Computer Sciences Commons^™

Android Application Controlled Surge Protector, Lok An

Electrical Engineering

A significant amount of consumer electronics cannot be switched off completely without being unplugged. Standby power, also known as phantom power, refers to the electric power consumed by electronic appliances when they are switched off. There are some devices that need constant power; items like alarm clocks and security systems need constant power to function correctly. Some devices, such as video game consoles and televisions, consume power without offering any features. Electricity lost from standby power has been increasing with the amount of consumer electronics increasing in households.

This project’s goal is to create a low power remote that can …

Onboard Video Stabilization For Unmanned Air Vehicles, Nicholas Stewart Cross

Master's Theses

Unmanned Air Vehicles (UAVs) enable the observation of hazardous areas without endangering a pilot. Observational capabilities are provided by on-board video cameras and images are relayed to remote operators for analysis. However, vibration and wind cause video camera mounts to move and can introduce unintended motion that makes video analysis more difficult. Video stabilization is a process that attempts to remove unwanted movement from a video input to provide a clearer picture. 

This thesis presents an onboard video stabilization solution that removes high-frequency jitter, displays output at 20 frames per second (FPS), and runs on a Blackfin embedded processor. Any …

Point-Based Color Bleeding With Volumes, Christopher J. Gibson

Master's Theses

The interaction of light in our world is immensely complex, but with mod-

ern computers and advanced rendering algorithms, we are beginning to reach

the point where photo-realistic renders are truly difficult to separate from real

photographs. Achieving realistic or believable global illumination in scenes with

participating media is exponentially more expensive compared to our traditional

polygonal methods. Light interacts with the particles of a volume, creating com-

plex radiance patterns.

In this thesis, we introduce an extension to the commonly used point-based

color bleeding (PCB) technique, implementing volume scatter contributions. With

the addition of this PCB algorithm extension, we …

A Study Of Semi-Automated Tracing, Jeffrey Holden

Master's Theses

Requirements tracing is crucial for software engineering practices including change analysis, regression testing, and reverse engineering. The requirements tracing process produces a requirements traceability matrix(TM) which links high- and low-level document elements. Manually generating a TM is laborious, time consuming, and error-prone. Due to these challenges TMs are often neglected. Automated information retrieval(IR) techniques are used with some efficiency. However, in mission- or safety-critical systems a human analyst is required to vet the candidate TM. This introduces semi-automated requirements tracing, where IR methods present a candidate TM and a human analyst validates it, producing a final TM. In semi-automated tracing …

Symbolic Quantum Circuit Simplification In Sympy, Matthew Curry

Physics

In the field of quantum information science, one can design a series of quantum logic operations known as a circuit. Circuits are the basis for quantum computations in quantum computing. As circuits will most likely be designed from a logical standpoint, there could exist mathematical redundancies which will lead to a larger circuit than necessary. These redundancies are computationally expensive, and there is a need for them to be found and eliminated to simplify the circuit. We present our research on finding the rules for simplifying circuits and its implementation in SymPy.

Developing Digital Field Guides For Plants: A Study From The Perspective Of Users, Emily Roseanne Schwarz

Master's Theses

A field guide is a tool to identify an object of natural history. Field guides
cover a wide range of topics from plants to fungi, birds to mammals, and shells to minerals. Traditionally, field guides are books, usually small enough to be carried outdoors . They enjoy wide popularity in modern life; almost every American home and library owns at least one field guide, and the same is also true for other areas of the world.

At this time, companies, non-profits, and universities are developing computer
technologies to replace printed field guides for identifying plants. This thesis
examines the state …

Contextual Android Education, J Reed, D. S. Janzen

Computer Science and Software Engineering

Advances in mobile phone hardware and development platforms have drastically increased the demand, interest, and potential of mobile applications. We report on development of a new special topics software engineering course that combines the appeal of Android application development with software engineering topics and entrepreneurial thinking. The primary contribution of this project and the focus of this paper is a series of detailed educational laboratory exercises that are designed to supplement the Android documentation by providing contextual examples, activities, and tutorials. The labs were contributed to the Google Code University under the Creative Commons license, resulting in over 30,000 visits …

Supporting Introductory Test-Driven Labs With Webide, T. Dvornik, D. S. Janzen, J. Clements, O. Dekhtyar

Computer Science and Software Engineering

WebIDE is a new web-based development environment for entry-level programmers with two primary goals: minimize tool barriers to writing computer programs and introduce software engineering best practices early in a student's educational career. Currently, WebIDE focuses on Test-Driven Learning (TDL) by using small iterative examples and introducing lock-step labs, which prevent the student from moving forward until they finish the current step. However, WebIDE does not require that labs follow TDL. Instructors can write their own labs for WebIDE using any software engineering or pedagogical approach. Likewise, instructors can build custom evaluators - written in any language - to support …

Finding Good Paths: Applications Of Least Cost Caloric Path Computations, Zoë J. Wood, Greg Hoffman, Mark Wazny

Computer Science and Software Engineering

As you walk around during your daily life, you commonly make path finding decisions based on the world around you. For example, when you are walking in the outdoors, you take the path of least resistance over a terrain. We present two applications which demonstrate the importance of using the least cost caloric cost path computation in two different domain settings. One application uses the popular Google Earth API to explore the use of least cost caloric path computations to create an interactive path-finding tool. The second tool uses least cost caloric path computations to enhance crowd simulations in the …

Intermediate Representations For Controllers In Chip Generators, Kyle Kelley, Megan Wachs, Andrew Danowitz, Pete Stevenson, Stephen Richardon, Mark Horowitz

Computer Science and Software Engineering

Creating parameterized “chip generators” has been proposed as one way to decrease chip NRE costs. While many approaches are available for creating or generating flexible data path elements, the design of flexible controllers is more problematic. The most common approach is to create a microcoded engine as the controller, which offers flexibility through programmable table-based lookup functions. This paper shows that after “programming” the hardware for the desired application, or applications, these flexible controller designs can be easily converted to efficient fixed (or less programmable) solutions using partial evaluation capabilities that are already present in most synthesis tools.

Semantically-Enhanced Information Extraction, Hisham Assal, John Seng, Franz Kurfess, Emily Schwarz, Kym Pohl

Computer Science and Software Engineering

Information Extraction using Natural Language Processing (NLP) produces entities along with some of the relationships that may exist among them. To be semantically useful, however, such discrete extractions must be put into context through some form of intelligent analysis. This paper1,2 offers a two-part architecture that employs the statistical methods of traditional NLP to extract discrete information elements in a relatively domain-agnostic manner, which are then injected into an inference-enabled environment where they can be semantically analyzed. Within this semantic environment, extractions are woven into the contextual fabric of a user-provided, domain-centric ontology where users together with user-provided logic can …

Amid The Vipers: Establishing Malware's Position Within The Information Ecosystem, Shawn Louis Everett Robertson

Computer Science and Software Engineering

The paper consists of a detailed examination of malware broken down into three main sections.

1. Introduction: Malware in the World Today. Begins with a definition of terms, examination of the types of malware, research into historical pieces of malicious code, a detailed analysis of the attackers, why malware is so prevalent, and why it is so hard to defend against. This section finishes with a comparison of reasons to create and not to create malware.
2. Background: "Good" Pieces of Malware. Examination of what makes malware effective. Analysis of the existing CVSS standard and proposal of the alternative VIPERS classification system. …

Reactive Routing In Hidra Networks, Scott Michael Marshall

Computer Engineering

In recent years, the Internet has grown so large that the future scalability of the Internet has become a major concern. The two primary scalability concerns are the size of the forwarding table and the ability for BGP to converge while distributing hundreds of thousands of routes.

HIDRA is a new Internet routing architecture that is backwards-compatible with existing routing technologies and protocols that focuses on feasibility-of-implementation. HIDRA remedies the first Internet scalability concern by proposing a means to reduce the number of entries in the default-free zone (DFZ) forwarding table.

This project extends HIDRA by designing a complete reactive …

Efficient Access To Non-Sequential Elements Of A Search Tree, Lubomir Stanchev

Computer Science and Software Engineering

This article describes how a search tree can be extended in order to allow efficient access to predefined subsets of the stored elements. This is achieved by marking some of the elements of the search tree with marker bits. We show that our approach does not affect the asymptotic logarithmic complexity for existing operations. At the same time, it is beneficial because the modified search tree can now efficiently support requests on predefined subsets of the search elements that it previously could not.

Efficient Access To Non-Sequential Elements Of A Search Tree, Lubomir Stanchev

Computer Science and Software Engineering

This article describes how a search tree can be extended in order to allow efficient access to predefined subsets of the stored elements. This is achieved by marking some of the elements of the search tree with marker bits. We show that our approach does not affect the asymptotic logarithmic complexity for existing operations. At the same time, it is beneficial because the modified search tree can now efficiently support requests on predefined subsets of the search elements that it previously could not.

Spatial Interactions Between Humans And Assistive Agents, Franz J. Kurfess, Greg Flanagan, Mehul Bhatt

Computer Science and Software Engineering

While computers assist humans with tasks such as navigation that involve spatial aspects, agents that can interact in a meaningful way in this context are still in their infancy. One core issue is the mismatch in the representation of spatial information a computer-based system is likely to use, and the one a human is likely to use. Computers are better suited for quantitative schemes such as maps or diagrams that rely on measurable distances between entities. Humans frequently use higher-level, domain-specific conceptual representations such as buildings, rooms, or streets for orientation purposes. Combined with the person-centric world view that we …

Surface Reconstruction Of Maltese Cisterns Using Rov Sonar Data For Archeological Study, C. Forney, J. Forrester, B. Bagley, W. Mcvicker, J. White, T. Smith, J. Batryn, A. Gonzalez, J. Lehr, T. Gambin, C. M. Clark, Zoë J. Wood

Computer Science and Software Engineering

We present a methodology and algorithm for the reconstruction of three dimensional geometric models of ancient Maltese water storage systems, i.e. cisterns, from sonar data. This project was conducted as a part of a four week expedition on the islands of Malta and Gozo. During this expedition, investigators used underwater robot systems capable of mapping ancient underwater cisterns and tunnels. The mapping included probabilistic algorithms for constructing the maps of the sonar data and computer graphics for surface reconstruction and visualization. This paper presents the general methodology for the data acquisition and the novel application of algorithms from computer graphics …

An Approach To Point Based Approximate Color Bleeding With Volumes, Christopher J. Gibson, Zoë J. Wood

Computer Science and Software Engineering

Achieving realistic or believable global illumination in scenes with participating media is expensive. Light interacts with the particles of a volume, creating complex radiance patterns. This paper introduces an explicit extension to the commonly used point-based color bleeding technique which allows fast, believable in- and out-scattering effects building on existing data structures and paradigms. The proposed method achieves results comparable to that of existing Monte Carlo integration methods, that is realistic looking renders of scenes which include volume data elements, obtaining render speeds between 10 and 36 times faster while keeping memory overhead under 5%.

Supporting Introductory Test-Driven Labs With Webide, Thomas C. Dvornik

Master's Theses

WebIDE is a new web-based development environment for entry-level programmers with two primary goals: minimize tool barriers to writing computer programs and introduce software engineering best practices early in a student's educational career. Currently, WebIDE focuses on Test-Driven Learning (TDL) by using small iterative examples and introducing lock-step labs, which prevent the student from moving forward until they finish the current step. An initial set of labs and evaluators were created as examples of how to use WebIDE and were used in a pilot study in a CS0 course where students were split into two groups, one that used WebIDE …

Functional Reactive Musical Performers, Justin M. Phillips

Master's Theses

Computers have been assisting in recording, sound synthesis and other fields of music production for quite some time. The actual performance of music continues to be an area in which human players are chosen over computer performers. Musical performance is an area in which personalization is more important than consistency. Human players play with each other, reacting to phrases and ideas created by the players that they are playing with. Computer performers lack the ability to react to the changes in the performance that humans perceive naturally, giving the human players an advantage over the computer performers.

This thesis creates …

Terrain Impostors, William Hamilton Hess

Master's Theses

Interactive software applications which need to render large terrain meshes can suffer from slow frame rates if the geometry of the terrain is sufficiently dense. However, the viewing angle to many distant features of the terrain does not change rapidly with respect to time. If the movement of the viewing position is limited to continuous motion and restrained to a known speed, many terrain features may be rendered once in high detail and reused for several frames.

This thesis proposes a method to increase the rendering speed of large complex terrains by splitting the terrain into contiguous chunks. If a …

Multi-Robot Boundary Tracking With Phase And Workload Balancing, Michael Boardman, Jeremy Edmonds, Kyle Francis, Christopher M. Clark

Computer Science and Software Engineering

This paper discusses the use of a cooperative multiple robot system as applied to distributed tracking and sampling of a boundary edge. Within this system the boundary edge is partitioned into subsegments, each allocated to a particular robot such that workload is balanced across the robots. Also, to minimize the time between sampling local areas of the boundary edge, it may be desirable to minimize the difference between each robots progression (i.e. phase) along its allocated sub segment of the edge. The paper introduces a new distributed controller that handles both workload and phase balancing. Simulation results are used to …

Saving Space And Time Using Index Merging, Lubomir Stanchev, Grant Weddell

Computer Science and Software Engineering

Managing digital information is an integral part of our society. Efficient access to data is supported through the use of indices. Although indices can reduce the cost of answering queries, they have two significant drawbacks: they take additional storage space and their maintenance can become a bottleneck. We address these challenges by introducing search data structures that reduce the need for storing redundant data among indices. Our experimental results with the main-memory version of these data structures show that our approach can reduce by half the storage space and can improve performance, where the highest performance improvement is achieved for …

Automated Requirements Traceability: The Study Of Human Analysts, David Cuddeback, Alex Dekhtyar, Jane Huffman Hayes

Computer Science and Software Engineering

The requirements traceability matrix (RTM) supports many software engineering and software verification and validation (V&V) activities such as change impact analysis, reverse engineering, reuse, and regression testing. The generation of RTMs is tedious and error-prone, though, thus RTMs are often not generated or maintained. Automated techniques have been developed to generate candidate RTMs with some success. When using RTMs to support the V&V of mission-or safety-critical systems, however, a human analyst must vet the candidate RTMs. The focus thus becomes the quality of the final RTM. This paper investigate show human analysts perform when vetting candidate RTMs. Specifically, a study …

Intelligent Software For Ecological Building Design, Jens G. Pohl, Hisham Assal, Kym J. Pohl

Collaborative Agent Design (CAD) Research Center

Building design is a complex process because of the number of elements and issues involved and the number of relationships that exist among them. Adding sustainability issues to the list increases the complexity of design by an order of magnitude. There is a need for computer assistance to manage the increased complexity of design and to provide intelligent collaboration in formulating acceptable design solutions. Software development technology today offers opportunities to design and build an intelligent software system environment that can serve as a reliable intelligent partner to the human designer.

In this paper the authors discuss the requirements for …

Preconference Proceedings On Advances In Adaptive Planning Capabilities, Jens G. Pohl

Collaborative Agent Design (CAD) Research Center

No abstract provided.

A Method To Implement Location Transparency In A Web Service Environment, Xiaoshan Pan, Jens G. Pohl

Collaborative Agent Design (CAD) Research Center

Location transparency offers some significant benefits in the areas of middleware, Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) and Cloud Computing. However, methods for achieving location transparency in a Web service environment are scarcely presented in the literature. This paper introduces such a method by describing a design and HTTP protocol-based implementation of location transparency. A number of benefits, including support for the creation of a virtual platform and increased mobility, availability and scalability of services, are elaborated. Two significant capabilities -performance-based load balancing and failover -are demonstrated as part of the experimental results.

On The Road To Intelligent Web Applications, Hisham Assal, Kym J. Pohl, Jens G. Pohl

Collaborative Agent Design (CAD) Research Center

Increasing access to data sources on the Internet offers expanding opportunities for equipping intelligent applications with the content they require whether broad in scope or rich in detail. Although typically originating within the web in a semi-structured form, with the use of inference-based translation and analysis mechanisms such content can be transformed into useful information and ultimately into actionable knowledge. Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) offers a platform for accessing the web as invocable resources and effectively incorporating multiple sources of data and capabilities on the Internet into enterprise applications. Adding inference capabilities to SOA-based applications not only aids in the translation …

Solving The Data Deluge Problem, Jens G. Pohl

Collaborative Agent Design (CAD) Research Center

The paper postulates that the information technology revolution that is commonly referred to as the Information Age is currently in a transition stage between data-processing and knowledge management that should be more aptly referred to as the Data Age. Symptoms of this transition stage are a data deluge problem that is evidenced by the inability of human computer-users to effectively analyze and draw useful conclusions from the overwhelming volume of data that is being collected, the increasing complexity of networked systems, and the acknowledged vulnerability of virtually all existing digital systems to cyber security threats.

The author suggests that the …

Automated Theorem Prover Axiom Management, Ashley T. Holeman, Ewen Denney

STAR Program Research Presentations

Automated Theorem Provers (ATPs), are computer programs that use collections of axioms,which are logical statements assumed to be true, in order to prove conjectures. NASA uses these programs to verify safety and functional requirements in domains like Guidance, Navigation, and Control. There are about 30 axioms on each major topic including the theory of coordinate systems, elementary arithmetic and linear algebra. These axioms have been created over the duration of many projects and combined into a single file. One task is to manage the axioms by arranging them into logical sections, deleting unnecessary ones and rewriting some into a more …