of applications, and can be used to automatically perform complex image manipulation tasks that have previously been done by hand. In this research, image correspondence has been used to manipulate video clips, including morphing and slow motion techniques.


Interactive, Three-Dimensional Web Presentation Of Object-Oriented Java Concepts, Robert Franklin, Dr. Robert Burton Jan 2014

Interactive, Three-Dimensional Web Presentation Of Object-Oriented Java Concepts, Robert Franklin, Dr. Robert Burton

Journal of Undergraduate Research

The advent and subsequent widespread use of the Internet have facilitated and motivated hypermedia distance learning.


Memory-Guided Exploration In Reinforcement Learning, James L. Carroll, Todd Peterson Jan 2014

Memory-Guided Exploration In Reinforcement Learning, James L. Carroll, Todd Peterson

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Traditional reinforcement learning techniques learn a single task by giving the agent positive and negative rewards. In one type of reinforcement learning, called Q-learning, the agent stores Qvalues, which are the expected reward for performing an action in a given state. Task transfer is a method of transferring information learned in one task to another related task. Most work in transfer has focused on classification techniques. The purpose of our research has been to extend classification techniques to reinforcement learning.


Image Tile Compression For Interactive Terrain Visualization With A Slow Network Connection, Brandon Lloyd, Dr. Parris K. Egbert Jan 2014

Image Tile Compression For Interactive Terrain Visualization With A Slow Network Connection, Brandon Lloyd, Dr. Parris K. Egbert

Journal of Undergraduate Research

In the 3D graphics lab at BYU we have developed a terrain visualization program called DVIEW capable of handling extremely large datasets. Our largest model is a piece of the Wasatch front nearly 100 miles long and 50 miles wide. The original vision for DVIEW was to provide users with fast internet connections with the opportunity to navigate the model on their home PCs. We have developed methods in the lab that make it possible to render the model at interactive frame rates with commodity hardware. Unfortunately, only a fast network connection can handle the enormous amount of data that …


Extraction Of Genealogical Information From The Internet, Troy Walker, Dr. David Embley Jan 2014

Extraction Of Genealogical Information From The Internet, Troy Walker, Dr. David Embley

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Data extraction is a rapidly growing area of computer science. It focuses on the extraction of pertinent data from large stores of knowledge such as databases or the internet. Data extraction allows us to use existing stores of data in new ways. One application for data extraction is genealogical research. Various commercial and non-profit groups make genealogical data available on line. In addition to these, hundreds of personal web pages contain personal family trees. I wanted to enable the extraction of information from these sources by computer. BYU’s Data Extraction Group (DEG) has developed tools for extracting data from web …


Image Compression Using Triangular Meshes, G. Thomas Finnigan, Dr. Thomas W. Sederberg Jan 2014

Image Compression Using Triangular Meshes, G. Thomas Finnigan, Dr. Thomas W. Sederberg

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Image Compression is a way of decreasing the amount of space needed to store or transmit an image by removing redundant information. In many ways, compression it like folding clothing – the result takes up less space, but it not immediately usable. Compressing an image means that it is cheaper to store, and faster to transmit, but may take more time to compress and decompress. The best compression methods compress and decompress quickly, but offer a significant savings in the size of the file.


Human-Robot Interface Design, Jacob W. Crandall, Dr. Michael A. Goodrich Jan 2014

Human-Robot Interface Design, Jacob W. Crandall, Dr. Michael A. Goodrich

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Over the last few years, there have been vast advancements in robot technology. These advancements have made robots more powerful. However, because of robot limitations, many interesting tasks will probably include humans and robots cooperating to achieve a shared goal. Lessons from process automation indicate that, in many instances, increased machine automation can actually decreased the effectiveness of human operators. This lesson tells robot designers that robots must be designed with human factors in mind. Situations arise where “artificial intelligence” isn’t sufficient and human reasoning can significantly improve performance.


Hybrid Radial Basis Functions For Image Representation, Samuel Payne, Dr. Bryan Morse Jan 2014

Hybrid Radial Basis Functions For Image Representation, Samuel Payne, Dr. Bryan Morse

Journal of Undergraduate Research

My ORCA research topic was 3D shape representation. I proposed research to develop a new method for representing surfaces that combined two current methods. The oldest method (thinplate spline model) was developed by Turk and O’Brien in 1998. The second method (compactly supported RBF) was developed by my mentor, Bryan Morse in May 2001. These methods have complimenting strengths and weaknesses. Therefore I planned to hybridize these two methods to preserve the strengths in both, and thus overcome their respective weakness.


Agent Decompositions In Reinforcement Learning Architectures, Nancy Owens Fulda, Todd Peterson Jan 2014

Agent Decompositions In Reinforcement Learning Architectures, Nancy Owens Fulda, Todd Peterson

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Reinforcement learning is a sub-discipline of machine learning in which an autonomous program, called an agent, learns to behave appropriately in its environment. Appropriate behavior is described in terms of numerical reinforcements which the agent receives for appropriate or inappropriate actions. By storing a running average of the reinforcements received for given actions in given situations, the agent learns which behaviors are most desirable.


Reinforcement Learning Task Clustering, James Carroll, Todd Peterson Jan 2014

Reinforcement Learning Task Clustering, James Carroll, Todd Peterson

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Reinforcement Learning is a process whereby actions are acquired using reinforcement signals. A signal is given to an autonomous agent indicating how well that agent is performing an action. The agent then attempts to maximize this reinforcement signal. One common method in reinforcement learning is Q-learning where the agent attempts to learn the expected temporally discounted value function for performing an action a in a state s Q(s,a). This function is updated according to:


Information Technology Benchmarking Survey Of Institutions Of Higher Education, Alan P. Hyatt, Dr. Eric L. Denna Jan 2014

Information Technology Benchmarking Survey Of Institutions Of Higher Education, Alan P. Hyatt, Dr. Eric L. Denna

Journal of Undergraduate Research

In the realm of higher education, learning is continually facilitated, enhanced, and improved through technology. At Brigham Young University, the summary mission of the Office of Information Technology is to support the mission and objectives of the Church Educational System and its operating units by acquiring, creating, organizing, and making available tools that (1) enhance student learning, faculty teaching, and scholarship, and (2) improve the key decision and administrative processes of the BYU entities.


Improved Hyperweb Search Efficiency Through Index Replication, Jared Holcomb, Dr. Scott Woodfield Jan 2014

Improved Hyperweb Search Efficiency Through Index Replication, Jared Holcomb, Dr. Scott Woodfield

Journal of Undergraduate Research

The hyperweb is a network based on a modified hypercube1 topology. It is used to create a peerto- peer network for a distributed database (such as a genealogical database.) Two major drawbacks that a peer-to-peer network suffers are a low reliability rate for individual nodes and a slower search speed as the system grows. Both of these problems can be addressed by replicating data across several nodes. First, any particular node has a relatively high probability of being down so a copy of the information a node contains is stored on several other nodes, thereby decreasing the total probability of …


Using Haptics To Assist Automobile Drivers, Kevin Alejandro Roundy, Dr. Michael A. Goodrich Jan 2014

Using Haptics To Assist Automobile Drivers, Kevin Alejandro Roundy, Dr. Michael A. Goodrich

Journal of Undergraduate Research

The purpose of this research project was to further Nissan Motor Company’s research in technologies designed to improve driver comfort and safety.


Wireless Network Signal Analysis, Nathan P. Sharp, Dr. Mark E. Clement Jan 2014

Wireless Network Signal Analysis, Nathan P. Sharp, Dr. Mark E. Clement

Journal of Undergraduate Research

The process of measuring wireless signal strength for networks can be complex and subjective. There is no “tried and true” way of determining the best layout for a network, but with some fairly simple analysis, much can be done to improve the performance of the network. Empirical data shows how much different materials inhibit the signal (see Fig. 1-3 below). For example, in an office setting, determining if brick walls or cubical walls are more penetrable will be very useful when laying out a wireless network.


How Well Does Multiple Ocr Error Correction Generalize?, William B. Lund, Eric K. Ringger, Daniel D. Walker Jan 2014

How Well Does Multiple Ocr Error Correction Generalize?, William B. Lund, Eric K. Ringger, Daniel D. Walker

Faculty Publications

As the digitization of historical documents, such as newspapers, becomes more common, the need of the archive patron for accurate digital text from those documents increases. Building on our earlier work, the contributions of this paper are: 1. in demonstrating the applicability of novel methods for correcting optical character recognition (OCR) on disparate data sets, including a new synthetic training set, 2. enhancing the correction algorithm with novel features, and 3. assessing the data requirements of the correction learning method. First, we correct errors using conditional random fields (CRF) trained on synthetic training data sets in order to demonstrate the …


Shaping Swarms Through Coordinated Mediation, Shin-Young Jung Dec 2013

Shaping Swarms Through Coordinated Mediation, Shin-Young Jung

Theses and Dissertations

A swarm is a group of uninformed individuals that exhibit collective behaviors. Without any information about the external world, a swarm has limited ability to achieve complex goals. Prior work on human-swarm interaction methods allow a human to influence these uninformed individuals through either leadership or predation as informed agents that directly interact with humans. These methods of influence have two main limitations: (1) although leaders sustain influence over nominal agents for a long period of time, they tend to cause all collective structures to turn in to flocks (negating the benefit of other swarm formations) and (2) predators tend …


The Pseudo-Rigid-Body Model For Fast, Accurate, Non-Linear Elasticity, Anthony R. Hall Nov 2013

The Pseudo-Rigid-Body Model For Fast, Accurate, Non-Linear Elasticity, Anthony R. Hall

Theses and Dissertations

We introduce to computer graphics the Pseudo-Rigid-Body Mechanism (PRBM) and the chain algorithm from mechanical engineering, with a unified tutorial from disparate source materials. The PRBM has been used successfully to simplify the simulation of non-linearly elastic beams, using deflections of an analogous spring and rigid-body linkage. It offers computational efficiency as well as an automatic parameterization in terms of physically measurable, intuitive inputs which fit naturally into existing animation work flows for character articulation. The chain algorithm is a technique for simulating the deflection of complicated elastic bodies in terms of straight elastic elements, which has recently been extended …


Updating Thompson On Real Property, Thomas Edition, Justin Wright, Dr. David Thomas Oct 2013

Updating Thompson On Real Property, Thomas Edition, Justin Wright, Dr. David Thomas

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Thompson on Real Property, Thomas Edition is a comprehensive commentary on real property law. Each year, Dr. Thomas, Editor-In-Chief, produces a supplement to each volume of the treatise; the supplement updates both text and footnotes to the original volume and to the prior year supplement. During my brief training period, Dr. Thomas demonstrated several legal-research techniques and showed me several software research tools he uses to update the yearly supplement, including Lexis-Nexis, WESTLAW, and InfoTrac. Dr. Thomas assigned me to update chapters 12 and 97.


A Real-Time 3d Engine For Students, Joshua Gustafson, Dr. Robert P. Burton Oct 2013

A Real-Time 3d Engine For Students, Joshua Gustafson, Dr. Robert P. Burton

Journal of Undergraduate Research

A real-time 3D engine is a software system which allows a computer to generate and display three-dimensional graphics at interactive speeds. Faster, more capable, and less expensive video hardware has encouraged improvement in real-time engines and a diversification of their applications. They have been used traditionally in applications such as games and simulators, but increasingly are appearing in other applications such as home modeling, ticket purchasing, and other uses. Real-time 3D engines are therefore an area of understandable interest and considerable value to students of Computer Science.


Improving Error Discovery In Guided Search Model Checking, Neha Rungta, Dr. Eric Mercer Oct 2013

Improving Error Discovery In Guided Search Model Checking, Neha Rungta, Dr. Eric Mercer

Journal of Undergraduate Research

As computer systems grow in complexity it is becoming harder to completely test them. The cost of finding and correcting errors after deployment is staggering. Current validation methods are not well suited to finding subtle errors laden in the concurrency of modern systems. This project searches the behavior in such systems, guiding the search to focus its time in areas that seem most likely to contain errors. This work decreases the amount of time and memory needed for the errors that are found and corrected before deployment of the system. In this project we have developed a heuristic that takes …


A Customer Loyalty Program For The Byu Bookstore, Steven Hulet, Dr. Sean Warnick Oct 2013

A Customer Loyalty Program For The Byu Bookstore, Steven Hulet, Dr. Sean Warnick

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Because of its relationship with Brigham Young University, the BYU Bookstore is in a position to know more about its customers on an individual basis than possible for the average firm operating in the free market. Such in-depth knowledge of a customer base allows a firm to better serve its customers and can result in greater satisfaction for the customers and greater revenue for the firm.


Background Color Selection Based On Color Information From User Images: Making It Easier To Be Right And Scientific For Web Page Designers, Qing Xia, Dr. Brian Morse Oct 2013

Background Color Selection Based On Color Information From User Images: Making It Easier To Be Right And Scientific For Web Page Designers, Qing Xia, Dr. Brian Morse

Journal of Undergraduate Research

The original idea for this project was conceived at the Center for Instructional Design (CID) at Brigham Young University. CID suggested a need to develop software tools for dynamically selecting a good background color for a web page design, given an image to be placed on that page.